Old dogs gone

This was taken a couple of years ago I used to spend quite a bit of time in after hares with beagles. It was great fun and a great deal more productive than hunting without dogs

Hunt,fish, eat

We are just coming through a blizzard here on the east coast of Newfoundland but at least its mild. I have been out a fair bit looking for snowshoe hares on weekends and evenings when I can get away but am seeing more signs of coyotes than hares. Hunting has been poor for me this winter meatwise but I had a great fall. I am still eating moose 5 days a week and ptarmigan,hare or waterfowl for a change. I might have a bit of chicken on Sunday otherwise I have eaten nothing but game since November.
I just finished a big pot of Chilindron made with moose. I got the recipe from here http://www.honest-food.net/blog1/wild-game/chilindron-spanish-red-pepper-stew/.It is really worth trying as well as the other recipes on this great website. I have been eating this since Thursday night and am sorry to see the last of it go. Tonight I will be having ptarmigan fried in a cast iron pan with olive oil and a bit of garlic with a few pieces of broccoli, cauliflower and leeks. Trout fishing for brook trout through the ice is next. I should really start working on those coyotes as well. I am not keen on shooting if I am not going to eat it but the coyotes are getting very thick here in some places. In one spot they are following me and taking hares from my snares.
regards
Dan

I was out at evening looking for snowshoe hares with a 22 rifle and had no luck. Bird season and big game is long gone so I spend a few evenings now looking for hares with a 22 rifle that my dad bought for me a long time ago. We have had a very mild winter here in contrast to what most of eastern North America has been having, with very little snow. We normally get a great deal of snow, I mean meters of snow. This year so far no snowshoes are needed in the woods. Anyway today was damp cold not winter cold this evening in the woods and very little has moved in the woods since the last snowfall. I am home now, my daughter is home from nans and I am having a rum and coke with a bit of lime while frying a nice piece of moose with mushroom and onions. Life is good. Dark in the winter but still good. The moose and ptarmigan, ducks and geese that I shot the fall will keep me through the dark months. The sun is already on its way back north.
Its going to be a busy winter at work. It looks like I am going to be working a lot of 7 day weeks so I am glad to have gotten out the fall. Its now time to pay for it

regards
Dan

Merry Christmas all.

A Merry Christmas to anyone who happens along. I haven't posted in a while but I have a week off and I hope to be spending a fair bit of time in the woods. I hope all enjoy the season

Nothing fancy

I love bird dogs whose reason for being is finding birds and they look at you as you come abreast of them by rolling their eyes until you see the whites without them moving their heads.
I love the covey flush which gets your chest pounding and your adrenaline going as if it is your first covey.
I love the rise of a trout or better yet the hidden wink of the take of a dead drifted nymph.
The pull of a salmon as the fly swings on a drift.
The feeling you feel as you realize that you will soon have the moose dead to rights after a tense 20 minute stalk and you look asking, is he there? he should be there and then you see him bigger than anything you had imagined.
Sunsets,woodsmoke, leather, canvas, cold rain, warm sun, first snow of the season. The smell of balsam fir and wet dog. I taste and smell all of this in simply cooked wild game. Moose and onions. Its as good as food gets.



Well that picture was a disappointment, it didn't do it justice. Oh well off to the city tomorrow. Snow shoes and snowshoe hares soon winter has arrived.

I haven't been out much busy with work and last weekend we had terrible weather. It has been unseasonably mild. Its 0130 now and the wind has woke me up. Its forecast at 110 KM/h or about 70 mph. The house is shaking with some of the gusts. I spent many a night on the North Atlantic in weather like this and its a pleasure to be in a warm dry house. We have had no snow but they are getting hammered just a little west of here. It won't be long I am sure before we start getting hit ourselves with snow. I hope to get out this weekend with the dogs and my daughter. I will need a day in the woods to get me through next week as I will be in the city all next week attending a course.