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.

7 Flies For Canada – #7 – The Egg Fly

August 18, 2016 / galen / Fishing, Fly Fishing

Fly #7 in the Series

So far we have tied a series of streamer style flys, imitating aquatic life that resides below the surface, and a number of dry fly patterns, fished on the surface. They all have the potential to catch numerous species of fish in Canada. Today’s fly, the Egg fly, is the 7th and the last in our series. I didn’t actually see myself using this fly this year so I put it last on the list and then I cheated. I also wasn’t planning on cheating but while at the dollar store looking for some gag gift items, I saw bright colored Neon Poms and it became clear, time to cheat.

Tying the Egg Fly

The actual pattern recipe calls for using Egg Yarn, tie it on and trim into the shape of a ball. That’s it, but I took one more step on the easy path, buying pre-made puff balls. At first I tried the larger size puff balls but they were just too big and too cumbersome so I switched to the smaller size.

The article in Outdoor Canada showed yellow balls. I used both yellow and pinkish red color.

Difficulty Level: 1 out of 5. If you follow the actual instructions and use egg yard, the difficulty level will go up to 1.1.

Materials:

dry fly hooks, #8 to #12. I used a #12 to make two of the neon pom balls fit comfortably on the shaft of the hook
Neon Pom balls from the DollarStore
color matching thread, I used white thread on the yellow balls and red thread on the red balls.

After you pinch off all the hook barbs, place the hook in the vice. Starting just behind the eye, build up wraps of thread larger than the diameter of the eye. This will help keep the puff ball from sliding forward and off the hook.Now remove the hook from the vice and slide on two of the colored puff balls side by side. Pass the tying thread around one puff ball and add approximately 10 wraps between the balls.

Pass the thread behind the second puff ball and build up the wraps of thread to prevent the puff ball from sliding back.

Pass the thread to the middle again, add a couple wraps, pass to the eye of the hook and wind on 2 or three additional wraps then whip finish the thread. i then add head cement to both the head thread wraps as well as those behind the second ball. I use more cement than on a normal fly to get some adhesion between the thread and the puff ball to further prevent slipping.

In the flybox, now you can you can see a full compliment of the 7 Flies That Catch Fish in Canada. Some are a bit tattered, having been in the battle, and some have yet to see action, or have yet to fool a fish.

What Catches Walleye, Top 3 Lures

August 8, 2016 / galen / Fishing

Walleye are usually at the top of any Saskatchewan anglers list of favorite fish to catch. The techniques and gear used to catch walleye can be a full aisle at any tackle shop. From my own experience of fishing Saskatchewan waters for Walleye over the past 30 years, you really only need 3 lures. These three lures have consistently produced walleye in good numbers and in good size:

perch colored Walley Diver
Len Thompson 5 of Diamonds
Bright green, yellow, or white jig head

That’s a pretty short list, but long on fishing stories. I have bought and trialed a number of of the “next best thing” for catching walleye and have yet to be convinced that anything works as well as the above. The reason Len Thompson sells thousands of the 5 of Diamonds spoon is that it has continued to catch fish for a hundred years, consistently, both Pike and Walleye.

If I had to add a forth, it would be a bottom bouncing rig with a trailing spinner, either yellow or bright green/yellow combination. But give me a rod and only what i can tie onto it and you will find me with one of the three. They are all versatile enough to cast or troll and the jig head is the clear winner in any jigging situation.

While this is only a sample of one, look at the next two pictures below. Here’s the story. Fishing at Dead Lake (a fly in camp), Larry cast out his Walley Diver and hooked a nice walleye which pulled deep and got the line snagged. In attempting to free the line, it broke. Larry tied on another lure, a Len Thompson 5 of Diamonds. Casting from the same spot and catching both Pike and Walleye, an hour later, Larry catches the same fish, and gets his Walley Diver back!

The pictures above were all walleye caught the same day, using one of the 3 lures listed. The top photo was a Walley Diver. Second photo was a yellow jig head and white plastic worm. Third and forth was both the Walleye Diver and 5 of Diamonds. My best walleye of the trip (below) was bright green jig head and white plastic worm.

Fishing the Clouser Minnow – 7 Flies for Canada

August 4, 2016 / galen / Fishing, Fly Fishing

At the very beginning of summer, literally, I did a fly-in trip to Dead Lake in northern Saskatchewan. The float plane dropped us off at the dock about 10 PM on the evening of June 20th. I had never been to this lake before so when in doubt I brought whatever gear I thought i carry. The other 4 member of the fishing party had been here before so i knew from their stories that there were definitely fish to be caught. The evening was a true northern Saskatchewan experience. We started a campfire and decided to “sip” some rum and whiskey until it got dark. Between refills, I walked down to the dock and tossed an old time favorite spoon into the water, the Len Thompson 5 of Diamonds. 6 pike later and I knew I had my morning plan. I eased off the rum mixture knowing I was going to have an early start. Also, knowing how far north we were, staying up until it got dark doesn’t really happen, as you can see from the midnight picture below.

So about 2 AM I went for a nap while others promised to take up the slack on the rum for me. It was a quick but necessary few hours of sleep. When the sun was up a bright, and the lake was like glass that next morning, it was time to pull out the fly rod and test some of the patterns I had tied the past spring, tied in anticipation of morning just like this.

So out came the 8 weight fly rod and the box of streamers. I pushed out one of the 6 aluminum fishing boats and paddled out about 100 feet from shore. The previous evening I had hooked 3 or 4 pike in the same spot from the dock and now I was in position to cast back to that spot, from the other side of it. The Clouser Minnow was the first fly of choice. i had tied some variations including some with longer streamers with pike in mind. It was about cast #5 or #6 when I saw a wake headed towards my fly followed by an aggressive splash. Pike on the fly! This became my morning routine for the rest of the trip.

Throughout the mornings I continued to switch out flies, alternating between Clouser Minnows, Bucktails (aka Mickey Finns), and Wooley Buggers. While all three of these fly patterns did catch pike, the Clouser Minnow was the clear winner. In fact the red and white Clouser Minnow, shown below, was by far the best fly of the trip. The bucktails were the #2 fly and the both the pure black Wooley Bugger and read headed Wooley Bugger intended to look like an egg sucking leach caught a few fish.

I often like to experiment when fishing, after catching a few fish on one fly, I will change to another to see if it will produce fish as well as the other. But, this trip, I had time switching away from the red and white Clouser Minnow. When you are catching a pike on a fly rod with great regularity, why swap your fly? What I did experiment somewhat with was the color of the fly. Other combinations included a blue and white, a green and white, and the second best colour combination green, red and white.

The great fun of fishing for pike in shallow water with a fly is that often you can see the streak of the fish as it accelerates towards and attacks your fly. These aggressive fish always give you a head-shaking fight when hooked as they try to dislodge the fly.

What I did not get the thrill of catching on a fly rod was a net filling pike like the one below. This one, and many other 36″ and larger pike were caught with spinning gear on jig heads, spoons and walley divers. i did pull in a 30+ inch pike on a fly rod, on a solo morning float just out in front of the cabins but nothing to compare to the 15 pounders that were also caught on the trip.

I have some more pike on the fly action planned for late August on a different lake. The Clouser Minnow is definitely going to be the featured fly.

Saskatchewan Free Fishing Weekend

July 7, 2016 / galen / Fishing

On July 9th and 10th, it’s Free Fishing Weekend in Saskatchewan. if you are a Saskatchewan resident, you can fish in most of the lakes, ponds, and rivers without a license. The exception is within National Parks in the province. So if you haven’t been out fishing yet this year and haven’t bought your license yet, you get to put off the expense and go fishing anyway and the danger rangers will just smile and wave.

Wondering where to go fishing and what you might catch when you go there? Then check out the Favorite Places section on our website.

All other normal fishing regulations apply, such as catch limits and size restrictions. You can read all about them in the handy Angler’s Guide from your handy provincial government.

Saskatchewan’s Free Fishing Weekend comes at the end of National Fishing Week in Canada.

7 Flies for Canada – #6 X-Caddis

June 16, 2016 / galen / Fishing, Fly Fishing

Fly #6 in the Series

The X-Caddis. Is it better than the traditional and classic Elk Hair Caddis? Now that I have tied a few of both, we are soon to find out. I will say this, the X-Caddis is a few degrees of difficulty easier than the traditional fly pattern. Less materials and easier to finish.

Tying the X-Caddis

This fly was left to one of the last to tie in the series as most dry flies are summer time flies, as is no exception with the caddis. As June turns into July, success with the caddis fly is prime time.

Difficulty Level: 2 out of 5. The Fly Tying Bible rates the Elk Hair Caddis as a 3 out of 5 for tying difficulty. With a couple fewer materials, this version of the caddis is pretty easy to tie. Probably the trickiest part is tying off after you fasten in the elk hair for the wing. You need to leave a fairly large loop of thread to get over the butt end of the elk hair the protrudes forward over the hook eye.

Materials:

wet fly hooks, from #8 to #12
black or brown thread
hare’s fur dubbing, brown or grey
elk hair

Place the hook in the vise and wind on the thread beginning at the eye and winding in tight turns until opposite the hook point. I prefer caddis flies in size 8 to 12, although some guides recommend down to a size 14 hook.

Catch in some Antron, Z-lon or similar yarn for the tail. I didn’t have any so i substituted a somewhat darker small bunch of the elk hair. I actually like using this darker hair material for this purpose. If you let the hair twist around the shank as you catch it in, the butt ends will dangle forward like legs.

Roll on some dubbing onto your thread and wind it forward, stopping behind the eye.

Once you reach the eye, pull off any extra dubbing and wind the thread back to the point opposite the hook point, in widely spaced turns, and then forward again, widely spaced, to hold the dubbing in place. Otherwise the first good fight with a trout will pull off all your dubbing.

Cut off a stack of elk hair and pinch together. Catch in tightly slightly behind the hook eye, allowing the butt end of the hair fibres to protrude forward just past the hook eye. Wrap the thread tightly 5 0r 6 times, and then tie off, using large loops to fit over the elk hair butt ends. Add some glue and you are finished.

For those who like the traditional caddis pattern, you can easily add the hackle component. After catching in the tail fibres, use a couple more loops of thread and catch in a hackle feather. Then add your dubbing to the thread and wind on the dubbing body forward. Follow the dubbing with winding the hackle forward.

Leave the hackle pliers attached and hanging while you attach the elk hair wing. Add 5 or 6 wraps of thread to hold the dubbing, hackle feather, and wing fibres. Then tie everything off and add glue.

I tied 2 of these X-Caddis flies (the 2 on the left) on a #8 dry fly hook and the other 4 on a #12 hook. The #8 flies look a little large, but trout start slurping up hoppers in August, you can often get them to bite at a big caddis as well.

The Fly Box

We are nearly complete with our 6 of our 7 flies for Canada tied.

Actually, it’s 7 out of the 8. I’ve added the Super Jumbo Mosquito fly to the box, lower right side. If you are fishing still water for trout, especially in the evening / sunset, you will love this fly. So with the dry fly X-Caddis added to the box, we are pretty well set for most fishing situations. Just the Egg Fly left, which is primarily a pattern for streams and rivers.

Well, the sun is up, the article is finished, the X-Caddis flies are dry, so it’s off to the ‘ole fishin’ hole!

Saskatchewan Hunting Big Game Draw Deadline

June 1, 2016 / galen / Hunting

If you like to leave it to the last minute, this is the last day to enter for the big game draw.

Only Saskatchewan residents can apply for the Saskatchewan big game draw, which then gives you rights to hunt for some of the most desired species in some of the most desired hunting locations in the Province.

For more information or to submit your application go to the Sask Environment Website

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