Leaderboard

Labor day weekend and well,there was some labor during these past 3 days. The good fun stuff. Lets get this started eh. Home and get the bacon that has been curing for 7 days ready . Rinse, pat dry and add ground pepper as the norm for me. In the fridge til morning. My smoker was booked for the weekend. Bacon ,some jerky ,sat and sun, Monday was going to be a fishing day . Well Friday night I get a knock on the door and it,s #1 son with a fresh silver salmon. Pop,can you clean and smoke this for me ? Ya ok,I will try and fit it into my weekend schedule . So a quick, slice slice there and a flip flip there, a dump of salt here,couple of dumps of brown sugar there, fill bowl with water, stir,dump in a zip lock bag and into the fridge it goes till a later date. Saturday morning arrives early,4:20. I thought that was an early time to start smoking. LOL Get the smoker fired up and in goes the pork. I could only get an internal temp of 165-168 deg, so decided to fire up the grill to get the proper internal temps of 175-180 deg. Good call, as it did not take long . Turned out IMO, so good. I was slicing pieces off the smaller chunk and just eating. Had to stop or I was going to go into a piggy coma . Cut the ends off of each slab,cubed for frying up and put in home made mac & cheese later on . Sliced and vac packed. Since the grill was fired up,might as well throw on some chops and taters for dinner. Oh look,more beer. LOL No pics,to hungry. LOL After that was all done,I prepped for my first attempt at smoked ground beef jerky. I used this commercial stuff, Hi Mountain. Seems everyone carries it,so must be good . I went a little less then the recipe called for,as this was my first try. So up in the AM Sunday just before 4:20 this time, pull the bowl out of the fridge ,grab my new jerky maker tube pusher thingy. Oh wait, for got. I have been looking for jerky grates, but man, they want an arm and a leg for them. While at CTC, they had these use once and throw away grilling grates for $5.99. Yup,I,ll take 2 of those for my first go at. Now, back to the squeezing of the meat. Stuff the tube,and lock,load and squeeze . Effortless I must say. Laid out the strips like a pro, I thought anyways. Interruption happens,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, TEXT, Son says,fish are on,grab rod and get here. What the hell, I am just about to do my jerky,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Hell with it,they will wait. Put racks in the fridge,grab rod and some of my silly leg balanced jigs I tied. I was not prepared, but son calls with the bite on,I got to go . Look for a report on this later,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Now back to jerking,,,,,,,,,, Home by 9:30 am, I get the smoker ready,once again . Get the wood pan going,grates in and wait . Check after 2 hours, coming along just fine,I think. Never did this before,what the hell do I know, but the smell was unreal already . The word is,when you can take a stick of meat, bend and it does not break,it,s done. I was able to bend the sticks after 4 hours and it did not break. Done . Only issue was,I had no pam spray and well,some of the sticks kinda stuck to the grate. No worries,I chewed the remaining stuck pieces off. No waste.LOL One thing for sure I will do next time,is go with a low fat content ground meat and spray the grates. I went with lean and found it was a bit greasy for me. I will go with extra lean or maybe even with ground game. Bison,elk or venison . Have to start some where right. I did get it right,the first try .Vac pac these up for later eats on the river and to share with my fishing buddies. This jerky stuff is going to be a must have come the ice season. Great snacking . Not finished yet, oh no. Master chef at large here . I wanted a nice full spatchek lemon chicken for dinner. Grab one of those free range no antibiotic birds . Ya cost a few $ more, but found that today,s normal pack chicken tastes like crap, no flavor, so gave it a go. Along with some lemons and corn on the cob from a local and fixen,s for ceaser salad. I injected the breast and legs with pure squeezed lemon and sprinkled newfie savory all over it. Man, that bird plumped up . On the grill indirect for 1 hour with 2 large apple wood chuncks. Reached 165 and it was chow time. Man that apple wood smoke on the skin and lemon in the meat,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, DROOLING Now back to that dropped off salmon. Once dinner was done, I got the fish pat and racked, and in the fridge til Monday AM. Up Monday real early and well, smoking fish was not on my mind,fishing was, so off to the river for a few hours . Sons smoke fish can wait . Was a good call as I went 1/2 in a few hours. Yes, you will have to find this report in the fishing section of the forum as well . Home,and well, same routine, smoker prepped,fish in,smoked and well, jerky salmon vac packed. Cabelas had this box of bags 15% off . Cost me $22 for alot of bags. Good bargain and lie the different sizes. Easy packing . Mondays feed is, LEFT OVERS. The best kind. A side note after all this,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, When I arrived home this morning, I see my granddaughter with a couple of packs of my vac packs. One smoke bacon and one of snack sticks. She was all smiles and said, your suppose to be fishing . Well that was until I tail slapped her with my catch of the day. LMAO. Ya maybe not funny to her,but hey, it,s all fun til you get tail slapped. LOL Hope all had a great fun and safe long weekend . I am pooped out. Beer me.

So with all that smoking and cooking going on in my other thread, I did manage about 6-7 hours of wetting a line over this weekend. Sunday I got a text from #1 son the bite was on . Not being prepared yet for the fall run,I grab my rod and a few of my balanced silly leg jigs. I have never fished one, but with the orders coming from my son and his buddies, they must work, right ? So get there early,my spot was secured by my son and the other young fellas . They are all rigged up with roe,skein and beads . One of the young fellas asked what I was going to use ? I showed him . That is a nice looking silly leg sir. I said as I always do,do not call me sir,KID. LOL. These young guys are a good bunch of fellas. Respect like when I was a young guy that showed respect to older sirs,I mean ,older fella . Light finally comes after sitting 1.5 hours of darkness . Time to fish . Throw the float,watch as it goes by,twitch as they say in the twitching bug lingo and well,wham . All I felt was the rod tip pull and it was fish on. I was laughing like a young boy. So excited to have a hit on my bug. Then it starts. Leap after leap . Not me,the fish . A steelhead I yelp .SHHHHHHHHHHH, is all I heard from the guys . I couldn't help myself,it was one drift and a hit on my own bug . A nice battle and in the net that my son helped with . Now I know why I have been asked to tie so many. They do put a beating on the jig. So with that adventure day behind me.I wanted to get back at it again this morning. Same bait, but also had my hot shot set up with me. No room yesterday for that. At the bank at early dark to just get the spot that I wanted. Day light comes,start with the bug, but nada. Switch up to the hot shot,nada. Buddy nails one on a 10mm bead. Hey,I got one of those in my back pocket. Not really,It was in my jacket buried some where. Ah, there you are. retie,peg the bead and cast. Float goes by and gone . Set and fish one. Dang me, it,s another nice fish. This one went leaps and bounds . Fresh fish are the best fight. Nice fight,in the net . Want to get out for a perch fish before I put away the float boat,but the river calls.

Finally finding some time to put some of the footage I’ve been taking of my fishing outings. I was kinda forced to as 2 year’s worth has filled my SSD and my external hard drives….lol. This is from this spring, ootanaboot with my lad.

That’s northbay dress shoes. nice fish.

What I did find interesting in that article was that they stressed using only bottled lemon juice, not fresh squeezed. I figure it must have to do with the ph consistency.

Just took a look at the website, definitely doesn't give me the urge to drive there, maybe if I'm bored on a rainy day and I'm in the area.

I have that smoke reel and a whole bunch of other quantum reels. I've caught huge fish in the far north and in saltwater with a variety of quantum reels. I have a 90s cabo that I still fish with. Higher end quantum have handled all challenges. One lower end one blew up but I landed the fish in my avatar. The drags on high end ones are exceptional. You get what you pay for.

Your kids break into your home and Rob your smoked meats eh? Let me know if you ever want to hire a security guard. You can pay me in chicken and bacon

Jeez bud, you do all of this while wearing running shoes! Animal!

Stellar! I've been thinking it was time to get a line wet there.

Absolutely amazing

Looks like an Amazing morning out! even better you shared it with your son . Miss that creek !!

Real nice dude

WTG Misfish !!!...My gang will be here on the 17th to rent a pontoon and try for some bass or whatever

Looks good, I can my own tomatoes as well using my heirloom indeterminates. So much flavour that jumps out at you even when opening the jars. I'm curious as to what you use to lower the ph below 4.6 to ensure safe canning? Tomatoes used to be considered high acid but not anymore so I don't take a chance. I used to use lemon but don't care for the taste in my tomato sauce. Since I started to use citric acid I've never looked back. The small amount needed doesn't affect the taste at all, it's only 1/4tsp for pints and 1/2tsp for qts. Here's a good article for anyone who wants to can them. https://foodsafety.wisc.edu/assets/preservation/UWEX_addacidtomatoes.pdf Cheers

Nice man!

Nice work men!

Most quantum are junk but the Smoke s3 are a different animal..I got the S3 spinning only because I had gift cards and got a great deal on a sale. The drag and line managment are hands down better than my more expensive daiwa kage or shimano stadics and saros I own. It was supposed to be a back to my back up kind of reel but really holds its own and I reach for it often. It doesnt have that airy feeling like the daiwas or shimanos but it feels tight and in my opinion will last. I still have a quantum energy titanium from the early 90s thats now my girlfriends reel. Thing wont die. They do seem to produce some gems now and again in between alot of junk they get a bad rap for. Baitcast I stick with shimano and daiwa although again I still have a perfectly functional Quantum US 600 from again early 90s