smitty55

That's so funny. I start all my fires with a blow torch and if they still need a little helping hand to start well I'm not shy with it lol. Hot and fast start is what I'm after. Cheers

As to my ceiling fan, heat rises so it seemed like a no brainer to push the hot air down. Also, I never had an hrv unit before, but after the house was half rebuilt 4 years ago after a fire they had to put one in to be up to code. I've used it so far in the winter but not yet this year and after irishfield's points I might not bother anymore. I noticed what seemed to be a negative pressure issue the first winter with the new stove. I had them come back and adjust the unit which did help some, but I can't really say for sure if the unit is helping all that much. Plus I don't care what any engineer says, when I'm drawing in -25° air into the house it has to be heated. I totally understand how necessary they can be in some homes to prevent mold and provide air exchange. In my case I have no issues with humidity for the most part, I run the AC and a dehumidifier in the summer so my levels are never above 60% and in the winter I run a humidifier to try and keep levels up to 40%, but by midwinter I'm lucky to stay above 30. Totally agree with your other points too irishfield. With a cathedral ceiling my stovepipe is all straight up indoors with one short 45. At least 80% of my burning over the years here has been red oak, which I love to use as it burns down to ash, with no charcoal like maple, which fills the firebox up quicker. I have never had creosote ever, all I ever get is a superfine ash which might add up to 2 cups worth every 2-3 years. I could probably never clean it and it would be fine, but I do it anyway. Like you said as well, try to mostly always burn a hot fire to get the best performance out of your stove, and specially when building a fresh bed. Airflow is everything. My door stays open a bit for a good five minutes at least as I start getting heat to the stove and chimney and work on the coal bed. Funny you mention chimney fires. Here's one for the real old timers out there I figure. I was visiting a bunch of old buds at their hunt camp yesterday and Scotty mentions a name I hadn't heard for ages. Funny how that can suddenly trigger something you learned way back that makes perfect sense, but I've never heard of it anywhere else. So this real old farm gal still lived by herself in the old farmhouse after pa died, which was getting real rough. But she didn't want to leave. A good bud is renting another farm off her back then, so he tells me that chimney fires aren't uncommon, she's had a few. Pretty scary for an old gal on her own still. Well, Hellen Gillen wasn't scared. She had a coffee can full of powdered sulfur beside the stove. When there was a chimney fire she would throw a scoop or two on the fire and the burning sulfur would displace all the oxygen in the chimney and extinguish the fire. Old time country smarts there I tell ya... Anyone else ever heard of this? Cheers

I buy tandem loads of logs myself and get 7-8 full cord for $1200. In fact I have a load of pure red oak coming after deer season. That will last me two years for sure, so figure the cost plus 20 bucks in fuel. Bottom line is I get my wood at half price, and I process it to my specs. Best exercise I get all year too, My stove is in the living room so I put in a smaller but quite efficient Napolean stove rated for 600-1500 sq.ft. and max 55000btu. The center portion of my bungalow is cathedral ceiling . With a 54" ceiling fan and two 20" floor fans blowing into the great room from each end I easily heat the whole ground floor which is 60ft long. With the furnace fan running full time and the hrv system come winter I can even keep the basement tolerable. That's without using my propane furnace at all except the odd time to keep the basement a boost. What I'm getting at I guess here Weeds is that you may have a much better source of heat with that insert than you realize. I googled it and some of these inserts have real impressive specs and can heat large areas. You should really check yours out. This one for example, https://www.regency-fire.com/Products/Wood/Wood-Inserts/I1200 compares well with wood stoves. Same output as mine with a little smaller firebox even. As to your original question, and like others have mentioned, combustion air is everything to an efficient burn. As you add wood into the available space there is less air available obviously and eventually you hit the trade off point where even with the draft wide open its harder to get big stuff going well, specially without a good solid coal bed and real dry wood. One thing for sure, as my ash bed builds up it hits a depth where my stove does not burn as well, two days max, and a 14' buck burns much better than 16" in my 18" firebox. In fact the manual recommends 12" as the optimal size, go figure, so that tells me what they are likely using to get those specs. All stoves have their personalities and work best when treated a certain way I've found. Inserts won't be any different. With today's well sealed homes an open window can really help to get things going well too. You'll figure it out the more you use it. It's all about getting the stove and chimney hot. There is absolutely nothing that compares to wood heat IMO, whether it's an outdoor fire, or standing in front a Findlay mama bear cook stove back in the day to thaw out after you finally came in from outside playing all day. My wood stove is the same now, I love the way the heat just soaks in you know... As do all guests who seem to like to park in front of it for a while.. Good luck with it all Weeds. I have a feeling the more you use that firebox the more you will appreciate it. Cheers

I'm not a musky guy but there's gotta be a good reason most are recommending a round reel. They've always been considered a more robust style, which makes sense to me when you deal with the largest predator we have. Just curious, why so much bias against the round style? Cheers

yw... Adam is totally involved with the lake as a whole as well, including creating and improving spawning grounds throughout the lake. Things have changed big time in some areas over time, for instance the mouth of Fish Creek, which has gone from a deep rocky slope along the lake shore, and turned into a featureless silt laden basin over the decades of all those swamps dumping down the creek Fyi, the lake is chock full of clone 2-2.5lb bass if you want to play midday. Lot's of fun on light outfits. Healthy Pike population too. You won't be bored. If you can find any green plants still that would be a good starting point. Have fun... I've no doubt Adam will point you straight. Don't be shy to ask questions before you head out. Hint: Ask him about that nice hump off of Pickerel bay lodge. With the right wind it can be a good jigging spot... Cheers

https://www.facebook.com/adamsoutfitting/ Adam seems to be doing well this fall. Cheers

Unfortunately it's not going to stay for long. I love snow for deer hunting. Cheers

I have a 14' Yukon with a 20hp and it's just right. Any of those boats you mentioned I think are all rated for for 25hp. With stronger winds or longer tours I guarantee you will find the 9.9 undersized. Just saying. Cheers

Probably too late now but good luck on your trip. If the lodge has a main dock with lights on don't discount some shore night fishing. Don't forget the lawn chairs and beer/wine. I won best Pickerel of the trip off the dock at Alwaki one year on our last night lol. Twister tail with a salted Emerald if I recall hehe. Cast, slip float, jig or drop shot are all good options. Have fun. Cheers

Great post! Thanks so much for sharing. That brings back memories of 80's back lake trout fishing in the Bogie highlands. Specks and bows mostly. Our go to method in the summer was using small gang trolls like a ford fender or willowleaf with a worm trailer 16" behind. Adjust weight as needed with rubbercore or 3-way to get down in the deepest parts of the lake and hope the sunfish didn't strip the worm off on the way down lol. The best run of all the lakes was a 40 ft deep section with a long cliff face along the run. Huge Specks at times, but like you we had to be down at least 25 ft, preferably over 30 to find them. Tks again for all the great pics. I really enjoyed that. Cheers

Hadn't heard of this technique before, but it sure makes sense. I just read this article http://www.questoutdoors.net/skills/castspin/articles/hotshot/and have a question. In the case of rods used, why is the length of the rod handle so critical? The guide/author states that handles can't be any longer than 12-14 inches or they simply won't work properly on the great lakes. I don't understand... Tks Cheers

I'm a huge Kipawa fan but it has all been summer fishing. Our best fishing mostly always came at/after dusk, specially for better size as it got later. Can't see fall being any different, except maybe shallower. Sterling I would suggest you go to http://kipawafishingforum.net/index.php and pose your questions there. For sure there should be someone there who would know about outfitters that would still be open and likely not offer a hunting package. Cheers

Well composed story there Gordy. I enjoyed reading that along with all the pics. Good stuff. Cheers

Lmao, best laugh of the day. Cheers

Way to go Rick. Congrats on your first. Remember this. "But not musky. I have a musky curse" I guess you can put that one to bed now. You're cured. Nice fish, must have been a riot for you. Cheers

It's capped at 5 devices. Cheers

It's not the ISP that is sending you the warnings initially, they are just passing it on after they get those threatening letters from the big corps like Disney and Sony etc. It happened to my local provider last year so he blocked all torrents with his firewalls. Simple fix, and many isp's will tell you this, is to use a vpn as has been mentioned. That way all packets are encrypted and no one can see the content of your data. I did my research, And Private Internet Access consistently was at the top of best providers. They keep absolutely no logs, which is key. That way if they do get a request to turn over any info they may have on their servers about users they just say sure, we're happy to comply, but unfortunately we have no log data, so we have nothing to turn over. I use PIA Cliff. It's $40/year and it works great. It doesn't really slow things down at all and I can pick whichever country I want to go through. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/buy-vpn/ For more info check this out. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403388,00.asp Cheers

That was interesting Dutch, including the comments, Tks. The whole reality of what Microsoft Corp actually knows about the majority of people and how they go about it just got that much scarier. YIKES Cheers

Guys, damn lowlifes are everywhere. Around here on the Head Pond there are two launches, one at Clay Bank and the other behind the Boeing plant. For at least the last two years fishermen have been getting ripped off. Last year it was trailer parts like spares, jack wheels etc. This year they have started breaking into vehicles too. They have it all planned with hand tools and even reciprocating saw this year to cut brackets.Two different vehicles, one as a lookout. It doesn't get much lower than this! These guys are scum of the earth. I'm a member of fish-hawk, and three members there have been hit, so who knows how bad it really is? Of course the cops know but... Thing is, even if they did ever get caught, chances are they wouldn't get much. What really needs to happen is a well thought out sting operation, followed by some good old fashioned country justice. That'd teach those buggers a proper lesson. Cheers

You're fine Cliff. The auto "upgrade" only applies to Win 7 and 8 without doing a clean install. Cheers

Lmao that's a perfect response. Otherwise I might not be around after 60 years. Good one. Cheers

Right on! That's great news Carp. Goes to show how corrupt Microsoft can be hiding all those files under the guise of Windows updates, the buggers. Plus they say you can revert back within thirty days which in many cases is Bull as users lose much of their data regardless. Cheers

Your easiest fix is to download never10 from https://www.grc.com/never10.htmand run it. It will make the necessary registry changes and block it from installing. Not your case but some pc's could have over 6Gb of data hiding on their system just waiting for the install and never10 would remove that too. MS included all that data as updates, the sneaky buggers. Also check your windows updates and remove those two I mentioned above so you don't get the nag. Cheers

Here's so good news on the Win10 front. Hopefully other countries follow suit. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/windows-10-privacy-france-data-collection-1.3687737?cmp=rss Cheers

It's not so much the OS itself, although there certainly are driver issues with hardware not working. Just the fact that MS is giving this away for free, which they have never done before, raises huge flags for me, as there has to be ulterior motives behind their push. Why else would they force these upgrades on users so hard, even without authorization? As it turns out, Win10 is chock full of monitoring and reporting software that in effect tells Microsoft everything you do on your computer. Basically you are losing any presumption of privacy and they can use this info for any purpose they desire, which you can be sure is not for your benefit. Also from what I hear, while it may be free for a start, don't be surprised if Microsoft starts charging a yearly fee for using their software, so they'll get their money anyway. For those who don't want to "upgrade" I suggest using a utility called Never10 or another one called the GWX Control Panel to block MS from pulling a fast one on your system. Cheers