Winter weekend archery

Another great day in the snow! With the temperature around -6 C today I went out and took the bows with me to the Timmins  Bowhunters and Archers outdoor range.  Jenn and I snowshoed into the range and packed trails to the backdrop and 10 and 15 yard lines. I started with my Greatree Archery recurve which I recently worked up and silenced with beaver balls and felt on the upper limbs. I quickly shot up a fairly consistent grouping, the bow was still making a hard surface vibration which I narrowed down to my cheap bow mounted quiver which I removed and the bow became whisper silent, I'll have to splurge on a higher quality replacement before hunting season. I switched out to my Ragim longbow and was unable to get decent groupings again and after a few rounds of arrows and with the last couple years making no real progress on my grouping with it I've decided to sell it. It's not an easy decision being my first bow but I'm unable to make any progress in shooting it, same anchor point draw length and style and still no constancy. I prefer the takedown recurve for hunting being able to pack it easier  and move it through the dense underbrush better. I'd rather see it in someone's hands that can do sometching with it. With the rrecurve in hand i was back to shooting fairly tight groupings again. The snow continued to fall and we made an excellent afternoon out of it.

Johnson Thinfisher review

After last week's successful pike fishing trip to Porcupine Lake I've decided to do a review on my star player from that trip :the Johnson Thinfisher. All the pike I caught and landed last weekend were caught on the Thinfisher (except one dastardly beast which tore the Williams ice silver spoon clean off my rod).the Johnson Thinfisher comes in a neat package, I purchased my one and it's replacement at Canadian Tire for $ 6.99. I purchased the 1/4 oz version as I also had rainbow,spake and lake trout in mind. The package comes with a fairly detailed instruction guide for the three line attachment types. The setups are as follows :  Front or fast is the front grommet set for fast vibration and short weavin5, middle or medium : the default setup and it's the second grommet and is medium vibration and medium length weaving  ( this is the setting I used for this trip) and the last is rear or slow, is for slow vibration and long weaves. The Thinfisher is also equipped with a chamber around the center of balance that has a rattle which produces sonic activity as it rattles and weaves. When I set the lure up and started to use it I was using highly aggressive jigging motions and had multiple hits that didn't hold and one that did but was barley hooked. I switched to an agresssive and stop action and the hits became takers landing three more and the one large pike came along and tore the Thinfisher off at the hole entrance ending my happy streak ( yes I was re-tying after each pike). This lure has "Ice" markings however in a vertical fishing situation it would do outstanding in the canoe or above a brookie hole you can feel even on the medium setting the highly functional vibration setting. The Thinfisher was a kind of spur of the moment purchase but it performed well out of my expectations. The replacement I purchased this weekend will hopefully be put to good use again this coming weekend, I want to get some trout and get some camping done. This lure gets my 5 stars.

Friday afternoon ice fishing on Porcupine lake

On Friday I took a vacation day, while having lunch I got a text from my friend Andrew wanting to know if we wanted to go fishing. We settled on some pike fishing on Porcupine lake. We drove over and picked Andrew up and went down to Deadman's point. The spot we wanted to try was a rock point Jenn and I catch decent sized perch off of. We hiked about a kilometer over some skidoo trails and shin deep snow and we reached the point and set up about 30 meters off the point. The water was around 6 ft deep and an hour later we moved a further out and into 8-10 ft of water. After a wait of about half an hour Jenn got a big hit on her minnow and  then it let go a few seconds later it hit again and then again, Jenn set the hook and pulled a nice pike through the hole . Andrew was next to pull in a pike on his minnow. Using a rapala jigging shad I pulled a pike in as well. Throughout the afternoon we lost a bunch of hits and in the end Jenn pulled in 4 pike on minnows and lost several  and nearly lost her rod down a hole, I pulled in 4 pike with the rapala and lost it to another pike and when I switched to a Williams silver spoon I was pulled off balance by a sudden and violent hit and a split second later a loud snap sounded as the pike snapped my line taking my second lure of the day. Andrew also had great success pulling in 4 pike a perch and a nice sized walleye. It was excellent day spent fishing and finally some successes after a long winter fruitlessly fishing.

Winter Family day camping

Jenn and I set out at 10:00 to the forests in the south end of the city (the same spot Andon and I tested out the four season tent) We hiked about a kilometer to the site, our sleds packing the trail real good. The weather was amazing, 6 degrees celsius and sunny in February when it is usually in the minus twentys. Jenn packed the spot for the tent down with her snowshoes while I downed a dead black spruce. Jenn took over the cutting for me and I set off and put up the Arctic bell tent. For the last 5 years I've had the tent I've been setting it up the hard way. After seeing online the correct way to set the tent it took a lot less time and effort. I then assembled the woodstove and cut a bipod for the stove pipe. Jenn and I then went about bringing the wood, spruce boughs and gear into the tent and at 16:00 I started the fire and cooked lazy man's cabbage rolls. I got to do some testing of the BK-7 by batoning some decent sized wood into kindling and shaving down some feathersticks. I de-limbed a spruce for some boughs for underneath my bedroll. I was highly impressed with the BK-7's performance. Around dusk some black capped chickadees started to visit the camp so we set some trailmix out for them and before long they were hopping around on guy lines and coming up to the entrance. We settled down for the night and around 01:00 a digging sound from the side of the tent woke us up and Jenn made a noise and scared off the mysterious creature,  about 10 mins later it revealed itself a Fox starting barking a short distance away as though scolding us.
I slept through the rest of the night waking a couple times to stoke the fire. We woke around 07:00 to the fire at a slow smolder and trying to stoke it was falling each time, I noticed smoke coming out from the damper holes and knew the problem as it has happened a couple times before. I crawled outside and pulled the spark arrester out and it was completely crusted over with creosote,  as soon as I pulled the arrester free a whoosh sounded and the fire flared up immediately. I cooked some sausages and bacon for breakfast and we relaxed and bit and then broke camp and headed home.

Kabar BK-7 Unboxing

I purchased a new belt knife this week after some extensive research on reviews ect. I settled on the Kabar BK-7. Kabar has an excellent reputation and is known to build some of the best knives on the market.
On opening and handling for the first time, you know this knife is no joke. Although it's in the higher end for weight to can feel the balance and it feels right in your hands.One thing that is a little shocking is it comes out of the box shaving sharp (I'm used to spending a hour or so getting new blades to a good sharpness). Before I go and finalize this review I'm going to take it with me camping this weekend and run it through a bit of a gambit.

Winter 2017 so far

Winter 2017 so far
Hi all, I haven' posted much on the blog lately but it doesn't mean I haven't been out.
I've been ice fishing my ass off but to no avail, LOL yes I haven't caught a dang thing. From Wealthy, Flynn, Evelyn, Clearwater and Noted Lakes I've been completely skunked so far but I'm not giving up! The skiing and snowshoeing have been a blast and have gotten out more than in the last few years
even. Andon Jenn and I have been breaking up snowshoe trails and Andon and I have been skiing pretty frequently. We've also been focusing a lot on our archery getting ready for the 2017 hunting season. We try as often as possible to get to the indoor shoot with Timmins Bowhunters and Archers and this weekend we tried snowshoeing and archery and had a blast. We will be hitting the outdoor range on the weekends rain, snow or shine. This upcoming weekend Jenn and I will going out and doing some camping fishing and hare hunting. I'll post more during next week with hopefully some successes.

 

 

 

 
 

 

High peak outdoors Klondike 2 man 4 season tent review

I've had this tent in my inventory for a little while now and have wanted to test it out in some pretty decently cold weather . I took it out in September on an overnight that saw -1 degree C and it did great but I really wanted to see if  I could trust this tent on a winter camp out. My nephew Andon and I settled on a location close to home and we hiked about 1 kilometer and begin to set up. We first found an area out of the wind and not in a cold sump and checked the ground for stumps and heaves, once satisfied with the ground we laid down a ground sheet (A US army shelter half) the choice of groundsheet turned into a lesson learned but more on that later. We then raised the inner tent and secured the outer fly all easy tasks. While I staked the fly and tied the guy lines Andon covered over the bottom edges of the fly with snow. The tent has two very useful vestibules and we faced them in a north south facing, we used the north facing vestibule as our gear storage for our packs and the south one as the entrance and place for our boots.

 

I went inside the tent and unrolled our sleeping bags and placed the lantern and thermometer.
We collected firewood and Andon started up the fire which we set on top of a salvaged metal sheet found nearby, After a supper of chilli and soup we set aside our fuel and kindling for the next
morning and settled in for the night.

We changed into our sleeping clothes and it didn't take long to notice that the tent was retaining a considerable amount of heat at 11 C with an outside temp of - 13 C. We fell asleep around 2100 and I awoke at 0100  and checked the temperature 7 C outside temp still - 13 C. When I woke up at 0300 it was 0 C with an outside temp of -18 C. When we got out of bed at 0630 the temp was still 0 C and the outside temp -20 C. It didn't take long and we got the fire roaring. When we took the tent down the ground sheet I had put down had absorbed a great deal of moisture and was a sheet of ice that I had to pound with the back of my axe to fold up. The tent had a lot of ice on the inside from condensation and I think it was due to me  closing the vent flaps in the early part of the night and opening it around 0300. 

 2100

 0100

  0100 outside temp

0300

0300 outside temp

I give this tent 4 stars

PROs:                               CONs:

-Easy setup                        -Could be a little more breatheable for condensation control

-Low cost ($200)                - Size, I would make the tent a little longer and not as tall

-Excellent heat retention

-Light weight (2.7 kgs)