brandon

well Doug I hope your not too excited about seeing fall colours because its mostly conifers here......Southern Ontario will have more colours than here will.....but I can't wait to take soem pics of snow on the mountains......No rush for winter though

Well I think I'm addicted to Mt. Seymour. And I'm sure most of you who have seen the pics could easily get addicted too. I know, it's a problem, but I'm dealing with it just fine. I took pics of another animal on the mountain today....this time an animal waaaay smaller. I give you....the Pika..... lil' action shot.. a ship in the bay.. and a little scenery to end the post... once again......thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy

yeah mountain biking is very popular here. It's not something I do yet but I would like to get myself a decent bike and get into it.....same with snowboarding......i mean when you live here you pretty much have to get into that kinda stuff. I was up on seymour again today and my hopes of spotting deer were shattered when I saw they were filming a TV show "Men in Trees" in the exact spot I saw the deer yesterday........but i'll start a new topic for this...

Glad you guys enjoy the pics.......hey Brian.....I'll be at the fall challenge if your funding my flight back to Ontario lol

Today I got off work later than I was hoping and finished off the day dragging a decomposing skunk from under a house so I needed some fresh air. I headed up to Mt. Seymour yet again but this time since I got there so much later there was some wildlife out and about. Lots of birds, squirrels, and this young Mule Deer buck. No lie this deer let me within 10 feet of it and some of the pics turned out decent. It was fairly low light so I had the shutter speed fairly slow so most of the photos turned out blurry or not as sharp as i was hoping but here are some of the gooder ones....enjoy

Woke up to pouring rain this morning and figured it would do that all day because silly me decided to believe the weatherman again. Well go figure, he was wrong again. Weather cleared up around 12-1 and I decided to check out a new provincial park, Cypress, in West Vancouver. I took 101 pictures today and it seemed that somehow overnight my camera decided to get dirty on the inside so it looks like all my pics have pepper on them which really really upsets me because it was a 4km hike to this amazing outlook and i've got basically a couple pics out of 101 to show for it. Now I'm sure my camera was dirty before last night but maybe just the sunlight today made the dust really stand out. Anyways I hiked the Black Mountain Trail past black mountain to Eagle Bluff. This was a gorgeous trail that winds through many lakes/ponds and eventually lands you on this bluff that gives you a perfect view of vancouver, vancouver island, the gulf islands, and howe sound I think its called. Anyways my panoramic photos of this view look like crap so i'll have to make the trip out there again one day. Just before getting out on Eagle bluff there was a nice day or 2 old pile of Bear business. I've been dying to see a bear out here and photograph it so I thought today might be the day but I was wrong. Also I'm not sure seeing a bear on the bluff would be good because theres one narrow trail out to it so if a bear showed itself I'd either have to just hope he dissapeared or take a leap into the pines....thankfully I didnt have to make that choice. Eagle Bluff lived up to its name and within the first few minutes of being there I spotted an adult Bald Eagle soaring below. But of course it was gone before I could get my camera out and 70-300mm lens put on. However shortly after a pair of Juvenile Bald Eagles flew right over head and I got a couple photos of them. Here is the best pic of the eagle. All turned out blurry because I had the zoom maxed out at 300mm and was shooting freehand without a tripod because thats just plain awkward to use a tripod when shooting straight up. Also the pic of the Eagle really shows the black spots...my camera is now spotless so hopefully this wont happen again. A raven also graced me with its presence and I got some decent shots of it. The last pic is a vertically stiched panoramic photo facing west. There are still plenty of black dots on the photos but to get rid of them all I'd have to call into work tomorrow and tell them I wasn't coming in. Well thanks for reading another non fishing report of mine....hopefully i'll have my fishing gear out here soon and I can actually wet a line....

that was awesome!!

Well today I wasn't planning on hiking or taking pics or anything because mr. weatherman said 90% chance of rain.....still pretty dry out there so I dunno what his deal is but he needs to maybe take a few more courses? Anyways theres still so much of Mount Seymour that I haven't seen yet so I went and did some more exploring. I did this one trail to Dog Mountain which was about a 3km round trip and at that part of the day it was cloudy as ever up there so there aren't any pics from that trail. By the time I got back to the parking lot the clouds had started to break up a bit so I decided to hike halfway up the main Mt. Seymour trail and take some pics of this stream that I've walked by a ton of times but this time I hiked upstream (off the trail....shh don't tell anybody) and took some pics......to be honest they didn't turn out quite as good as I would've liked so I won't be posting them. I decided to take another stroll off the trail and take a series of pics for a panoramic shot of this big valley.....that pic I will post.... While walking back to the trail I heard this 'chirp 'chirp coming from these trees. Being as curious as I am, I went in for a closer look and found these little guys......and their parents weren't around (which was good....escaped with no injuries) so I have absolutely no idea what kind of birds they are....your guess is as good as mine. I dunno about you guys but when I see this next pic I think of Jim Carrey scaling a mountain and regurgitating food into a baby eagle's mouth (one of the Ace Ventura Movies) After that I got back on the main trail and headed back to the parking lot. With the parking lot in sight I came across a grouse with a bunch of babies(which are nearly impossible to get a photo of) and had to photograph her..... anyways thanks for reading and hopefully you enjoy this batch of pics....take'r easy

I just used mapquest to find out how far Baker really is and it said about 52miles....Now the photos were taken from a mountain and Baker still dwarfs anything around and its 52 miles away!! man I can`t even imagine how cool pics would be from on top of there. And Dustin no special lens is required....or special camera for that matter......you jsut take a series of overlapping photos and use a program like photoshop or Arcsoft Panoramic Maker.

just noticed yellow in 2 of the pics........wonder what thats from?

It was an absolutly gorgeous day here today so I decided I would hike up to Mystery Lake on Mount Seymour. The Sun was on its way down so lighting was perfect as opposed to many of the other times I've been there. As the topic name suggests I'm hooked on taking panoramic photos now. I just love the fact that you can show so much area with one photo. Next thing I'll need to buy is a wide angle lens....but not just yet. One thing i did buy however was a Circular Polarizer filter after reading a post by DanC a while back. I did some research on the internet and not only do they take the glare off the water, it makes the sky extra blue. All the photos were taken using the new filter and I think you can really notice a difference......especially the pic of the mud puppy. Also check out Mount Baker in the background of a couple of the photos. It's located in Washington and its completely covered in snow. Anyways I hope you enjoy this new batch of photos.....

looks like a solid day out on the water..........great report!

Today my roommate and I ventured into North Vancouver and did some hiking at Lynn Canyon Park. Lynn Canyon Park is known for a suspension walkin bridge that spans Lynn Canyon and the river below. Now this is not to be confused with the Capilano Suspension bridge which is also in North Vancouver however it costs about 25$ just for admission, where as Lynn Canyon was free. Free Admission and Free Parking...can't beat it. I personally would have rather went hiking up in the mountains to take some landscape photos but we only have my roommates car right now so it was his choice where we went. I T-boned some lady who cut in front of me on tuesday with my company truck(and also only vehicle I have here) and now that is getting scrapped so I'm vehicleless until work gets me something different. But once I get wheels again I'm back in the hills as soon as possible. Anyways there was really no point in taking photos of the suspension bridge because it was just loaded with tourists who were also taking picures and personally I don't like taking pictures of random people. We hiked south after we crossed the bridge and headed towards Twin Falls. The sign, the cross, and the dead flowers in this first picture really make you think twice about venturing off the marked trail. These next two photos are panoramic ones. Both of Twin Falls but the first picture is Stitched together horizontally to show sort of the width of the canyon. The second photo is stitched together vertically to show the height of the canyon. That sign from the first picture is up just to the right of that bridge. I also had some fun while on the suspension bridge with some of the tourists. See where the fence material meets the top "rail" or cable I guess you could call it they have a few pieces of duct tape so nobody gets cut.......I happened to say rather loudly "should there be duct tape holding this together?".......man I've never seen people scramble off a bridge that fast before.....maybe next time if I want a photo of the bridge without people I'll use that tactic again......anyways hope you enjoy the couple of pics and hopefully I'll get up into the mountains again soon. Thanks for reading, Brandon

Hopefully that will be the end of your problem

PF is right.....some stores sell phony nests to hang up near existing ones and hope that the wasps move out of the area......I've heard these fake nests dont work at all and leaving the existing one, after treatment, hanging in the tree still is the best thing to do

that is hands down the laziest hummingbird i have ever seen lol...........beauty pic tho

I work as a pest and wildlife control tech and I treat probably 4 or 5 nests like yours a day. The only real solution to that kind of problem is to contact a pest control company and they will put on the bug suit, get right up close and shoot this powder into the hole where they are getting in. This powder has a residual effect and gets onto the yellow jackets feet. Being the clean specie that they are, they will clean and groom each other with their feet and in turn ingesting this powder......within 12-24 hours there will be no more life at that nest. And whatever you do don't take the nest down. If the nest is taken down and there are a few workers that have not died, they will see the nest is gone and will rebuild it....I know it sounds like ur nest is in a tricky situation anyways so I'd just leave it there. And for a wasp nest treatment our company charges $99.00+gst.....I'm not sure about what Ontario pest control companies charge but thats just a general idea of what you would be looking to pay. Most companies also have a 6 month warranty on wasp nest treatments so if the treatment didnt work the first time they will come back and treat it again at no cost to you. Hope this helps

thanks for the kind words everybody

im in......wheres the great at?

great report man!

sorry for all the non fishing related pics but I hit up Seymour again today for some more pics. Weather wasn't the greatest and basically the whole hike was through clouds so the pics of the distant mountains I was hoping for weren't even a possibility. Anyways I was practicing with panoramic pics and also got a pic of a grouse.....enjoy.. oh and the topic is titled "say whaaaat" because thats the vibe this grouse was giving me this pic is really 5 stiched together using a panoramic photo program....im very impressed with how it turned out this pic is 6 images stitched together.....and again i had no idea they would turn out this good well that should be the last of my taking up board space for non fishing material for now because the weekend is over....who knows what next weekend will bring....enjoy the photos

well not really pics of the mountain but things on the mountain including Mystery Lake and 3 different sections of a stream flowing from melting snow...which is pretty wild to see in August... i should have more pics tomorrow.....i saw some awesome things to take photos of but lack of a memory card made that impossible so as long as the weather is good i'll be hitting the trail again....hope you enjoy

I really do feel out of place but at the same time it feels like this place is my home...and it is.....i really dont ever see myself living in Ontario again. After being in the mountains the first time I can't stay outta them. I hiked even further today...it was about 4kms trail distance and that trail went up 1 vertical km....got to the top and went to take some pics (which would have been amazing) but seems that I'm not the quickest person in the morning and forgot to put the memory card in my camera. Tomorrow is supposed to be nicer so I'll make the trip again because it will be so worth it.....the view is just amazing.

Everything out here is going great....it all seems too good to be true. I haven't got out fishing yet because all my fishing gear is back home and my parents are working on organizing getting all my stuff shipped out here. and that pond in the pic looks bigger than it really is.....I didnt see a single form of life in it....theres a little stream entering it at the north end of it (top of the pic) and I was actually standing on a dam when I took the pic....water level was low because there was no water going over the dam. I think I'm heading up Seymour again tonite to watch the HSBC fireworks in Vancouver Harbour....hopefully it will be a clear night and I can get some decent pictures of them. Thanks for all the well wishes everybody

Well as some of you know I moved out to Vancouver about 2 weeks ago. I started work my second day here so I've been fairly busy the whole time. Today I finished work a bit early and decided to drive to North Vancouver and check out Mount Seymour Provincial Park. First of all I should say that I've never really seen mountains before so I honestly had no idea what to expect once I made the trip to the topish region. I also don't have my good hiking boots here as I am still living out of a suitcase so my hike was done in DC skate shoes....now they were better than not wearing shoes at all but wow, the trail was brutal and boots with ankle support would really be beneficial. Also I still don't know too many people here and the few people I do know were busy tonite so I ventured up Seymour alone which again isn't the best idea...If you were to break an ankle, get trapped somewhere, get attacked by a cougar(animal), or bear...your done....theres no cell service up there....therefore I was extra cautious with every step I took...I had my tripod with me so I guess if I really needed to I could've faught (or tried to) off an animal attack although I wasn't really hoping to try that theory out. Anyways here are a few pics of the hike. I was about 1100meters above sea level at the top so it was quite chilly and it wasn't a clear day so it was kind of cloudy and since I was basically at the height of the clouds the lighting in the pics isn't the best but hopefully you enjoy..... The road to the top a look out point overlooking the Fraser river and some towns...still new to the area so I'm not exactly sure what the towns are.....that view is looking East...Vancity is to the west so its definatly not Couver A pond on the way to the trail Steps to the top and your host of the tour