Ice Fishing With 2 Lines

January 25, 2017 / galen / Fishing, Ice Fishing

An easy tip here to double your chances for catching fish while ice fishing. Simple, use two lines.

In Canada you are allowed to use up to two lines in the water while ice fishing. Two lures in the water will increase your chance of catching fish. Does that mean you have to try to fish with a rod in each hand and two holes? No, of course not. What I like to do is drill two holes, at least 10 meters apart, and put a tip-up rig down one hole and set my bucket seat at the other with my jigging rod.

I always set myself up so that I am somewhat aligned with the bucket, the hole I am jigging in, and the tip up hole. That way I can see the tip up hole without having to turn around. If you are thinking ahead, on a breezy day, put the tip up down wind of you. That way you have the wind at your back, making it easier to stay warm.

To make sure you comply with the fishing regulations, you have to keep both lines within 25 meters of you and within line of sight. So if you are fishing in an ice shack or a pop-up shack, you need to leave a door open and the hole within the required 25 meters.

There are many styles of tip up equipment. My new favorite is called a Jaw Jacker Hook Setter. What I really like about this style is that when a fish is hooked, you still get to fish/retrieve the fish with a rod and reel. Some tip up products require the line to be hand over hand retrieved which is just not the same.

Fly Tying Bible

January 23, 2017 / galen / Fishing, Fly Fishing

If I have my Fly Tying Bible on my fly tying table in my office, do I need to genuflect every time I pass it on my way into or out of my office?

Use Your Reel as a Depth Finder

January 21, 2017 / galen / Fishing, Ice Fishing

When I go ice fishing I don’t have the luxury of having all the electronics and all the gear that can possibly be purchased for ice fishing, so I have learned how to adapt in a few ways. One way is to use the reel on my ice fishing rods as depth finder. Water depth is often an important piece of information when fishing and without a depth finder or a flasher, it can be hard to guess based on the amount of line you let loose from your spool. But there is an easy way, simply use the amount of line spooled per turn of your crank handle to measure.

Finding out how much line your reel cranks in is easy. I use 20 feet as the reference point. To do this, I first get my measuring tape and layout 20 feet on my deck.

Then hook your lure in lightly at the beginning of your measuring tape.

Un-spool your line back to the 20 foot mark, then crank it back to the lure, counting the number of turns. Divide 20 feet by the number of turns and you will know how many feet per turn of the crank handle. Next time you are out fishing, drop your lure to the bottom, crank it up and do the math.

Do this for all your reels. The feet per turn of the crank will vary with the size of the spool as well as how much line you keep on your reel. For my two reels, the amounts are 2 feet per turn

and 1.9 feet per turn. So I just go by 2 feet per turn for both. I don’t often fish at depths beyond 20 feet so it’s a pretty quick and easy way to check the depth.

If I drill multiple holes, trying to find the drop off point of some structure, I can check the depth of each hole in 30 seconds or less.

Saskatchewan Bear Hunting

January 20, 2017 / galen / Uncategorized

Saskatchewan Bear Hunting is a new web service Matching avid Bear hunters to Saskatchewan Bear hunting Outfitters. The service is 100% Free for Hunters to use. This new website uses a network of Approved Outfitters who have joined the program and matches them to the hunter’s requirements for number of hunters, dates, as well as other criteria.

See more at Saskatchewan-Bear-Hunting.com

Sask Campground Reservations open April 4th

January 17, 2017 / galen / Camping

The Saskatchewan government has just announced that the reservations system for Saskatchewan Campgrounds location in Saskatchewan Provincial parks will open on Tuesday, April 4th. Reservations will be accepted on a first come first served basis.

All across the prairie provinces, the camping season is expected to be a busy season so we recommend that you get you camping plans in place early and get online early at Saskatchewan Campground Reservations

With the Canada 150 initiative, National Parks will be free to enter, so many vcation plans will revolve around camping, which should make Saskatchewan parks busy as well.

Moose Hunters matched to Outfitters

January 12, 2017 / galen / Hunting

Saskatchewan Moose Hunting is a new web service Matching avid moose hunters to Saskatchewan moose hunting Outfitters. The service is 100% Free for Hunters to use. This new website uses a network of Approved Outfitters who have joined the program and matches them to the hunter’s requirements for number of hunters, dates, as well as other criteria.

See more at SaskatchewanMooseHunting.com

Alberta Expects Busy Camping Season

January 11, 2017 / galen / Camping

With the flip of the calendar to 2017, the online booking system for Alberta’s Provincial parks will soon be accepting reservations for 2017. The official date for making your first bookings at an Alberta Provincial Park is February 21.

With the bug push behind “Canada 150” going on, many campers are making early reservations for their favorite camping spots in both National and Provincial parks. reservations in Canada’s National Parks can be made by going to the Parks Canada reservation site.

We recommend taking a look at our user submitter ratings and reviews of Alberta Campgrounds and Provincial Parks.

Then jump on the Alberta Parks reservation system.

Fish Length to Fish Weight Chart

September 6, 2016 / galen / Fishing

We have just put together a new chart which will allow you to estimate the weight of your fish, Walleye or Pike, based on how long it is. Looking for a 5 pound Walleye? You need about 24 inches. How about a 10 pounder Pike? Need to stretch out that ruler to 33 inches.

See the Pike and Walleye length to weight chart.

The Big Cabin Clearout, Episode #2

August 27, 2016 / galen / Life at the Cabin

When we bought our cabin, it was all inclusive of everything in the cabin and in the yard, with a couple of exceptions. That meant all the furniture, tools, cookware, appliances, etc. The cabin was full. Of the roughly 1000 square feet of floor space, it seemed like there was only 200 square feet not covered. Every space on the shelves had something, every drawer was filled. If there was one dish cloth, there were ten. If there was one wine glass, there were a dozen, and at least 3 different styles. If there was a TV, there were 5, yes, 5 TV’s at the cabin. If your going to just watch TV, may as well just stay at home in the city, at least that was our thinking. In the living room, there was a large 50 inch TV with a high end surround sound system, and a smaller TV hanging from the ceiling above it, and another 32 inch TV at the other end of the room.

Outside was full of patio furniture, deck accessories, bicycles and other assorted items. The all inclusive package included two lawn mowers, a 30 year old gas powered mower and a new human powered rotary push mower. There were a number of other yard tools. Over the next few days we would soon discover what was still in working condition. We knew the cabin had hardly been used for recreation the last few years. That much our real estate agent was able to get from the previous owner. What had become clear was that it had become a big storage closet for a wide assortment of trinkets and knick knacks.

On day 1 of possession my oldest son and I took our new set of keys, loaded my truck with tools from home, and headed to our new cabin to begin. Job 1 was to knock down the grassy weed field we were hoping would eventually be our yard. We took everything we might need to cut, dismantle, knock down and remove as much excess stuff as possible. But, cabin rules, before starting any work project, we cracked open the first beers on our new cabin property.

We went in with the assumption that any tool the previous owner had left behind was not going to work, if it did, that would be a bonus. I set the lawnmower wheels as high as they would go, told my son to wear boots to protect against whatever shrapnel might be encountered, and sent him to cut the knee high front lawn. I pulled out the man-powered rotary lawnmower and decided to give it a try in the back yard. I soon discovered that while everything was turning properly, the rotating blades could not get on top of the tall grass/week combination and all I was doing was rolling over the plants. Next I pulled out the gas mower, set the wheels to maximum height, filled the oil tank, filled the gas tank, and started working on the pull cord like I was at the gym doing one arm dumbbell rows. On about the third set of 10 pulls, it sputtered to life, backfired, blew smoke, sputtered and stalled. A few more sets, a few more episodes of back fires and stalls, and it kept running. Excellent, free lawn mower. (Edit: 4 summers later, still running). In need of a tune up but a free lawn mower saves me a few hundred bucks. After three passes, adjusting the wheel height each time, we had knocked it down to a reasonable height. Crappy lawn, mostly weeds, but gotta start somewhere.

With the yard knocked down we moved on to what we knew was the big job, getting all the junk out of the cabin that we didn’t want. Along with the all inclusive purchase plan, we knew there would be a big pile of stuff we didn’t want or need. It didn’t take long to fill up the first of 5 truck loads of junk we would take to the dump. To get to the dump, we drove around the west end of the lake, south to the highway, back east a few miles, then 5 miles south on the grid road. About 20 miles round trip. Return and do it again. It was a few weeks later that we learned about the transfer station located about 2 miles straight west of us.

As loaded up the truck each time, we would send out group text pics of items in the cabin we came across to everyone in the family. That helped us with the 3 piles of stuff to definitely recycle/throw out, the donation pile, and the smaller pile of surprising discoveries. One of these was an old cream separator that was tucked under the stairs, under a fake plant, partially hidden from sight. A really cool antique piece that now sits much more prominently. More treasures were found such as paint ball guns, brand new life jackets, wet suits, window mount air conditioners, a foldaway cot, old movie posters, 20 strings of Christmas lights (not counting the ones already wrapped around trees outside) and more figurines than we knew what to do with (1 is too many if you ask me).

There were more discoveries to occur down the road, more in future episodes, but for now, after a full day of making space in the cabin, it was now time to sit on the deck, on the newly discovered lounge chairs, and finish off the rest of the beers. While my son took the kayak down for a paddle, I watched. It was a full day of work and we were only just beginning.

We Bought a Cabin

August 22, 2016 / galen / Life at the Cabin, Outdoors

Episode #1, We Bought Cabin

And so it begins. It’s late summer of 2016 and we have become cabin owners. We are also the owners of a 5 year project list to overhaul, renovate, update, and change every square inch of the property, from the lake shore, to the yard, to every surface and fixture inside the cabin. We think we are reasonably handy, semi-crafty, and quite resourceful. We shall see how the project list goes. I’m hoping to chronicle some of the experience here. In the event you find it interesting, while I’m glad to have entertained. In the event you find it helpful, well I’m glad to have provided the value of my experiences. In the event we never see you again past this point in the first episode, well, thanks for sticking it out for almost a paragraph.

Why Episode #1?

I’m a marketer by trade so to follow the format of today’s popular streaming services, Season x, Episode Y just seemed to be a natural fit with how people are now consuming content. The word episode also captures what I anticipate to be a series of successes and a few failures. The 5 year project list seems to be guaranteed to deliver a few minor injury reports, a few marital disagreements, and a great deal of good times that far outweigh the pain, sweat, and dollars it’s going to cost. By the way, when we got serious about this particular property, my project list had about 16 items on it. The official list, including my 16 items, has grown to about 50 items. I still contend the original 16 were enough. Oh yes, 5 of those items were definitely to take off the months of June through August and enjoy our progress, 1 for each year of our 5 year project.

The Back Story

I’ll save you most of the details of our personal lives leading up to the cabin purchase, most of them. Even though I’m sure you would find them fascinating (we consider ourselves the world’s most interesting people based on a sample of 2). By the way, I’m incredibly humorous and my wife agrees, seldom, but often enough to keep me trying.

Not our actual trailer, but this looks a picture out of the family archives.

For many years my wife and I had talked about the mutual desire to own a cabin. She grew up with a cabin in the family. I grew up with family camping trips in a tent trailer. My in-laws sold the cabin, the year before we were married. I only had the opportunity to experience it as a visitor, not as a semi-resident. We did both the tent trailer camper experience and the cabin rental/borrow experience enough times to know we enjoyed both. The cabin experience was far above the camping experience for us. Busy jobs and busy kids, with sports activities that kept us driving to every hockey rink, baseball field, basketball court, wrestling meet, volleyball court, and football field in all of the land, made it obvious to us that we did not have the time to fully immerse ourselves in the Life at the Cabin lifestyle. Instead we bought a sport boat and made day trips to the north, south, east and west to spend time on the water when we could. Often we would brings friends with us, or meet up with family and burn through a tank of gas, or more, and return home at the end, exhausted and happy.

The New Boat

Family at the Lake

The planets started to align when we had the first two kids in university and our third (and last) in grade 11, with the end of high school and minor sports over the horizon and around the bend, it was close enough. We started to get serious in our talks about about cabin ownership. Also aligning was our financial ability to afford a cabin. The house mortgage was on it’s last few months, money we could redirect into retirement savings, or into life enjoyment now. We choose a real estate investment with the potential to be both.

Back to Today, Buying that Cabin

We knew our criteria, we had a budget, we had a list of properties to explore. I suppose everyone has their own list of criteria for a cabin property. We certainly had ours:

* lake front
* 4 season
* within 1 hour drive
* 3 bedrooms
* no stairs
big deck
wide open yard
move in ready
dock and boat lift included

‘*’ the must have list

Our search began. We soon found out that our “enormous budget” didn’t put us in the category of walking in, no worries, and just relaxing. We saw cabins that were best renovated with a Wylie Coyote bundle of dynamite, cabins with endless stairways from cabin to water, cabins that were nearly perfect, minus a must have from the list, an

First view of the property

d cabins that were perfectly suited for other families. On about cabin inspection tour #3 we had a couple properties lined up that had possibilities and we stumbled across a for sale by owner cabin that was not listed online anywhere. With no one home, we took a walk about and overgrown yard told us a couple things. The owners didn’t there very often and we had to get our real estate agent on this one.

It had that “cabiny” feel to it, the “cabiny” look, and the potential to be the one. A brand new two level deck also had our interest. After all, you don’t buy a cabin to spend your time inside. I can do that at home quite nicely.

A week late and our real estate agent had the keys we had our inside look at the property we eventually bought. It was during that inside tour that the project list grew, grew some more, and extended past cutting the lawn to a 5 year list of renovations and overhauls.

In Episode #2, The Clearout, our discoveries begin.

«‹2 3 4 5 6 ›»