Where to find them:

Walleye begin to spawn soon after the ice melts and tend to remain in shallow water to feed. Water temperature and sunlight play a large role in where walleye migrate, meaning you will most likely find them in water depths ranging from 2-15 feet. They love dark sandbars and weed beds, so fishing along the shore is also a good technique.

How to catch them:

All anglers have their own preferred method to reel in a walleye, however, here are two popular methods used by many:

“Jigging”: The use of jigs is a popular way used to catch walleye.  Jigs fall to lake beds in shallow water where walleye tend to be, making them appear as tasty treats.

Cast your jig away from the boat, and allow it to reach the lake bed before using a series of “jigging” or twitching motions to move the bait up and down – some refer to the jigging motion as if you are  “bouncing a basketball.”  Allow the jig to sink, and the line to remain taught in-between each twitch or bounce.

It is not necessary to use live bait when jigging, however, many anglers use it for added attraction and scent. In the Spring, walleye tend to bite best at minnows – small red tail chubs or fatheads.

• Don’t “jig” too much: Often times, fishermen pump their rods too vigorously when jigging for walleye. Using long vertical strokes is not recommended.  Use short lifts to aid in hooking walleye.

Trolling: Trolling allows you to cover a lot of ground and is an effective ways to catch feeding walleye. Trolling places your bait deep in the strike zone and is a great way to bring home a fair amount of walleye, especially for beginners.

If you are trolling in shallow water, it is best to use a side-planer board to carry your lure/bait a good distance away from the boat.

For trolling, we recommend using crank baits or other jigs, downriggers or planer boards.

For some new tips on how to catch a walleye dinner, go to the latest issue of the North American Fishing Club at http://www.fishingclub.com/digitalissues/2013april/index.html

Wildlife videographer Brad Joseph had quite a slobbery camera after using his GoPro to capture close up – and I mean really close-up – footage of grizzly bears in the Alaskan wilderness. Joseph succeeded in gathering that footage and walked away with an inside view, literally, of a young grizzlies jaws.

With audio and video captured, hunters now have the opportunity to see the skull crushing jaws, sharp teeth, and what is best described as “slobbery tongue,” hard at work in an attempt to eat the GoPro.

Luckily for Joseph, his GoPro was unharmed and he walked away with awesome footage and without having to find the camera later.  I’m sure Joseph did not want to go there!

You’d think this will be a future commercial for the popular camera systems.

See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvzQCipwr6Q

In effect, game species designations made by Michigan’s Natural Resources Commission can be done through administrative rules.  This means that those rules would not be subject to referendum, unlike designations made by the state’s legislature.

Anti-hunting groups have a history of spending significant sums of money in Michigan and elsewhere to run emotionally driven campaigns aimed at stopping hunting at the ballot box.  These campaigns often ignore science and wildlife conservation to push their anti-hunting agendas.

For example, the Michigan legislature recently listed wolves as a game species allowing the state to use hunting as a wolf management tool.  This prompted the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to collect signatures for a referendum seeking to overturn the designation of wolves as game species.  Senate Bill 288 eliminates this type of action, instead keeping wildlife management in the hands of the professionals.

“Governor Snyder and the members of the Michigan legislature deserve a big thank you from the sportsmen and women of Michigan,” said Evan Heusinkveld, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Director of Government Affairs.  “Most of all, we are proud of the hard work Michigan sportsmen and groups like the Michigan United Conservation Clubs did to support hunting and scientific wildlife management.”

Take Action! Michigan sportsmen should contact Governor Snyder’s office to thank him for signing Senate Bill 288 into law.  His office can be reached at (517) 373-3400.

At the hearing, members of the Joint Committee on Inland Fisheries heard testimony from dozens of Maine sportsmen’s organizations and individual sportsmen and women including the Maine Professional Guides Association, Maine Trappers Association, and the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine.  After this testimony, the Committee unanimously voted that the bill “ought not to pass,” – a move that will likely kill the bill for this session.

“Maine sportsmen and women made the difference in this battle,”   said Jeremy Rine, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance in-house counsel.  “Not only those who showed up at the hearing, but the countless others that called and emailed members of the Committee. These efforts were crucial to ensuring that the Committee was not influenced by the misinformation of the animal rights lobby.

While this is a great win for Maine sportsmen, it may just be the beginning of the fight to protect bear hunting and trapping in Maine.  HSUS has threatened to take its anti-bear hunting agenda to the ballot for the second time in the last 10 years.  In 2004, Maine citizens shot down a similar attempt to ban bear hunting with dogs, bear trapping, and bear baiting when HSUS went to the ballot with Question 2.   The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance was heavily involved in that campaign and will be monitoring this situation closely.

The bill, Senate Bill 623 introduced by Senator’s Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte) and Wayne Fontana (D-Pittsburgh), allows those ages 12 and older to try hunting under the watchful eye of an experienced mentor prior to completing hunter education.  Also known as “apprentice hunting,” this try-before-you-buy philosophy is the hallmark of the Families Afield campaign.

Pennsylvania was the first state to pass Families Afield when it established the Mentored Youth Hunting program in 2006.  Since then, a total of 34 states have enacted Families Afield changes resulting in more than 1,000,000 apprentice or mentored hunting licenses being sold.

“Mentored hunting has been demonstrated to be a safe and successful way to recruit new hunters, not only in Pennsylvania but across the country,” said Evan Heusinkveld, USSA’s director of government affairs.  “Expanding to new hunters of all ages will only add to this program’s success.”

About Families Afield: Families Afield was established by the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and the National Wild Turkey Federation to bring a new generation of sportsmen to the field. Along with the National Rifle Association and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, the coalition has worked to pass measures in 34 states since the program’s inception.

Wild turkeys are large birds, meaning a lot of meat – two to four pounds of breast meat on average alone.  Sportsmen sometimes choose to eat the entire bird, or just the breast meat, either can be very tasty!

However, before you skin or pluck the bird, don’t forget that you may want to preserve the tail feathers, beard or legs to remember your kill.

How to remove tail feathers, beard and legs:

1.      Cut from below the fan. Make sure to keep a meaty portion of the tail because this aids in the drying of the tail feathers.  Spread the fan out and pin the last two feathers on either side to a piece of cardboard to help dry faster.

2.      Cut the beard as close to the breast bone as possible. You can feel the end of the beard, making it easy to remove. Don’t cut the beard too short! It can be used for bragging rights! 

3.      To remove the legs to show off those spurs, use a knife to cut around the first joint in the leg. Repeat on both legs.

Now on to the tasty part…how do I get to the meat?

How to pluck a bird:

Plucking a wild turkey’s feathers is typically only done when you plan on roasting or frying the entire bird with skin intact.

1.      Cut the bird open below the ribs and remove all entrails.

2.      Dunk the bird in a bucket filled two-thirds of the way with hot water. Leave the bird submerged for 15 to 20 seconds. 

3.      Remove from hot water and begin gently plucking all feathers.

4.      Take your time so as not to damage or remove the skin because it serves as an important part of the roasted or deep fried bird.

How to skin and breast a bird:

1.      Lay the bird on its back with his head away from you.

2.      Use your fingers to pinch a small portion of skin and feathers and pull up slightly so you can use your knife to make a slit in the skin.

3.      Using two fingers from each hand, insert into the slit and pull in opposing directions to tear skin away to expose the breast meat. Continue pulling until you have exposed all of the breast meat.

4.      Use your knife to cut the breast meat out by cutting around the breast bone. Fillet one side at a time.

To help preserve the breast meat, we suggest vacuum sealing any meat you cut from the wild turkey.  Our friends at FoodSaver offer specific GameSaver units that are affordable and reliable for vacuum sealing all of your wild game!  For more tips on how to preserve or skin your bird, visit the experts at NWTF.

That’s all there is too it! Practice makes perfect, so we encourage you to take full advantage of the turkey hunting season.  And don’t forget to check out USSA’s Top 10 Wild Turkey recipes for mouth-watering ways to prepare your gobbler.

The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance’s Director of Federal Affairs, Bill Horn, will testify on the reasons why Congress must act on critical legislation which was recently introduced in the House of Representatives.

The House Sub-committee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands will hold a hearing on HR 1825, the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act, on Thursday May 9^th at 10 am.   The bill establishes that fishing, hunting and recreational shooting have a key place on National Forests and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands.  HR 1825 also provides protections for these activities against attacks by the animal rights lobby, which has fought to stop hunting on all public lands.

The key provision of the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act is the “Open Until Closed” language, which mandates that National Forest and BLM lands are open to hunting, fishing and recreational shooting unless specific steps are taken to close those lands for necessary and demonstrable reasons.

Horn, a former Assistant Secretary of Interior under President Reagan, will explain how this game changing provision closes the door to frivolous lawsuits by anti-hunting groups intended to stop hunting.  These lawsuits have cost the federal government millions of dollars in legal fees, diverting those dollars from investment in fish and wildlife habitat.  The “Open Until Closed” language will help put a stop to this abuse.

The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance was a champion of similar legislation in 1997.  Like HR 1825, the Refuge Improvement Act of 1997, clearly defined the value of hunting and fishing on National Wildlife Refuges.  As a result millions of acres of land were opened to hunting, and similar lawsuits to stop hunting on wildlife refuges ground to a halt.

The Alliance is part of a coalition including the National Rifle Association, National Wild Turkey Federation, Safari Club International, and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation working on this important legislation.

“We have long sought the same protections for BLM and Forest Lands as we have on Wildlife Refuges,” explained Horn.  “We greatly appreciate Representative Benishek introducing this important legislation, and ask members of the Sub-committee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands to send this bill to the full Natural Resources Committee and on to the House floor as soon as possible.”

Horn’s testimony will be available at www.ussportsmen.org on Thursday, May 9^th immediately following the hearing.  The hearing can be viewed live HERE at 10 am on Thursday.

Wolves in the Western Great Lakes region, which consists primarily of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, were removed from Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection in January of 2012 after exceeding population recovery goals.  U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell’s ruling will allow USSAF and the Hunter Conservation Coalition to represent the interests of hunters before the court.

The Hunter Conservation Coalition is a partnership effort of national and regional hunting and conservation organizations working together in the case.  At the National level, the Coalition includes the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF), Safari Club International (SCI), and the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation (USSAF).  At the regional level, Coalition members include organizations the Michigan Hunting Dog Federation, the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the Upper Peninsula Bear Houndsmen Association, Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, and the Wisconsin Bowhunters Association.  Collectively these organizations have joined forces to fight for sportsmen and women who hunt wolves, deer, moose, elk, and other game species.  These groups have intervened in the case to ensure that hunting remains part of sustainable management and conservation strategies for all wildlife.

“This is just the latest in a series of collaborations between the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, Safari Club International, and the National Rifle Association to defend against legal challenges to the delisting of the Western Great Lakes wolves and to wolf harvests in individual states,” said Bud Pidgeon, USSAF president and CEO.  “USSAF, SCI, and the NRA are pleased to be joined by so many other hunting organizations in defense of the long awaited recognition of wolf recovery.  We also welcome the states of Michigan and Wisconsin to the litigation.”

The lawsuit, filed by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Born Free USA, Help Our Wolves Live, and Friends of Animals and their Environment, aims to return wolves in the region to federal protection under the ESA.  If successful, the lawsuit would prohibit state wildlife agencies from managing recovered and growing wolf populations.

• Ban bear trapping and bear hunting with dogs.  Under the bill, government officials would only be allowed to trap or use dogs on “specific offending” bears or for scientific studies.
• Ban using a leashed dog to track a wounded bear.
• Place a permanent prohibition on hunting bears between January 1st and July 31st.
• Reduce the bear bag limit from two to one bear for all hunters.

A hearing has been scheduled for the bill before the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Wildlife for this Friday, May 10th.  The hearing is scheduled to take place at 10 A.M. in Room 206 in the Cross Office Building in Augusta.

“The citizens of Maine have already spoken on this issue in 2004 when they shot down Question 2 on the ballot,” said Jeremy Rine, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance associate director of state services.  “Maine sportsmen must once again speak up to protect bear hunting.”

In 2004, HSUS went to the ballot with Question 2 in Maine but were unsuccessful in their attempt to ban bear hunting with dogs and bear trapping.  Bear hunting with dogs and trapping are important components of bear management in the state that helps protect public safety and control nuisance bears.

HSUS has recently backed anti-bear hunting legislation in other states including California and Nevada.

Take Action!  Maine sportsmen should plan on attending Friday’s hearing.  Those unable to attend should contact members of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Wildlife today and tell them to vote NO on LD 1474.  Contact information for the Committee members can be found in USSA’s action alert.

Deer populations in Rock Creek Park in D.C. have increased to 3-5 times more than what the National Park Service (NPS) deems sufficient, causing the NPS to take action. Controlled hunting has been successfully used as a means to limit the population – something hunters are willing to do and even to pay for the opportunity.  But HSUS sees this as a “wasteful killing program.”

HSUS is pushing the NPS to administer a form of birth control known as porcine zona pellucida (PZP) that causes antibodies to bind to a deer’s eggs to block fertilization. Administering PZP is expected to cost taxpayers $340,000 for just the Rock Creek Park alone according to humanewatch.org.  HSUS has offered to pay for half of the program, leaving taxpayers “holding the bag” for the rest of the cost.

Hunting has proven to be a successful means of population control, while also providing vital dollars to state wildlife agencies to maintain wildlife populations.  HSUS ignores this fact, and instead is asking taxpayers to use their hard earned money to pay for their unproven “birth control agenda.”

In addition, the NPS has set criteria for birth control vaccines to follow in order to be administered, and luckily, PZP does not meet the full criteria.

This is just one case of many where HSUS has pushed for a no-hunting agenda, including recent anti-bear hunting and bear trapping legislation introduced in Maine. HSUS fills the number one spot on USSA’s Dirty Dozen list of anti-hunting organizations.