- Hello, everyone.

Welcome to "Michigan Out of Doors."

I'm Jenny Silek, and we've got a brand new show headed your way.

I'll introduce you to the town of Sand Lake, Michigan, where the community came together this past weekend to honor the memory of a young man in the community by doing a fundraising ice fishing tournament.

You won't wanna miss that story.

We had a blast out there on the ice, and Jimmy's got a hunting adventure in store for us this week.

- Well, that's right, Jenny.

We do have a hunting adventure on this week's show.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was able to get out with about 60 ladies for a really fun day of pheasant hunting.

You won't wanna miss that.

And we're gonna have a pheasant recipe on this week's show as well.

Lots of good variety on this week's episode.

You stay tuned.

I'm Jimmy Gretzinger.

It's time for "Michigan Out of Doors."

♪ From the first spring rains to the soft summer breeze ♪ ♪ Dancing on the pine forest floor ♪ ♪ The autumn colors catch your eyes ♪ ♪ Here come the crystal winter skies ♪ ♪ It's Michigan, Michigan out of doors ♪ - What a beautiful day in the woods.

♪ Some day our children all will see ♪ ♪ This is their finest legacy ♪ The wonder and the love of Michigan ♪ ♪ As the wind comes whispering through the trees ♪ ♪ The sweet smell of nature's in the air ♪ ♪ From the great lakes to the quiet stream, ♪ ♪ Shining like a sportsman's dream ♪ ♪ It's a love of Michigan we all share ♪ - [Announcer] "Michigan Out of Doors" is presented by, by Country Smoke House, a sportsman's destination since 1988, featuring varieties of homemade sausage, jerky, brats, and gourmet entrees.

Holiday gift boxes can be assembled in store or online.

Details at countrysmokehouse.com.

By Angler Quest Pontoons, offering fishing pontoons designed by anglers for anglers.

Angler Quest Pontoons are built with a multifunctional layout to support a variety of fishing adventures.

Learn more at anglerquestpontoons.com.

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We combine biology and heavy equipment to make pond scapes that are sustainable and fishable.

More information at midMichiganPonds.com.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Jay's Sporting Goods.

Trust the tradition.

- Joe and Mary Wagner from Sand Lake, Michigan, have five children.

Unfortunately, they lost one of their sons about a year and a half ago to a very rare and debilitating disease.

In honor of their son, Matthew, they held an ice-fishing tournament this past weekend in Sand Lake, and we had a blast.

- [Mary] We are in Sand Lake, Michigan, and we are having a ice fishing tournament in memory of our son, Matthew, who passed away.

And it is at the second annual memorial Matt Wagner Ice Fishing Tournament.

We started the business about four years in January.

This month it'll be four years.

I was working at another place, and they never had any kind of live bait.

And so, I came home one day, my husband was a full-time caretaker for Matthew, and I said to him, I have a really crazy idea, but I wanna start a bait shop.

And he looked at me and he was like, are you serious?

And I said, yeah.

And he said, you know what?

As long as you know that my, you know, my time is gonna be spent with Matthew, he said, you have my blessing.

And I said, okay.

So I started out, I rented a real small place, not too far from here.

Started out with just a few things and everything we paid for, we paid for as we made money.

So, just built it up, built it up, built it up.

And then this place became available two years later.

And here we are.

We love it, we love the people.

We love just sitting down with the town folk and you know, the visitors and chatting and talking fishing and family.

And it's just so much more than a bait shop.

- [Jenny] Tell me about Matthew before we get too far.

- [Mary] Tell me about Matthew.

Matthew had a real rare disease called neurodegeneration of the brain with iron accumulation.

And it kind of started when he was about nine years old, in third grade he was diagnosed down at Mayo Clinic, and basically, it's just a nasty, ugly disease that just, you know.

- [Jenny] So he was in a wheelchair and needed 24 hour care-- - Yes.

- [Jenny] By the end of it.

- [Mary] Yeah, I'm sorry.

He had feeding tube, catheter, trach, everything.

- [Jenny] How old was he when he passed?

- 32.

- 32?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- [Mary] And so there's a silver lining.

They told us he would only live 10 years.

And that was when he was nine.

So we got another 13 years out of him.

So, yeah.

But he was an awesome kid.

He was just such a spiritual kid.

But he loved people and he loved humor, and, despite his disability, he never complained.

I never heard the kid complain.

He just didn't know different.

So he just lived life every day to the fullest.

Yeah.

- [Jenny] And he loved being on the water too.

- He loved, oh, his favorite thing.

We modified our pontoon boat 'cause we live on the lake, so that we could wheel him right up into it and take him out.

And Toby Keith was his favorite person in the world.

And so, we would jam to Toby Keith, and we would go around the lake jamming, and the neighbors always knew it was me and Matt.

So we wanted to do something to honor Matt.

And his legacy kind of lives on through the town.

Everybody knew about him and supported us.

And so we said, you know what, we need to do something, and so let's raise some money for the disease, for the research because research goes on all over the world for this disease, 'cause they can't figure it out.

So, we said, let's do an ice fishing tournament.

And it was phenomenal.

We had 175 people signed up last year, big chili contest.

And you know, it was all new to us.

We had never done it before.

So we're thinking, oh man, are we gonna do this right?

And everything fell into place, you know?

God took care of us, and we just had a phenomenal, we raised over $7,000.

- [Jenny] Last year's tournament was a great success, and this year was off to a good start.

There were over 130 anglers here to support the cause.

- God, we just wanna ask your blessing upon this tournament.

We wanna ask that you are with us and that you keep everybody safe out on the ice.

Just enjoy the day that you've blessed us with.

We ask this in your name, amen.

We have a shotgun start at eight o'clock, and then everybody will go out, set up their shanties, dig their holes, and start fishing.

We'll have registration from seven to eight for those who couldn't make it to the shop to register.

As they're registering, they're coming up, they're buying raffle tickets for all the awesome raffle prizes we have.

So, we have five different categories.

We have pike, perch, bluegill, and crappie.

Each one gets a bucket with a plaque for the tournament.

And most of our buckets are filled with, you know, somewhere around 150 to $200 worth of gifts, basically, in the bucket.

It's not monetary, it's just all donations.

And the winner of the, so if we have a tie, we'll go by weight, but otherwise, each person in that division, in that category, gets that bucket.

Then we also have a huge raffle ticket, or draw.

I mean, we make a lot of money on our raffle tickets.

It's awesome.

And we have prizes that are donated by a lot of different people around town and some of the other shops and stuff.

- [Jenny] The weigh-in station was set up in the middle of Sand Lake, and when I stopped by, young Lydia was checking in with the second fish of the morning, a small perch.

Lydia, awesome.

Are you from the area here?

- Yeah.

- Cool.

So, how did that happen?

What were you using?

- Well, I was just trying to get a snack for my snack bag, and I noticed my little bobby pin moving, and it went down, and I pulled it up right away.

- [Jenny] And you got the perch?

Sweet.

Congratulations.

- I think she's got Wonder Bread, and I put a red spike and a wax worm on her.

- [Jenny] Awesome.

- Good job, guys.

- Awesome.

- [Mary] We've had a ton of ice.

It's been a great year.

Fishing wise on Sand Lake, it's a tough lake to fish.

There's definitely fish in there, no doubt about it.

And there's some good fish in there, but it makes it a little bit tougher just because of the slot limit with the pike.

That changes things a little bit.

We wanna make sure that nobody keeps anything between 24 and 34 inches, and they can use it for the tournament for size, but it has to be put in the water immediately so that we don't lose any of those fish.

So yeah, the fishing is, it can be really good.

- What?

- That's right outta Saginaw Bay.

- Yo.

- [Jenny] Holy moly.

What?

I didn't even know they had walleye.

- Me neither.

- 26.

- [Person] You gotta go.

I'm going away right now.

- [Jenny] Did you catch this?

- I did, yeah.

- [Jenny] Tell us your name.

- Colin Parkhurst.

Been on this lake my whole life, swore there was not walleye in here and got her done this morning.

- [Jenny] Whoa.

What setup did you have?

- Mini wrap.

The brand new Rapala, just bought it this morning at Matt's Bait-n-Tackle, actually.

So it worked out good.

- [Jenny] Oh, so you're jigging for perch or something?

- I was actually catching crappie on it, and then this thing took it and fought it for about six minutes because I only got two-pound tests.

- [Jenny] So he can't be the only one in here, right?

- Not when there's this big of one's in there, no.

- [Jenny] Whoa.

- You're not gonna believe this.

- [Jenny] Sweet.

- Whoa.

- First walleye in my life.

- [Jenny] First walleye in your life?

- First walleye of my life.

- That's the third one we've pulled out of this lake in 20 years.

- Is it really?

- Yep.

We planted them back in '01.

- I don't know, it was long time ago.

- '01.

- Long time ago.

- [Jenny] With the news of a surprise walleye and no category in the tournament, Mary got creative and put together a gift package for Colin's trophy fish.

This year's tournament proceeds are being donated to a very special project.

Four and a half years ago, the Sand Lake community lost a young lady named Kaitlyn who passed away tragically and suddenly, Kaitlyn had always wanted a tire swing in the local park.

So Mary and her team will use the money from the tournament to install a tire swing in Kaitlyn's honor.

They'll also install a handicap swing for children and adults to enjoy in Matthew's honor.

Matt Goehler from Lake Effect Lures loves this new tournament and the people who host it.

- Yeah, Mary and Joy are very special to me.

And obviously this is Matt's memorial tournament, and so it's a very, very important event for the community, but Matt's Bait-n-Tackle is just a wonderful place to come and enjoy yourself, having the opportunity to wander and chat with 'em, enjoy a cup of coffee and good company.

And it's just a wonderful, wonderful representation of this community.

- [Jenny] Next it was time for the chili contest.

Matt Goehler, my husband, Matt, and I were the honorary chili judges today.

- [Mary] We have a chili contest, which is really cool.

We have a shanty that we put like power strips and we plug in all these pots of chili, and then we number them.

And so, some of the women that don't fish can have some part of the tournament or whatever.

And then we have Jenny and Matt, who are going to be our tasters this year.

And I trust them somewhat.

So (laughs) yeah.

So we'll give out a first, second, third prize for our chili contest.

When the chili contest is over at about 11 o'clock, we take all the chili and we dump it into a huge kettle and we put it over a fire, and then we have crackers and we have water and then it's a $3 donation.

If the guys get hungry at 11:30, 12 o'clock, they can come in and buy chili.

So it works out great, and it earns a little more money for the equipment that we're gonna do for the park.

The tournament wraps up at one o'clock.

At one o'clock, we kind of blow a horn.

Everybody comes in and they all gather.

It's so cool.

They all gather around in a big circle, and they're so excited because then it's raffle time.

And so we sit there and we shake it up and we usually pick a young kid or somebody to pull the numbers, and we give away all the prizes.

And then as soon as that's done, it's like, whatever you wanna do, have at it.

And we clean up and we all go home and crash.

(laughs) - [Jenny] It's heartwarming to see the close-knit community of Sand Lake coming together to support some of their own.

And it's very clear that these folks love the Wagner family and Matt's Bait-n-Tackle shop.

Matthew Wagner's legacy will live on through the memories and stories people share.

The Matt Wagner Ice Fishing Tournament holds true to the things that Matt held dear in his heart.

The love of the folks here in Sand Lake, their faith, their laughter, and a great day spent on the lake right here in "Michigan's Out of Doors".

- Well, just a couple of weeks ago, I was able to get out with about 60 ladies and do a little pheasant hunting.

And I tell you what, we had a great time as we hit the woods.

We had some seasoned pros and some first-timers.

It made for a lot of fun chasing bird dogs.

(chill guitar music) - [Mike] We're at Haymarsh Hunt Club.

This is kind of my home away from home.

I'm here every weekend and it's a good facility, nice big clubhouse.

There's 12 different fields here, all 40-acre fields, and it's a great spot to get out and pheasant hunt when seasons close or just to run your dog.

Today is the 2026 Ladies of Upland Hunt, sponsored by Second Chance Bird Dogs.

- [Jimmy] And how did this whole thing get started?

- It started a couple years ago.

We did smaller ladies hunts, and this year I decided to kind of go big or go home.

And we've got 58 ladies that showed up today to hunt birds, a lot of which are newer hunters.

Some are brand new hunters.

We got here at 8:00 AM.

There's the first group of ladies that went out, probably 20 or so ladies that hunted in the morning.

A lot of those had their own dogs.

So those are the more experienced ladies.

We're eating lunch right now, and then after lunch, all the new hunters or newer hunters are going out with professional guides.

I've got nine different women with their own dogs that guide hunts professionally, and they'll be taking all the new hunters out to hopefully shoot their first pheasant.

- [Jimmy] When I heard about this event from Mike, it sounded like this ladies day would be something we would like to let folks know more about.

Especially when I heard that even all the dog handlers today were ladies.

- I started hunting at 12.

- Okay.

- [Sandra] And you know how old I am?

They didn't require gun safety classes when I got my license, and I had to go back and take gun safety so I could get a license the next year.

- [Jimmy] Wow.

- And my whole family hunts fishes, everything.

You know, my grandfather was a commercial fisherman, so I was raised outdoors.

- [Jimmy] And what do you think about having a ladies' day like this?

- You know, I could cry.

I could just cry because I had stepbrothers and my dad and my uncles and stuff, and I'm like, I wanna go.

And they're like, all right.

You know, we'll take her.

But the females did deer hunting in my family.

But to see this many ladies is really exciting, because I think ladies get into it, or families get into it because of the ladies, because you are the ones that get the bird dogs.

You're the ones that get the bird dogs trained.

And so we're seeing a lot of training clubs like NAVHDA and yeah, NAVHDA's a big one, but even the retriever groups and stuff, there's like half ladies out there competing with the dogs.

So I train dogs for a living now, so I have people show up and mom's got the puppy.

She goes, I don't care if I kill anything, but I wanna take the puppy and make sure that we go.

So this is what they, you know, this is what they do.

And it's just so exciting.

I was staring at the room today going, I never thought I'd see this.

- [Jimmy] That's awesome.

- [Sandra] 'Cause you always had to, you just didn't see ladies out hunting.

- I see it, it's right in front of the dog.

(wings flutter) (gunshots) (laughter) - Nice job.

- Nice job!

- Oh.

- Oh, there's another one.

(laughter) - Come on, Eager!

- I woke him up.

- Attaboy.

- Come on, Eager.

- [Jimmy] These ladies events are important, and Mike is hoping to have more of them throughout the year.

- [Mike] I want to get more ladies out in the upland.

Specifically, there's a lot of ladies that do it, but they don't have a very good support group.

So getting these ladies out hunting and showing that there are more ladies like them that want to hunt and letting them all meet and kind of group up and become friends and realize they have a lot of support in the uplands is very important to Second Chance Bird Dogs, our mission in general.

So, Second Chance Bird Dogs, we take in dogs that either people have passed away or dogs people can't handle, aggressive dogs.

We take those dogs in, we train them to hunt upland birds, and then we re-home them into new homes.

The ladies love it.

They love coming out, and whether they actually harvest a bird or whatever they do, they just love being out with other women in the outdoors that have the same mindset as them and that wanna do this.

- My name is Jill Taylor.

I live in Spencer, West Virginia.

- [Jimmy] Oh, wow.

What brought you here?

- Well, we follow Second Chance Bird Dogs on Facebook.

And Michael posted this, and we said, as long as the weather was good, which it was good when we drove up here.

My friend Marissa and I, we came up and we love bird hunting.

- It's Marissa Nortz.

I'm from Charleston, West Virginia.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

- I am still relatively new to the upland hunting world.

Got involved in this in 2020 during COVID when I had nothing else to do.

- [Jimmy] Nice.

- [Marissa] Jill and I, we travel all across the country with our dogs.

It's awesome.

I've gotten involved with this nonprofit organization called Her Upland.

They do this kind of stuff all over the country that Mike and all these wonderful ladies are doing here today.

We try to get women out, and so any opportunity to come and see how it's done elsewhere and to get to meet new people and new hunters.

- [Celine] My name is Celine, I'm from Pontiac.

- [Jimmy] Okay, and this is your first time out?

- It is, first time out doing absolutely anything that has to do with hunting.

- [Jimmy] Looks like you got some good courage.

- Yes, for sure.

- I'm glad.

- [Jimmy] Once the lunch was over, the ladies who had hunted in the morning were back at the lodge doing some shooting.

Haymarsh has a nice heated building to keep you out of the elements.

Some ladies shot and some sat in on a cleaning class to learn the best way to clean your pheasant for the dinner table.

I asked Mike how folks could find out more about upcoming events.

- [Mike] Keep track of our Second Chance Bird Dog Facebook page.

I announce a lot of stuff on there.

We're gonna have a youth hunt here in a couple months, and we'll probably simmer it down for the season as far as the hunts go.

But we're planning on doing a lot of training days, Ladies of Upland training days, youth hunting training days and things like that, either at my facility at home or here at Haymarsh.

- [Jimmy] Well, we did not have ideal conditions today, but I do have to say it was beautiful.

And to see good dogs work, well, that's always special.

And it seemed like the ladies we talked with were having a ball, whether they hit a few birds or missed a few.

(wings flap) - Shoot.

(gunshot) (laughs) - [Person] You hit the back end of it.

- I think I did.

There were some feathers left behind.

- [Jimmy] As the afternoon hunts were starting to wrap up, I was able to join a few groups.

And I have to say, the guides did a great job.

Some seasoned pros were here today and some first timers, which made for a very fun day.

Back at the lodge, the food was looking amazing.

They seem to eat very well here at these events.

And there was a bunch of giveaways that many outdoor businesses donated to.

And the grand prize, well, it was pretty special indeed.

(cheers and applause) So, there you have it.

Special thanks to all that made today happen.

I would say some new outdoor women were added today for sure.

Second Chance Bird Dogs is the spot to keep your eye open for upcoming events.

And anytime we can get new folks into our outdoor sports, well, we're all better for it.

And today was a day to remember for sure right here in "Michigan's Out of Doors".

(upbeat guitar music) Well, we're here once again, Applewood Kitchen and Bar, Greenville, Michigan, Chef extraordinaire Jim Wood.

What are we gonna do here today?

- So we're gonna make a pheasant pasta.

- Oh.

- Is what we're gonna do.

- Nice.

- But we're gonna talk a little bit about, you know, 'cause pheasant, anything wild, obviously, not a lot of fat.

- Yeah.

- So there's things that you can do to make that a little more enjoyable with the meal.

- Okay.

- And what we did here was we made what's known as a wet brine.

- Yep.

- So, it's one gallon of cold water, one cup of salt, half cup of sugar, whisked together very nice.

And it does three things.

One, it tenderizes it through this osmosis effect.

So you've got tenderization, you've got, it's more moist, because that salt is sucking the water in.

- Okay.

- And it's seasoned from both the inside and out.

- Okay.

- So, in all reality, you don't have to season this with salt.

Because after an hour or two of brine, it's perfectly salted.

- Just an hour or two, that's all you need.

Okay.

And the pasta we already kind of cooked.

- Yeah, the pasta is three quarters of the way cooked.

- Okay.

- So what we're gonna do is we're going to cook the pheasant first, and the pasta's gonna come together pretty quick.

- [Jimmy] And that's just a little all-purpose seasoning there?

- Yep.

Just kind of a basic wild bird seasoning.

It's just flour and a little bit of Cajun seasoning.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

You guys ever do a pheasant dish at the restaurants?

- Yeah.

I mean, we've done, you know, for our wild game dinner, we've done pheasant pot pie and some other-- - Okay.

- Pheasant applications.

- Is there any trick to cooking pheasant just in general?

I mean, so it's a little dryer.

Can you do most things that you would do with like a chicken breast, pheasant breast, or not so much?

- Yeah, I wouldn't go over like 150 degrees on it though.

All right, so these little babies are done.

- Okay.

- So, we're gonna leave some of that fat in the pan, and we're gonna add some onion.

(onion sizzles) So we're gonna let this cook down real quick.

- Okay.

- Not looking to put a whole bunch of color on it or anything like that.

- Is that heavy cream right there?

- There was a little heavy cream there.

You know, that's like my favorite ingredient.

So, okay, then we're gonna go in with our finely diced up sun dried tomatoes, which we're not really trying to saute per se, but you can throw 'em in there a little bit beforehand because we're gonna deglaze.

- Okay.

- With some white wine now.

(pan sizzles) Let that cook down.

Now we're gonna add, there's some chicken stock and some cream in here.

- Okay.

- All right.

So now we've got a good amount of basil, fresh basil that we're gonna throw in there.

And then we're gonna toss our mostly cooked pasta.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna finish the cooking process in the cream and the chicken style.

- Ooh, nice.

And then the pheasant will just go on top?

- Yeah, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna slice the pheasant and throw it back on there.

- And what would we call this dish?

- We're gonna call this seared pheasant breast over pasta with a sun dried tomato Parmesan cream.

- That's pretty much all the ingredients right there.

- That's a lot, yeah.

(Jimmy laughs) - Well, it looks good and smells good.

(upbeat guitar music) Mm, super good.

- Thank you so much for joining us this week for "Michigan Out of Doors".

Make sure you check us out in upcoming weeks.

Now, this coming weekend, Jimmy and I will be on Black Lake near Sheboygan for the annual sturgeon spearing season.

If you're up there, make sure you stop by and track us down and say hello.

We'll be bringing you that footage on an upcoming episode, and on February 19th we'll be kicking off Outdoorama in Novi with Big Buck Night East.

If you'd like to see where we are and what we're up to on a more daily basis, you can always do that online.

- Well, that's right, Jenny.

Online is a good way to see what we're up to.

It's also a good place to check out our new "Michigan Out of Doors" merchandise.

Lots of brand new gear there.

You might wanna check that out.

It's a good way to support the show.

And make sure you are joining us over the next couple weeks.

There's a lot happening around the state of Michigan right now.

And if we don't see you in the woods or on Black Lake this weekend, we'll hopefully see you right back here next week on your PBS station.

- [Announcer] "Michigan Out of Doors" is presented by-- - [Narrator] Get away from it all to your own place.

With GreenStone's Recreational Land Loans, we'll help you finance acreage of any size so you can own your own place in the great outdoors.

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- [Speaker] By Great Lakes Firearms & Ammunition, a family-owned and operated firearm manufacturer in Sparta, Michigan, offering a wide variety of calibers and colors backed by a lifetime warranty.

More information available at GLFALLC.com.

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Career opportunities are available.

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By ShowSpan, producing consumer shows including Outdoorama at Novi Suburban Collection Showplace.

The show features tackle, trips, boats, outfitters, the trout pond, and of course, Big Buck Night.

That's Outdoorama in Novi.

- [Speaker] Closed Captioning brought to you by Double D Ranch Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) foundation, working to make hunting and fishing accessible for those with disabilities.

(pleasant country music) ♪ When I wander far away ♪ A dream stays with me night and day ♪ ♪ It's the road that leads to my home state ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ Changing seasons paint the scene ♪ ♪ Like rainbow trout in a hidden stream ♪ ♪ The whitetail deer in the tall pine trees ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man