Fishing with Grandpa

My Grandpa, Wally Stewart passed away earlier this week in Kenora.  He had a big influence on my love for the outdoors when I was little kid and I'm so thankful to him for that.  He had a great life and lived to be 87 years old!  

This was one of the of the last trips that we took a few years ago on Lake of the Woods.  He liked to catch anything that bit the end of his line.  He loved to eat walleyes...except he always called them "pickerel"!  

This photo was taken are old family cabin in Echo Bay on Lake of the Woods.  This was where I learned to fish at a very young age and fell in love with it!  In the photo, my Grandma Helen Stewart (she passed away in 2003), Grandpa Wally Stewart, my Dad Jim Gustafson (holding me when I was about 2) and my Uncle Jim Brigham.  Looks like everyone had a pretty good day there!  

Grandpa with a lake trout from Williams Lake, north of Kenora.  This was one of our favourite places to fish growing up and we made trips in there every spring.  

I wrote my newspaper column "The Livewell" about Grandpa this week.  You can check it out here:

http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/2013/01/15/memories-with-grandpa

If you have the opportunity to take your kids or grandkids fishing or involve them in any sort of outdoor activity, don't let the opportunity go by...life is short!  

Ice fishing season is here!

Over the past couple of weeks since hunting season ended I have been on the ice with my friends catching some fish.  Walleyes mostly, with a little bit of crappie action mixed in.  It's fun to get out there, the early season ice bite is usually pretty good.  

Here is a big walleye I caught with Jamie Bruce while he and I were on a scouting mission checking out a new lake for crappies.  We didn't find the crappies that day, but we'll be back!  

Jamie with a big walleye he caught while we were filming a segment for Fishing with Gussy on the Winnipeg River.  It was a beauty!  Caught on one of the new Northland Whistler Spoons!

This is how we travel when we head into the back lakes for on our scouting missions looking for new places to fish.  Pile everything we need into our Frabill shelters and go!  On this day we went into a small crappie lake and caught some GIANTS!  I don't have any photos to post but we did shoot a nice TV segment which will air in March.  

This reel is the Cadillac for ice fishing - a new Shimano Stradic FJ - rigged on a Frabill Ice Hunter 38" heavy rod - the one I helped design.  It's a great combo for lake trout and walleyes!  

2012 moose hunt

My friends and I just spent the past week in the Red Lake area of Ontario's Sunset Country Region hunting moose.  It has become a tradition for us to spend the last week or so of the season up there chasing these big, awesome critters around.  We had pretty good luck this year and were fortunate to come home with four moose - two cows and two calves.  We did have a couple of bull tags that went unused but that's the way it goes!  We had some close encounters every day but that's hunting.  All in all, a great trip!  Unfortunately I didn't really get any nice photos of the moose.  I was not in on any of the shooting so when I arrived to help get a couple of these animals out it was already dark.  Here are a few photos from the trip...

Dave Bennett with a beautiful wolf that he got on the first day of hunting while we were doing a drive.  There was another jet-black wolf with this one that he couldn't get a shot at.  

Here is a cool picture of a large cut area that we were hunting.  It was super cold this morning...like a legitimate -30!  Beautiful country!

Brian McNanney holds up a large moose shed that he found while we were doing a drive as Matt Rydberg looks on.  

An interesting moose rub on a tree...it looks like an oversized deer rub!  Except it was like 7 feet high!  

Here is photo of the cow that Matt Rydberg shot on the second day.  The animals are so big!  And so good to eat!  

Here is a BIG owl that I saw one day while on a walk.  Pretty awesome bird that you don't get to see very often!  

One last photo of Dave's beauty wolf!  

We stayed up at Five Lakes Lodge in Red Lake for our trip, you can find them online at http://www.fivelakeslodge.com/

Giant whitetail!!!

Check out this GIANT whitetail that my friend Dennis Chevalier took this past week Ontario's Sunset Country Region.  He took this 17 point buck with archery gear on November 19.  My fishing partner Chris Savage and Dennis had been hunting this deer for most of the season and Dennis finally got him within range.  What a great deer!  Just to be clear, I did not have any part of finding or setting up for this animal, this was all them but it shows the quality of deer that are around.  It is one of the biggest bucks that I hae ever seen!  

Congrats boys!  That is the deer of a lifetime!  

The Deer Report

I had some friends up hunting from Minnesota this past week and they were able to see some good bucks.  We had a few big ones that just didn't show themselves but considering the tough weather conditions we did pretty good.  The rut was in full swing this past week, the guys got to see quite a few bucks chasing does around.  There were also a lot of wolf sightings, there are plenty of them around right now.  

Adam Kuntz with a big 8 pointer that he tagged on the last day of the season, November 15.  We've been chasing this deer around for the past 3 years so there was a lot of time into waiting for this guy to show himself.  

Kyle Minke with a nice 10 pointer that he got earlier in the week.

Jake Kuntz with a heavy 10 pointer that he got this past week.  

Here is a trail cam photo of Adam's deer.  If you look back at the 2010 and 2011 trail cam photo galleries you can see pictures of this deer.  His antlers did not grow a whole lot over the past couple of years, he was an old buck, probably 7 or 8 years old.  

For more trail cam and hunting photos, check out the galleries on the left.