- Hello, everyone, welcome to "Michigan Out of Doors."

I'm Jenny Ciolek and we have a brand new show headed your way.

We'll take a look at my turkey season from start to finish and all that happened there.

Lots of close calls, excitement, some frustration, and finally, a filled tag at the end.

You won't wanna miss that story.

And we've got some other exciting things headed your way this week.

- Well, that's right, Jenny.

We do have a few more things on this week's show, something else that's very popular this time of year is walleye fishing.

And I tell you what, we have got a great unique walleye recipe for you on this week's program, and we do have a bragging board to see what you, the viewer, have been up to, lots of great pictures to share with you this week.

And we do have a shortened show this week, about five minutes less than normal, because our PBS stations are pledging right now.

So pledge early and pledge often.

Thanks for joining us this week.

You stay tuned.

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.

♪ - [Hunter] 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 ♪ (gentle guitar music ends) - [Presenter] "Michigan Out of Doors" is presented by.

- [Announcer] 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.

- [Presenter] 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 - [Announcer] By Angler Quest Pontoons, offering fishing pontoons designed by anglers for anglers.

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(dreamy music) (groovy music) - This year, my husband and I both chose the spring turkey hunt in Unit ZZ which is private land only and in the lower portion of the lower peninsula.

The season spans from April 20th through May 31st.

Matt and I headed out to a friend's land in Macomb County on opening morning in hopes of pulling off a double on camera.

Things were shaping up nicely right off the bat.

(turkey gobbling) I think they're down.

(wind gusting) (turkey clucking) We were set up on a field edge, just left of a point, in hopes that the birds would land and head out into the field over to our left.

Of course, they surprised us and entered the field behind us to the right.

Looking over our right shoulders, we watched a steady parade of hens, jakes, and two nice toms.

We figured once they cleared the point, they'd see our decoys and head our way.

We just had to hope that those hens would cooperate and not lead the toms in the other direction.

(gentle guitar music) (turkey clucking) (gentle guitar music) The bigger of the two toms broke away from the rest of the birds and headed towards our decoys.

He looked like he was going to circle the decoys and come into range.

So Matt waited for him to get closer for better footage.

I was also keeping my eye on the other big tom, who seemed to be sticking with the group and getting further away.

The closer tom didn't end up coming to the decoys.

In fact, he spotted two bearded hens a couple of hundred yards away and made a beeline for them.

At the same time, the other group of birds slowly made their way into a neighbor's backyard and across the road without looking back.

In the blink of an eye, our opening day setup went from exciting to over with no luck on different spots throughout the day.

We tried again over the next several days with no luck.

Walleye fishing season stole our attention for a few weeks as the Turkey season dropped off our radar for a while.

Then I received a text from good friend, Jim Fortner, who wondered if I'd tagged a Turkey yet and if I'd like to hunt with him.

Jim has lots of land to hunt and really does his homework during turkey season.

I jumped at the chance to hunt with him.

All right, Jim Fortner, we're here together again in your neck of the woods.

We're down to the wire with turkey season.

We're in the last week of May.

- Yep.

- And you're gonna try to put me on a bird.

- Yeah, we're gonna try.

There's been a lot of birds around.

Got a ton of rain lately.

It's gonna be fun getting in there.

A little muddy, but we'll get in there and hopefully they cooperate.

There was quite a few birds last night, so we'll see.

- Okay, what are we gonna be looking at when the sun comes up out there?

- [Jim] Ah, it's kind of just a plowed field.

It's got a lot of grass growing up in it, you know, over the winter.

But you know, they've been out there.

I don't know what they're eating, but they've been in it, so.

- Okay.

- Yeah, nice creek bottom.

So they should fly down fairly close to the field, so hopefully we see 'em right away.

- [Jenny] Okay, and we're in a popup line?

- Yes.

- Okay, all right.

We'll get out there and do it.

- [Jim] All right.

- We've seen four nice, five nice long beards this morning.

Unfortunately, they landed at the opposite end of this field and they are not coming over.

There's a hen out there that nobody seems interested in.

We've seen two long beards come into the field and then go into the woods.

Nobody's interested in our decoys.

Nobody's interested in Jim's amazing calls.

We don't know what's going on, but we're just gonna wait it out.

It's only a few minutes after six right now, so it's pretty early.

It's pretty fun to watch 'em though.

These three Toms were pretty entertaining.

They were walking around in a circle following one another.

Even if they weren't interested in checking out our setup, it made for a few chuckles in the blind as we watched them and wondered what in the world they were up to.

As the morning wore on, every single turkey in our field slowly made their way into the woods and out of sight.

They walked past an old blind across the field and into the woods they went.

Jim and I sat for nearly an hour just waiting to see if more birds would show up.

He was confident they would come back to this field and said that beyond the tree line, there was nothing to keep them over there and they'd wanna be back in this field before too long.

Sure enough at 7:30, Jim spotted a nice tom heading out of the woods and into the field.

He was 80 yards away and didn't seem to notice our decoys until Jim got his attention with his mouth call.

(Jim imitates turkey gobbling) (gentle acoustic music) (Jim imitates turkey gobbling) (gentle acoustic music) (Jim imitates turkey gobbling) (gentle acoustic music) (Jim imitates turkey gobbling) (gentle acoustic music) (gentle acoustic music ends) (gunfire pops) Jim, I think I got a bird.

- Nice shot.

- Thank you.

- Oh, it's not even... - I was starting to get worried.

- That took for, it seemed liked it took forever.

- Yeah.

- Wow!

Those hens are still out there.

- Yeah, they didn't even move when you shot.

- Oh, my gosh.

- Here comes three more toms.

Oh, now there's five toms.

- Oh, my gosh, all right.

(Turkey gobbling) I hate to do this because there's still six long beards right out here in the field, but we're gonna go check out our bird.

He's a little muddy.

Oh, his beard is all mud.

It's pretty muddy out here.

Decent spurs and a nice beard.

Looked more impressive before it was soaked in mud and water, but.

(chuckles) Oh, my goodness.

That will be a memorable hunt for sure.

Memorable indeed.

As turkey seasons go, this one was exciting and challenging for sure.

Special thanks to Jim Fortner for being a great guide and cameraman here in "Michigan's Out of Doors."

(gentle acoustic music) - Well, here we are once again.

Mount Pleasant, Michigan, Wood Shop Social.

Jim Wood, chef extraordinaire.

It's that time of year where a lot of us, we're getting down the Detroit River to catch walleye.

We got a walleye filet here.

What are we doing with it, Jim?

- So we're gonna do, I'm gonna call it a Greek-style dish.

- Which that means what?

- Well, we just include a lot of Greek ingredients, oregano, sun-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives.

- Okay.

- We're using actually some asparagus, 'cause we're getting into asparagus season.

- Nice.

- So it's sauce is also kind of a side.

- Okay, so we're gonna cook the walleye and then we're gonna do a sauce after?

- Yeah, we'll clean the pan out and then we'll make the sauce.

- Okay, so how do we get started?

Is that a panko thing over there?

Or is that just- - That's potato flour.

- Potato flour.

- Now you can use regular flour.

The only reason I'm using it, 'cause we happen to have it.

- Okay.

- And it's a lot crispier than a normal flour.

- Okay.

- So we're gonna add a little bit of oil to the pan.

That oil has a higher smoke point, so we can get away with a little butter as well.

(oil sizzling) And then we're gonna salt the fish, add a little bit of oregano to the fish.

(oil sizzling) We're gonna flour just the one side.

- Just the one side.

- Just the presentation side and then we're gonna hit it with a little more salt.

And then we're gonna go right into the pan.

(fish sizzling) - Pretty simple.

- Yeah.

Don't wanna complicate things too much.

I mean, at the end of the day, the star of the dish is the walleye.

- Okay.

- So we don't wanna... - Now why'd you just do the bread of the one side?

- That's the presentation side, we're gonna try to go for crispiness.

That flour's just gonna absorb all the sauce, and it's pointless.

Well, since we're serving the sauce on the bottom, none of that goes on the top, doesn't make it soggy.

And the bottom will just become soggy with the flour on it.

- Okay, huh!

- There's sometimes a method to my madness.

- Yeah, well.

- It doesn't always work out.

- I can see that.

Okay, what are we gonna do for our sauce here, Jim?

- So we're gonna sweat some onion down first.

(food sizzling) And like I said, this is a sauce, but it's also a side.

We're gonna layer the flavor, so we're gonna salt that onion first.

- [Matt] Okay.

(food sizzling) - Now we've got some fresh garlic.

(spoon scraping) Just kind of cook that until you can smell it.

We got some asparagus.

Got some sun-dried tomatoes that we diced up.

Now we're gonna deglaze a little bit of white wine.

(food sizzling) - Man, does that smell good.

All right, as you can see, we've reduced a good chunk of the white wine.

- Okay.

- And we'll add a little bit of stock.

Fish stock is the best.

I'm just using a really light chicken stock right here for now.

And then we'll add a little bit of cream.

So we've reduced this down.

We add a little bit of kalamata olive, and that's gonna add a nice little briny element to the dish.

We've got some whole basil leaves here.

With something like this, this is kind of almost like a Florentine-style dish.

You can use spinach, but I really like the flavor that the basil brings.

So we're just gonna break those down a little bit.

Then we've got some fresh dill, which obviously goes really well with fish.

And then we're gonna mound some fresh butter in there.

- [Matt] And what are we calling this dish?

- Greek walleye.

- [Matt] Greek walleye.

Oh, wow, there's a lot going on there.

- Yeah, there is.

It's not too acidic.

The butter and the cream help balance out all that from the white wine.

- Super good.

- The sun-dried tomatoes, get the salt.

(bright happy music) (bright country music) (bright country music continues) (bright country music continues) (bright country music continues) (bright country music continues) - Thanks 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, including some summertime fishing and some fish research.

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

- Well, that's right, Jenny.

Online is a good way to kind of keep track of us.

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

And we have been traveling quite a bit lately.

Lots of brand new stuff to bring you over the next several weeks.

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.

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(gentle music) Closed captioning brought to you by DD Ranch Foundation, a nonprofit 501 c3 foundation working to make hunting and fishing accessible for those with disabilities.

(bright merry 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 sea lag ♪ ♪ Rain boat trout in a hidden stream ♪ ♪ The whitetail deer and the tall pine trees ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ I am, I am, a Michigan man ♪ Ask where I'm from and I'll show you my hands ♪ ♪ Lord above, I love this land (bright music)