smitty55

Well I finally got a good sized puffball. Unfortunately a lot of small worms had made their home in it, so I lost almost half of it after trimming. All of it went into the 8 trays of my dehydrator and it did work well. Almost weightless very brittle pieces were the result. Looking forward to trying them in my next soup. Would like to find one more for sure. Btw all the pieces are chalk white, there's just some shadows in the pic. Cliff I'm wondering if you have a preference in how small you break them up and what the texture is like after adding them to soups. Tks Cheers

One more thing to consider is not to overfeed or your water will go bad much faster. Also as a substitute for fish food you can grind up soybeans or get soybean meal. Easy for the fish to digest too. Cheers

I buy a tandem load of logs every two years. Last one cost me $1250. Mostly Red Oak. I have 12 10ft long rows of 14" pieces. They were dropped last winter. Stacked by mid May. I'd prefer to be a year ahead for that oak, but I split it smaller so it cures faster. Regardless, two years is best for red oak. Still quite cheap heating anyway you look at it. Most exercise I get all year as well. There's just something about wood heat that can't be duplicated. I love it. Cheers

I always leave some behind to go puff. I'll even give them a little helping boot sometimes lol. Cheers

Thanks Cliff.I went out this afternoon for a walk and found the weirdest shaped puffball I've ever seen. Shaped like a small cow patty but full of ridges and valleys. I left it there. Cliff, now I'm confused. Is it 1/2 cup or 1/4 cup of dried puffball you add to that soup? You mentioned both. Cheers

Good to know Cliff. It was probably your post I saw then. How fine do you grind it and how thin do you cut it for dehydrating? Tks. Cheers

When it comes to eating, the primary commandment for me is to enjoy it asap after picking. Under 12 inches is best. Big ones get shared if I can, or I'll leave them to mature, specially if there's only one. With steak of course . Cooling slows the process some what, but it doesn't take long to start yellowing. I've frozen raw chunks and even tried freezing quick fried slabs. Meh... This could be on the cooking thread, but it's on topic so here goes lol... Maybe here, or OOD or Hank Shaw even, I came across a post on dehydrating giant puffball. I am so gonna do it if I'm lucky this year. I'll likely then lightly smoke some of it too, if I get enough. Then I can even customize a mix if I want. You then grind/process and end up with a very unique and quite versatile gem. As a thickener and/or flavor enhancer for stews, gravies and sauces,soups, casseroles, even stir fry or breading. Sounds tantilizing. I'm sure hoping to get my fall treat this year. Klinker you folks have it made down there. Even summertime. Good for you. I've never even heard of finding puffball at a farmers market. Must have dedicated customers and lots of farms. T'is the time of the season for sure. Good luck Gerrit. At least you know where they normally are. That's the main thing by far. Cheers

I have a field near here that I get puffballs from every year. It's usually always in Sept after some cool rainy weather. I'll be checking tomorrow just to make sure. Here's one from two years ago. Cheers

Great footage. So neat to see up close in hd. WTG Justin. That's a real nice young ten btw. That's a real nice little area you have up there. I trust you're using lock boxes? Cheers

Maybe I took that the wrong way but Wow, are you ever full of your almighty self. Who's whining now? And what the hell is wrong with weekend fishermen who chose to keep some of their catch? Or is that beneath you? Wannabees? Really? Like you think you're special or something? Yea right...

Not a jig set up, but you could try using a Johnson weedless Silver Minnow with a grub trailer. Bass and pike love them and at least you'll be able to fish the heavy weeds. Here's a little article on them. http://www.bassdozer.com/articles/silver_minnow.shtml Cheers

Well this thread has surely morphed nicely. Last time I was here it was only a dozen or so posts. Very cool the turn it has taken. Rick and Drew I hope you keep it going. It's so refreshing to actually hear of the good side of the native culture and lifestyle for a change. Rick, I too really enjoy your posts. It's great to get a little peek in to your lifestyle from "northern Ontario" as well, native or not. Truth be told, IMO many "big city" folks from southern Ontario don't really have much of a clue about actual rural lifestyles, and just don't understand. Not a fault for the most part, it's just hard to conceive for some people if they've never lived it or maybe had family members that did. Urban living hunters would have more of an idea. Hell, I only live 30 minutes west of Ottawa in bush/farm country and hearing gunshots anytime of the day or night even, any season, is no big deal at all usually. If A Bear wanders by, that's cool, neat to watch. If you really want it to hurry on just make some loud noise for the most part is all you need to do. Or maybe in season get the gun out and fill a tag. Right on! One more thing Rick. When you say "Many posters don't agree with me", I for one think you're totally wrong. The odd one maybe, always will be, but not even close to many. I'd wager that by far most folks find your character and postings quite refreshing and kind of unique on a "Fishing forum", if you catch my drift. I also appreciate how you say "but that's cool too! It opens up discussion and hey, we all love nature/fishing/hunting/food etc." Kinda laid back, easy going feelin... Hopefully this threads keeps growing. Cheers guys.

Doug I have a friend in Almonte who is associated with them and she ordered me some up from the warehouse in Ottawa this year. Some years the ride comes through Almonte as well and the local Home hardware stocks it. It's made in southern Ontario and like I said it's excellent stuff, a bit pricey at $6, but it's for a good cause. It's on their website by the case. I would contact them and see if they could point you in the right direction, hopefully close to Kingston. http://ride-for-dad.myshopify.com/collections/miscellaneous/products/iron-arse-bbq-sauce?variant=967360848 Cheers

Good buddy of mine uses a clean Mr Champ for both Greys and Whities on 31 Mile. Always on the bottom. He prefers yellow/green colors. Never bothers with bait or a trailer. Often catches both together, but generally targets shoreline structure in the 30 to 60 ft range for the Whities. Sometimes, when a hatch is on he will also catch them on the adjacent flats. Not saying they won't be at 80ft but don't be shy to try shallower. As for trolling, I've caught them using a small gang troll and minnow trailer while going for Lakers, so that should work well from a canoe if you can get it down. Or even try trolling with a Cleo, that will get down deep enough. I was also going to mentions Meegs jigs. When I did a quick google with Whitefish this link came first. It will give you plenty of ideas to work with. http://www.fishingsimcoe.com/articles/artificial-baits Cheers

Doug it was excellent. Nice and moist with lots of flavour. I used 5 half pans, so not really much more than the 2 full pans you recommended. The smoke flavour was plenty strong, which I like, and both wifey and I were quite impressed. I also smoke bread crumbs and salt as I do like my smoke taste for sure. The only barbecue sauce I buy is the Ride for Dad sauce, Iron Arse, Frozen Arse and Soggy Arse, which is thick and sweet, with a quite strong smoke flavour. Highly recommended if you've never tried it. I stock up every summer. Cheers

Well I got the loins in the smoker yesterday, but not until 5:00 due to pouring rain. After 4 hours and 5 half pans of smoke they looked pretty good. The one on the right was on the bottom rack and registered around 135°, while the loin on the upper half rack didn't even register a temp. A half hour in the oven at 225° brought the one up to 150 but the other took another 2 hours more. The finished product. Lots of juice coming out the temp probe holes so it should be nice and moist meat. The kitchen sure smells good. Didn't want to slice while hot and lose the juice so I did one today. It doesn't have that reddish tinge that the recipe site showed, as the curing salt I used didn't have the pink dye in it. Still looks great to me. No taste yet but dinner tonight will be back bacon, apple cinnamon pancakes, farm fresh eggs and some big chunks of Greek tomato. They are so good. Speaking of which, here's a look at the inside of a Greek. All meat, few seeds and a great sweet flavour. Cheers Update: Wifey couldn't wait for tonight so she did up the bacon and eggs for lunch and said it was by far the best bacon she's ever had. That makes me feel real good. She said it was nice and moist with an amazing flavour, which I attribute to the prime fresh ingredients I used in the brine, specially all that garlic hehe.

Tks for that Dave. I noticed them in the flyer this week and was wondering how good they are. A five year replacement warranty says loads. Cheers

Tks for the info Doug. Just what I was looking for. My main concern is drying the meat out, so chances are after maybe four hours I'll finish it in the oven at 200° or so. Maybe spread the smokin' to 3 or 4 smaller pans as well. Dave I've bought a fair amount of those loins over the last few years and never seen them so bad, but I hear you about the sirloin end. Still a real lousy job. Brian I'll be sure to post pics of the finished product. If it looks near as good as on that recipe link I'll be happy. Cheers Here's that link again. http://www.nwedible.com/how-to-make-canadian-bacon-at-home/

You asked for it lol. So I made the brine last night. My weights didn't match the recipe volumes though. 6.4 oz of my pickling salt was only 3/4c not 1 1/4. I found the No1 cure at the local butcher (he didn't even charge me for 100g), it wasn't pink and 40g wasn't quite 3tbs. I used my own garlic, lots because my cloves are huge. I used my own fresh bay leaves from my bay laurel. I used a good handful of fresh thyme leaves from my garden. I used brown sugar instead of white. You could really smell the garlic in the brine even after chilling overnight. I started with two loins and it's a good thing I did because whoever was doing the cutting at Olymel is lousy. A good third of each one was a total mess. I managed to get two good pieces of trimmed loin at 4 and 5 lb. I had been hoping to get a real good wack of steaks cut off but I barely managed to get 6. One side done up with my homemade steak rub and the other with a good dose of medium curry powder. Then they go into my smoker for at least two pans of chips. Turns out curry and smoke work quite well together. It pays to experiment, as I do pork chops on the smoker quite often. Many get vacuumed sealed and frozen for a great quick meal later. The get half cooked in the smoker, so it's only 5 min in the pan. Plain pork chops are sure boring now though. So I ended up with with two good chunks for bacon, six "steaks" for the smoker and dinner tonight, and 5 1/2 pounds of "extra" for minced, which I hadn't planned on. But that's fine, as we've started adding minced pork to most of our burgers and meat loaf dishes. Always tender and moist. The recipe makes tons of brine. I had to filter out the garlic etc, and toss the leftover liquid, as the bags were real full. I'll get a good brine for sure So for $23 I'm pretty happy, specially if this bacon works out as hoped. With the crazy price of beef these days $1.44/lb is a steal even for seconds, which I figured out after opening the first package. Great time to get custom sausages made now as well. I did it last year at our local butcher. Lastly, I'm going to smoke these by Saturday morning, which is perfect if I use the 1 day fridge pellicle method. I have a large all fridge in the basement. The big chief smoker might hit 160° on a good day so I think it's going to take the meat a long time to hit 150°. So I have the option to finish in my gas oven, which is a nice moist heat. Anyone with advice or suggestions from folks who have done this before is welcome. Doug mentioned something I think. In particular how much smoke is enough, and preferred sequence intervals. As a rule I like to take breaks between filling the pans. It's sure not a hot smoke. Fish takes 5 hours, or more in the cool fall. Big bonus is I already have a full bag of apple wood chips. LMAO , after a few pints, I can't believe I made a post this long, on a cooking thread, on a fishing forum. Go figure... Cheers

Dave you just made my day. I just bought two of those cheap pork loins from food basics and I'm going out to get the curing salt now. Woo Hoo Cheers

Assuming you went down the Maniwaki Rd, you could just go a bit further up the paved road and launch at Kipawa. After that it's just a matter of how far you want to travel by boat. My favorite lake for sure. Cheers

That looks good Dave. Here's a recipe I got many years back from a big Recipes Only hardcover book. We liked it so much that I adapted it to canning. The original called for damson plums but any will work. We always have it with pork tenderloin but it would work well with game. http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pork-tenderloin-with-spiced-plum-sauce Cheers

I'm a huge fan of Charleston Lake. Kinda makes you feel like you are further north, with the lack of weeds, deep water, tons of rock and structure everywhere. Though there is one nice big weed bed off of big water. It is actually an area where the shield juts south. Plus you can always get out of the wind on Charleston. And Lakers are still open so your timing is good. Good luck. Cheers

Perhaps a concerted lobbying effort to have this thread pinned. Although it never seems to get past page2. Or even it's own category. Has it ever been done before? Cheers