Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada May long weekend

So what are you up to?
This weekend is cold and wet- predictably.
It is the beginning of the gardening season, the camping season and it traditionally the time to take off your longjohns
Myself, I am cross fencing the pasture, do farm chores and doing a little horse work.
Life is dang good.

Saturday had SS16 help me change out the fluids on my new-to-me Honda Fourtrax. Went easier than I thought. Didn’t swear once, which was a record for me. OTOH, no busted knuckles or bruised fingernails, either. Had a cigar and scotch in celebration that night.

Yesterday hung out for a bit, did some work in the garden. Got lit last night.

Today woke up early, so got an early start on bbqing some beef ribs for tonight. They’re looking fabulous right now. Spritzing every once in a while with a combo of ACV, herbs and spices. In a while will start the fixing for German potato salad. Will meet friends for dinner and probably fire off some of his contraband fireworks and firecrackers.

Saturday and Sunday might possibly be the best days, weather wise, we get all summer long up here in the BC peace area
I moved a couple of sheds to different locations on the property.
No way was I going down to the one lake that is close by, by all accounts the boat launch was a gong show.
enjoying the last of the weekend today..

Saturday: Cut a good-sized larch to produce four twelve foot foundation logs. Peeled the logs and set them in place on rock. Then pushed and pulled a 8x24 foot bunkhouse into place and set it up.
Sunday: Rained all day. Worked on a motorcycle. Glass bedded a rifle.
Today: gun work.
Quite a few of our campers were out for the weekend and seemed to have good time. The campground is a sanctuary from Covid and Covid restrictions so folks can behave normally. GD

I poured a coloured concrete sidewalk from the driveway to the house. Yesterday evening the wife and I went for a short excursion and on one mountain saw 23 sheep, 18 goats, and 3 bears. I decided to harvest one of the black bears. Real nicely furred bear, and amazingly fat for a spring bruin. Luckily I have today off so I can cut meat and get the hide into a tanning solution. Might even have enough time left over to go catch a few fish this afternoon.

My wife's rock and gem club had the community hall sold out from over them.The association couldn't afford it with no rent coming in from indoor gatherings. The club rented the basement. I took it personally, I had taken the lead in turning a 95 year old dark moldy basement into a dry bright workshop. My wife found another hall with a old coal bin we could rent . It's easier,being smaller. But that is my weekend, and weeks for that matter.

Spent Saturday morning at Sporting Clays --- had a few hmmm moments on a couple of the weekly changes done for the league participation.

Sunday had a nice day out training with Finn. He has been a dedicated upland dog and the majority of his training has been with live birds so tracking, flushing and shot over with zero water work--- now onto the more disciplined duck hunting - test style so back to some basics and build some more tools for his kit. Came home Sunday and helped the wife with some of the garden box planting.

Today -- steady rain so downstairs and work on some of the renovation area doing what I can before the contractors come back.



Nice on the bear. What is involved in tanning a hide? I assume this is not something to be done in an urban setting due to odors.

I got my gardening done through the week. We are hanging out with my daughter and the grandkids. This afternoon, I will build some test loads for my 30-303 with some 155 gr Hornady bullets. It's sunny and 19 outside right now.

comerade;
Top of the morning to you my friend, I hope you're keeping warm and dry despite the damp conditions.

We're actually getting a wee bit of rain this morning and hope it amounts to something since we're really and truly dry this spring.

Thanks for the thread and to all my Canuck brethren who've responded, it's interesting to see what we've been up to.

Saturday my good wife and I wandered into a few RV dealers between here and Kelowna, not expecting to find much in our size or price range and then finding exactly that! My goodness it seems all things outdoors are hot selling items nowadays. Even kayaks don't stay for sale very long in the local buy and sell. Anyways we had a nice day together and got a few ideas of what we'd like in a smaller hitch pulled trailer for camping.

Sunday we had our eldest daughter and her husband over for supper on the deck, had a nice visit and enjoyed watching one of the wider bucks we've seen in 29 years on the place feed around the deck.

Today we were going to work on the garden a tad, but I'll gladly not do that if it means it'll rain some.

All the best to one and all this Victoria Day weekend.

Dwayne

Hugh, there really is no odors involved in the tanning process. I've been doing it for a few years now. The process is actually quite simple. The hide goes into a pickle solution ( I use citric acid ) for a few days. Then its neutralized in baking soda, thinned a bit, and tanned. I use Trubond tanning oil. It does a great job.

The upland bird hunting with dogs is something Ive never done, but would like too someday.

Pretty lazy long weekend thanks to Horgan, Henry and others. Turned over the garden bed and raked it out Friday along with the obligatory trip to CT and stop to pick up some reloading primers. Yesterday got just about everything planted, washed the cars and organized my roadside safety toolkit . Today woke to light rain, so will probably tie a few flies hoping for the travel restrictions to lift for the Interior and maybe do take out at my favorite sushi place. Pretty lame weekend now that I see it written out!

Interesting on the tanning side and something I will start to research.

On the upland hunting my dog is a flushing retriever the fellow I hunt with has pointers. Two very different approaches. Finn being a flushing dog you need to be aware of his "tells" and where he is. Once he is on a bird it will be pushed out so lots of instinctive wing shooting in the 20 to 40 yd range. Pat's dog being pointers allow a more relaxed approach - dog points -- you walk up with the gun at ready and generally your shot should be 15 to 20 yds which means smaller gage shotguns work well. We did a festival last year with 18 birds released in the morning and 18 in the afternoon. Grounds were 1/4 section of slough bottoms, willows, cattails, over grown fence lines, left over swath and uncut grass areas. Great field for the day. We did the flusher in the morning and pointer in the afternoon.

Dogs found 32 birds with an even split on the day. 3 flushed birds were missed -- 2 off the pointer and 1 off the flusher. So very little difference in the dogs for performance just a different hunting style. The flushing dog in my view is better in tough cover and the pointer is a treat to work over in more open areas.