Trip back to Kansas leads to a good day of fishing - KansasCity.com

Catch of the week

Deen Ruppelius enjoyed a great homecoming when he returned to Kansas to fish with friends from the Olathe Community Sportsman?s Club in mid August..Ruppelius, who lived in Olathe for 52 years before moving to Oklahoma in 1992, was known as one of the area?s best fishermen when he lived here. And it became obvious on a recent trip that he still remembers a thing or two about Kansas fishing.Fishing at Milford Lake with friend Joe Kilburn, he landed a 12.8-pound wiper (a cross between a white bass and a striper) while fishing with a live shad over an underwater island.?I try to come back every year to fish with the guys from the club,? said Ruppelius, 73, who lives in Wagoner, Okla. ?We usually catch fish, but this is the biggest wiper I?ve ever caught.?It gave me the best fight I?ve had in some time. That fish made six or seven runs before it finally got tired.?But that big fish wasn?t the only thing that made the fishing trip special. Ruppelius estimates he and Kilburn caught and released 40 wipers before they called it a day.Get out the bowsFor deer hunters in Missouri and Kansas, the time they have anticipated for months has arrived.It?s bow season. The archery hunt opens Saturday in Missouri and Tuesday in Kansas.Despite the hot, dry summer, hopes are again running high. Wildlife biologists say some of the biggest bucks taken each year are shot early in the season by hunters who put in their time scouting and patterning deer.Reed Area celebrationThe James A. Reed Memorial Wildlife Area near Lee?s Summit will celebrate its 60th birthday on Sept. 22. And the public is invited to the party.From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the wildlife area will have a special event in conjunction with National Hunting and Fishing Day. A stocked fishing pond will be open for kids, with gear provided. For adults, there will be free trapshooting, with guns and shells provided. And attendees can try their hand at archery shooting with the coaching of experts.Hunting-dog demonstrations, fur trapping exhibits, air-rifle shooting for kids and booths manned by conservation groups also will be included.The Reed Area was born in 1952, when Nell Donnelly Reed donated 731 acres of land to the Missouri Department of Conservation for public fishing and hunting. Today, the area includes 3,084 acres, 12 fishing lakes, some of the best public dove hunting in Missouri, hiking and equestrian trails, and an archery range. Numbers of fishermen and hunters increasingFor the first time in 10 years, the number of fishermen and hunters in the United States is on the rise.Results of a 2011 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outdoor-recreation survey that was released recently showed that fishermen numbers are up 11 percent and hunter numbers 9 percent from the previous survey taken in 2006, according to a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.The preliminary report shows that 90.1 million Americans participated in outdoor-related recreation in 2011, an increase of 2.6 million from 2006.What a fish!Don?t try to one-up Molly Palmer on fish stories. When it comes to fish tales, she has a whopper.Competing in a derby in the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii she landed the monster of all monsters ? a marlin that was 12 feet long and weighed a half-ton.It took four hours to land the giant fish. But because she got help from fellow team members in fighting the marlin, she wasn?t eligible for world-record consideration or any of the prize money in the tournament.That didn?t bother Palmer, though. She was just happy to catch the fish of a lifetime.?I didn?t come here to set world records,? the Hawaii resident told The Associated Press. ?I didn?t even really come here to win money.?I came here to catch fish.?

| Brent Frazee, bfrazee@kcstar.com.

Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/13/3814026/outdoors-digest-a-trip-back-to.html

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