Surf and Turf

Thanks Markster. I made some Goose jerky a few weeks ago on the smoker and it turned out great. These birds are destined to become pepperettes. I usually hang them for a few days but too warm yet for that. Nice young ones get roasted whole, sometimes will put breasts in slow cooker with apple cider then ad BBQ sauce and pull apart like pulled pork, breasts on the smoker too I find good.

Hopefully the ducks are down early this year Gunner!

Couldn't resist getting out for the early season goose season. Nice cool morning, set up went smooth and enough birds were flying to get some action. We were just packing up and two cop cars showed up, here we go. One of the neighbouring properties called in to report that there were people with guns shooting geese behind their house and they are protected. We just explained to the officers what the rules were and that we were following the rules and they were satisfied with that. My buddy follows up with "we might see you again on Saturday, lol" Too many city slickers moving out to the country that don't belong there! Arggh.

Claude and John serviced my boat until they closed up. I thought that they retired but could be wrong. I believe that all Mercs 30hp and under are actually made by Tohatsu of Japan, rebranded as Mercs and 40hp to 60hp Mercs are made in China. That would be enough reason for me not to buy a Merc outboard just out of principal.

I’ve been to the Beer store a few times over the years. Highly recommend, despite being over priced and poor service.

Trudeau says a canoe. He did say that one of the highest priorities of aboriginal youth is a place to store their canoe!

Very painful! The worse is filling up the Yukon and the boat together. My son just got his license and was in shock when we passed the $200 mark. Since we are all still buying gas, we are obviously not paying enough Carbon tax yet. The pain is just starting if we can't get stop the Liberals! Hopefully O'Toole can dig deep and pull out a win to stop the madness.

Looks a bit staged? I think it would be much more believable if she was topless wearing a camouflaged thong!

Oh boy, Oh boy, we had better stock up the freezer with steaks before the Liberals slap the carbon tax on beef too, Smerch! The scary thing is that it isn't far fetched! Maybe they are on to something though, I guess it must have been dinosaur farts that caused the global warming millions of years ago, after their extinction, the earth began to cool, entering into the ice age, then began to heat up again with Wooly Mammoth farts leading us into warming periods, then more ice ages, then buffalo farts now replaced with cattle farts leading back to an increasingly warming period. I think a big part of the problem is all the hot air that the politicians are spewing. We should get rid of them and leave the poor cattle alone!

Lol, yes they are very distracting, I kept looking for the play button but couldn't find...damn!

Hmm, I don't usually use straws but if they put that picture on a box, I'd probably buy a box or two! Ha. Being a glass half full guy, I think see is undoing her top and about to let them loose!

Politicians hard at work for their constituents! Arggh!

The water levels are usually low and the few fish in there get stressed this time of year.

Don't have to be retired Smerch to see the change, yes everything is getting more costly. I still have to do a painful conversion in my head from metric to imperial measurements, and who's going to notice a few dozen grams/ml/mm, disappear. My wife picked up some Dads cookies the other days and they weren't much bigger than a Ritz cracker! Between taxes, inflation and debt it creates a vicious cycle. Costs go up, prices go up, inflation goes up, rates go up to keep inflation at bay, wages go up to keep up cost of living, which drives up costs, then more price increases, taxes go up to cover spending and interest cost on our ever increasing federal and provincial government debt loads. They are forecasting the interest charge on our debt to rise to approximately 3.8 Trillion annually, that will suck the future generations dry. Hopefully it wont turn out to be a financial death spiral for our Country in the coming years. Our current prime minister and finance minister are throwing money around like drunk'n sailors (no offence to drunk'n sailors) With the two of them it's like handing a chequebook and visa with no limit to your 8 year old and expecting a positive outcome with the family finances.

It sounds like you have their attention. Speed bumps tend to work better than anything to slow traffic. Lake St in Grimsby used to be a raceway, speed bumps were the only thing that eventually worked.

Maybe a Wahoo smolt? Ha! Never know what you'll catch in the lower.

Not a good look for us anglers. Nasty critters but don't deserve to suffer, it could have just as easily been a loon or duck.

Around the mouth of any of the creeks along the Niagara river will hold bass for sure, lots of musky, sheepshead, perch etc have been caught where you were fishing too. You have to move around and experiment with baits and presentation

Good looking camp, brings back memories. The birch log setup is a redneck outhouse. Nothing will wake you up in the morning like dragging the boys across an ice covered log! LOL

50" that would have been a bruiser for sure! I've seen it happen a few times over the years luckily not to me. I've always been paranoid about having that happen with gun locks so stopped using them as I have a hard enough time just remembering to bring the gun and shells. Mine are always either in the safe, with me, or locked in the vehicle. That looks like a handy set up, a light ratchet strap might be the ticket?

The worst is when it shows as being in stock but they can't find it once you get there. Hmmm I see it here on our system but we can't find it.

Yes, that is frustrating when that happens and they all seem guilty of it. That coupled with staff that don't care is a deadly combination. The older you get the less patience you have for that sort of BS too. I like to support local stores but too often these days they act like they are doing you a favour. Yes gas prices are heading no where but up and that is exactly what the federal government wants, the higher the better! By 2030 the carbon tax alone will add 38 cents per litre based on the governments own current targets, thats on top of all the existing taxes and new ones I'm sure they will come up with along the way. Plus that will get doubled down on as without pipelines all that oil has to get transported by rail and road all burning diesel that is going to get more expensive further driving up costs of producers and our gas prices (and everything else) even higher.

Timing your arrival definitely makes sense. You definitely have that right Verado!

That would have been a cool experience going in by train, were they diesel or coal back then? Ha Yes those adventures never leave you, just lucky to have experienced them as the majority never will and have no idea what they miss out on.

That is a cool picture Smerch, Looking at old pictures brings your mind back to that time. Unfortunately I have very few pictures from my youth. I didn't really start taking pictures until I had kids. This reminds me that on my first moose hunt we camped on the Mattagami River too, can't recall exactly where but was fairly close to a big dam. I was 18 along with my buddy, his brother and his uncle. It was a real circus. We had made a "tent" out of orange tarps that must have been 8 x 20. I remember when it was all sewn up I mentioned that maybe we should cover the grommet holes and buddy's uncle said "one rain drop hitting a grommet hole isn't going to hurt anything," those turned out to be famous last words. So we leave Niagara Falls in the afternoon, ran out of pavement just past Smooth Rock falls and all the way to the Mattagami on logging roads in the dark, getting there around midnight or so. Next step, set up the "Tent". Well to set up the tent you basically had to build a log cabin to put the "tent" over it, so out come the chain saws, lashing together of poles and, finally draping the "tent" over the makeshift frame. By this time it started to sleet and snow with a bit of rain mixed in. Once set up we dragged our stuff in and crashed. The next thing I knew it was raining with the rain collecting on the sagging roof and each grommet hole was a mini waterfall inside the tent. Being so tired we just stoked the fire and pulled a plastic sheet over us. My buddy and his brother both had army surplus sleeping bags that were warm and evidently waterproof. I had an old cheap Canadian Tire special that soaked up water like a sponge. The next morning I woke up and my head was in a puddle and I had ice frozen to my head and I had the worst head ache I have ever experienced! We had a ton of other mishaps on that trip some while sober, some while not. Wild devil pig encounter, devil pig barricade, skunk shot outside tent, Five Star induced bird feeder, lost in the bush etc. Good times, and way better than spending the week in school! We did allot of exploring in our 12 foot aluminum, bouncing off dead heads out in the river. We are lucky we didn't all drown. One day it was raining so hard and with our firewood stash soaked, my buddy and I decided to backtrack up the logging road to cut up some dead fall birch that we could split for dry wood. On the way back we see something in the middle of the road, had to give it a double take, it was a Bull, he looked at us then walked off the road into a small clearing maybe 75 yards short of the bush, stops and looks back at us. Well we weren't really hunting at that time, so we weren't prepared at all. I pull over, flip the seat of the truck pull out my rifle, fish around under the seat for the box of shells, get loaded up. By then the moose must have gotten bored wondering what we were and decided to move on. The rifle I was using was a borrowed Lee Enfield 303 with open sights, that I had fired once to make sure it still worked. I took aim and fired, it looked like it slumped forward but it stepped into a gully and went down, I thought that I had it it, well it walked up the other side of the gully, so bang, shot again, one more step and it disappears into the bush. We get back into the truck and race up to where it was, off we go looking for our moose. No sign of a hit, no hair, no blood, nothing, clean miss. That moose was so big I figured it was about 200 yards away when I shot but was more like twice that so I would have been hitting the ground in front of him. Well we get back to camp and tell our story and my buddies Uncle was so mad that I had missed that moose that he wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the week. He was also mad at my buddy for not bringing his rifle with us because he had a new 30-06 with a scope. Back then, we didn't know what we didn't know, but boy was it a learning experience of what not to do. Hunting trips no go by in a blurr, more successful by far but gone in a flash. It felt like we were on that trip for a month in comparison.