Late Fall Fishing & WI Gun Deer Hunting

SUNRISE ON THE 2ND DAY OF WI DEER GUN SEASON 2019

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SHORE FISHING, BOAT TROUBLES, AND PRIME FALL BASS FISHING

GOOD BUDDY ZIM FINDS HIMSELF A FLAMBEAU RIVER SMALLMOUTH WITH GORGEOUS LOCAL COLORATIONS IN LATE SEPTEMBER

Its been one difficult year for us in our fishing adventures, as we once again found ourselves with major outboard issues. We attempted to replace our original 1976 Evinrude 40 hp with an 1987 Force 35 hp, and after we had our hopes up and did our best to replace bad electrical parts and make adjustments, the end result was an absolute disaster. To make things worse, a nagging arm injury basically put us in a position to skip nearly the entire open water season of bass fishing in 2019. We did manage some very fun shoreline trips for the 2019 WI Riverbank Rally, and had fun on one panfish trip in Rusk County mid-summer. For the lost time and challenges we faced, fortunately our pro-staffers picked up the slack and had an excellent year. Our riverbank guys like John Beaudette lit up the cats and suckers throughout the summer. The few times Kevin Rogalski got out, he was successful finding some decent bass, but he was consistently beat out by his high school daughter catching crazy awesome largemouth bass on their favorite lakes. Jaz Duncan started off the year hot with an outstanding opening day, and later teamed up with Mat Eichinger in a CWBA event on Miller Dam Flowage landing themselves in the payout with a limit of bass in very tough conditions. Mat had an excellent year himself, as he found himself quality bass on about every trip out this year, and his little side-kick Alayna also smashed it when she hit the water with a spinning reel. Not to forget, Mr. Doc Gilles, who had the best year of his life, and what is more impressive is he got it done primarily on the riverbank fishing bass crankbaits for smallmouth bass, muskies, walleye, and nice northern pike. Doc managed to land his biggest smallmouth bass to date, and Tim Danielson was able to mount the fish for him with beautiful and accurate smallmouth artwork. Doc also got into his biggest musky, and even though our fall was iced over extremely early, Doc found himself some great pike action once again from his riverbanks in open water all the way through the WI Deer Gun Season. Thank you to all of our pro-staffers for supporting James Gang Fishing Company and for picking up the slack during our difficult season. We have decided for the 2020 season, Alex will be getting a brand new 2020 Mercury 40 EFI for his Crawfish Bandit General Lee Lund, and our worries and lost time should be in the past. We will also take that opportunity to begin boater's safety and try and obtain his boaters license. We will look into electronics upgrades and a trolling motor upgrade as we attempt to get our hands on a new Humminbird Helix 12 Mega GN2 for better fish locating, and a Motorguide Xi5 80 trolling motor with anchor mode and 24V operation for longer battery life. Currently our 55# transom mount is really struggling with battery life and efficiency. I feel like with more reliable equipment, we will have the tools to expand on new bodies of water and continue to teach ourselves where fish locations are during different seasonal patterns and condition changes. Enjoy our pictures below of our awesome pro-staffers lighting it up with passion and success in the unusually cold early fall conditions during water temps of 45-50 degrees.

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GOOD BUDDY ZIM WITH A SOLID 3.5# SMALLMOUTH BASS ON THE FLAMBEAU RIVER

ALAYNA H. WITH A THICK 16" SMALLMOUTH BASS IN 45 DEGREE WATER TEMPS

MAT EICHINGER & ALAYNA LAND 8 SMALLMOUTH BASS FULL OF GIRTH AND BAIT

DOC GILLES & ZIM ARE DIALED IN AND ON FIRE THIS FALL IN 48 DEGREE WATER TEMPS ON THE FLAMBEAU RIVER IN THE SNOW IN MID-OCTOBER

DOC GILLES WITH A 37" NORTHERN PIKE IN NOVEMBER IN 33 DEGREE WATER TEMPS

TIM DANIELSON PERFECTED THE TAXIDERMY OF DOC'S 2019 5# SMALLMOUTH

THANK YOU PRO-STAFF FOR A FANTASTIC YEAR!!!!

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2019 WI GUN DEER OPENER SUCCESS

Our young 11-year-old CEO of James Gang Fishing Company, Alex James, entered his 3rd attempt at the WI DNR mentorship program, hoping to harvest his first wild animal. Alex was close to taking a shot at a doe at 20 yards in his first season at 9 years old, but the doe had some brush in the way and he was instructed to not force a shot, as we were more concerned about preventing wounding deer than filling tags. In year 2, 10-year-old Alex didn't have an opportunity to fire a shot as failed to see deer on the first day and chose to not sit the second morning, when the deer happened to show up. So this year Alex was committed to sitting longer and at the peak times in hope to finally get his chance to hang his first deer on the meatpole.
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Opening day was a decent day as we saw a fair amount of does, fawns, and a one year old buck. Unfortunately our shots were not clear enough so was avoided attempting any poor shots at any animals. We heard Uncle Doug fire off a shot opening morning as he successfully shot his first buck in many years, a nice buck weighing 160# dressed out. The afternoon hours were very disappointing as all the hunters saw very little to no deer in the second half of the day. We were down to one final sit on Sunday morning, as I had been schedule to work Sunday night and needed to leave the woods by 11 am. Cousin Cody fired a shot around 10 am and shot a small-bodied 8 point buck. The buck didn't go far as Cody's .308 Winchester hit the heart on a quartered-away shot and left quite a trail of blood out its sides through the grass.  ​

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ALEX GETS IT DONE

ALEX GIVES HIS "THUMBS UP" AS HE REGISTERS A LARGE DOE ON SUNDAY

After Cousin Cody fired a shot, several deer came crashing through our area, all does and fawns. Minutes later a healthy doe appeared giving Alex about a 50 yard broadside side. Since Alex was shooting accurate at 100 yards with his .243 Savage Axis Youth rifle, I told him to put the crosshairs on the vitals and pull the trigger if it looked like the brush was not in the way. Alex pulled the trigger and the large doe never flinched. I looked closer and saw that their appeared to be some branches and twigs and maybe his bullet deflected. I attempted to re-load the bolt action for him, and I heard a "click" as we found that the second bullet never loaded. We finally got the next bullet loaded and the doe ran off full speed. Alex felt relieved as we heard two fawn bleats nearby and realized this doe had two needy fawns running with her. In the end he was glad this doe survived. Not much longer, another large doe came through. This one presented Alex an open, quartered-away angled shot. He put the crosshairs on the vitals and pulled the trigger. The doe ran away with its tail down and ran away at a strange angle, so I believed it was hit. As we got down on the ground, Alex found his first blood trail......

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ALEX'S FIRST BLOOD TRAIL

AT THE END OF THE BLOOD TRAIL...........

PROUD YOUTH MENTOR HUNTER

PRO-STAFFER KEVIN ROGALSKI WITH A PUBLIC LAND WI BUCK

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HAVE A SAFE HUNTING SEASON, AND CHECK OUT OUR DEER HEART RECIPE BY CLICKING THE BUTTON BELOW, ALSO A GREAT RECIPE FOR BACKSTRAPS OR ANY RED MEAT STEAK ON A GRILL OR OVER A FIRE!!!

DEER HEART RECIPE

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