Bluegills taken on sponge-rubber spiders are great fun to catch.

It always happens sometime near Mother's Day or shortly after. I get this terrible craving to go fly fishing for bedding bluegills.

Once 'gills move up onto their spawning beds, they are about as easy to catch as calling and hunting turkeys is difficult. And frankly, as much as turkey hunting appeals to me, my season of trying to seduce a wary old gobbler ended without firing a shot.

Bluegill fishing is great fun. A person can wade the shoreline slowly, if the bottom is hard, and cast ahead to the saucer-shaped spawning beds. Or, as I prefer, casting to bedding fish from a canoe or small boat is equally pleasant.

A morning or afternoon with bluegills & sunfish amd a fly rod is great fun.

The fly rod, reel and line isn't nearly as important as it is for trout, but a well-balanced outfit works. I favor a No. 5 or 6-weight rod and line combination, and a floating line is perfect. A seven-foot leader tapered down to 5X works great.

Years ago I fished with two flies: a Red Ibis and a No.14 Adams, and often it was possible to catch two 'gills at once. Each would try darting off in different directions, and it was a hoot catching them.

Now, I do things a bit differently. A sponge rubber spider with twitchy little rubber legs works fine, and my favorite colors in order of personal preference are black, yellow or green. They can be found in slowly sinking models and spiders that float on the surface.

I haven't seen any of the sinking models in recent years although I suspect they are still around. The floaters work just dandy when pitched to a whitish dish-shaped spawning bed and allowed to sit idly on the surface over the fish. Male bluegills are very protective of their spawning area, and they arrow up off bottom to suck that spider off the surface.

On occasion, if the 'gills have been fished pretty hard, they may ignore the spider. If you happen on this situation, don't worry about it. Jiggle the fly line a bit by hand, and a bull bluegill will shoot up to smack the moving spider.

Where the sinking rubber spiders (believe I only have one left) work best is for those larger bluegills that spawn in four to eight feet of water. Hold the spider underwater, squeeze it two or three times so it soaks up some water, and cast it over one of the deeper spawning beds.

Give it time to slowly sink, and twitch the spider a bit as it sinks. This makes the little rubber-band legs wiggle. This can be a good way to catch some of the larger bluegills in a lake.

Use polarize sunglasses, find the spawning beds, and cast spiders over it.

Big pug-nosed bluegills are not available in an unlimited supply. Some lakes have nothing but small, stunted fish. A few lakes produce some palm-sized bluegills and sunfish, and such fish are capable of producing a wonderful fight.

Three things endear anglers to bluegills. They are fun to catch, they are great to eat, and for their size, they put up a great fight. A 10-inch 'gill that turns his flat side to the angle of the line is not a fish to be horsed in on a light leader tippet. Do that, and you'll quickly lose it.

An angler should never keep a limit of big bluegills. It takes some time for a 'gill to grow to 10 inches, and these are the spawners. If you want fish, keep one or two nice ones and fill out your limit with five to seven-inch 'gills.

Help an over-populated bluegill lake by keeping of small fish -- not the big ones.

Should you be fishing a lake filled with stunted bluegills, keep a limit of the little guys every time you go fishing. They are not big, and it may take 25 to satisfy a hungry angler, but keep catching and keeping and eating the small ones, and after some time, you'll notice a slow increase in the number of bigger fish.

Pitching flies to bedding bluegills is not the same as pitching a big dry fly to an angler-wary brown trout in heavily fished river. But, bluegills lakes are often closer to home than some of the great trout-producing streams, and catching bluegills is a great way to spend a few hours on the water.

And try this. Take your children fishing. Get them involved in fishing at an early age, and when you are old and gray, perhaps one of them will take you fishing. That's how this mentoring process is supposed to work.

This buck is at a high lope in pursuit of a doe as it passes a hunting shack.

Sometimes those bucks that get away are remembered long after other bucks have been forgotten.

A few such deer come to mind during the winter months as I think back over this last and other seasons. There was that great huge buck that put the fatal hurt on two trophy bucks, a few years ago, and he's one  I doubt I ever saw him. When spring broke that year. both dead bucks had been gored repeatedly. Each year two, three or four big buck skeletons show up around the state each year.

Many of these bucks are killed by larger and meaner animals during the rut Some of these rut-crazed deer are never seen unless they show up on a trail camera.

Some of these so-called “killer” bucks are never seen and die of old age.

Another buck that comes to mind was probably a 12-pointer with massive beams, long points, wide inside spread, and weighing somewhere close to 200 pounds. I saw this buck just once at about 45 yards through the wood, and he spooked when a neighbor started his tractor. That buck completely disappeared without a trace.

One of my friends saw a different buck in November that he felt would score about 220 points, and he should know. He has shot some massive bucks, and this animal was one that Ihe’d never seen in the past, and he’s never been seen again. Some of these bucks died during the rigors of winter without ever regaining weight lost during the rut..

Spotting bucks is, to some degree, a matter of luck. A buck may stay in one spot regularly, and is as regular as a dish of prunes. However, many things can cause a buck to change his travel routes to a temporary or permanent new residence.

I've watched bucks put in a daily appearance for two weeks, and then on the 15th day they drop out of sight as if the ground had swallowed them up. Patterning bucks is easy early in the season, but once the rut is underway, they become much more difficult to figure out. A doe may lead them on a merry chase, and it may be two or three days or as much as a week or two before that animal returns, which explains why some bucks seem to disappear..

Some bucks, because they are so predictable, are easy to shoot. A big buck can be extremely easy to pattern and can be shot on the first day. Bucks that have been shot at, or spotted a human movement or winded a hunter in a particular spot, can be most difficult to hunt.

Each trophy buck has his own peculiarities. Learn them and score.

Shooting a big buck can be difficult. A friend of mine took a photo of a very nice 11-point buck, and his antlers seemed a bit offset. The rack was slightly higher on one side than the other, and he saw that buck on two occasions while hunting only 300 yards from my stand. I've yet to see that critter.

I walked in to one of my stands, and was skirting some tag alders, when a big buck stepped out 75 yards away. He was upwind, and hadn't seen me, and began walking in my direction. I eased down to one knee, knocked an arrow, and watched him walk a direct line toward me.

He stopped at 45 yards, turned broadside and then put his tail toward me, and stood. He turned again to face me, started walking my way again, and at 25 yards he stepped into the tag alders and turned to go out the other side. He was a 150-class buck, and animals like him get my heart pumping.

The most fascinating thing about deer hunting, and going after big bucks, is that some animals are easy and others are most difficult to hunt. Some big-racked bucks seem to possess a high degree of suspicion that keeps them out of harm's way. They always seem to stand the wrong way for a high-percentage bow shot.

Others always seem to stop with their vitals behind some brush pr ;pw tree limbs. Some, like the buck noted above, seem to come directly at a hunter only to turn at the last moment. Often, they don't know the hunter is there; they just seem to travel widely and trust to their instincts.

Other bucks, and this happened to me once this past year, just seem to avoid any and all tree stands or ground blinds, and they often seem to build in a buffer zone of 75 yards between them and a bow stand. They have moved a quarter-mile across a field, and headed straight to me, and about 75-80 yards away, they turn and veer away from my stand.

One thing: bucks do not tolerate hunter mistake. They just bolt.

It's not because they saw or smelled me. It's just a built-in warning system that some animals seem to have developed.

It's why I find deer hunting so exciting. Each and every buck is just a little bit different than the one before. For me, not knowing what a buck will do excites me. When they turn, and come within bow range, I'm a happy camper.

I'm also happy when they turn 70 yards away, for whatever reason, and move away. Trying to figure them out is difficult, and that is what makes big-buck hunting so exciting. Hunters earn every big buck they ever shoot.

These Lake Michigan anglers team up to land a 15-pound brown trout.

A boast sometimes rankles other people, especially when two or more anglers are on a trip together. Almost always, one of the people is big on himself and wants everyone else to know it.

Most people could care less what people have done. The trick is to be courteous and helpful, and if asked, answer the question as well as possible without bragging on yourself.

For instance, I know how many deer I've shot over nearly 60 years. It's really too many, and I seldom bring up the topic. I've been fortunate to have deer hunted in many states beside my native Michigan but choose not to constantly dwell on myself and my deeds.

On the other hand, I dislike being in a group that is being monopolized by an ego-freak who is determined to quote numbers, sizes, the width of a rack which invariably is larger than anyone else has taken. After a short time, the egotist discovers he no longer is preaching to the choir. Church is over, they’ve gone home.

Mentoring other writers …

I mentor younger outdoor writers. All are making or have made many of the same mistakes I made when I started, but in my case, there was no one who offered to teach me any of the things I didn’t know. I struggled, made more mistakes, and trust me – when I tell people how to avoid making these mistakes, there is not a word of a brag to it. I tell them about my mistakes and how long it took me to correct many such errors. They learn fast or struggle for a long time.

A friend stopped by yesterday, and is looking forward to drawing a spring turkey tag. He wanted some calling advice, and I told him I am not a good turkey caller. I also told him that many, many hunters can call ten times better than me, but I can call turkeys. No brag involved when I downplay my miniscule calling skills, but others can associate with my lack of such because they have their own foibles. Some of these beginners are far better callers than me.

I showed him a couple of tricks I'd learned, told him how I do it, and repeated what he'd been told before. Don't call too much, don't call too loud, don't move and be patient.

A quick lesson …

Years ago, I gave my twin brother a five-minute lesson on turkey calling. I took my gent out, and the bird I tried to call came in behind us, stood there drumming and spitting, and we couldn't get a shot. My brother was hunting a mile away, and we drove over just in time to watch him call in and kill a gobbler with just five minutes of instruction.

He got a well deserved pat on the back. My gent was disappointed for a bit, but he shot his gobbler later that afternoon.

The lesson in  all of this is that bragging long and hard on oneself is boring to others. If I'm asked, I'll answer a question and quickly turn the conversation back toward them.

Beginning anglers and hunters need to boast a bit over their successes, and that's OK … up to a point. But if you've shot 100 bucks with a bow, it means that you've hunted far more often than most people. It also means, if you dwell on that number without teaching those skills to others, those people often think you are lying, boring or a game hog.

None of which may be true. I'm a good deer hunter and a good steelhead fisherman, and have spent more than 55 years at both endeavors. Unless a person is blind or stupid, it stands to reason that they should have learned something along the way. Share that knowledge with others but spare the bragging.

A guide teaches a gentle lesson …..

Forty years ago I drove to New Brunswick to fish Atlantic salmon with a guide. I sought his advice on which salmon flies to buy, and he pointed them out. I sought his advice on which fly to start with, and he picked one out for me.

Two hours into fishing, my guide said softly: "Begging your pardon, sir, but I suspect you've washed that fly long enough.  I'd suggest changing to a brighter pattern."He didn't have to dwell on the fact that I should have changed flies earlier. He offered a suggestion that I gladly accepted, and when I hooked a 10-pound salmon on a brightly colored fly, he didn't claim any credit. I'd been the one to choose the fly, and luckily, it produced a nice fish.

He could have bragged about his knowledge and skills, but instead, offered me a pat on the back for "choosing" the right fly. I had no clue what I was doing, and it was his suggestion that made that cast a success.

Even today, I enjoy giving credit to him for me catching my first Atlantic salmon. He poled the boat into position, told me where to cast, how long a cast to make, and all I did was manage to land the high-jumping fish once it hooked itself on the strike.

Stow the bragging, and if possible, share your know-how with another person without trying to make yourself look important. I labor in a business where there are more egotists than I ever believed possible, but I check my ego at the door when I leave home. It certainly works for me.

Tony Knight with a bear shot on Vancouver Island with TV host Jim Shockey.

This is just one of the things that trouble me.

The hunt for most longtime sportsmen is much more important than the kill.

Image is all-important for television hosts or writers. Project a good one.

Eric Kerby of Traverse City poses and drags out a nice firearm buck.

They are not lucky. Their know-how and skill help them make their own luck.

They hunt all day when not working.

Eric seemed to sense the buck slowly moving his way.

Everything is dead silent when there is no wind, and deer in such atmospheric conditions are very tough to hunt. They don't move much and are spooky. I much prefer a bit of a breeze, preferably from any direction other than the east.

The second type of wind condition is the one that swirls, first one way and then the other, and these quirky wind shifts make it difficult to determine where to sit for an evening hunt. Invariably, the wind will shift to a different direction about the time you sit down.

There are times when it's impossible to hunt properly.

Tonight's wind was of the latter variety. It began out of the east, and then it swirled to the west, tracked back to the south, and then it returned to an easterly breeze with a stiff cold wind and a 25-degree temperature.

I decided on a ground blind simply because I could get inside, close the windows, and none of my scent would be carried to the deer. If a deer came that I chose to shoot, i'd crank open the window just enough for a clean and accurate shot.

Now, my stand choice tonight was where I shot a nice buck a few years ago but tonight the deer were very hard to find. A few were seen moving through some tag alders, but only two or three antlerless deer showed themselves.

I kept watching the soft breeze, and it would then gust from my ground set to where the deer were, and then the wind would switch the other way. This back-and-forth wind movements kept the deer edgy, and as a result very few animals moved.

A friend sat in an elevated coop in a huge pine, and saw several deer but the breezes at ground level where shifting from one quarter to another. The deer were spooky everywhere.

He saw a decent buck and several does, but nothing was within bow range and none were shooters. It was as if the fickle wind was playing tricks, and he kept his shooting windows shut and sat back to watch the few deer that did move.

Another friend sat in a pit blind, and although the deer tore up the area the day before, there was very little action tonight. The hunter never saw a deer of either sex, and the only living creature spotted was a ruffed grouse pecking around in the nearby foodplot.

Such nights of swirling winds do occur periodically, and there is precious little a hunter can do about it. Hunting is something that involves an investment of time, and hunters who aren't willing to put forth the time and effort, will have poor hunting.

I don't dislike such nights of swirling winds. They are a part of our lives, both the deer and mine. They must cope with it 24 hours a day, while I deal with it for three or four hours once or twice a day.

The winds may swirl, and they may bluster, and the deer may or may not move. The best advice is to put in your time, accept the variable winds and gusty breezes, and work hard to puzzle out hunting locations that will work for most of the various wind directions.

Take a stab at hunting the various winds. Know that sometimes you will get winded, and other times the deer will pass by without catching your scent. The more a person hunts during such swirling wind conditions, the more we learn about trying to determine the best places to hunt and how to outwit a buck.

I made a wrong guess tonight, and when the wind swirls, it's easy to guess wrong. I didn't see any big whitetails, and only a small doe, but each day afield offers hunters new insights into what makes deer tick.

Once you get it figured out, and are 100 percent accurate each time you hunt, call me up and let me in on your secret. So far, guessing the swirling wind directions and how they affect deer travel has been a tough puzzle to solve

You guess right sometimes, guess wrong often, and none of it makes much sense. The one thing we know is that deer are never shot from inside a house, and we must spend time afield to stand any chance of achieving any degree of hunting success.

Some bucks are still trailing does as the rut winds down.

Dress for it and get out in the weather. Hunt as often as possible.

There are good and bad hunting winds. All can be hunted.

Deer can’t count, and hunters working together can gain an edge.

Not much of a bow shot here. Wait him out & hope for a better angle.

Hunt the mid-day hours during the rut.

Be alert, and ready to shoot. Rutting bucks seldom offer second chances.

Sometimes all we see is a glimpse of a big buck. It has to be enough.

I could feel the buck behind me. I don’t know how but I knew he was there.

It was one of those situation where I had to wait for the buck to move.

I didn’t move, and never did poaching this buck occur to me. I play by the rules.