Jon’s Outdoors Fishing & Hunting News

August Newsletter

January 22nd, 2008

Hey Everyone,

How is your summer going? It has been a good summer here at the Ball family house. As most of you know, I have a grandson that just turned 4 years old and he is very good at it. He sure put a hurt on the shad this year. It is so fun taking kids fishing however I don’t think this kid has a chance. Already he wants to shoot an antelope. He just loves getting in the boat but it is fun to watch him get his camo on and sneak around the house with his little gun and shoot the deer and antelope off the wall. Those animals won’t have a chance here in a few years.
I sure like this time of the year. Football is starting up, getting out and Scouting for that big animal to hunt in the fall and the rivers are full of fish. This is when a guy has to get his priorities in order. Which reminds me of a joke.

A Denver Broncos’ fan was enjoying himself at the game in a packed Mile High Stadium, until he noticed an empty seat down in front. He went down and asked the guy next to it if he knew whose seat it was.
The guy said, “Yes, that’s my wife’s seat. We have never missed a game since the Craig Morton days, but now my wife is dead.”
The fan offered his sympathy and said it was really too bad that he couldn’t find some relative to give the ticket to and enjoy the game together.
“Oh no.” the guy said. “They’re all at the funeral.”
Okay, that was a groaner but it does remind us to keep things in order. ( I am in trouble for this one). We better talk some hunting and fishing.
Wyoming Hunting
Stacy and I just got back the other day from our place in Wyoming. We went over there to do some work on the bunkhouse and to touch base with the landowners to see how the animals are doing. Everything went pretty good. Our bunkhouse is only a couple years old and when we bought it the flooring hadn’t been put down yet so that is what we went and did. We also had some trouble with the electrical breakers when all the grills were put to use in the kitchen. We won’t have that problem anymore. But, more importantly we saw a lot of good animals. Wyoming got a lot of rain this year and everything was green. There was grass waist high and that sure made for some good horn growth. We saw so many more antelope then last year with many bucks with cutters above the ears. The whitetails were incredible. Lots of real nice bucks were all over. Another great thing we saw was all the fawns. There were so many twins and triplets you couldn’t believe it. There will be good animals for a lot of years. I had one rancher tell me that the last two years were the lowest numbers they seen for years and now the cycle will go back up for a good number of years. I thought if the last couple years were low numbers I can’t wait to see what good numbers will be. We saw animals all over the last couple years so this will be exciting.

I picked up another good lease and had a meeting with another rancher for another good lease. I will know more about that one this September. We had a shooter mule deer come right down to the bunkhouse one night. It had a very tall rack. We didn’t see a lot of big mule deer because the big bucks we still up in the high country. One of my ranchers told me that there is so much green grass up there that the big bucks will probably not come down until the end of August to the first part of September when the grass dies out. I was told an interesting thing by a biologist. He said that when everything is healthy for a mule deer buck, they get all the water they need and the minerals are there for them that you will seldom see a spike or a three-point buck. That when everything is right the first year will be a two point and the second a small four-point and then grow each year from there. I believe this now because I saw so many young bucks with very deep 2-points on them. We never seen this the last couple years but everywhere you went there was a two-point with 8 inch and better forks. The horn growth on everything was good enough for Stacy and I to buy a couple whitetail deer licenses.
We still have room for about 6 or so antelope hunters for this year. We have lots of leftover licenses available. My deer hunts always book up so I don’t have room for anymore this year but I am booking for next year now. I didn’t do it this year because I do not want to over hunt my leases, but I am going to book 2-3 archery deer hunts for next year. Then the rifle deer/antelope combo hunts will be the first 10 days of October. Then I will do a few combo whitetail/antelope combo hunts the first week of November. If you are interested in booking an antelope hunt for this year or any hunting for next year please give us a call. I will be leaving for Wyoming around the 13th of September. My wife, Stacy will be here but here is my bunkhouse phone number in case you need to get a hold of me over there. It is 307-758-4626.
Salmon Fishing
I will be around for some fall salmon fishing. Guys this is usually always a very good run of fish. I will start this the last of August and will fish through the second week of September. I expect it to be pretty good this year due to all the water we got. The biggest thing for catching these fall salmon is the water temperature. You can have a million salmon going under the boat but if the water is too warm those fish will not bite. If you have a cooler water temperature then you can get by with less of a fish run because they will be biters. The way we fish these fall salmon is easy for everyone. If you know me then you know I like easy for my customers. We sit on anchor on some strategic spots that we know salmon are going to come through. Depending on the type of water we are fishing we will use either a wobbler or a wrapped Qwik-Fish. We use the wobblers in the slower water like the mouth of the Sandy River and Quik-Fish up around the Bonneville Dam area. The Columbia River offers a lot of different type of water, which makes for some different style of fishing. We need at least 4 people for a full boat but I can fish up to 6 people. A full day is around 8 hours and then I will be doing some half-day trips after the full day. Give us a call if you are interested in doing any salmon fishing with us. It will fill up so you do not want to wait to the last minute.
I am also still fishing right now up around the Bonneville area for trophy sturgeon and steelhead. The sanctuary opened up August 1st so there is some good trophy sturgeon fishing going on. These fish have not been messed with for 3 months so a nice shad dropped down in front of their noses will surely get a fight going. Like I said earlier, we just got back from Wyoming so I haven’t been out fishing for a couple weeks but I hear that the steelhead are doing very well. These will be the “B” run which are the bigger steelhead making their way to the Snake River. These are fun combo trips.
This is for you local guys. August 9th we are having Boyd Iverson come to our club and talk to us about blacktail deer hunting. This guy is great. He has a few books out on trophy blacktail deer tactics and the proof is on his wall. You don’t want to miss this. We will have a dinner for you and Boyd Iverson talking about hunting can it get better then that? Give me a call if you want some info. I will give you directions of where it is at. You can also go to the web site www.crosstrackers.com for more info.
Anyway, thanks again for your business and I hope to fish and/or hunt with you soon. Be safe and remember to take a kid in the outdoors with you your next time out.

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April Newsletter

January 16th, 2008

Hey Everyone,
How is everyone doing? We are all fine here. I have been busy fishing for both spring salmon and keeper sturgeon and it has been awesome. We limited the boat yesterday for salmon and had 3 guys that had never caught a salmon before. They were stoked. It is always exciting for me to see the looks and actions of a first timer getting their first fish or game animal. It is the rewarding part of my job that just keeps me going. I think that everyone needs to reflect every now and then about your first fish that you landed or the first big game animal you shot. Some of you have heard my story of my first deer I ever shot. Growing up me dad never spent time with us teaching my brother and I about hunting or fishing so we learned it on our own. I was a hunting/fishing nut from an early age. I never got to do it much until I was about 12 years old where I could start getting out on my own a little. Anyway, I didn’t know anything about a buck or a doe or a season or a caliber you were supposed to use. I knew nothing except I loved going shooting with my .22 that I bought when I was about 10. Well, we moved to a little town called Ethel WA. When dad backed the U-Haul in the driveway, we saw 5 deer in the back yard. I went nuts. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, deer right in my yard. This was a dream come true. Did you ever see the movie “Where the Red Fern Grows”? That was me. I couldn’t stop thinking about those deer. Are there more? Will I ever see them again? Does that happen a lot to just have deer come in your yard? Well, one day I was out shooting my .22 single shot out in the woods behind our house and I could not believe what I was seeing. Three deer were standing not 30 feet from me. You have been there you know how hard my heart was pounding. I was shaking so bad that I thought there was something wrong with me. I had never heard of buck fever. I had never heard about a buck. But, there were deer right in front of me and I was loving it. I had to shoot one. I aimed my .22 at the head of one and there was no way to keep that gun steady. I was shaking uncontrollable. I held it as steady as I could and shot. Two of the deer ran off but one stayed there. I am sure just laughing at me but for whatever reason that one deer stayed. I loaded another shell, took aim and shot again. The deer just starred at me. Feeling like I was going to loose a chance of a lifetime, I loaded another shell as fast as I could, aimed and shot again. Again I missed. Did I tell you this is about 30 feet away? I had just been shooting fir cones off the trees at three times the distance and hardly ever miss but I couldn’t hit this deer at 30 feet. I loaded again and missed again. I did this eight times. Finally, the ninth shot I hit the deer and it dropped like a rock. I did it. I shot my first deer. I was jumping up and down. I was yelling and laughing. I had shot a deer. I could have died right there and been happy. I started gutting this trophy out and I am sure that was a site. I had never seen so much blood in my life and boy did that gut stink when my knife cut it wide open. I got it as cleaned out as I thought it should be and started dragging it home. I was about a half mile from our house so I figured it would be best to drag it to the road then to the house. I wouldn’t have to go through all the woods this way. I started dragging that deer and it sure got heavy but I kept going. I drug it right down Larmon road to my house. I am sure cars had to of went by and seen what I was doing but no one stopped and my chest was stuck out as wide as a 12 year old boys chest could stick out. I finally made it to our driveway and ran in the house yelling for my dad to come out and see what I did. Hey dad I shot a deer and at that time all deer hunting education was brought out. “You what?” Dad had managed to pop my whole bubble. I found out there was a season in which you had to hunt in. I found out there that bucks are boy deer with horns and does are the girls. I shot a girl deer. I found out there are guns you can use and guns you can’t use while hunting deer. A .22 is one you can’t use. There was nothing I did right in that hunt. But, one thing else I found out. Venison is good stuff. I did it wrong but I will never forget that first deer. After that I hunted every chance I had. A good friend of mine named Don and I spent every bit of time we had hunting together. My grandpa got wind of what I did and sent me out a 30-40 Krag and that was my first hunting rifle. The first doesn’t have to be the biggest to be your best. While remembering your first hunting trip or fishing trip, think of a kid around you that might need some a chance at his/her first. It is rewarding.
Let’s talk some fishing. Keeper sturgeon is red hot right now. Sunday we were done by 9:00am. I had a group that had to catch a plane so we had to be off the water by noon. It never fails. You tell me we have to be off the water at a certain time and we will hook an oversize sturgeon 10 minutes before we have to leave every time and we did just that. That poor guy worked so hard on that fish to get it up as fast as he could and he did it. We pulled anchor and I cleaned fish as fast as I could. They made it okay and that was a great day. I have had something happen that I can’t remember when it last happened. I have had two cancellations for this week. This is a prime time keeper sturgeon fishing folks. I could have booked these days 25 times but life happens sometimes. If you can go on a short notice it is open for full boats both the 17th and 18th of this week. Give us a call and we will get you in for those dates.
Spring salmon fishing is red hot also. We are doing great. I was told by a biologist to not plan on fishing past the 20 of April. He thought the quota would be reached. I have not heard anything yet so if you want to book a spring salmon trip I have the 21 and the 23 open. You have to understand that the F&G can close it at any time so we may not be able to fish but it is worth getting on the books just in case. We are getting limits just about every day and everyday it keeps getting better.
Remember May 16th we will start fishing for the trophy sturgeon. I have a few dates left in May and some in June. Give us a call if you want a lot of fun and some bragging rights. The first of July we will be doing some combo sturgeon and salmon trips with some steelhead being caught. We will do that through mid July then I am heading over to Wyoming to do some carpet work in the bunkhouse.
Remember if you didn’t get your hunting draws you were hoping to get, you can still hunt. I will have antelope tags available so give us a call on that if you are interested.
Thanks and keep safe in the outdoors. Don’t forget to take a kid fishing or hunting with you.

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