2025 Winter Newsletter

Winter 2023 Fnaws Newsletter ​A FEW WORDS FROM CRAIG As we approach the upcoming convention season, I wanted to send this out to our membership reminding you of Iowa FNAWS’ fundraiser which is on March 23rd at the Sheraton West Des Moines. As always, our fundraiser will be preceded with the very popular complimentary Hospitality Room on Friday night. This will be our 45th Anniversary and we plan to make this fundraiser weekend a very special one, so please make plans to attend. Attached you will find the pre-registration form. If registered before February 15th, there’s a savings of $15 per person. Again, our fundraiser will have a number of great auction items, including several state bighorn tags, including Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah, as well as numerous hunts, fishing trips and other unique items. We will also be having two custom-made rifles by Snowy River commemorating our 45th Anniversary. Our “Booze Alley” Silent auction will be having some very unique offerings. And, as always we will have an array of General and Firearm raffles. Don’t forget year, we introduced several new games including Bingo and Plinko , in addition to Texas Hold’em, both of which proved to be great hits with our attendees and made for a great Saturday prior to the banquet. So, if you plan on attending, please consider coming either the day before or early Saturday to take advantage of all of the activities. Iowa FNAWS is also offering one of Wild Sheep Foundation’s “Weatherby Bighorn Edition” rifles. Attached is a flyer regarding this rifle which is custom-made for the Wild Sheep Foundation, chambered in .338 Weatherby RPM and outfitted with a top-of-the-line Leupold VX6 HD scope, and Boyt hard case. The value of this package is over $6000. Last year’s “Thinhorn Edition” brought $8,000 at our fundraiser! This year, to allow everyone the opportunity for this rifle, we have decided to raffle it off. Attached is a flyer on the rifle package. We are offering tickets at $25 each or 5 for $100. If you are interested in purchasing tickets, please remit payment for the number of tickets requested and we will send them out to you. The winner will be picked at our fundraiser; HOWEVER, you need not be present to win. Please watch your email and regular mail for we will be sending out additional information and preliminary auction listing in the coming months. Hope to see you there………..Craig Practice to Play by Greg Schultz In every newsletter, we celebrate our successes but rarely talk about the work that goes into them other than the hunt itself. I’m a dedicated handgunner spending countless hours of work in the name of fun frustrating the ever-living stuffing out of myself. This is so that I can feel 100% confident when the opportunity arises to go chase an animal with a short barrel. Challenging? Yes. Borderline crazy? Yes. Rewarding? Beyond words. For the last three summers, I have attended the Handgun Hunter’s Competition in Newcastle, Wyoming to help prep myself for hunting season but also to test myself against some of the best shooters that I know. With that goes ten times the number of rounds I shoot at the match in practice leading up to it. The first picture for my story has about 18 targets out there and we engage them out to 400 yards with various calibers and platform. Every target reminds you that “they are not hard to hit, but they sure are easy to miss.” The second picture is the end result of that practice and frustration. Knowing drop and wind for a shot that some would consider too long for a handgun. All the earlier misses were channeled in this wonderful Wyoming antelope! GAR-GANTUAN by Tammy Scott The line is going out, the fish is on the move. Standing on the bow casting deck of the boat, the rod in my hands, I am waiting for the right moment. When the line is tight and it feels right, I set the hook. Never having fished for such a large strong fighting fish, I was completely unprepared for the fish’s response, because when I set that hook, the fish took off and I was jerked off my feet and almost off boat and into the lake! The fight is on! Reel down, pull up, reel down, pull up, and do not lose your balance and fall in the lake! Knees bent, legs shaking, forearms screaming, the thought “WHAT did I sign up for?” went through my head! As I was fighting my fish, Guide Cody and my husband Brenton were bringing in the other lines when Brenton’s line became taut, and he was fighting his own gar! We kept our lines tight and tried not to cross them. I got my gar to the boat and Cody brought him over the side. Then Brenton got his onboard. Our first alligator gars and they were a double! My alligator gar was 69½” long x 31” girth, with an estimated weight of 115 pounds. Brenton’s was 74½” long x 31” girth, with an estimated weight of 120 pounds. Lake Livingston produces! Since these fish are too large to put on a fish scale while on the boat, we must guesstimate their weight. To get close: Length x Girth X Girth ÷ 700 + 15 (another guide said +30) = guesstimated weight. We are fishing in Texas where they have four subspecies of gar: Shortnose gar, longnose gar, spotted gar (the smallest of the gar species) and alligator gar (the largest of the gar species). The alligator gar is the second largest freshwater fish in North America, second only to the white sturgeon. Looking at these living fossils makes you wonder how to catch and safely release alligator gar: It is recommended to use a non-stainless-steel leader, and put a large portion of bait (often common carp) on the Aberdeen (bronze) 3/0 treble hook or J-hook, and cast it as far as you can away from the boat. Then you wait. Alligator gar are voracious predators. When you hear the line going out and can see it unspooling from the reel, your heart beats a little faster as you know that a gar has taken the bait. The gar is going off, away from other gar, to be alone and eat the bait. Sometimes the gar takes the bait for a minute, sometimes many minutes. When the line stops moving and goes slack, the gar is ingesting the bait. This can take from a minute to 5 minutes or so. Once the line starts moving again, you grab the rod and wait. When the timing feels right, with the line tight, you set the hook. They have two rows of sharp teeth on the top jaw and another row on the bottom jaw, enabling them to pierce and hold their prey. As such, if the hook is beyond the mouth cavity, it is recommended that you cut the line or the leader. The non-stainless-steel hooks degrade relatively quickly and can be more easily shed by a gar. I am not putting my hand anywhere near that mouth! You use the same fishing gear on the Trinity River as you do fishing on Lake Livingston. On the narrow river you need to be aware of the underwater debris that the fish can use to try and break the fishing line. The river is shallow, there are many downed trees, and a totally different current compared to the open and deeper lake. In many photos on social media, you will see fishermen in the river with the gars that they brought to the boat or shoreline. I however will not be getting in the water as we saw a lot of snapping turtles and a huge alligator in the same river that we were fishing for the gars! One thing that we were not fond of was the copious amounts of sticky slime on the fish and their horrific smell. I am not sure if it was the actual fish or their fecal matter (yes, I was shit on), but the next time we go gar fishing I will be wearing clothes that will not be coming home with me! The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has an ongoing alligator gar research project and has requested that fishing guides tag the alligator gar and take measurements prior to release. The TPWD form has spaces for the length, girth, date, and location tagged along with the tag number. The next person that catches that gar can call TPWD and can obtain this information. To date, research by the TPWD has focused on understanding their reproduction, how long alligator gar live, evaluate growth rates, as well as how healthy the populations currently are and track their seasonal movement. Gathering this information is necessary to determine how populations are reacting to current fishing pressures, and to predict how they will respond in the future. A primary goal of TPWD’s alligator gar management is to maintain or improve the populations in Texas. Alligator gar with his newly acquired TPWD tag. My largest Trinity River Alligator Gar was 74” long x 29” girth with an estimated weight of 104 pounds. A question I am asked often is if the alligator gars are edible. The flesh of the alligator gar is white and firm with a mild taste, comparable to the flesh of many sport fishes that anglers eat. While the flesh is tasty, it should be noted that the eggs of the alligator gar are toxic and may cause sickness if eaten. Like all fishes, alligator gar are exposed to contaminants in the waters in which they live, as well as the things they eat. Over time, these contaminants can build up in the fish’s flesh, organs, and eggs, and can pose a health risk to humans if consumed. The Texas Department of State Health Services monitors for the presence of harmful contaminants in edible fish tissues and alerts the public through consumption advisories and bans. All the alligator gar that we caught were released and we did not have the opportunity to taste any gar on this trip. We fished for two days and caught more than ten alligator gars each. We look forward to our next prehistoric fishing adventure with the toothsome alligator gars. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has a great website if you would like to learn more about the gar and gar fishing: https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/management/alligator-gar/ The following story is of a brown bear hunt in the SW of Alaska by a “rookie” bear hunter by Paul Milone In March 2023 I was at the Iowa FNAWS banquet in Des Moines. I have attended a few banquets in the past, but went just to support my friend Craig Nakamoto and FNAWS. I had no intention of buying a hunt as I’m a pretty frugal person. Additionally, I generally didn’t think I could afford a hunt like the “Rich guys”. However, in January of this year my step brother died suddenly at the age of 49. Two weeks later a good friend died unexpectedly at the age of 53. Same age as me. So, life certainly became real and short. At the banquet I met the owner of Big Alaska Outfitters, Mike Sciotti. He was there to sell bear hunts. After a short conversation, my wife told me to make it happen! Holy cow, I’m going to Alaska on a bear hunt!!! We flew into Dillingham AK, then to the bush 50 miles north in the Woodtick wilderness area. From base camp we flew to our spike camp in a super cub, which was an adventure in and of itself. We landed on our “runway” which was a rocky hill that also served as our camp for the next 11 days. Tents and dehydrated meals, but at least we had a wood privy. So, life was good. One thing I learned very quickly is that brown bears are 100% random in what they do, when they do it and why they do it. And in the Alaskan wilderness, the only way to successfully hunt them is to stay in camp and Glass 10 to 12 hours per day. So that is what we did. Our camp / runway, was about 80 yds wide by 150 yds long. When my bear was spotted my guide came over and had me sprint to the other end, as the bear was just outside of camp. We ran to get into position and then the stalk was on. We went down off of the hill, into the bottoms. If you have never been there, it’s like walking on a submerged mattress. I was in shape, but that will kick your ass let me tell you. We had one chance at 400 yards but I told the guide no on that shot. I had never shot that gun at 400, and I was not going to make an irresponsible shot on a majestic creature like a brown bear. So the stalk continued. The bear made a 90 degree turn into an alder patch, which was to our advantage. So now we’re going uphill in a hurry on that wet mattress to cut the bear off. We made it the 250 yards to the end of the patch, huffing and puffing.. and just as we stopped to catch our breath, the bear popped out at 140 yards and was looking right at us. We had the wind, but he definitely sees us. And without thinking I immediately took my trekking poles and used them as a pair of shooting sticks and snapped into a kneeling position. The crosshairs were steady, I let out my breath and in that respiratory pause, squeezed off my shot. It was a solid hit and the bear turned a 180 and went back into the alders where he died 30 yards later. That .325 short mag put the hammer in him in short order. 1 round on a big brownie is not normal. The quick shot was something I had practiced over and over in preparation for this hunt. The practice paid off. Overall, I had a wonderful experience on my Alaskan Wilderness Brown Bear Hunt and I highly recommend that you try it for yourself. No it is not cheap, but you can’t take it with you either. The experience and memories were worth every penny. Zihuatanejo by Bree Frye If you love to fish, you need to take this trip! We bought it at the FNAWS show for our eldest son’s high school graduation gift. We arrived and took a day to explore the seaside town of Zihuatanejo, complete with myriad shops, restaurants and bars. The people are so friendly and helpful but bring your pesos and your Spanish. Since there were four of us, we split into pairs as the fishing is 2 people per panga, each with an experienced Captain and Mate. We had four total fishing days, two inshore and two offshore. We had a rest day in the middle where we took a water taxi to a private beach for reef snorkeling, massages and a fabulous lunch. All four of us were very successful- we caught everything we came for including trophy marlin, sailfish, rooster, dorado and needlefish. We had ton of fun with Spanish mackerel and bonito as well. This was a trip of a lifetime for our family- it was perfect! Last Words and some extras by Kyle If you have any articles or pictures that you would like to possibly be featured in the next newsletter, feel free to email them to me at kylenakamoto@hotmail.com. As we all head into the 2023-2024 hunting season, I wish all of you good luck. See all of you March 23, 2024 for our 45th banquet! ~ Kyle Nakamoto IN AN EFFORT TO SAVE COSTS, IOWA FNAWS IS GOING TO TRY AND TRANSITION OVER TO ALL ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTERS IN THE NEAR FUTURE IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED A DIGITAL COPY OF THIS NEWSLETTER AND SUBSEQUENT SEND OUTS PLEASE UPDATE YOUR EMAIL WITH IOWA FNAWS!!! SEND YOUR NAME, PHONE AND EMAIL BY MAIL OR BY EMAIL TO: SSAFIREARMS@GMAIL.COM KYLE WILL GET THE LIST UPDATED AS BEST AS POSSIBLE WITH EMAIL ADDRESSES!