- Hello, everyone.

Welcome to "Michigan Out of Doors."

I am Jenny Ciolek and we've got an exciting show headed your way.

Jordan was recently able to be part of a turkey hunt where something absolutely incredible happened.

Something that we've never had happen on camera here at the show.

You've gotta make sure you check that story out, and we've got some other interesting stuff headed your way this week.

- Well, that's right, Jenny.

We actually have a couple more things on this week's show.

We're gonna kick things off by going to the Port of Manistee to do a little scouting to see if the kings had moved in yet.

We had a great day on the water.

You won't wanna miss that.

And we're gonna have time for a really cool turkey recipe this week as well.

If you get lucky enough in the turkey woods, you might wanna try this recipe out.

It is a dandy.

Make sure 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" ♪ - [Jimmy] 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 a like a sportsman's dream ♪ ♪ It's a love of Michigan we all share.

♪ - [Narrator 1] "Michigan Out of Doors" is presented by.

- [Narrator 2] 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.

- [Narrator 3] 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.

Mid-Michigan Ponds has been building and maintaining ponds throughout Michigan for nearly 25 years.

By providing tailored solutions for pond management, Mid-Michigan ponds can help keep your pond healthy year round.

Find more information at mid-michiganponds.com.

(sparks crackling) (gun fires) (upbeat music) (bright music) - Morning.

- Morning.

- I said 5:45, you'll be here.

All right, well, we're missing fish.

Whatever happens today, it's your fault.

You gotta understand that now, you're late.

(bright music) Well, we're in the first week of May and it's a cold one.

It's way below average.

I think today is 35 to start with, but we're gonna go out and we're gonna try to catch a mixed bag, hopefully, today with some kings and some lake trout.

Hopefully more kings.

But with this colder weather, it's kind of prolonged the warming of the water along the shoreline in it.

So it's kind of keeping us from really getting into the kings like we normally do this time of year.

But hopefully we'll get it on some good fish today.

- [Jimmy] And you've been catching a lot of lakers then prior?

- [Lenny] Yeah, a lot of lake trout.

I put the boat in three weeks ago and it's been pretty much limits every trip of lake trout.

And, typically this first week of May is when the kings starts showing up, when the bait, the walleyes start showing up and we've been seeing them show up, so the kings aren't too far behind.

So we'll see what we have.

I haven't been out in, like, four days 'cause the wind has been blowing, but it's a beautiful day today so.

- [Jimmy] We did have a beautiful day for sure.

The sun was just coming up and we were getting our lines in the water.

We were all hopeful that we would find some kings today.

And our offerings for today's fishing would all be flies and rotators.

- [Lenny] This is a Pier Pressure Sweet Pea.

This is a really good fly for spring kings.

It's got, you know, the green, the glow.

- Jeff makes that one?

- Yep, Jeff makes that, yep.

All Rapture Trolling flies.

That's all I use.

- [Jimmy] My wife Missy was on board today as were Mark Chimura, Jeff Bonnin and Jeremiah Mcquillin.

We had a fish hit right away.

- It's a king here.

80 foot down, Mark, he was.

All right, so we got a spring king on, which is a good sign first thing.

Now, we just gotta see if we can land them.

- [Jimmy] You really took some lines.

- Oh yeah.

Yeah, these spring kings are really feisty coming out of that cold water, finally getting into that little bit warmer water that starts waking 'em up from their winter nap.

- [Jimmy] Well, today was really like a scouting trip to see if the kings were in, and so far, well things were looking pretty good.

- First king, hopefully I caught this season.

So this is a big deal.

And then we got chaos, we got tangles and everything right now, but we're- - We're not tangled no more.

- Nope, not anymore.

- Not yet.

- This one.

(rod whirring) - He's coming.

I can see him out there, not too far.

(water sloshing) - All right, good fish.

- Jimmy's eating dinner.

- [Lenny] Number one.

That's a start.

- On that new diver.

What's kind of cool about this now is that fish is going out, the diver's gonna come up to the surface.

Makes it a little bit easier to tell if you're wrapped around other.

Rigger, fish, rigger, here.

Me, big fish, big calling fish, nibble.

- There you go, Jeremiah.

- I have fished with Lenny and Mark before, and they really know how to catch fish and they know not to take things too serious.

They are always teasing each other and goofing around, which I guess in part is why they are so much fun to be on the water with.

- [Mark] We're going eat the neighborhood tonight.

Yeah, it's perfect.

- Well, it's a beautiful day out on the water and I've got my first fish of the year on, so pretty good day.

(rod whirring) - [Jimmy] We had quite a few doubles to start the day.

We missed a few, but not too many.

Things were happening pretty fast and furious.

- So this is on another Rapture, an Illusion.

This one works really well too.

(water sloshing) - I gotta- He's in.

We're good.

Coming up the middle.

- That's a big one.

- Got some, to it.

- We were in about 80 to 150 foot of water to start the day, and we were hitting some kings and lakers as well.

- Right now, you know, we're fortunate enough that there are a few kings here.

We've got three kings, three lake trout.

So the mixed bag is spot on.

We've only been out for probably not even an hour and have six fish so.

If somebody wouldn't have been late over there, we probably would've had two or three more kings.

But I'm not gonna say names at all, but it's this guy right here that was late.

(Lenny laughing) - Told you, at that Starbucks, they only open it, you know, you gotta, it gave me my octane, to get the lines out, to get the fish on.

So I mean, it's all kind of worked together.

- No, but it's all good right now .and hopefully, we can get a few more kings so.

- [Jimmy] And we find 'em in the same depth or?

- Yeah, the, the lake trout, we're finding a little shallower than the kings.

The kings are out a little bit deeper, so we'll slide out to see if we can find some more kings right now then.

This is the slip knot Illusion Rapture fly right here.

Seeing that sweet pea over there, Mr.

Pier Pressure thinks that his fly is the only one that can catch it.

I'm gonna put this down now.

- [Jimmy] So this is one that you created and the other one's he created?

- Yes, yes.

Well, Jeff created them, but we were the mastermind.

He was the mastermind and we kind of prototyped them.

- [Jimmy] Well, Jeff, who actually makes these flies owns and operates Rapture Trolling Flies and Mark and Lenny help him perfect just what works best for catching these nice fish.

- The great thing about Lenny and with Mark is that they're always willing to try new things.

And that makes them just great resources to have as pro staffers.

So, you know, we talk about an idea, I'll put together a prototype, and then they'll run it, and they'll say, well, maybe needs a little more of this, a little more of that.

And then we'd run it under different conditions at different depths with different flashers.

And then pretty soon bada-bing, we have it.

- Okay.

- And that's how the Sweet Pea and the Illusion, Illusion and all, a lot of our flies have been developed so.

Makes it fun.

- [Jimmy] How many hands actually test those when you guys make 'em?

They're all made by hand, right?

- Oh, boy.

Well, they're tied by the tire, and then I tie almost every hook because I'm really picky about my hooks and I reject a lot of hooks, and then, you know, they need to be glued.

And then my wife does the assembly with another gal, and the way people stick her in bags.

And so everything gets checked even before it gets shipped out.

So a lot of hands, a lot of hands.

- [Jimmy] How long you been doing that?

- [Jeff] We've been in the business now for probably about 30 years.

- Oh, wow.

- [Jeff] And it just has grown steadily, steadily, steadily.

And now it's very busy.

- [Jimmy] Speaking of busy, the back of the boat was pretty busy for sure today.

Missy landed a dandy laker and we were about 50/50 on lakers and kings so far.

- Yeah, we're doing, you know what we were hoping for, a little nice mixed bag, but more silver than even lake trout, which is great.

You know, I was a little kind of skeptical, not fishing for four days and the wind's being so strong and you know, you hope for the best, and we got the best today, which is a great, you know, great thing.

The fishery is really, really, really, really, really stable.

And I think we're gonna have another good year.

- [Jimmy] Today, we ran all flies with some sort of a rotator or paddle, and they all seem to work pretty well.

This trip did indeed show Lenny that the kings are in moving forward.

- This really, you know, is gonna be the kickoff.

Now that we know the kings are here, it's gonna be kings for the next probably six weeks now.

And this is kind of like the thing that everybody waits for is when the kings show up, and you can get your boats in the water, and go out and enjoy, you know, the great outdoors here.

- [Jimmy] One thing about Mark is that he is quite the inventor.

Today we are running a brand new dipsy diver that will be hitting the water very soon.

- 360 Marine, my company.

This is our diver.

And then we're running these two right here.

We doubled up on kings on 'em a little bit ago and first time we were out king fishing this year.

But they have adjustments on the bottom where it's 1, 2, 3.

And then what you do is you open this, you put your line in this right here, close this and put the weight.

This comes forward.

You wrap your line around here three times, close it, put it in, you're ready to fish.

When a fish hits this, it pops it and you're fighting the fish, and then it all of a sudden takes that weight, and switches the weight around, and brings this up to the surface.

So it's easy, you don't have to have long 20 foot leads in the boat and everything and so.

- That's new this year?

- Yes, brand new this year.

Put a patent on it.

- [Jimmy] The advantage of that is that it brings a line to the top of the water?

- It brings a line to the top of the water, plus you can take it off when you're fighting a fish.

You could put a hundred feet of line out or 3000 feet, it don't matter how much line you have out there.

And then once you clip this in, you can lock it in place and it stays there.

When a fish hits it, you can bring it in, and you can take this off, and then fight just you and the fish.

- [Jimmy] So you don't have to hand line it in.

- Right.

And if you're running, like, if you're running spoons, when it comes to surface, you can't even, your rod tip's not even bent over, so pretty, pretty amazing.

- [Jimmy] Mark has been fishing Lake Michigan and the Manistee River for many years and has a few different products that have made fishing easier and well, better.

The west side ports are all starting to find the kings now and the laker fishing, well, that has been hot for quite a while.

More guys are getting their boats in the water now that the fishing is improving.

We had a great day on the water, some really good fishing, a beautiful sunrise, some fun people, all the things that make fishing so great.

So head out to a hundred to 150 foot of water, drop one of Jeff's flies on a rig or a dipsy, and hold on, the kings have arrived here in Michigan's out of doors.

- For our next segment on this week's show, I was able to spend a day in Mid-Michigan with a group of turkey hunters for what ended up being a very memorable morning in the woods.

(bacon sizzling) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) A couple of weeks back I was able to spend a day in Mid-Michigan at turkey camp.

We kicked things off with an early morning breakfast and hopes we're high as we loaded up and headed into the field.

- Well, we're in Six Lakes, Michigan and going hunting for some turkeys.

Have about a 200 yard walk, so it's not too bad.

This place has been pretty productive the last four years for turkeys.

And there's three of us, my buddy Jimmy, and my son Brody, and obviously, Jordan.

But we're gonna hopefully kill a whole bunch of turkeys this morning.

(birds chirping) What a beautiful day, oh my goodness.

(birds chirping) (turkey caller gobbling) (birds chirping) - [Jordan] The morning couldn't have started out much better.

We had birds gobbling all around us, and it seemed inevitable that eventually, one would work its way in.

Finally, at about 9:30, just as we were thinking about making a move, we spotted our first turkeys of the morning.

- [Alex] Yeah, look to the left guys and don't look at the hens.

- No, at the hens.

Just walked outta the field, that red hat, that's a tom too.

- [Alex] Okay, there's a big tom straight out in front of Jimmy.

- By the log pile.

- By the log pile, there's a giant tom in there.

- There's another one.

- Oh, there's another one.

There's three, three toms.

There's another one coming in the woods.

(turkey caller gobbling) Oh, yeah.

Oh, he just saw our decoys, I think.

The first one did.

(turkey caller gobbling) Oh, yeah.

- [Alex] Yeah, can you see the hen decoys?

- [Brody] Yeah, he's getting a little more intrigued.

Yeah, he's turning.

- [Alex] They're in no hurry to chase those hens.

- [Brody] No, they're just.

They're gonna follow those stupid hens, dude.

We might get one to leak off.

Shoot one, let him flop.

The other two will come gang on him.

- [Jordan] Just as it seemed like these toms might hang up out of range, one of them decided to give us a closer look and as soon as he made the move towards us, the other two immediately followed suit.

- [Brody] Dude, that guy's got a robe on him.

- Yes, sir.

- Oh, they're gonna do it.

(turkeys gobbling) - [Alex] Can you just shoot the last one?

- [Brody] Let the last one get.

Can you shoot to the left of the T-post?

- [Alex] Yeah.

- [Brody] The left of, if you can shoot the left of the T-post, it'd be perfect.

- [Alex] They're gonna go past the Jakes.

Oh boy, we might get 'em all.

He's gonna march right past those.

Brody, don't move, don't move.

(decoy rattles) Brody, can you turn?

Brody, can you turn?

- A little bit.

(decoy rattles) Don't shoot the T-post, Brody.

Brody, kill one.

(gun fires) (gun fires) - [Brody] I triple left that one.

Coming back, coming back.

Come back.

- Jimmy, Jimmy.

- Safety's on.

- Hang on.

(gun fires) - Take your time, Jimmy.

Take your time.

(gun fires) (group cheering) Nice shooting, dude.

That first one.

- You got the big one.

Jimmy's is the one in the middle, right?

- Mine's the far one.

- I kind of lost track of which one was which.

- [Brody] Really screwed that first one up bad, boys.

It's my fault.

- Ohhh.

- He goes shoot it, and I was like, I kind of like half aimed.

I'm like, oh my gosh, I screwed that so bad.

- What happened?

(Alex laughing) - I think we'll have to watch it to see.

I don't.

So obviously we've been sitting here all morning and there was, I don't know, 15 times gobbling, and then we saw, I don't know, a dozen hens maybe come out over here and they went down the line, and these three knuckleheads were following behind them, and we didn't think we were gonna get 'em.

I made one little call and they all started gobbling, and then they looked and I think they saw our hens down here and then they come down and poor Jake, they kicked Jake's butt, man.

He took a whooping.

But I don't remember who.

Did you shoot the crossbow before he shot the gun?

- No.

- So then Brody shot this big one with the rope and.

- [Brody] On my third shot.

- [Alex] The other two ran off that way, and then they come right back and started beating the decoy up again.

Did somebody shoot the decoy?

But- - I might have.

- Then I shot one and then Jimmy, did I shoot?

Yeah, I shot, and then Jimmy shot, and they ah, just pile of- I mean, look, we got three turkeys within seven yards of each other.

Look at all the feathers.

This is some chaos.

- Good stuff.

I knew we just had to get one down and they'd come back and attack the one on the ground.

- [Alex] Brody you shot all three times, didn't you?

And I almost shot that bird as he was running away.

- [Brody] Not proud of those first two shots.

- [Alex] Man, that was awesome.

That was so awesome.

It was chaos, but you gotta love it.

- [Jordan] Well, I can safely say that's the first triple I have ever been a part of.

What a memorable morning in the turkey woods.

Thanks to Alex for inviting me up for a fun day of turkey hunting, here in Mid-Michigan.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Well, we are here once again in Mount Pleasant, Michigan Wood Shop Social.

Jim Wood, chef extraordinaire.

- [Jim] Thanks.

- It is the turkey season, Jim so we got a little bird action going on here.

What are we doing today?

- So we're gonna do a turkey jambalaya.

- Ooh, good, okay.

- And we're actually gonna put some venison Cajun sausage.

As you know, traditionally- - Oh, nice.

- This is as close as you can get.

What's good about jambalaya is you can put whatever you want in it.

There's a few basic components that you need to have, but after that it's kind of up to you.

- So how do we get this thing started here?

We've got a big pot.

- We've got a big pot.

So we're gonna start with some oil.

And then we've got what's known as the holy trinity, which is onion, celery, and bell pepper.

(pot sizzling) - Nice.

- [Jim] And we're gonna sweat that down, you know, five to seven minutes probably.

You're just trying to release as much water from this as you can.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

Is this a dish you guys do here at the restaurant or a similar version of one?

- We do a jambalaya that we actually serve with our salmon dish, which is probably one of, if not our most popular entree.

- Huh?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

(pot sizzling) And we are using a new burner this week.

- This is an induction burner.

- Okay, and that means what?

- I don't really know.

(Jimmy laughing) But- - It works good.

- Yeah, it does, and it's.

I'm not gonna say it's cool to the touch, but you can take the pan off, and it's not gonna burn your hand.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

It heats up pretty fast.

- Yeah, it's only, so you have to use stainless steel on it.

It won't work for any anything else.

You can't use aluminum on it or anything like that, but.

- So if you're gonna use this on the tailgate of a truck, you need to plug it in somewhere.

- You'd need a power source, which most vehicles come with those these days, or if you have a generator or a genny.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

So kinda walk me through the different stages of what we're gonna do here today.

- So we cook the first part, the trinity down, the vegetables.

Once those have sweat down, emitted most of their water, then we're gonna add tomatoes, which is a very important dish or component to the dish.

- Okay.

They have a lot of water in them, don't they?

- They do have a lot of water in 'em, which is what's gonna help cook the rice too.

So you're gonna absorb a lot of that tomato flavor.

And then we're gonna add our Cajun sausage, our rice, our turkey.

I just have chicken stock here.

If you happen to have, you know, turkey stock, if you made stock with your turkey, good for you.

- [Jimmy] Okay, what kind of rice?

- [Jim] This is just a long grain rice.

- Okay.

- Nothing crazy.

You can use other rices that have a lot more starch, like a short grain, arborio or something like that, which is gonna give it a more creamy element, if you will.

- [Jimmy] And where is the spice gonna come from then?

Or is there not much spice to it?

- [Jim] So depending on, if you made your own sausage, or if you buy it, like, this stuff happens to be really spicy.

- Oh, okay.

- And then we add, we've got some Cajun seasoning in here, but what's nice about this dish is you can use any game meat you want.

- Okay, Jim, we're done, everything's done here now.

How long does this, how long should we cook that for?

- Takes about 25 minutes.

- Okay.

- So the rice has absorbed the majority of the liquid.

- So once your rice is done.

- Yeah, you don't want it to be soupy, but you don't want it to be super thick.

So you can kind of see how it easily falls off the spoon there.

- Okay.

- [Jim] So turn that off.

- [Jimmy] And the actual title of this dish would be?

- [Jim] Turkey and venison jambalaya.

- [Jimmy] Ooh.

That rice is good.

- Yep, good texture.

- That sausage is really good.

- Hits at the end.

- Nice job.

That's great.

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

Make sure you stay tuned in upcoming weeks, lots of great things headed your way.

Next week we'll show you what happens at Sturgeon Guard up in Sheboygan County while the sturgeon are spawning up there.

And I'll be heading up to the Keweenaw Peninsula for the walleye fishing opener and maybe even a turkey hunt.

If you'd like to see where we are on a daily basis and what we're up to, you can always check us out online.

- Well, that's right, Jenny.

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

Probably Instagram and Facebook are the best ways to see what we're up to on a day-to-day basis.

Or you can always check us out at our website, michiganoutofdoorstv.com, full episodes of the show there.

And if you wanna check out our merchandise area, we just are about done with our limited run of our "Michigan Out of Doors" trout T-shirt.

It is kind of a cool thing.

You might wanna check that out if you're a trout fisherman, or even if you're not.

Make sure you stay tuned over the next couple weeks, lots of good stuff coming and if we don't see you in the woods or on the water, hopefully we'll see you right back here next week on your PBS station.

- [Narrator 1] Michigan out of doors is presented by.

- [Narrator 4] 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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- [Narrator 1] By Great Lakes Firearms and Ammunition, a family owned and operated firearm manufacturer in Sparta, Michigan.

Offering a wide variety of calibers and colors backed by lifetime warranty.

More information available at glfallc.com.

By Saab.

Providing defense and civil security products and services for over 85 years.

And now part of the Grayling community.

With our new advanced munitions facility, career opportunities are available.

More information at saabinc.com.

- [Narrator 2] By GreenMark Equipment.

GreenMark Equipment is a John Deere dealership network in southwest Michigan and northern Indiana Green.

GreenMark provides sales and services to farmers, commercial businesses, large property owners and homeowners.

Information about pricing and products available can be found online at greenmarkequipment.com.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (bright music)