With an honest-to-goodness blizzard about to dump 6-12 inches of snow on us, I’m thinking about fishing destinations.  I thought I would share a trio of guides with folks who may be considering hiring someone.  These three guys are all honest, hardworking, straightshooting guys who work hard for their clients and have showed me some honesty that renews my faith in humans.

#1:  Otis Dempsey of www.grandlakefishingguide.com

I fished with Dempsey a couple of years ago on Grand Lake, Oklahoma for paddlefish.  The day my brother and I went paddlefishing with Dempsey, he had been up a good portion of the night fighting a brush fire as a volunteer firefighter.  Although I was named “Lucky” by Dempsey on the trip because my luck was less than stellar to begin with, Dempsey kept at it and got me on a 70+ pound paddlefish that eclipsed my older brother’s.  Good man.  He does bass and catfish, too.  And he tells a good story.

 #2: Randall Kirkpatrick of www.fishatl.com

One fine spring break, I happened to be in Atlanta, so I found a day to go out with Randall on Stone Mountain Lake, a horsepower-restricted impoundment nearby, after largemouth bass.  Randall is a tournament angler and very smart bass fisherman.  His service even included picking me up at my hotel in Atlanta.  Of course, my luck (see “Lucky” above) caused us to be fishing in late March in light snow.  I went wayyy south (for a northerner) and all I got was the same weather as home!  Though we didn’t catch much, Randall taught me a lot about bass fishing and patience, and the severe cold front was obviously to blame for the slow fishing.  In spite of the tough bite, I enjoyed myself immensely.

#3: Doug Komrosky of www.hilinecharterfishing.com

Doug’s domain is Fort Peck Lake in MT, one of the best walleye (and pike and salmon) factories around.  Since “Lucky” is my name when I hire fishing guides, the day in June my daughter and I showed up to go fishing with Doug, there was a small craft warning and gusts way past 35 mph.  Even though it was a day most people were staying off the water, Doug found us some sheltered spots around the dam and tried to find us some walleye.  He didn’t turn any up on the graph, so we packed it in and Doug didn’t charge us a dime.  I believe his statement while we were on the water was “I could take you around to a few sheltered spots and pull cranks all day and charge you the full rate, but you wouldn’t be very happy at the end of the day.”  How’s that for honesty?  I hope to go back to fish with Doug on a better day.   Even though we only spent about an hour with Doug, I still got something out of the experience: a good test run in a Warrior that tells me they are one excellent boat for rough water.  

I salute you, real men of fishing genius.  Give these guys a try if you want an honest fishing guide, and tell ‘em “Lucky” sent you.

Recently having become excited about lever actions again after seeing Marlin’s XLR series (and finding a home for one in .444 and one in .35 Rem), I have discovered some excellent sites to pass along:

#1: Skinner Sights.  Built in a one-man shop in Ronan, MT, these sights look like the ticket for the .444.  I don’t really want “scope-eye” from a .444. Can you blame me?  A longer sight radius and a ghost ring should make the .444 a good bear-whackin’ machine.

#2: Game Reaper Scope Mounts.  I like the look of these one-piece, lightweight aluminum mounts for putting a 1.75-5x scope on the .35 Remington XLR.  They have some forward offset, which is nice to have on a lever rifle with a scope that has generous eye relief.  

#3: Ranch Dog Molds.  The proprietor has done his homework on shooting cast bullets in Marlin’s lever guns, especially on barrel throat dimensions and the unique attributes of Micro Groove rifling.  The XLR series (as well as the Guide Guns) have cut rifling, but the bullets are said to shoot well in those, too.  With ammunition prices going sky high, casting bullets with the Lee system looks like a good way to save money.  The molds aren’t horribly expensive, and the sizing and lube processes are simplified and don’t require an expensive lubrisizer.

#4:  Marlin Owners Forums.  This set of forums offers the collective wisdom of Marlin guys across the country, so the rest of us don’t have to know it all.  A good place to get acquainted with common problems and solutions involving all Marlins.

I am looking forward to summer and load development.  I think with all of the new trendy cartridges on the market, it will be fun to work with a couple of “oldies but goodies.”  The one new cartridge that interests me in Marlin’s lineup is the .338 Marlin Express, but I’m not sure I would trade the .35 or .444 in to get it.

Having nearly worn out a Fuji S-5000 digital camera, and with a birthday coming up in June, my excellent wife prodded me into allowing myself to buy a digital SLR the other day.  To satisfy the equipmentheads who may be reading this, it is an Olympus E-500 with 14-45 and 40-150mm lenses.  One of my wife’s areas of excellence is in finding good deals, especially with power tools.  Her latest achievement was finding me a $150 Milwaukee jigsaw for $50.  As for the camera deal, it was the E-500 with both lenses for $420 brand new.  

One of my strengths (or weaknesses) is looking at nearly every piece of equipment I buy as part of a system.  In this case, I realized that I could not just buy a camera and carry it around in a dufflebag and use it as-is.  Perhaps others can learn from my experience in setting up this rig for less than $550, including accessories.

Item #1:  Clear and polarized filters.  For outdoor photography especially, having some filters screwed on the lenses is a good idea.  It is a lot cheaper to replace a scratched filter than it is to replace a lens.  The polarized filter is probably the only filter that you cannot replicate in Photoshop, and is an obvious need for the outdoor photographer.  

Item #2:  Camera bag.  I chose a Tamrac Expedition 3 backpack because it would carry the camera and an extra lens, and I liked the idea of the waterproof zipper cover.  These will run anywhere between 50 and 75 dollars.  

Item #3:  Extra memory card.  I chose a high speed 2 GB CompactFlash card.  The extra few bucks for the higher-speed card means a faster write from the camera to the card, which translates into faster shooting.  

Item #4:  This one is free.  Read one of the many tutorials on Digital SLR Basics on the Web.  Then read the advice at Thomas Hawk’s website.  His discussion of such things as ISO is a good addition to a basic tour of the camera.  From one hour of reading, I was able to learn how to take slower shutter speed waterfall photos, how to manage ISO settings for low light, and aperture settings for different depths of field (i.e. how you can set your camera to have the hummingbird in focus and the background blurred).  Of course, the other required reading is your camera manual.

Item #5:  A beanbag.  It sounds silly, but rather than a hard window mount, a beanbag is very versatile.  While there are some on the market that reportedly do a passable job, the do-it-yourself system by Fred Hurteau looks like it should be hard to beat.  He even posts patterns for sewing the Butterfly Beanbag on his website, along with other DIY accessories such as the Flying Saucer Ballhead.  With the bag and the Flying Saucer, one should be able to do some pretty good shooting with a long lens over the car window, off a fencepost, or even from the ground.  And it can be used for digiscoping or a spotting scope setup, as well.  My wife’s sewing machine (and my woodworking tools) are going to get a workout.

Item #6:  Sign up for Flickr.  It’s free (or $25 a year for the pro account).  There is a lot of expertise and inspiration lurking on Flickr, and it is the easiest to use photo sharing site I have come across.  You can control permissions of your photos and keep certain photos private, share with only family and friends, or share with the world.  It’s also a good way to organize and back up your photo collection offsite.

Future plans for the camera include a lens topping out at 300mm and a macro lens, but for now I have a machine to do the majority of what I have been doing with my mostly-automatic Fuji.  I’m sure the Olympus E-500 will increase the quality of my photos, as well as provide me opportunities for shots I was simply unable to perform in the past.

You can view my wildlife and outdoor photography in the My Photos section of this blog.  It links to my Flickr galleries.

Just a quick alert to a product I was unaware of.  It has made my life and the appearance and function of my rimfire rifles much richer.

THE PROBLEM:  Mounting scopes on European rimfires.  Examples:  Zastava imports, like the Remington Model Five; Sako Quad; some CZ rimfires; Anschutz.  They have 11mm grooves, which, at least in Remington’s case, get passed off as 3/8 grooves for .22 rings.  But they’re not quite the same.  I encountered this problem myself with my Remington Model Five, when mounting a scope with cheap rimfire rings.  They just didn’t seem to “grab” properly on the rail, and even seemed to be slightly off-level, but I went along with it at the time and it functioned.

THE SOLUTION: Fast forward to the present.  I just picked up a Sako Quad (for 399 samolians, no less!) and it, too, has an 11mm groove.  I stopped by Sportsman’s Warehouse, and my solution was waiting.  Warne makes a rimfire ring that solves the problem and grips the rail very tightly.  The claw on the side of the ring can be turned 180 degrees depending on whether you are using it on a 3/8 groove, or an 11mm European application.  And they’re nice steel rings for 20 bucks, available in medium and high.

These rings are a very nice replacement for the cheap aluminum stuff that usually comes free with rimfire scopes.  Go out and improve your .22s!  My Remington Model Five and Sako Quad will both be wearing these.

 Click here to visit the Warne page describing the 7.3/.22 Rings.

Oh, and the math?  11mm=.433 inches.  3/8″=.375″.  That is a .058″ difference.  Maybe I’m picky, and maybe it’s just the design of the rings, but the Warne rings set up for 11mm feel rock-solid on my Model Five.  I love it when I find things that make everything fall right into place.

I like to shop for good deals.  But, like most of us, I can’t pick up every deal that I find.  The web has opened up a lot of opportunity for finding very unique stuff at very good prices if one puts in the time.  Here are some of the things I found on the web today that I would buy (or in one case actually bought) if funding was unlimited:

Bob Cumming Trout Knife.  Having owned several Bob Cumming knives over the years, I can attest to the quality of his work.  ATS-34 makes a very good blade steel for this application.  The folks at the Cutting Edge are selling this particular blade.  To see more of his work, you can visit Bob Cumming’s page at www.cummingknives.com.

Pentax Gameseeker 4-12×40 Hunting Scope.  These seem to be a very good buy for the money ($85).  My wife ordered me one for Christmas (I know–no element of surprise there!) and Fox Optic shipped the order immediately.  We were very impressed with their service.  Click on the link and it will take you to a Fox Optic eBay store listing that ends in about five days.  If you want to spend more money for a higher-end scope, some Cabelas stores are advertising $75 off their VX-III scopes this week.

Some of the ultralight and medium light action Mr. Walleye Series rods (designed by Gary Roach) are on sale for $29.99 right now at Reeds Sporting Goods.  If you aren’t familiar with Reeds, they are a northern Minnesota institution and they have good deals online from time to time on everything from Lowrance electronics to fish houses.  Click here for the direct link to the Mr. Walleye rods.

The Ruger Charger is a neat new .22 pistol.  R&R Arms has a pretty good price on these at $288. Click here for the direct link to the Charger. I have heard of some local gun shops beating the $300 level, but around here they seem to be selling for around $325 plus tax.  At any rate, I think I might have to have me one of these someday.  Maybe I can buy one and say it’s for the kids.

Enjoy your shopping!