Grizld Outdoors

    "I caught a fitch, grandma! I caught a fitch!"  I'm quoting world renowned fisherman, Mike VanLoon (aka me) when he caught his very first fish.  As I was only three years old, I'm sure the blue gill was nothing impressive, and I only have vague memories of bringing it back to the campsite to show my grandma. Small as it was though, I'm told my grandma insisted we fry it up to celebrate. And thus began my love of catching, and eating, panfish.  For most fisherman, panfish are the first step in their angling journey, and with good reason. Panfish are generally numerous and easy to catch if you know where to find them. They also put up a heck of a fight for their size. And they make fine table fare, if one is so inclined, which I usually am.  Since that first fish, over 40 years ago now, my love for the little guys has not waned. As soon as I can get out on the water without freezing to death in the spring, I'm gettin' after 'em. But it's usually ...

  I grew up poor. Yard sales provided a large part of our wardrobe. Patched jeans were the norm rather than the exception. Those same jeans became cutoff shorts when summer rolled around. Gardening, foraging, hunting, and fishing all contributed to our pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. I still have the same fishing pole my folks bought me when I was twelve. Back then we used big rusty nuts as sinkers. We hunted nightcrawlers with flashlights in the dark. We dug worms from the compost pile. We used those rustic tools and tactics to fish for suckers in the creek near our house. Occasionally we would get lucky and catch a trout as a special treat, but it was mostly suckers. Sometimes we would go camping at a lake that had bluegills, bass, and pike. This was high adventure for us and that fishing pole has caught everything from perch to pike, crappie to catfish, along with the countless sucker hauled from the "crick." I don't say all this to bemoan my upbringing and lack of ...

           Michigan will never make the list of top places to target catfish. We're completely out of the range for blue catfish, we're at the northern extreme for flatheads, and being so far north, channel cats, while abundant, are significantly smaller than their southern counterparts.      Growing up, and through most of my adult years, catfish were never a species of interest for our family. The waters we frequented just didn't have them, or if they did, we weren't aware of it. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I even attempted to catch catfish intentionally.      I was invited to go fishing with my dad and uncle on a local lake. My uncle had been catching catfish there for several years so I was exited to give it a try. I had a vague understanding of the most common tactics for catfish, mainly live or cut bait on a slip sinker rig, just sitting on the bottom. I was more than a little surprised when I found out we w...

GEAR! GEAR! GEAR ! Even those of us well versed in the world of fishing can be overwhelmed by the vast array of gear, gadgets, gizmos, and gimmicks being hawked in an attempt to separate us from our money. And it's easy to buy into a lot of it. The draw of a magic lure or technique that is guaranteed to catch more fish is almost irresistible at times. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of useful, effective gear available on the market. But the latest and greatest is far from necessary if you're considering taking up the sport yourself.  Keep in mind, for any of these items listed, there are literally thousands of options available. ABSOLUTE ESSENTIALS: Fishing rod and reel Don't get bogged down in the minutiae of rod weight/speed/action, the number of bearings in your reel, etc. If you're just getting started a good all around medium-light action rod with a reel is what you're looking for. We're going to break this down by the reel...

I grew up sucker fishing Crockery Crick. I don't expect most, if any, of you to know where it is and I'm not about to waste my time trying to explain. It's generally a muddy, tangled, knot of a crick. Rare are the stretches that anyone would label “picturesque”. Oh, you're still back there wondering why I called it a crick, and not a creek, aren't ya? Well, that's because that's what it is. There's a hard distinction between the two. The late outdoor author and scholar, Patrick F. McManus, goes into detail about the differences in his essay “How to Fish a Crick”. As he has already expounded greatly on the topic, I will summarize. A creek is calm, pristine, and well behaved. A crick is liable to get thrown in the drunk tank on a Saturday night after doing shots of house whiskey. But I started off talking about growing up sucker fishing, so stop distracting me. From about as early as I can recall, our family would fish the crick from mid March, well i...

 Ice fishing opportunities have been awfully limited in Michigan, and other parts of the country, the last couple of years. That dosen't stop us from wanting to get out there on the hard water to chase down some of the best eating fish to be found.  Perch are a favorite across the country when it comes to targeting fish through the ice, and early in the season they can be pretty easy to find. They're much more likely to be in shallow water with good vegetation at the beginning of the ice season. We've caught them in as little as four foot of water, but usually six to fifteen feet is where you'll find the bigger specimens.  We prefer to use the Beaver Dam noodle rods, which you can usually find as a rod and reel combo for less than $25. They are ideal for indicating even the lightest bites when the fish are less aggressive. A two to four pound monofilament or flaurocarbon line is our choice, paired with a double jig set up. Two four or five millimeter tungsten jigs, spac...

Yes, we know it's a new year for everyone else too. But for us, 2025 is a year that is going to bring a number of changes to the Grizld brand. We have been creating content on our website and YouTube for three full years now, and have learned enough to analyze what is working and what isn't. As Grizld wouldn't exist without you, we wanted to share some of the changes and improvements we have in mind for the coming year.  First off, we are dedicating ourselves to creating more content. This will encompass both YouTube videos and articles on our website. We already have articles for the website planned out for most of the coming year,so keep an eye out. We also have a number of video series concepts that we think will really resonate with the Grizld audience on YouTube. These series will be recorded this year, with the goal of building a library of videos to release starting in 2026. On top of these planned series, we will be working diligently to provide new videos throught ...

It's that time of year again. Hunting season is upon us. Many states are already weeks into their season, but Michigan, and half a dozen other states, open on October 1st. Being over 40 years old, I have experienced a fair number of opening days. A number of years ago I wrote a short story of what I feel mature bucks go through on opening day. I've edited it a bit to reflect the changes in insight I have gained with added knowledge and experience. Here is that story. As your night time ritual of decimating farmers' corn winds into the wee hours of the morning, you notice a change in the misty air. It's not something you can see or hear or even smell...yet. You continue to snack on the corn, enjoying the cool fog that surrounds you. First light is still more than an hour away. Eventually your belly is full and you begin to saunter back to your bedding area, realizing what this change portends. Then you hear it. A truck door closing. From different locations, near and fa...

Growing up, large portions of my summer were spent working in our garden. When I say garden, let me lay this out so you understand a little better. This wasn't your standard vegetable garden that you see in somebody's back yard with a little fence around it and a cute little scarecrow propped up in the center. Our garden was big. It varied a bit over the years, but on average it was about 30 yards wide and 50 yards long. We grew pretty much everything that would survive in Michigan, from asparagus to zucchini. We had your standards like green beans, potatoes, and tomatoes, but we also grew okra, tomatillos, and kholrabi. There were melons, squash, and root vegetables.We made our own pickles, spaghetti sauce, and relish. We canned beets. We froze strawberries, rasberries, and corn. Our garden provided a very large percentage of our food throughout the year.  Besides the garden, we also foraged. We'd hunt for morels in the spring. We would pick black raspberries and blackberr...

Over the years I have written a fair number of stories and articles . Some were completed, most were not. I even wrote a full 50,000 word novel in 30 days as part of National Novel Writing Month. This is not me taking an opportunity to brag. I'm not nearly good enough as a writer for that. I am using this information to illustrate that I enjoy writing and have spent a fair amount of time pursuing that particular hobby. My boss recently asked to read the novel I wrote and the commentary she offered got me thinking about what lead me to the world of writing and how I developed my personal style as well as how that ties into my love of the outdoors. First and foremost, my influences have always been quite varied. I enjoy authors from a variety of genres. Sci-fi, fantasy, westerns, thrillers, political intrigue, and humor all have a place on my bookshelf. But my two largest influences were Louis L'Amour and Pat McManus.  These two men wrote the stories that helped shape my love of...

For a good part of the country, March is a frustratingly long transition period where it's generally just cold and wet enough to make most outdoor pursuits less than enjoyable. There's mud everywhere and odds are you're going to end up in it at some point if you're out long enough. But every now and then we're blessed with a day here or a couple there where the rain/snow abates, the wind dies down, and we can fully enjoy our time outdoors.  It's during these rare days that you can often find me hitting one of the creeks or rivers that are so numerous in west Michigan. Most folks are probably thinking I'm excited to get out and target steelhead, as many of my fellow Michiganders are doing. But that's not my style. You see, deep down, I'm just a rough and ragged country boy, and early spring fishing for me means sucker.  Yes, you read that correctly. Sucker. The ugly, big lipped, bony fleshed, bottom feeding, trash fish. At least that's how they ar...

     I recently listened to the MeatEater podcast episode that highlighted the debate and disagreement between Matt and his brother Steve. I know I'm a fair bit late to the discussion on this, but the debate sparked by Matt Rinnela concerning social media's place in the hunting community should be talked about as much as possible. I'm also well aware that I'm no subject matter expert. I'm just a guy that has been hunting for nearly 30 years, has a deep appreciation for the outdoors lifestyle, and is trying to bring common sense to this debate.       With Steve having such a visible presence, and large following, in the hunting community, this was a massive stage for Matt to present his arguments. For those of you that are not familiar with Matt's position, I will attempt to summarize it here.      Matt is concerned with the overcrowding in regards to public land hunting. He feels that social media has drawn higher numbers of people into ...

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional opener of bass season in Michigan. This covers both largemouth and smallmouth bass. Growing up, the outdoor magazines I read would always be loaded with articles on fishing for largemouth bass while smallmouth always seemed to get a much smaller billing. As a result of this, and my extremely limited exposure to waters that held smallmouth, it wasn't until I met my wife that I learned the bronzeback is at least equal in every measure to it's bucketmouthed kin, and even superior in some aspects.  Before I met Annie, I had only ever caught two smallmouth bass. Both were well under Michigan's 14 inch legal minimum, and from a dock on a dam backwater. My father-in-law introduced me to fishing skinny water in some of Lake Michigan's smaller bays in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Wearing waders and working the edges of reeds in as little as two feet of water, the aggressive fish respond equally well to a white twisty tail grub or a nigh...

 I think the reason I enjoy pike fishing so much is that the fish leaves no doubt about what is happening when it hits your lure. You're realing in and WHAM, you've got a fight on your hands. Granted, the excessive aggresiveness can result in some misses, but by and large, the fish does the work and hooks itself. You just have to get it to the boat and in a net before its heavy headshakes manage to dislodge the hook. This is less of an issue with treble hooks but it does happen.  I first came to love pike on a trip to Lake Nipigon, Ontario. Located 40 miles north of the upper tip of Lake Superior, the bays and rivers of the lake are loaded with walley and pike, while the main lake is a fantastic Lake Trout fishery. We were staying in a cabin on Orient Bay and one could stand on the dock, casting the classic red and white Daredevl lures (or the cheap imitation from Wal-Mart), and catch pike all day. The old man that managed the campground we stayed at took the time to teach us ...

I really don't like winter. It's cold and gray. But this year I'm determined to enjoy more outdoor pursuits despite the seasonal depression that comes along with the reduced sunlight. I've invested in ice fishing gear. I'll be doing more rabbit and squirrel hunting. I plan on hitting the rivers for steelhead. All of this will be done with a camera in hand, or in the hand of my wife or another friend if I'm lucky. There's too much outside to enjoy rather than sitting inside watching other people do those things on YouTube . I do hope to start collaborating with others following similar passions. Grizld was created with the intent of showing others how to enjoy outdoor pursuits without draining bank accounts. And winter holds just as many opportunities as the rest of the year. We just have to go after them. If you or anyone you know is interested in any kind of hunting, fishing, or other outdoor activity, please contact us and we'll do everything we can to...

                                                                                                                                              Well, to answer that, you're probably going to need some context. Grizld is a play on the word grizzled. What does grizzled mean? The dictionary definition is having gray hair or streaks of gray in your hair. It's where the grizzly bear gets its name. I recently discovered I fit the official definition as my hair is no longer the solid, unblemished, dark brown of my youth. Beyond the official definition, grizzled also carries a connotation of rough, rugged, raw, coarse, etc. Grizld Outdoors takes it...