Show Notes
While many are consumed with winter sports and ice fishing, it's time we turn our eye toward spring! Every winter, there are a few fishermen who live for the ice paradise and relish every moment on the hard water. On the other hand, some can't wait for ice off. Count Hunter Engelman in the latter group. Hunter is an avid bowfisherman from Wisconsin and the owner of Modified Outdoors Bowfishing Charters. Hunter specializes in providing high-end bowfishing experiences for anglers of all experience levels.
In this episode, Josh and Hunter discuss how Hunter got into such a unique sport, the gear needed to start bowfishing, and how Hunter is able to keep his clients on fish no matter the season or weather.
To learn more about bowfishing, check out Hunter's seminars during the Wisconsin Fishing Expo, February 24-26 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. The first is titled How to Get Started Bowfishing and the second is Advanced Tactics and Strategies for Bowfishing.
To learn more, check out Modified Outdoors.
Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content!
Connect with Josh and The Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast on Instagram.
Connect with the How to Hunt Deer Podcast on Instagram.
Connect with Modified Outdoors on Instagram and Facebook.
Info on the Wisconsin Fishing Expo.
Big thanks to our partners!
Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Go Wild is a free social community created for and by Hunters. Go Wild. Has recently partnered with Mountain Tough for a free 30 day workout program. Designed to get you in shape for Turkey season called The Go Wild Challenge. Download. Go wild to sign up and let everyone know in a go wild post that you are joining us.
Then each time you do a workout tag, go wild and Mountain. Tough to hold yourself accountable. Also Go Wild. Will be attending the Great American Outdoor Show. February 4th through the 12th. If you're in the area, stop by Booth four 12. Meet the guys and learn all about Go Wild. Visit, download go wild.com and sign up.
What is going on everyone? [00:01:00] Welcome back to another episode of the Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast, which is brought to you by TACT Camp. This is your home for all things outdoors in the Badger State. I'm your host, Josh Rayley. Thank you so much for tuning in to the show this week. We've got a fantastic episode for you today covering a topic that we have not yet discussed on the show, and that is the topic of Beau Fishing.
Now, if you're a fisherman, you might be thinking to yourself, Hey Josh Sturgeon spearing right now. Like, why aren't you talking about that ice fishing right now? Why aren't you talking about that? Couple of other things that I could be covering in the fishing. Why Beau Fishing? That seems to be a while off.
I was able to catch up with a guy named Hunter Engelman, and Hunter owns Modified Outdoors. It's a guide service based in Wisconsin that, that's their thing. Beau fishing is their thing, and he's going to be at the Wisconsin Fishing Expo coming up February 24th through the 26th. Now, while he's there, he's gonna be doing a couple of different seminars.
The first one is how to get started in bow fishing, right? This is a sport that looks like you need [00:02:00] a lot of gear. You need a lot. You need a boat. You need lights. You need a bow. You need all kinds of stuff. You need knowledge of where the fish are, what the fish are doing, how in the world do you get started.
He's also gonna be doing a seminar on advanced tactics and strategies for both fishing, where he's gonna dive into helping you get on the fish. Now, we cover a bit of both of these topics in this episode, but really this is just wetting your appetite for when you can go to the Wisconsin Fishing Expo and hear Hunter present on these things.
Firsthand. And if you have any questions, you can go to Hunter directly and he will help you out. Now you can find his website, modified outdoors.com. You can find him on social media at Modified Outdoors, Bo Fishing Charters. Or like I said, you can go to the Wisconsin Fishing Expo, where you'll not only be able to hear him present in these seminars, but they're also gonna have a full setup where you can just see what is it Even can I see the bows?
What does a boat look like that's set up for bow fishing. Now, probably one of the best ways to learn would be to [00:03:00] book a charter with him. And that means you get to go out on the boat with him, see how his boat is rigged up, see the equipment that he uses, see how he gets on fish. Just a wonderful introduction without having to take the dive and do something crazy buy a boat.
I know for me, when I was first getting into fly, That was my easiest way into the sport, was to go with a guide. And yeah it doesn't break the bank. You need to go check out modified outdoors.com and look at the pricing on some of their fishing charters. It is a really good deal. Now, hunter knows his stuff that's gonna come across in this episode.
I know nothing about bow fishing that might come across in this episode as well. Anyway, if you've got any other tips or tactics or anything like that about bow fishing that you wanna let me know of or you wanna tell me where I missed it in this podcast, feel free to re reach out to me on Instagram at the Wisconsin Sportsman or at How to Hunt Deer.
That's my other podcast, so I have a second Instagram page for that. Now, as we get going, before we get into the conversation [00:04:00] with Hunter, do wanna say a big thanks to our partners? Number one, I wanna talk about Hunt Worth first this week. Now, hunt Worth just got done during their winter clearance event where everything on their website was 20 to 50% off that sale.
Unfortunately, Ended yesterday. So if you missed it, man, stinks to be you, right? Sorry you missed it, but they do still have some cool things going on their website. I was on there earlier actually. And any order over $200 gets free domestic shipping. So if you missed out on the sale, but you're still looking to get some hunt worth gear, head over to hunt worth gear.com, fill your card up with 200 bucks worth of stuff.
Look for a discount code. There's all kinds of discount codes out there floating around that you could grab a hold of, and you can get free shipping to your door of anything that you need from their website. Number two, tcam. They are the title sponsor of this show. Those guys have been with me from the beginning.
I have so enjoyed representing Tcam and using tcam products. As guys, I do not go into the field without my tact cams. They're [00:05:00] either on my weapon or they're on my backpack if I'm just scouting, but they go with me no matter what because how, man, how often do you go to the woods and you see something and you're like, ah.
Nobody's ever gonna believe that, or, oh man, I wish I could come home and show my wife that, or show my kids that, or show my buddies this thing that I ran into. That's where Tcam comes in. You can have it on you all the time. The batteries are cheap. You can stick a bunch of 'em in your pocket, so you pretty much just leave it on and rolling.
That's what I like to do. I have four or five batteries in my pocket. I put the tcam on the Bindi clip, clamp it to my backpack, point it in the right direction, and I just walk through the woods. And as the battery dies, it vibrates lets me know it's dying. I swap out the battery, boom, I'm good to go.
And right about now is when I'm gearing up again, pulling all of my Tcam gear back out, making sure I'm ready to go for. Turkey season now. This Turkey season, I'm gonna be using their 6.0 camera. It's got HD footage, waterproof housing, L C D touchscreen, which is huge on this thing. It's fantastic. I'm also still gonna be running [00:06:00] some 5.0 and 5.0 wide cameras, and those are gonna allow me to have cameras out in the spread or attached to the blind with the 6.0 right there on my weapon, and I should be able to catch some awesome footage of turkeys biting the dust this spring.
So go check 'em out tact. Dot com. And then last but not least, OnX guys. I've been doing a good bit of habitat consultation down in Georgia, working with some landowners who want to improve their property for white till hunting. So I've been talking with landowners in South Carolina and Georgia, and Texas and Alabama and a couple of other states where, folks are really wanting to know, Hey, how can I set my property up better to give me better hunting next year than it provided for me this year?
And the first thing that I tell these guys is, Hey, you've gotta send me your pins. Send me a map of your property, send me where the property is, and then send me some pins. Tell me where do you hunt? How do you access, what do you see the deer doing? And OnX is great for all of that. If you've got habitat improvement plans for this winter that you [00:07:00] want to get, knock.
OnX is great. We're just jumping on there, drawing up on your map exactly where you want that to be. That way when you're out there in the field, you can tell exactly where you need to start implementing your plan. If you're not already using OnX, you can go find them on the app store of your choice and get a seven day free trial.
Or if you have questions, you can go find out more on their website, onxmaps.com. Now, with all of the commercials out of the way, here's my conversation with Hunter Engelman of Modified Outdoors. All right, joining me for this week's episode of the Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast is Hunter Engelman from Wisconsin Hunter.
What's up buddy? Hey man, how you doing? Doing well, thanks for thanks for coming on. We had getting a little bit of a late start here this evening for this show, but better late than never, I guess not too late for you. I'm down in Georgia right now recording the Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast so it feels dirty, almost Nice to be doing this cuz I'm, man, I'm down here enjoying beautiful weather.
I think it was in the fifties today, walking around in shorts outside and you guys aren't quite getting that. Four degrees this morning, then four degrees. [00:08:00] Oh my goodness. Yeah. It is not four degrees here. It did get down, so we had a wind chill of negative two this winter, which is very odd for this area.
Yeah. And people did not know how to handle it like it was I thought we were gonna have to start shutting things down. There were pipes bursting all over the place. The water company was sending out notices Hey, due to all the pipes that busted, we basically have no water pressure. Wow.
Please try not to use water. So yeah, it got pretty nuts for a while. But anyway, enough about Georgia. What's going on in your part of the world in Wisconsin? Man? Oh man. It's been crazy. I've been just, my mind says one day closer to ice off. Yeah. Okay. Hey, there, there is such a a dichotomy, I guess you could say, between a couple of different kinds of fishermen, right?
Like the first thing that we ever really talked about fishing wise on this show. was Driftless trout fishing. That's always been my thing, my passion when it comes to fishing. I've always wanted to fly fish for trout, move to Wisconsin, got to do it a bunch and it's great. And so we've had some guys on, we've talked about [00:09:00] a lot of trout fishing, and then we had some guys say, Hey, you never talk about ice fishing.
So it's like, all right, let's get some ice fishing guys on. Tried to do that. Had one guy on, he did a phenomenal job. Got another guy that sent me a message that I need to respond to. Dude, if you're the one that sent me a message on Instagram and said, Hey, let's talk ice fishing, I'm gonna get to you.
Sorry about that. Anyway, but you've got this huge contingent of fishermen who can't wait for the ice to come on. And then you've got this other group of guys like yourself who are like, I can't wait for it to come off. So do you do any ice fishing or is is bo fishing your thing? It's basically my thing, from the moment that ice finally pushes me off the lakes, I will run.
till an ax won't chop through the ice at the boat launch. Whoa. Okay. So I run all the way into November this year was almost a little later than that, and beginning of March I'm playing Titanic on the Riverways. If I can dump the boat in , you best be sure my boat's gonna be playing in the rivers , man.
That is awesome. That's awesome. So [00:10:00] let's, all right, let's let, I've I kinda let the cat outta the bag a little bit there, but Hunter, tell me a little bit about you, what you do maybe for a living, and also tell me a bit about your guide service. Yeah. My name is Hunter. I've owned and operated modified Outdoors Bow Fishing charters.
We started about 20 17, 20 18. I started officially guiding when I got my O U P B Captain's Credential through the Coast Guard. And it basically has just grown from, a high school fun little afternoon, evening thing to do with some friends and family, to a very smooth, seamless transition into family coming out on the boat and loving the sport.
And then extended family and then friends. And that, that pushed me into purchasing a 20 foot commercial flat bottom behemoth of a boat specifically designed for bow fishing. And that just, it just slow, snowballed bigger and bigger into then [00:11:00] getting my captain's credential and, taking out groups of people that then, at this point, I don't even know, I don't even know who they are.
They just heard of me through word of mouth, friend of a friend and grew into what we have now. So I'm a full-time journeyman electrician in the state of Wisconsin here. . So this is just weekend fun for me now that I have my credential, I can, I have a little more flexibility in my hours, but it's it's Thursday through Saturday nights in my free time that I don't really have
Yeah. Man, I gotta say, we were talking off air and you say, Hey, it's it's been my weekend, free time, fun time thing. But dude, it sounds like it might not be that for a whole lot longer. It's starting to sound like it's pretty demanding on the schedule. Yeah. It I put my time in, I gotta mention that's one of the things that I'm in southeastern Wisconsin here, by Lake Winnebago area, and one thing that really separates me from, believe it or not, there's, I bet you, [00:12:00] 10 to 15 bow fishing guides in the state of Wisconsin, okay?
That most people, if they have never even heard of that sport, They would never guess. There's that many. Yeah. But one thing that really sets me apart is my dedication to the scouting process. A lot of, charters you're gonna get one lake and if that lake's hot, you're gonna have a good night.
If it's not it is what it is. What I like to do is I really dial in, we watch lakes from Green Bay to BeMore Pogon. We go all the way out west to Big Green, which is like the center of the state. We go down south into Milwaukee, into some public lakes, surrounded by houses rivers Lake.
anything and everything, if there's fish there I do my best to cover as much ground as I can to figure out exactly when and where they're moving and how to get the clientele on the most fish possible for the night. Man, that's, [00:13:00] so let's circle back just a little bit. I need to hear like, how did you get into this?
Because there are some places that I feel like the bow fishing culture is super, super strong. I lived in Louisiana for eight years. There was a really strong bow fishing culture there. We had a lot of fish that you could bow fish. There's gar and carp and all kinds of stuff.
Really big chunky fish. To put an arrow through. Yeah. And I think of other states, like I think of some there's a lot of guys in Missouri that have done a lot of it. There are guys in Illinois that have done a lot of it. Wisconsin, not as much. But I have been floating some different.
Some different streams or canoeing and that kind of thing, and have just seen some massive carp. And so how did you stumble onto the sport and then what is it about it that kind of made it take over and become your thing? Because I'm a diehard Turkey hunter, diehard deer hunter. I can't believe I said turkeys first.
Man. That tells you where my mind's at right now as we get into winter. Like I'm, I've shifted to turkeys, right? But like how did this become the thing that sunk its teeth into you? [00:14:00] Yeah, so I, I remember it like it was yesterday, it was junior year of high school and had a a family friend who had a bow fishing boat, a little 14 foot small boat invited me out one night, me and my brother.
And lemme tell you, when you're out on the water, you have all the lights going, the generator, some music on in the background, some in me clicked . You mentioned Turkey hunting, I would imagine it'd be the same for Turkey hunters the same way it was for me. When you, when you're sitting there and the trees are just full of Toms just gobbling away, just thundering down and you're like, yep, this is it.
Like that, that when I hit the water and I got to see them fish, swimming through the shallows and stuff, I knew immediately like this is gonna be my thing. Yeah. So tell me then about the progression. So was that the first time that you ever went out that you, it bit ya?
First time. First time. I tell you what man, that first night I didn't even shoot a fish. Wow. You didn't [00:15:00] even get a fish. But the next day I went and got a a reel to put on my diamond youth compound hunting boat. Oh yeah. Dad was not so thrilled about that . I bet. I bet. But that, that next day, it was like a Wednesday.
The next day I bought the bow. That weekend I bought a John boat. and started figuring out how I could rig it up for bow fishing. Oh. So things progressed pretty quickly, man, I tell you, it was zero to a hundred. I had a bow set up and a boat before I even shot a carp. you So you bought all the equipment before you even put an arrow through one.
Okay. Everything dude, dudes. That's commitment, man. That's commitment. So where did you learn then? It doesn't sound like the folks you went with the first time. It doesn't sound like it was all or nothing for them, you said, you mentioned they had a smaller boat or whatever and something that they did.
But like, how did you pick up and get to where you are today with, obviously there's gotta be a huge learning curve. [00:16:00] Yeah. There's, there's so many different learning curves on the equipment to you is personally with the bows, with your boat set up, your lights, your generator.
your method of propulsion. I trial and errored Oh my goodness. Number of times with, I was on the Facebook forums watching YouTube videos. Typically what you do when you get started, but it's not really until you do something yourself that you realize that was probably not the best way to do it.
What if I try this? And so I started with the halogen work light. Oh, yeah. From yards, the $5 halogen burning, hot work light. Yeah. And just the loudest generator you'd ever hear in your life, just, it would just rattle your skull. And that was not the answer. So then I, what was next?
Then I went to the little tiny l e d circle lights. And went to a battery. And that would only last a couple hours, but then I was [00:17:00] quiet. Yeah. , which was great, but I needed longer rum time. So then, I basically used my knowledge with what I learned and started implementing that and growing a little bit bigger, changing up the deck here.
I went from a wood deck to a aluminum, six by six diamond plate deck that my brother and I built on the front of the boat, which made it, that much better. And it's just the amount of information, if you know where to look and what to look for. Oh my gosh. Yeah. The forums, the videos, the Facebook, the Instagram, you could get lost in it for years.
Yeah. It's one of those, one of those rabbit holes, man. So I'm a saddle hunter for whitetails. And if you know anything about saddle hunting, man, it's a rabbit hole. Like you get on one of those forums and it just eats you, and the next thing you know, you look up and it's six months later and you spend a thousand dollars on gear and it's what happened?
So yeah. All right. Huge learning curve, obviously YouTube forums, all that kind of stuff plays a big role. How did you learn the actual fishing part? Because [00:18:00] that's where the rubber meets the road, and I don't know the quality of Wisconsin bow fishing compared to some others, but it's not one of those states.
It appears that, it's the headliner for bow fishing, right? Yeah, there's, I have, in the couple years that I've done it, I've probably hit hundreds of lakes in the state. I've hit every basically stream waterway, east side of the state. I've hit a lot of trial and error.
You can get on a forum and you could maybe get lucky and someone will slip up and say the name of a lake or something. But honestly it started small with some local lakes and. There's, you're not gonna find many lakes in Wisconsin that don't have a species that you can bow fish.
Yeah. So what is legal to bow fish in Wisconsin? I know I've talked to some other guys that do spearing and that kind of thing. Very specific fish that you can spear. And I imagine it's the same with bow fishing. So not everything is free game. Yes. [00:19:00] So no game fish, anything that you catch a hooking line and you're excited about?
You can't bow fish. Okay. No walleye bass, northern perch, blue gae. None of the game. Good eating fish. Okay. Invasive fish is what we go after. We go after carp. The different species. Species and subspecies of carp. Gar the long skinny fish. You're down south. You know them a lot?
Oh yeah. A lot of people don't know. We have them up here, but we actually have quite a few of 'em in Wisconsin here. Yep. Yep. A couple different species of them. We go after Boin. Dog fish is another slang term for it. Love going after them. And just recently, we actually just some legislation was passed to allow noodling in the state for catfish.
Oh, nice. But sistered onto that noodling bill was also the alternative method of bo fishing. Oh, very cool. Okay. So legally we can harvest catfish, Bullhead,[00:20:00] that species of fish, but we have to follow this the local lakes regulations on that. Okay. We can't just go crazy. We, if there's a slot limit, a size limit, gotta respect it.
Yeah. Stuff like that. So I'm very hesitant about it. I don't target 'em because, for a ch a, a cat fisherman, if they hook into a 40 pound flathead catfish, that could be the fish with a lifetime. . And I tell you, when we go out, if we hit the spawn just right, I'll probably see a handful of 'em through the night.
Geez. I've seen, there's, there are people that do harvest them catfish and we'll consume 'em, we'll eat 'em. That fish doesn't go to waste. But 40 to 50 pound flatheads have been shot with a bow and arrow. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. There is one that I do target the yellow Bullhead.
Okay. That smaller Bullhead, the most delicious fish that I [00:21:00] in the springtime when that ice cold water is out there. Oh, love them. I'll target 'em. I even take charters out and we target these bullheads, they bring coolers and ice and we even get a fish fry out of the bow fishing trip, which isn't something I get to.
I get to do very often. . Yeah. Yeah. So catfish are interesting to me. Growing up in the south, man, that was like, we ate catfish, that was our walleye basically. And then I moved to a small town in Wisconsin and I was like, Hey, is there any good fishing over there? They're like, yeah, you catch some catfish.
And I'm like, you don't eat catfish? They're like, no. Why would you eat a catfish? Is the most disgusting thing to them. I could that, yeah. Like I, they didn't understand, but so people do obviously eat those think they're an acceptable table fair when they are with your charter. Yeah, we definitely we go for it.
And I tell you what, I actually hold the Wisconsin State record alternative method for the, that yellow Bullhead. No kidding. Yeah. I shot her. I've gotta hear that story. Tell me about it. [00:22:00] Yeah. I'll, I got her so I keep forgetting the exact numbers. So it was, Three pounds and almost three ounces. Nice.
So how it went down. It was, July 6th or seventh and I was out on a little local lake on a weeknight, just having some fun. And I had with me my girlfriend Caitlin, and my mom, neither of them really fish too much. They're just, I'm excited about it. So they're excited about it, just wanna be a part of it.
And I'm driving around and there, there is known to be catfish in that lake, channel cats and driving around and there's a lot going on in front of me. And my mom behind me is on the back of the deck and she points down, she goes, Ooh, a catfish. And I turn and I look and I said, that's either a good size channel cat, or the biggest Bullhead I have ever seen in my entire life.
And drew back on it. [00:23:00] and just smoked it right through the head. Pulled it up and I'm like, that is the biggest yellow bull head. I didn't even know they, they got that big. Yeah. And immediately I was just shook. I was shaken, I was excited cuz I knew something in me was like this has to be a record.
This is gotta be something. If anything, maybe it's a lake record or something. And we made it to a gas station. So my scale that I have was out of batteries. Couldn't weigh the fish. I'm like and I found the state record at the time, I believe was only 2.1 pounds. And so we drove to a quick trip.
We, we called the night off, drove to a quick trip up here, got batteries, put it in the scale and in the gas station parking lot, I weighed the fish and got the first, you know, rough. Weight of the fish. And it was by far, it was the state record, man. So what did that process look like as far as like [00:24:00] getting that, I guess figured out?
Like what, who'd you call next? Yeah, so there's a online, first of all, I had to get it officially on, on a certified scale. So that next day I called off of work, I went to Piggly Wiggly, a gas station in my town, and I got it on their meat scale, a certified scale, got a cer, a picture, the scale weight.
And then I filled out the application. There's a big huge application form 'em for it. And then I got a call from the local d n r biologist who wanted to meet, because with every state record they have to certify the fish to make sure that it isn't a hybrid of some sort, that it is truly a yellow, pure yellow Bullhead.
And so they, were you holding onto the fish all this time? Like how did that No, that, so that was one night. The next morning I got the scale weighed. Okay. And I put the fish on ice. Gotcha. And then it was the [00:25:00] following day after that I got to meet with the biologist. Okay. So they got to you pretty quick.
Yeah, it was pretty fast. And I actually got to meet them at their service station there. Very cool. And she was, it was incredible. She did some tests. She counted the barbells, she counted the one of the fins. It was either on the top of the bottom, you count the number of it what makes up the fin the number of stripes on it, basically.
Yep. To ensure that number is within the pure yellow Bullhead genetics. And it was a pure yellow Bullhead man. That's wild. You find yourself sitting there hoping, like for something you never would've imagined, please let this have the right number of little things in it's right in its field.
Yeah. never would imagine, cuz she was telling me, she's that seems pretty unusual for a yellow Bullhead. There's a, I guess there's a hybrid that does get bigger and I didn't know, I was, I saw the color and it was yellow. It was real yellow. But when they get that big and that old, obviously the color starts to [00:26:00] distort on the top of their back and stuff.
Yep. And thankfully it all worked out and I hold the state record. I've been meaning to, find someone to get a replica of the Bullhead. So that brings me to a point, if anyone listening knows a re a fish replica guy who does. Catfish, please have him reach out to me or get me his number.
Cuz I would love, I have the plaque and everything with the record. Nice. I'd love to get that Bullhead mounted dude. That's awesome. So I've actually got a guy that I'm gonna text right now. Nice. You're in just a minute cuz he's done really good work for me before for taxidermy. And I know he does fish.
I don't know if they're replica. I don't know enough about fish taxidermy today. Yeah. What all that looks like. But anyway, I'm gonna text him and see if he does it. And if he does man, I'll get you I'll get you his information. Cause I've gotta go pick my deer up from him when I'm up in April.
Just wanna take a quick minute to let you know that the Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast is [00:27:00] brought to you by tact camm, makers of the best point of view cameras on the market for hunters and anglers. They're on the cutting edge, making user-friendly cameras to help the everyday outdoorsmen share your hunt with friends and loved ones.
Their new 6.0 camera has a ton of upgraded features this year, but the one I'm most excited about is the new L C D touchscreen. In my mind, that is a total game changer and one area tactic cam really shines is with their mounts and adapters that are made with the sportsmen in mind. If you've tried to film your hunting and fishing excursions, you know just how frustrating it can be to try to get an action camera aimed just right or get it attached to your weapon or in a good spot for a second.
TCAM makes all of that a breeze with their line of mounts and adapters. This fall, I'm gonna be using their stabilizer mount on my bow with the 6.0 camera and their Bindi clamp paired with the 5.0 wide camera for a second angle, and to make sure I don't miss any of the action to learn more and check out their full line of products, head over to their website, tcam.com and share your hunt with tcam.
Let's dive into the piece [00:28:00] about equipment, because there are probably guys like me that are listening to this and thinking, man, that's a huge barrier for me to get into. I can't go spend the money on a boat, some lights, figure all of that stuff out and buy a bow and have all the knowledge that I need to go out and actually be successful just to see if I actually like doing this thing.
So tell me a little bit about a, an easy on-ramp for guys that maybe just want to give it a try. I tell you what, there's two things. When I'm approached with that question, there's a twofold. There's one. Obviously with my guide service, I specialize in first timers. If you've never even heard of the thing, you've never even held a bow before.
My job is to make sure, and a thing that, what the reason why we're called modified outdoors is my goal is to, when I started the company, was to modify the perception of what bow fishing is. When you hear bow fishing, [00:29:00] you think of some redneck back country homegrown Bama boys.
That's right. With their hunting bows. Just sling and arrows. Yep. But what I aim to do is provide a very up, a high end upscale. Trip, quiet, comfortable, precision fitted to you with the bow, the equipment, the experience you, so you know when you go, we're set up for success. And you know everything that you need to have, you have, you're ready to go.
The knowledge, everything. So obviously the easy answer is book a trip, get your toes wet, see if you like it. But if you would like to try it yourself without, a commitment in investment into a charter go to your local pawn shop. Go to your archery shop and find some used compound or recurve that's, you'll always see those bows that are 20, 30, 40 bucks on sale.
The big, huge old Fred Bear bows or something. Yep. I've had n dozens of [00:30:00] friends that use those and they work, you , you have the bow, then you just need to get the rest of the equipment. You have to get a specific arrow. Obviously that'll tie on to the string. You can get those arrows at any outdoor store.
And the real, there's a lot of different types of reels. Yeah. Do you have to have a reel or can you just run with like line on your line on your arrow? Yeah. So you the state legislation on bow fishing, it requires that you first of all, you have a barbed arrow, so you can't throw a rage.
Broadhead at a carf. That's about all they're good for. I'm just kidding. That's a day. Ooh, I'm just kidding. But I'm kinda serious. But , so a barbed arrow. It, in my layman's terms, it should be designed for penetration and not removal. So it's designed to go into that carp and hold. . And it must be tethered to something to allow for [00:31:00] retrieval of the harvested fish and the arrow.
So there's a lot of people that I know, people that used to take big old Gatorade bottles and wrap line around and around the Gatorade bottle, and then put the string, get the string attached to the arrow and they'd shoot and they'd have to hand, spool it up. But that's, I bet you could get that stuff for 50 bucks.
You could be out fishing with a whole brand new set up, even if you didn't have a bow. Nice. Nice. That's pretty cheap. And man I was looking at your charters earlier, like they're super affordable. I come from the land of saltwater charter. And so when we're gonna go out on a charter, we're talking, getting 6, 7, 8 guys together and hoping we can, make it worth our trip just because of the cost.
But this isn't, yeah. This isn't, that, this is more akin to something you would expect for a, a trip out to the drift list or something like that to fly fish for trout. We're not talking breaking the bank to get out and do this for an evening. Yeah. And we're very reasonably [00:32:00] priced, especially in our area.
We're more of an experienced based excursion rather than the product at the end of it. Yep. Cause you're not gonna walk away with a cooler . You can if you want, but I'm not cooking them. Nasty car for you. I'll tell you that. . Yeah. So that, that brings up a good point. So guys go out they get the fish, maybe they're successful.
What, what is happening with these fish? I think it's important to note at the outset, these are invasive fish most of the time. that should not be here, right? Correct. They damage ecosystems. They cause more problems for the local fishery than they bring advantages. Guys like you, I think, help that out.
You turn a negative into a positive by saying, Hey, we can bring in some local revenue through, this experience that we can offer, but you are removing these fish from the location. You're keeping those numbers down a little bit, suppressing that but what happens to the fish?
Yeah. So that's a really great question. So I'll start with a little bit [00:33:00] of a negative and then I'll take it back up into a positive. When you're bowl fishing, obviously you'll get these carp and sometimes they're big, and if you don't take care of 'em right away, they're smelly. And it's actually illegal in the legislature, it's illegal to return any invasive fish back to the waterway.
So if I take a carp, and I shoot it and it's I don't, it's just the one, toss back in the water. If the DNR finds out, you can get in trouble for that. Now, does that, I've gotta know, does that go for hook and line caught fish too? I would imagine it does. Yeah. I cannot say for certain that Okay, you, that, that is, but you'd have to imagine if that's the case for the alternative methods.
I would imagine it would be the same. Yeah. Yeah. But I can't say for sure either way. It probably should be that way if it's not, like the fish shouldn't be there. Get it outta there. Guys you obviously enjoy bo fishing for them, but at the end of the day, it's not supposed to be there. All right.
So back to the fish. Yeah. Yeah. You pull 'em out, throw 'em in a [00:34:00] barrel. Yeah. So the state, especially the state of Wisconsin, has a severe problem with. disposal. Okay. The majority of people that go out, the first timers that go out are kids high schoolers, just like I was. And no high schooler thinks, oh, I've got this barrel of fish.
It's a good thing. I have somewhere lined up to dispose of these. It's usually an immediate problem and unfortunately the resolution to that common problem is the boat launch or the side of the road. So as a representative of the State Association for Bow Fishing, the Wisconsin Bow Fishing Association with my guide service and my name and my prominence in the community, the go-to guy when something happens not for accusations, but for attempt of remediation of that.
Yep. I can't count how many times I've gotten a call from a DNR saying, Hey, there's 30 carp laying on the [00:35:00] side of this boat launch. . You want to go pick 'em up? I'm like, yep. I'm like, I'm hopping in my truck right now for it . Cause no one has ever said that on this podcast before. I, not to interrupt you, but nobody has ever been excited to go pick up 30 old carp from me.
Yeah. I tell you what, I'm not. For me, the public image is way more important than anything that I could be doing. When that, when the lake, the local Lake Association is frustrated by the bright lights at night, or the loud generator or the hoo and holler. And when we just triple up on carp It's these little things like when they see a boatload of fish laying on the side of the ramp, that could be the straw that breaks it.
And I, I hate to say it, but we're one or two legislation bills away from not being legally allowed anywhere. Yeah. It wasn't too long ago we couldn't even do it at night. Wow. Wow. So it's very sensitive and it's very important for me to maintain that plum, that public [00:36:00] image, cuz it not only affects my business, but the hundreds of people I know that participate in this activity too.
Yeah. So you go, you get to fish. Then what? So the disposal, I say, go find a farm. You live in Wisconsin, there's farms on every street corner. Go down a few country miles. Talk to your farmer and say, Hey man, I got some nasty old invasive carp. You care if I drop 'em off. I've dropped them in manure pits in the manure spreader out in the field on a fence line, really?
Anywhere that's not back into the water. Yeah. Now they do smell, they attract that, the rodents and the critters. The, the raccoons, the coyotes. So there, there are some things that you need to be aware of, when you do dump 'em. But, if you can find a place before you hit the water, if you can find a place to dump 'em, that's, that's a huge first step.
Yeah. Is to find a place. Yeah. I think that's huge too. Like you [00:37:00] just said, find a place before you hit the water. Don't be left with oh my gosh, it's three in the morning and Uhhuh, , I've gotta go to work in a few hours. I don't know what I'm gonna do with these fish. You know what I mean? Now I I'll tell you what I do.
So I started with the farmers and now I actually work in conjunction with a pumpkin farmer. So my pumpkin farmer and I, we've been doing this for a bit, and we have a really cool system where if I, take a charter out and I take a bunch of pictures, that's another thing that, that I really like to pride myself on is high quality professional picture pictures of the group, the fish, the experience, everything to capture that for you.
So I take a lot of pictures. I always give 'em to everybody, blast 'em on social media. So when I take the carpet to the pumpkin farmer, he d he actually burs 'em by each pumpkin plant. That's how good of a fertilizer they are. Wow. He He does something really cool in at harvest time, if any of my clients come to [00:38:00] him and show him a picture of them holding a fish on my boat, he'll give them a little pumpkin for free.
No kidding. Yeah. . So it's so cool to see full circle. I bring the fish, I provide the fertilizer, and in, full circle from that, then the clients get something in return from that if they show proof that they helped contribute to the fertilizer. Yeah, man, that's so cool. Yeah. That's awesome.
It's really cool and it works really awesome. I don't know many people that do it, but it's a good sales pitch either way. . Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So let's, all right, you mentioned something a second ago. I wanna circle back to a few years ago, not very long ago, you guys weren't even allowed to do this this at night.
, is this a night only kind of thing for you now or will you do it during the day? And I ask that because one of my favorite places to canoe and kayak is just full of carp. And you go through there on a summer day and you're like, oh my goodness, there are whales in this waterway, swimming alongside me or whatever.
And grew almost [00:39:00] like pods of two or three at a time. And so do you do this at, during the day at all, or is this kind of a nighttime only thing? At first it was about 50 50. Typically at first it was, cuz I didn't have lights, I couldn't afford lights on the boat. Yep. So go, like you said, it was the middle of July summer hot in the streams and stuff, and every once in a while you'd see a big common, lift up out of the weeds or something, or you'd see 'em cruising through the current lately it's been basically all nighttime because of the guide service and the chartering, that's the most desired time.
And for me that's the most consistent time cuz the daytime, it's very dependent on the conditions, the weather, the cloudiness, the overcast, everything plays a role and it affects things way more during the daytime. Yeah. So I, I tend I bet you in the last two years I've only gone the daytime maybe two or three times.
Oh man. Okay. So it's basically nighttime only. And I love the [00:40:00] nighttime when I can get 200 and some thousand lumens of lights blasting all around the boat, creating a halo. And all of my lights are powered by a little Honda 2000. That little inverter red generator. Yeah. That's what powers all of my lights.
So it's whisper quiet and just to see the whole the shore the halo around the boat lit up and all the different species, the turtles the ducks and geese and the fish and the game fish and the crawfish and stuff. It's, that's what made, that's what does it for me now is the nighttime experience.
Yeah. Tell, I've gotta hear, I imagine you take groups out, even sometimes larger groups. I imagine you've gotten into some pretty crazy scenarios, multiple fish hooked up in that kind of thing. Is there one night or one outing or one group or something like that just sticks out that you're like, man, this is the paramount of, bow fishing experience that I want everybody to have?[00:41:00]
We call it the jackpot night. and anyone close to me knows what I'm talking about. When I say about the jackpot night. It was two years ago. Not gonna disclose the body of water , but my, I scouted all week and I had these fish pinned down. They were pre spawned, they were moved up in the shells. They were pushing on each other.
They were starting to get ready to spawn. And that Saturday it was going to get hot, temperature-wise, sunny. I knew it was gonna flip, and I'll tell you, it was the last weekend, second to last, or the last weekend in May. And that Saturday it flipped full spawn. I'm talking hundreds of yards of shoreline, nothing but.
Oh my goodness. Just in the shallows between six inches and two feet of water, you couldn't see a thing. It was [00:42:00] the water was so dirty you couldn't see, you couldn't see the fish in front of you there. There the fish had to be out of the water from the amount of circulation that was running through these weeds and stuff.
So we had charters that night. I had a five person charter on my boat and my other captain, Jake, had a two person on his boat and I told him, I said, this is gonna be the night. We got out there and for the four hour trip it was nonstop. Stop shooting maybe for a total of 10 to 15 minutes. We didn't have a fish on.
Wow. We shot buffalo on common carp up to 30 some pounds and fish like that. You don't, it's not just a one arrow and pull that sucker in. No, it's. With, especially with clientele, they, some of 'em don't pull back as many as much weight as I'd like, which a fish that big, if you can pull back 40 pounds, [00:43:00] you're gonna, you're gonna be all right.
But a lot of 'em are in that 30 pound range. So we're throwing three to four arrows into these fish. I'm gaffing 'em, throwing them in the boat. We're filling trash cans of these carp. We use B brute, 35 gallon trash cans. We're filling trash cans. I filled all four trash cans. We're starting to throw fish on the floor of my boat,
My other captain, I call him, I see him on the distance. I say, please tell me you are on fish like I am right now. And he says, I filled my 150 gallon stock tank and we're on the bottom of the boat now. I'm like, I don't even know what to do right now cuz. This is, this has never happened before in my lifetime.
And we shot. I'll have to send you some pictures after this. We filled every barrel I brought with me [00:44:00] and at the end of the night we put all the fish together, took a big huge group picture through all the carp in the bed of my truck, took the barrels and me, my friend and my other captain, Jake, went back out after the charter and shot till the sun went up and filled the rest of the barrels back up.
What, so you guys went back out after the charter? We went back out, man we shot the four hour trip, loaded the fish in the truck through the carp in the back of the truck because we wanted the barrels to go fill 'em back up again. And we filled every single one of 'em. Man, my shoulder has never been more sore in my entire life.
Holy cow. So when we're talking about time of year, obviously that was a special evening. That was the jackpot. Hard, hard to re recreate that, but is that time of year typically really good? Are you looking for that, pre spawn right at the beginning of the spawn to try to, those are gonna [00:45:00] be the best evenings?
Yep. That's when I like it. And I tell you what, looking at my schedule for this year already, that time is book solid. Oh man. Everyone that has gone out with me knows if there's ever a chance to hit it big. If you go out on a charter with me, we're gonna get on Phish. But there's certain times, when you hit the lottery and when the water temperature the outside temperature, the wind, everything lines up.
It's literally the perfect storm. And there was nothing that we could have done to not be on as many fishes we were on that night. This episode is brought to you by the OnX Hunt app. OnX gives you up to date landowner information, color coded public and private land boundaries, and gives you a ton of tools to help you hunt smarter.
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You've mentioned a couple of times like the scouting that you do, like with that night you knew where the fish were, you knew what the fish were doing. You're obviously very confident you say, man, if you go out on a charter with me, we're gonna get on Phish. That's, you're not gonna go without, without being on Phish.
What does that scouting process look like for you to ensure that quality experience for your clients, but then also, because this is a passion that you love as well Making sure that you're on 'em for yourself. What does that scouting process look like? Yeah, so there's always a certain amount of uncertainty when you go into the outdoors.
I've had nights where you're, I'm confident and all of a sudden the winds, the wind flips a cold front moves in and it's like you see 5% of the fish that you had the night before, man. Typical sky the time of year in the springtime, I'm consistent on a few buyers of water and lakes [00:47:00] and river systems.
So it basically means me going to a lake, dialing in that lake or river, spending some time really trying to focus on that lake. Other times, it's really a judgment call. Other times it's five minutes at this lake, pack up the boat, drive half an hour, 10 minutes at this lake. and there's nights I'll hit seven to eight bodies of water a night to scout.
It's, it really depends on the time of year and all the factors that go into the outdoors. The barometric pressure that I don't really follow, but everyone says it affects fish. The water temperature, the outdoor temperature, warm fronts, warm and cold fronts that move in. But I'll typically spend a couple hours, in the night before or that li the nights coming up to a charter just to ensure that, like you said, I want, even if [00:48:00] we don't get on fish, like I thought, I want to be able to tell myself that I did everything that I could to give them the modified outdoors experience.
Yeah. And walk away from that. I've guided for, it's gonna be about four years now, four to five years now, and there's only been one charter that was subpar. And that charter, they got a fish, but that was 20 mile an hour winds and just cold rain coming down. Just a miserable night out on the water.
But they still wanted to go out and, I gave it 110% and did the best that I could with what I had. And we still got a fish . Yeah. We actually still got a fish, but it was, it just, it wasn't what it could have been. And that's always the, what I have to deal with as a guide is understanding that it might not, sometimes it might not be what it could be.[00:49:00]
Yeah. Or what I imagine it could be. Yeah. Tell me about, you, you got a group in. What does a typical evening look like for you? What does this, if I go in and sign up for a, an evening to fish with you, what does that look like? So we start fishing starts basically half hour after sunset.
We meet just before sunset. We, take some pictures, get you acquainted with the boat, with the equipment you'll be using. We go after we go through our safety procedures and protocols. We review, all the safety features of the boat, the equipment, and then we show you how to operate the equipment, get you fitted for what styl bow you want, your hand, your draw weight, your draw length, get you dialed in so you're comfort, as comfortable as you can be.
After we get you set, we crank the tunes up, flip the lights on, and once we hit the lights on and we start fishing, that's when your four [00:50:00] hour mark starts. It's not when you pull up to the boat launch, it's not when we load the boat, it's when we start fishing. And that's something that I really take pride in, is you're paying for four hours of fishing from the moment you start to the moment you stop, man.
So we hit it hard. We, we encourage you to bring water and snacks and stuff clothing appropriate for the night, and we hit it. We hit it hard. We, I typically will have a deck hand with me to facilitate the removal of fish. Operate the camera for, pictures and everything to help answer questions and point out phish if there's any uncertainty.
And we hit the shores. My, my 20 foot custom boat, both of our 20 foot custom boats that we guide off of are specifically designed for boat fishing with a very large, flat front. That can dissipate as much weight as possible. So every person is right up in front of the [00:51:00] boat. You're right in front of all the lights.
I have a, I call it my sexy stick. It's a it's a steering stick that has my kicker, my throttle, clutch steering everything on it. So I'm in front with you, I'm talking with you. I'm steering the boat, controlling everything. We're talking about the fish. I'm pointing fish out to you, helping you with the aiming and everything.
And we go hard and stuff, and we push for the best experience. We, if we'll maybe take a little break here or there if your shoulder gets sore or, you just wanna relax a bit. But we hit everything. Family trips. We love doing, we've done a few family outings where it's the mom and dad and the couple kids.
And then we go up to, we've done bachelor parties, we've done corporate outings. It really is such a unique experience that I, I wish if it were up to me, everyone would try it once. I've had people that can't stand fishing, they're not a fan of it.[00:52:00] And once I get to tell them it, it's usually guys that come out and they bring their significant others with them, and the gals are unsure, they're just there to support.
But once I explain to them how detrimental these carp and these other invasive fish are to the ecosystem, they get excited about it, knowing that they're helping the ecosystem. They're encouraging and then all of a sudden they ask if they want to try, if they can try shooting the bow or whatever.
So it's really cool to get to see that from people that you'd never think that they're gonna be slinging air Was that fish, , ? Next thing you know, they're sucked in, man. You got it. Uhhuh. . That's, I tell you, man that's all it takes for me. It was that first trip and that hook was set, man. So let's talk a little bit then about if somebody's thinking about maybe I want to give this a try.
What are some of the maybe struggles or difficulties? I remember the first time I ever went went trout fishing. I had a guide with [00:53:00] me and man, I just could not set the hook fast enough for these finicky little fish, man. It just, yeah, I could not get it. I'm, I caught a bunch of fish that day, but I also missed a bunch of fish and it was frustrating.
I had a great time. But it, there, there was also this element of frustration. Do you run into anything like that where folks are, having a hard time aiming or having a hard time with a particular aspect of the. of the charter where, maybe they can do something beforehand or at least just be mentally prepared.
Hey, this part is tough for people. And so I'm going in with eyes wide open. Yeah. I'm really glad that you mentioned that. A difficult concept to grasp with bow fishing is the concept of refraction. I'm sure you've heard of it before. It's that principle of when you put a straw in your cup of water and you're looking at the si at the straw, it looks like that straw bends in the water.
Yep. Same thing. You're in aquarium and you're looking, and they dip a net down. And the net all of a sudden is on an angle. So when [00:54:00] light hits the water, it refracts, it bends, and it distorts the image underneath the water. So when you see that carp in the water, your eyes are lying to you. , where do you see that?
Carp is not where that carp is. So I promise you, if you're a seasoned archery guy and you're trained, you see the target, you aim at the target and you hit the target, you're gonna miss that carp a hundred percent of the time. . So with refraction, the light bends upward. So you have to actually aim below your target.
Interesting. And the difficult part about bull fishing is it's not a set rule. We don't have sites on our boat that say, use this pin and put that right on the center of the fish and you're gonna get 'em. No, because it depends on, cuz we have the lights penetrating the water refracting and distorting that water.
So it depends how deep the fish is and how far away from the boat the fish is. That all plays a factor on how low you [00:55:00] aim. So there's times where if that fish is right at the surface, maybe you aim just below its belly. . But if that fish is three to four feet down and far away from the boat, you're aiming four plus feet below the fish.
Oh, no kidding. So it's, I didn't know that off. I'm telling you, there's times when I've taken people's bows and, the saying is, aim low, aim lower than that. And when you think you've aimed lower enough, aim a little lower. Wow. Now, there's been times when I've had someone draw full draw and I'm watching them.
I can see the, the projection of the arrow. I can see where they're gonna shoot and I take my hand and guide the bow down further. And they're like, now I'm like, Nope. And I keep pulling it down further and I'm like, now, and they let go and they smoke the fish and they tell me, they say, , if you would've, like when you told, when you kept pulling the down [00:56:00] lower the bow down lower, I thought there was, there'd never be a chance I'd hit this fish because you literally can watch the arrow hit the water and bend outwards and upwards into the fish.
That's crazy. It's such a difficult concept, but that, that struggle and that, that challenge is very intriguing to me and that's what I love. Getting to teach people, to encourage them to just trust me. It's hard. It's hard cuz your body tells you the target is right there, aim right there. Being able to have them trust me and put that trust in me and be able to have it pay off.
Now, I'm not saying you are gonna stick a hundred percent of the fish you shoot when you go out with me. Heck, if you bat five to 10% on the boat, For a first timer. You're doing all right. Okay. All right. Pretty low uhhuh you're not gonna be, obviously in the springtime you get on big [00:57:00] fish, shallow water, your odds go up.
Yep. You're probably swinging 50 50 when you throw that arrow. But, if the fish are smaller, especially the gar and the dogfish, the sheep's head, the suckers, it, you really have to trust what I'm telling you. And you just gotta trust the science, fights every natural instinct in your body, but you just gotta trust it.
And it, it works out. Man. Do experienced archers have a harder time than newbies? I got it just, I'm so glad you mentioned that. It just feels like interesting to, that, it feels like, as a guy who shoot, I shoot my bow, all year round, right? It's a, it is just a relaxing thing for me.
I feel like I would have a really tough time with that. Would you believe me if I told you the people that have a higher success rate on my boat are the first time gals that have never bo fished before versus the seasoned archery pro that can dial [00:58:00] in a 60 yard prong horn target and just hit that 10 spot every time?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know why? Because they listen. I'm just thinking as a guy that knows how to shoot a bow, like I'm problem, like I'm gonna listen, but then I'm gonna be like, yeah, but it seems like it should be like this. Yeah. And it's, I tell you, it fights ev I don't, the, it's so hard to explain it unless you tried it, fights every natural instinct in your body.
So I would prefer the, I do a lot of work with women's groups her wilderness, women of the wild female only groups that, encourage women to get into the outdoors. , and I love those groups, man. They listen to me. I tell 'em, aim lower, and they aim lower. And all of a sudden they're shooting fish man.
And it's man, if only them seasoned archery guys could, but it's with anything, your muscle memory, you're trained. You have that experience and to fight that, the longer you do it, not [00:59:00] how I tell you to do it, it's crazy. It is, it's truly an experience. Yeah. And I'm sure, I joke that guys don't listen and part of that can be true, but if you do have experience with a bow, you just mentioned muscle memory there, like that's gonna be the hardest part of it.
Like even if you're saying like, hunter, man I believe you, I agree with you , but ev, when I draw a bow back, like this is how I've aimed for, I've been shooting in compound since I was 15, 16, this is how I've been aiming for 20 years. I'm not going to, my, my brain is just going to short circuit everything you just told me and I'm gonna do what I'm used to doing, whether I want to do it or not.
Man, you've got an event coming up here pretty soon with the Wisconsin Fishing Expo. Tell me a little bit about what's going on there and what folks can expect if they want to come check it out. Yeah, so for those of you that are interested about this and would love to talk one-on-one with me and get to know a little bit of mo a little more about ball fishing and the, the activity that it [01:00:00] is.
I'll be at the Wisconsin Fishing Expo at the end of February here. It's the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the 24th through the 26th of February. I'll be doing a few seminars through the weekend. Specifically related to bo fishing. One is just beginners, similar to what we discussed getting started in the activity, how to get yourself started in it.
And then I have another one on Sunday that's a little bit more advanced towards tips and tactics using Google Earth to pick your spots. But don't be, if you can't make the Friday seminar for the beginners, I encourage you just come and sit on the Sunday seminar, few points over your head with the advanced stuff.
But I promise you if you are a sponge and you can absorb some stuff, there's gonna be so much information I'll spill out there, man. That's awesome. So I'll be there with my charter boat. I'll have my 30 foot guideboat, [01:01:00] 20 foot guideboat there in our booth right by the bumper boats.
If you see the bumper boats, then you'll see my bow fishing boat. And then I'm gonna have a right on the backside of that wall, I'm gonna have a big, huge Bow fishing display set up. So we're gonna have donated by a m s bow fishing. They let me rent out their boat display, so it's a front half of a boat fishing boat with the lights on it and everything.
And carp targets, guard targets and a shooting lane. So kids 18 and under can come there, bring your kids, bring your niece, your cousin, bring someone out there and for free of charge, we're not charging for this. They can hop up on the boat with our equipment and we can be with them and we can, help them and they can throw through, throw a few arrows down range at these carp targets with the bow fishing bows.
We have 'em all cranked down right to the perfect weight. We can talk bow fishing, we can talk [01:02:00] guiding, we can talk about really whatever. But I'm gonna be there all weekend and I would love to get to hear from some of you guys when I'm down there. That's awesome. And that's in Madison. Yep.
And at that it's the Alliant Energy Center, the big, huge xFi center in Madison. Very cool, man. Very cool. Guys, you definitely need to go check that out, man. How does your schedule look? Look in April, I'm coming up to do a little Turkey hunting. That first week of Turkey season, like April. My goodness.
What is it like, I think the 17th or 18th is opening day of Turkey. Yeah. Yeah. 19th. So what man, what are you looking like there in April? For the guide service, actually, let me look this up cause I don't wanna give you false information here, . And as you're looking it up, maybe tell folks like what they can expect if they call you today, tomorrow, something like that, and say, Hey, I wanna get on your schedule.
What's your schedule looking like? Yeah, so if you guys really the best way to do this is hop on my website. My website is modified outdoors.com. I actually have a live calendar [01:03:00] right on there. Okay. If. If you're not really ready for a phone call and talk to me, just hop on the website, get a little more information about it and see if there's a day that would work for you.
So April, I have one day left in April the 27th that Thursday. Oh man. So you were, I have open, holy cow. I don't have, I have two openings in May. Oh my goodness. And the first three, two weeks of June are booked. And then I have a few openings for the rest of June. So we've got a few openings still this spring.
Like I said before, at any point in the year, if you wanna wait till July and it's warm and you can wear a t-shirt and shorts out on the boat, I'll get you on fish. Doesn't matter the time of year we're going to, we're gonna get on some fish. Awesome. Awesome. Hunter man, thanks for your time.
So folks can go to your website, [01:04:00] modified outdoors.com. Where can they find you on social media and all that good stuff? Yeah. Facebook, Instagram, everything's at Modified Outdoors. Bow Fishing Charters. If it was up to me, I'd say hop on the Facebook. We do giveaways, promotional deals. We give away swag packs.
We, we give away charters just randomly we'll donate a charter to somebody. Nice. A lot of stuff like that. And if you are involved in an organization that'd be interested in modified donating a trip, we do quite a bit of those with different organizations, churches, school districts, to help a fundraising event.
So we'll do that if you, if your kid is in are you familiar with , the ice fishing for high schoolers? Yep. Yep. A few high school organizations are a part of modified. I run with them. We do charters through their outdoor program in their high school. A few in the area. So if your high school kid is interested and he wants to bring it to his school, have him [01:05:00] gimme a call.
I would love to set up some more high school trips. We give a crazy discounted rate. It's truly an experience and for kids it's, it's a great bonding experience. Some of these kids have said it is like the highlight of their high school career is the one trip they went on with Modified outdoors
I am. Very cool. Hunter man, thanks for your time today guys. Definitely. Go check out the Wisconsin Fishing Expo. Stop by at least introduce yourself, hang around for one of the seminars and see what this is all about. Appreciate you coming on. Yes, sir. Thanks Josh. Appreciate ya. That's all for this week's episode.
As always, thank you so much for tuning in. If you dig this show, be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever it is that you get your podcast. While you're at it, if you could lead me a five star review, I would very much appreciate that. You can also follow along with my outdoor adventures on Instagram at the Wisconsin Sportsman, or at how to hunt deer.
That's also the best way to get ahold of me. Suggest topics, guests, or questions that you'd like me to explore on the show. Big thanks to our partners, TCAM [01:06:00] Hunt Worth and OnX. Please go support the brands that support this show. And if you're looking for more great outdoor content, check out the sportsman's empire.com where you'll find my other podcast, the How to Hunt Deer Podcast, as well as a ton of other awesome outdoor podcasts.
And until next time, make sure you make the time to get outside and enjoy the incredible natural resources that are ours as Wisconsin Sportsman.
