Snow...and more snow, but fishing is still good.

A couple of weeks ago my neighbor predicted we'll get snow on the 27th of October. How did he know? Actually, it started snowing already yesterday. I went fishing early in the morning and it was miserable. I'm only a short distance away from Lockport and the Red River, so it takes me less than ten minutes to get there. Good thing, apparently the roads were quite treacherous, causing many accidents in and around Winnipeg. The road I was on was okay. There were only a couple of guys there. Luckily, they weren't fishing on 'my spot' where I knew the fish were. Most of the time somebody is already there. I caught a fish with every cast. Saugers, a relative of the Walleye, but smaller. Some of the fish were not  big enough to be kept so I released them again. However, I had four nice ones within ten minutes. Four is the limit you can keep, and I went home again. My mission was successful, my mission to bring home fish for supper. It certainly wasn't a pleasure trip. It was cold, the wind blowing from the north, sleet hitting your face. What kind of person goes out in weather like that? I'll tell you: only a desperate, diehard fisherman, who may just be a little bit crazy. That's what my wife told me. The only thing keeping me there was the fact that I was actually catching fish.
I was using a 1/8 oz jighead with a 3" chartreuse Single Tail plastic grub on an 8 pound line. I cast the jig into the spot where I knew from previous fishing that fish would be there. Then I retrieved it slowly. When I felt the tug on the line I set the hook. What a great feeling! One doesn't get that lucky often enough.
I went fishing for Walleye last month with my friend and my cousin. We spent the whole day on the lake trolling but I didn't even get a bite. The fact that it was a beautiful day, the lake calm and the scenery great, and spending quality time with friends, made it a great experience. A time to be cherished. Catching a few fish would have made it perfect, though.
Last night it snowed and this morning everything is covered with snow. I'm afraid this time it will stay. The temperature dips way below zero at night and we may not even see above zero temperatures again this year. I feel sorry for the kids when they go trick or treating on Halloween. I remember going with our boys on cold, windy, and wet Halloweens, sometimes we even had a snow storm, but I also remember nice, warm evenings where the kids didn't have to hide their costumes under thick parkas. But there are still a few days left. Perhaps the weather will change and it won't be miserable.
This morning  I saw a few juncos (a type of sparrow) hopping around on the snow-covered lawn. They are late this year. Usually they come much earlier. I filled the bird feeders yesterday. They were empty. We get a lot of birds every day and they eat like crazy, but we love watching them and don't mind spending the money for the seeds. The juncos love to pick on the ground, but with the snow they'll have to go into the feeders.  

Eco Fees - Where do they go?

The newest tax-grab from our government: Eco fees. When I bought my new computer I paid $24.00 Eco-fee. Today I bought a spiral lamp for my aquarium. I paid $2.00. Then I got charged 15 cents Eco-fee, 11 cents GST, and 15 cents PST. In other words I was charged 12% tax on top of tax (Eco-fee). A double-whammy! Okay, we're talking two pennies here, but this was a small bill. What about higher amounts? It adds up. And I really would like to know where this new Eco-fee goes. Of course, we'll never find out. Just like the recycling fee on every bottle of beer or soft-drink. Where does that money go? I remember when our government introduced the GST years back (Conservatives at that time). It was supposed to be used to pay down the national debt. And it  was supposed to be only a short-term tax. Ha-ha-ha. That's what they said a hundred years or so ago when income tax was introduced. But everyone knows: don't believe the government. Once a tax has been implemented it will never go away. Every new party that comes into power promises to get rid of the GST, but none have so far.  The Liberals had their 'Blue Book'. What happened to that?

I realize we need taxes to pay for services, pensions, health care, high government salaries and pensions (oops, that one slipped in), and other things. Without people paying their fair share on taxes a country cannot function. Look at what's happening in Greece. Everyone there wants to retire with 55 with a full pension, but they have a large underground economy and many people don't pay taxes. And the government spends more money than comes in. That's a perfect recipe for disaster.So I'm not really complaining when I have to pay some taxes, but it would be nice to know that  the money is used for the purpose it is collected.

Eco-fee. Apparently it is charged on computers and other electronic stuff. I can see that. We're living in a wasteful society. All these computer parts end up in landfills, but how is an Eco-fee going to prevent that? And why charge it on light-bulbs? The 'energy saver' bulb I bought is supposed to last for 9 years. It'll be a long time until I will throw it out, not like computers, printers, and all the other stuff that is out-dated a month after you bought it. Nothing gets fixed anymore, not like in the old days. You can buy a new printer, for instance, cheaper than it costs to replace the ink-cartridge. So you throw the old printer into the dumpster and buy a new one. What a waste! Years ago, if your TV or Radio didn't work anymore, you went to the drugstore to buy a new tube and voila, the thing worked again. Young people probably don't even know what a tube is. Poor kids, they don't know how to repair anything. It is so much easier to replace it when it's not working anymore.

And we call this progress.

Winter is coming

With the first winter storm of the season early in October we are reminded that soon the white stuff will be here to stay. Fortunately, the snow melted away again, giving us enough time to finish the yard work. My wife and I worked like dogs these last few days to clean up the fallen branches from the willow trees, cut down the dead tree trunks (from the willow trees!) We piled everything into a huge mountain in the garden. This morning it looked like rain and the wind was at 25 km/hr gusting to 35 km/hr. Not a good time to make a fire. But I got lucky. The wind died down a bit, so I lit the match. The dry branches burned fast, the flames were high, but  there was no danger. The grass was still wet from the night and any flying sparks couldn't do any harm. Everything burned within half an hour. Now there is only a small mountain of white ashes. Mind you, they are still hot and glowing inside. While I supervised the fire I cut the willow trunks with my chain saw and my miter-saw into bite-sized pieces to be split later and burned in our stove in the basement.
When we built our house and planted the trees and shrubs in the yard (we have 1.4 acres), we made the mistake and planted willows around the perimeter. Not a good choice! Willow grow fast and within a few years we had a nice wall of trees around our property, but the problem with willows is the branches are brittle. They break off easily. After every storm we have to pick the fallen branches from the property. We pile them up in one corner and burn them in the fall and in the spring. It's a lot of work, time-consuming and can get exhausting, especially since we aren't getting any younger, and with every year things take a little longer to do and get more tiring. The only positive thing is that we don't have to buy firewood for the winter.
Today I saw a robin in the bird bath and I'm wondering if it is normal for robins to be here still at this time of year. We have lots of sparrows, chickadees, bluejays, blackbirds. The finches are gone. I also saw one junco. There are usually more around at this time. Perhaps they will still come.
Instead of working I would have liked to go fishing this morning, but the work needed to be done, and the weather is not encouraging to go fishing. I want that to be fun.
I'm looking forward to go deer hunting in early November. I can hardly believe that another hunting season is only 3 weeks away. It will be a bit of a disappointment this year. I bought a scope for my muzzle-loader and a new scope for my rifle. I was hoping to shoot deer with both rifles, now they screwed that up for me. We can only shoot one deer this year, either with a bow, a muzzle-loader, or a high power rifle, because, apparently, the deer count is down. I don't know if that is so. The last time we went fishing in the Whiteshell, we saw so many deer, most of them females with two fawns, which makes it difficult to believe that  the numbers are down. I am anxious to find out how many deer I'll see this year during the hunt. That is usually a good indicator.
Hopefully, we won't get too much snow too early. Neither do we want it too cold. Over the years we've experienced many different conditions. Sometimes we had no snow, sometimes lots. Sometimes it rained, other times it snowed or sleeted. Sometimes it was too warm, and other times we froze on our stands. But we diehard hunters take it all in stride. As long as we can get out there and enjoy the great  outdoors.
There are many people who believe hunting is wrong, but that is their opinion and their right, as much as it is my right to go hunting and fishing. Our sport creates a lot of jobs, brings in millions of dollars and finances the upkeep and preservation of animal habitats. There is a lot of talk about going 'green'. Well, hunters are all for it. We want to make sure that the forests are not deforested, that the animals have sanctuaries where they can breed and where they are safe.
Hunters love nature and the animals that share this planet with us. We don't shoot them indiscriminately. What we shoot, we eat. Most people in the Western World love their meat. Beef, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys (remember Thanksgiving?), they don't grow as vegetables in the garden. Somebody has to raise them, kill them, and cut them into steaks, roasts, hamburger, fried chicken. Somebody makes the sausages and the bacon. Think about that.

Goldeyes - how to smoke them

This is the second time I’ve smoked Goldeyes in my electric Masterbuilt smoker. I used a different recipe than the last time. After freezing them for about 2 months I thawed them overnight in the fridge. In the morning I washed them well, dried them with paper towels, then I rubbed them with coarse salt and a liberal dose of garlic powder. I left them in a cooler for 2 1/2 hours to cure. Then I rinsed them well and patted them dry with a paper towel.

I dried them on a rack in a cool room for about 1 hour until the skin glazed over and felt tacky.

In the meantime I preheated my smoker for 45 minutes, following instructions that came with the smoker.

After tying pieces of twine around the tails of the Goldeye I hung them with hooks from  the top rack in the smoker. I smoked them for 2 hours at 200 F. Once the smoker shut itself off I still left the fish in the smoker for another 30 minutes for everything to cool down before I opened the door and removed them from their hooks. The fish were smoked a beautiful golden color. I put them onto a grill on a cookie sheet and left them in the cold garage (at a temperature of about 10 F) until they were cold to the touch, about 45 minutes.

We had the two largest for supper and they tasted as delicious as they look on these pictures:

         

The first winter storm

How quickly things can change. Woke up yesterday morning to our first winter storm of the season. Blowing snow, high winds, and cold. Brrr. I already hate it. The snow is staying and today it is still blowing and the snow hasn't stopped coming down. I went hunting for geese with my son on Wednesday. It was only 2C in the morning, but later on the sun came out and it turned into a nice and dry day. We didn't get any geese, never even fired a shot. The geese were flying too high and had no intentions of joining our little flock of decoys. But it didn't matter. I spent the morning outdoors and had a little quality time with my son. Those are the precious moments in my life and I cherish them. Time is moving fast these days and I realize I may not have that many years left where I am still healthy and strong enough to go hunting and fishing. But at the same time those activities help me to stay in shape and I will keep at them as long as possible. And when the time comes where I can't go out anymore, I have my pictures and my memories.

Our backyard 2 weeks ago

The view from our window today

The stubble field where we hunted October 3. Nice and dry.