Million Dollar Weather

We spend a good portion of nearly every single day outside. I love the change of the seasons and even dont mind the hottest hot nor the coldest cold. There is always something new to do outside regardless of the weather extremes....HOWEVER the weather the last couple days outside has been as good as it gets anywhere in the world!

Seriously, if you work inside in a cubicle, step outside during break or lunch, take a deep breath, and close your eyes for a few minutes. You can literally spend those few minutes daydreaming that your at your most favorite place on the planet. Sunny and 75 degrees can rejuvenate even the grumpiest of persons....

Crappie are biting, geese are flying, doves are heading out of town, deer are starting to get a bit restless, leaves are just starting to respond to the crisp nights, fall food plots are coming in strong, and a bunch fish are just about to find some new homes. These are good times and now we just hope to hold onto this perfect weather for another 6 weeks!!!!

I got trees on my mind, been daydreaming and researching trees every spare moment. I met with the state tree biologist at our new Dahinda tree farm and soaked up as much tree information as humanly possible.


If ever I get this house built, I will be spending my new found free time pruning and nurturing about 3000 new trees! Brook is working me and her into the ground on this house project. We complain every night about our working on our house aches and pains, with no sympathy for each other whatsoever. She wants to be in by Thanksgiving and I want to be in the week after second shotgun season in December.......



Wednesday evening we all loaded up and headed up to Kenosha for a quick Salmon fishing trip sponsored by one of our distributors IKO shingles and Richards Supply in Peoria. We stayed at this very cool old firehouse that accomodated all 11 of us and had a very cool downstairs with pool table and such. The old doors opened up and we hung out with the doors wide open virtually all night:



So we ended up getting a quick nap in before heading out at 5 am for some salmon and trout fishing. We got outside the harbor and were greeted to a nice stiff 15-25 mph north wind and some 4-6 footers. My boat ended up fishing about an hour and landed a lake trout and rainbow trout and then headed in with empty stomachs about 7 am. My dads boat stayed out a couple hours longer and caught a very nice mixed bag of fish. The fish were biting, its too bad we couldnt stay at em:






Funny story from last week or so. Along with food plots, we have been seeding a bunch of new lawns and dams with our conservation seeder. (if you havent picked up on this yet, I will just come out and say it)- anything you could ever need done on your property, we do it: cutting down a tree limb, fixing your shingles, adding a sunroom, building a lake, establishing prairie grass, growing bigger fish, timber stand improvement, fixing your fence, or helping you start a garden or even grow some pheasants or chickens. Anything you can think of, we can hook you up!

Oh yeah back to the funny story...so we had one bin of our seeder filled up with shot plot turnips and whatnot for a clients food plot. The other bins were filled up with grass seed for a 2 acre yard for Dr. Driesnack. We graded and seeded his yard very nicely (which is gonna need mowed soon) and then went to go plant the turnips at a little honey hole plot... Well needless to say the turnip seed bin was just about empty when we got to the next place.

The conversation went well with Dr. D telling him we screwed up and he now has a nice crop of turnips mixed in with his new grass....thank goodness he thought it was funny and we will fix it up in the spring.... Now we just have to build up enough nerve to ask him if we can set up a couple deer stands over his backyard food plot....just kidding, but you know as good as I do that will be the best stand of brassicas anywhere in the area....

Steve S's hunting ground up near Henry is ready to rock and roll. His redneck blind is perched over 3 acres of Whitetail Harvest Salad. More pics and descriptions of this mix to come in the future...


His other plots are rockin and rolling too. If you don't know by looking, you'll have to ask Jared what this picture is of, but it looks nice and tasty, just need some ranch dressing......


With this gorgeous weather we are still squeezing in a few last minute seeding projects of winter wheat and oats, but electrofishing season has now kicked into full gear! Yesterday afternoon we checked up on Mamers lake over past Goodfield and after two years of intensive bass culling they have officially turned the corner and will be catching some very nice bass for the next few years!



While at a clients place over near Abingdon on Saturday morning, he had a bunch of new hay bale blinds sitting out. They were very cool so we checked em out and tracked down the maker of them. A local guy has been making these things like crazy. They are sweet and at $450 they are totally an awesome value too. Call me up if you want to get on a waiting list for one or two of these babies...


Today after church my bros and all our kids went out and hung a bunch of deer stands.




Tomorrow I will be heading to Cedar Rapids for a handful of electrofishing surveys and then the end of the week we are kicking off fish stocking season for a couple boys down in Mahomet!! Justin and Jared will be building a Canadian themed lake with a bunch of islands for Ralph starting this week as well which is gonna be sweet! I will get home tuesday afternoon and Brook already is making sure I go straight to the house to start laying the hardwood floor. I literally had less than 10 minutes of just sit in a chair free time over the last week. Its Sunday night and writing this is my way of unwinding before bed and the beginning of a new week.

Mom just texted me this pic of a bass she and dad caught this afternoon:

September Travels

I must say we live an interesting life. A very crazy, but nonetheless very interesting and yet bizarre. Probably borderline weird, and definitely nowhere near normal. I recently spent 14 hrs in the truck driving alone and listened to comedy satellite radio most of the time to stay awake so I am feeling very funny right now (family friendly comedy I might add). Problem is I can't remember one single joke I had on my list to tell Brook when I got home and explaining the jokes apparently just isnt funny....

Ok so we have been on the road alot the last month and I sure hope we are making enough money to pay our fuel bill at the end of the month. I literally filled up at a gas station 20 times over the last 30 days and it takes stinkin 23-26 gallons to fuel up! Thats just me- Justin, Allen, and Jared have too been running around like chickens with their heads cut off pulling trailers and boats and skid steers all over the midwest. Here are some of the places we have been that I can remember-

Dr. Hoffman had a major fish kill at his lake a few years back and he went and stocked a bunch of smallmouth and largemouth from an out of state hatchery with a fancy catalog and wanted us to come and check on their progress. He also wanted us to check the bottom of his lake for dead bodies, toxic waste, and anything else that shouldnt be there, so I sent Justin down to scour the bottom with scuba gear.

Was an interesting find....nothing cool on the toxic waste side, but interesting with the fish population.... The smallies and largemouth havent really grown a bit since being stocked.


We did find tons of fully mature crappie and bluegill that were only 4 inches long!!! FULLY MATURE adult fish probably 5-7 years old. Nothing smaller and nothing bigger. His 6-8 inch bass dont got what they need to eat and get over the hump needed to eat the overstocked and stunted bluegills and crappie. (if he would of stocked bass 8-10 inches they would be monsters right now, with all the food they would have available to gobble up.

Keep this in mind when thinking about your specific fishing hole. Predator fish need their preferred size of forage to GROW! By simply stocking bass in the lake big enough to eat the 4 inch midgets the whole lake will get back into better balance. If a good majority of your bass are stacked up at a certain size, it means they dont have what is needed to keep growing. Odds are if you stocked a few bass bigger than your average size they would grow rapidly......

Ok moving on, Mr. Elders property up near Savanna we are transforming into a whitetail deer paradise! Jared, Allen, and I worked up there for a few days recently planting more food plots, installing new trail cameras, and positioning the hunting towers and tree stands. Here is a pic of putting in some brassicas next to a sorghum patch, tucked into a little honey hole.



They like to ride horses all over the large property so that is a limiting factor, but you know me- We identify the limiting factors for any situation and we manage right around them. Fish or Deer, it dont matter. Limiting Factor- check. Identify them all and address them somehow, thats the key to successful management of probably anything.

Justin killed a limit opening day of dove season. The girls loved watching us clean em.


Then on sunday afternoon of labor day weekend, me and my bros went out dove hunting for a couple hours. While we were gone, Noah caught this big striper all by himself (with grandpa's help) and couldnt wait for me to get back to take the picture!!


We joined up with a fairly local seed company this fall and are excited to test out the results and comparisons. Once they perform like we predict we will definitely be announcing our partnership and will be ready to rock and roll for next spring and fall! So far we have been getting good rains so the plots are looking NICE. Jared has been planting food plots sunup to sundown all over the place from Victoria to Henry to Savanna to Peoria to Hanna City, Canton, and a few places in between. Lots of winter wheat, austrian peas, oats, rape, turnips, etc etc.

So the boys have been tied up locally so I headed out Solo on Wednesday. Over near Champaign, Casey is building a new pond. Casey dug a pond about 4 years ago in his backyard and told me to make his pond a 10 out of 10 for fishing....Which we did, instantly- big rainbow trout, bluegills, smallmouth, hybrid stripers, walleye, etc etc. When he sold his house this spring he made sure to retain fishing rights.

Anyhow he bought a new place and is in the process of building a much bigger pond. He moves fast, concept in June when I stopped by to go over design, and just about full here in September when I stopped by to design aeration and fish stocking plan. He is running a well 24/7 and a huge pump from the crick to fill this baby up! He's on the cutting edge kinda like a build a lake and catch trophy fish instantly fast food shop.....He will be catching bigger fish this ice fishing season than most will ever catch in their lives.

I cant remember any of the jokes from the road trip, but his quote sticks vividly in my mind- "Nate, on my last pond you ruined everyone who came and fished for life. They can't go fishing anywhere anymore cause all they think about is fishing in my pond!" On this pond he plans on blowing the last one out of the water, and I am up for the challenge. (although I have been tossing and turning thinking of the exact plan of attack on how to not only pull this off for the short term, but nail them both- instant gratification and long term successs). His plan actually involves crappies believe it or not as opposed to regular bluegills, that makes the task even that much more complex, but we'll pull it off!

Then from Champaign off through Indianapolis and Cinncinati to a Baymont Inn for the night. First I had to hit up Long John Silvers for dinner since Brook and the guys never will let me eat there. Dairy Queen was on the way back to the hotel- since I already climbed over the edge a bit with that last baja fish taco I might as well put down a blizzard before bed eh.... Great rational thinking, some folks call me a genius....

So anyhow I traveled on to Mason, Ohio and met up with a pharmaceutical company who wanted me to teach their staff how to maintain their ponds on their property. This place was very cool. Normally you would think pharmaceutical company equals boring offices and dirty retention ponds out front....not this place.

They actually have more of a private recreational estate than they do an office complex, and here is the kicker- they are actually good people! (not that any of my other clients who happen to be reading this arent good people either, but these guys just had their heads screwed on straight all the way around).



They are using their business and property as an outreach to the community. They regularly host outreach events like family movie nights on the big outdoor theatre screen, baseball tournaments of all levels on the first class baseball diamonds, and use the gardens onsite to grow food for people! Amazing, now I just got to talk em into using their ponds for a fishing derby or two!





So those guys are set up with all the proper equipment, formulas, ratios, etc etc for maintaining those awesome ponds. I get back from Ohio and Brook makes me go straight to the house to work on the siding outside with the last couple hours of remaining daylight. She wants to be in by Thanksgiving, so my life consists of working on house or work every waking moment.

So anyhow my brother Chad calls me up last night and says that there is an auction tomorrow for some tillable land that will go expensive, but also for some hunting ground mixed in that potentially could go very reasonable. He couldnt make the auction, so Jared and I neglected all of our responsibilities for the day and headed out to check the land real early and then hit the auction.



The sun, moon, and stars all lined up today and we picked up 50 acres of spoon river frontage hunting land for a very reasonable price! We are excited, we have always had friends and family with hunting ground for us to experiment with and hunt on, but here we are today with a farm with our own names on it, free to do whatever we want.....(except on the CRP portion)

You will definitely be hearing about and seeing pics of this farm in the months ahead! I can't wait to get my kids out to play in the sand bottom creek that leads into the spoon river. I cant wait to get the deer towers and food plots in. Oh yeah, build the wetland, maybe a hatchery pond, put in the shooting range, the 4 wheeler trail, install the fence and gates, prune the good trees, plant a garden....harvest the first deer, run some bank poles, catch a big catfish handfishin, call in a turkey, pick some mushrooms, put in a couple miles up and end up at our very own river front property, make a big bonfire, and roast some marshmellows while camping with my kids under the stars. All this on our very own piece of ground whenever and however we want.



It will be transformed into the ultimate family outdoor paradise.....but enough daydreaming (or am I really dreaming this late at night) Anyhow, being in the business we are in, the property will probably someday be owned by someone else wanting to raise their family up with these outdoor experiences; but if we have to end up selling for whatever reason, we will make for sure that she is paired up with the exact right family! Until then though, this knox county property that has been neglected for so many years will be loved and utilized by the entire Herman Bros clan and clanlits.

So anyhow tomorrow (Saturday) I will be working at my house (come on over) and then Sunday Bethany Baptist Church is coming to our lake after church for a cookout. Last year at this event I managed to blow up a propane tank while cooking the burgers and melted the skin off of Jareds arms who was cooking next to me. Hey, your the guy who just about blew up the place last year.....Maybe I'll just stay inside and watch the Bears game for this event.....

Next week we will be up near Chicago and the following week on a road trip to Cedar Rapids to shock some ponds! Then a bunch of local electrofishing surveys and then we start stocking fish baby! Stocking fish days are 20 hour nonstop marathons getting all the fish to their homes safely...

Then its time for the Pond Boss Conference in Branson on Oct. 12-13th. If you want to learn more about your pond or lake or fish or property or wildlife, and you dont want to hire me for an onsite consultation, GO TO THE POND BOSS CONFERENCE! These are the people who took me under their wing and gave me a 30 year headstart on my career of squeezing fish.

Lake Delavan Wisconsin

Saturday morning we left Peoria at 6 am and stopped in at Didleys Restaurant in Metamora to meet up with the rest of our group and grab a bite to eat on our way up to Lake Delavan just across the Wisconsin border. Whew that was a mouthful but got er out. Speaking of mouth full, what a great way to start off a fishing trip!!! My grandma says I butcher the English language, but so be it, why not put er all into one sentence....

Anyhow I figured about 3 hrs from Metamora to the main boat ramp on Delavan, boy was I wrong. It only took 2 hrs and 5 minutes and we were there WAAY early for our noon meeting time. This trip started out as a trip to get my nephew Tyden onto some northern pike, but turned into much more! Tyden's dad and grandpa came along, my dad and grandpa and father in law and brother came along, and even a client from Texas James Holt flew up with his father in law for a chance at some northern pike. Its hard to impress a guy from Texas with perhaps one of the best private bass lakes in the entire United States. He has one of the most intensively managed lakes on the planet!

We hired the best guides Delavan had to offer (all four of them) for this Saturday evening and Sunday morning fishing trip. Just kidding, there actually are quite a few guides up that way that fish Delavan and Geneva. Our guides for the trip were Steve Everetts with Finseekers Guide Service, Walt Koch with Red Rock Guide Service, Steve Ryan and Dave King. The latter two dont have websites, but they seriously know how to fish and show up on fishing shows and magazines all over the place!

I was very shocked at how reasonable the guides were for fishing trips up there. $250 gets you and your son on the water to catch fish like these below. An additional angler yet is $50 or so. Everything is included except your Wisconsin fishing license which costs you $10. Our main goal, get Tyden some Pike. Mission Accomplished-




While in pursuit of the feisty pike, we also landed quite a few real nice bass-









Next Goal- Grandpa some big fish!





James first ever northern pike:


And his second northern pike:


His Father in Law Larry with a NICE bass:


My dad and father in law got a few good ones. Here was a nice double they hooked and landed together-


So we have some awesome pictures and we all had a BLAST the whole weekend from start to finish, but the highlight of the trip and probably my life was the Italian Beef sandwich from Riga-Tony's Italian Restaurant just 1/2 mile from the boat ramp. I am planning a trip back up to Delavan with Brook just to go eat at that little specialty meat shop again!!! Seriously I might tend to exaggerate a bit here and there, but this is the most unique unbelievable out of this world eatery I have ever been to. Its a bucket list item.......hey when you do end up going there be sure to call or text me to say THANKS!

If you want to learn how to fish those waters which are surprisingly close to home, definitely hire the guide for the first trip and you should be good to go with your own boat from there on out. Its a hard fishery to figure out on your own, but a not so hard fishery once you learn just a few tricks. Tip number one, go on a weekday if possible....It is not a well kept secret, everyone knows how good the fishing is there.

The guides I mentioned are more geared towards education and just a good time doing what you want to do rather than running you through the motions to collect the money at the end. Believe me I have been with many various guides from across the country and these guys are top notch first class educators and entertainers. Walt is a retired something or other, very laid back, do whatever you want to do professional. If your an older guy looking for a relaxing time on the water with someone to talk politics and maybe even religion while catching some fish, or a family looking for a relaxing time on the water, get in touch with Walt! I greatly enjoyed my evening fishing with him and my dad and grandpa.

If your a young adventure seeker looking to run all over the place casting like a maniac with the very best boat and gear on the planet than Steve Everetts is the guide for you. He will work you to the ground to hunt down and catch BIG fish. Just check out his website, the pics are unbelievable. I have fished with Steve a couple times here and there, the man is an extreme fishing machine.

Here is the perfect ending to cap off a great weekend fishing trip with friends and family across 4 generations!!!

Summer Fish

Filling up at gas stations is pretty much a daily routine that last few weeks. Been traveling all over and then trying to build my house with every waking spare moment. Got the drywall all hung and taped and even primed, but still got a ton of exterior work to get done before I get inside to trim it out. This house will end up taking just a hair over a year from start to finish working on nights and weekends. Here are a couple pics of the kitchen/great room. I'll get some more of the exterior later in the week.



I have squeezed in a couple short fishing trips over the last couple weeks. First time in a couple years I took people fishing without taking a camera, was a weird feeling. I was able to snap a couple of photos of fishing with my sister in law from kansas:





Chef Todd is on my Pro Staff for Illinoisfishingproperties.com. We have partnered up with Illinoislandcompany.com to create the ultimate opportunity to market and sell our clients fishing and hunting properties. He has been fishing like crazy and getting some amazing pics from some amazing fishing properties, even in the heat!
 

We decided to drain one pond to fill up the newly constructed smallmouth pond. Who wants to wait till rain....



Once we got the one pond all drained out as much as possible we had Rob from DNR come out and kill off the remaining fish with Rotenone so we can start that pond all over again without existing fish to contend with. Believe it or not, that actually is the fastest way to make a world class fishery as opposed to working with existing useless fish.

So anyhow I had a good friend and client James Holt and his Father In Law from Texas come up on Friday and we did some fishing before heading up to Lake Delavan on Saturday and Sunday. James has one of the best private fishing lakes in Texas, but he wanted to come up north and try for some northern species of fish. Here are a couple pics from a short Friday afternoon fishing trip, but the rest of the Lake Delavan pics and adventure will be for another day...






So anyhow the Lake Delavan fishing adventure is a must see for anyone who like bass, pike, and walleye fishing. We headed up there with 10 guys for a Saturday evening and Sunday morning fishing trip.......