Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

Wood stove stoking, boy she gets warm in there.



Then it happens, pike drifts in and you throw the spear!!

Hell yeah!



then you wonder, did I get em?

draw it up nice and slow...









[img]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e364/northerndave/northerndave005/spearlift4_zpsc19213f3.jpg[/img]

ya mon, got em.

[img]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e364/northerndave/northerndave005/spearlift5_zps6e47b3fa.jpg[/img]

That was nate's.

By the end of the day I got a turn with the fork, my first dark house pike actually, it was fun..

Dave, that is the coolest thing I have seen all day!

Hey Sam! How you doing?

Not quite as good as you Dave...grin


All good here!

Well, if this is the coolest thing you seen all day... Then I think we had a good day.



The pike are cleaned, Y bones removed, meat is chilling in a big bowl of water with a few dashes of salt.

Counter is de-slimed... hell, my work is done.






Hey Gopher gunner, I am just catching up on pages here and I see you went back east to your old camp area. I think that is the coolest man! I'm so glad you did that. Excellent work my man, (golf clap from the Canadian border).

Excellent.

Goalie, I gotta say... I've never had smoked pike. I don't even know anybody that's tried smoking pike, interesting idea.

As for pickling, research pickled pick on the dang ole interwebs.

(big breath... lots of words coming...)

My short version is, just don't pickle pike.

Medium version is:

Pike host a unique parasite that is very much tolerant to cold pickling processes. You can search the MN DNR website for info on how to and how not to pickle pike.

The long version:

Do all pike have this worm? Hell no! Do some? yeah, they do.

Do midwestern folk pickle the chit out of pike? Hell yes, they do.

Do all people get sick from pickled pike? No, they don't

Do some? Hell yes, they do.

Have I ever eaten pickled pike? Hell yes I have, I'm from MN for damn sakes.

Do I eat pickled pike now in my adult years when that jar is coming around the table at some camp or party or fish house or what ever?

No, I don't.

Do I smash the pike pickler in the face for offering me potentially poisonous fish meat?

Nope... I don't.

But I do try to slip some insight to the pike pickle topic into the convo so the pickler can educate him-herself if they so choose.

And I use tact for that, because us old Marines, we're tactful as hell.

I don't really eat pike myself, unless I get a big one, then I keep the slimer and have my neighbor at the cabin up north smoke that sucka. Oh yeah, smoked is GOOOOOOD.

I just asked about pickling because someone else mentioned it. Now you have me all paranoid about catching something from pickled pike.

Smoked you don't have to worry about the bones, just pick it apart with your hands and chow down.

MMMMMMM

Oh, and I don't know about you, but I find the fact that I am an "old" Marine a little distressing if not depressing. Remember the Vietnam guys when we were in the Corps for the gulf war? Now we're those guys to the young kids just going in.

What the hell happened to the last 20-something years?!?!?!?!

meh, it's all good.

Time don't stop for nobody, good, bad or goofy.

There aint a damn thing we can do about it, just don't waste your time.

I remember when I was a kid, in the gulf war. Time stood still.

But it was in that place that I acquired my appreciation for life, I developed my life goals (If I was to be so lucky)

And it is still my baseline for "rock bottom non happy"

When stuff gets bad, i think back... Reality check, things are not "Bad". I know what bad is, and this is not it.

If I'm "the old guy" now, then I'm just going to be the best old guy I can be. I'm good with it.






Don't eat that g'damn pickled pike.

lol.

It's quite possible you made that ATV....or know who did. Lol

I remember your pickled pike wisdom from sitting around the table eating all your fish and WB's pickled fish. I can't remember what it was, but we were hell on that fish and crackers. And in uncle dusty kept pouring drinks and making us laugh til our sides hurt. I still laugh at him! ... With him.

You are right about the dreaded pickled pike parasite. This threat can be eliminated by deep freezing said pike for at least 48 hours prior to pickling. Then again I have friends and relatives that eat buckets of the stuff without completing this step. They are either impervious to the threat or lucky!

Looks like you guys are on LOTW by the water and scenery�.

Sometimes when I read of spearing fish from a shack I ALMOST wish we had REAL Winter down South. I have tasted fried Pike before and it is damn good.
Good story and good pictures Dave.
Thank you.
Yes time does fly by.I am 73 and it seems like only last year that I was 44 and building my cabin in the north Georgia mountains.
Life is like a roll of toilet paper.The closer you get to the end,the faster it goes.

Stan in SC

Tzone, the pickled fish was sucker. I get a cooler full every spring and smoke the front half then pickle the rear (boney) half.

I haven't pickled any pike for a couple years but all of my pike gets frozen before pickling or smoking.

Great pics! Love it!

A little hint:

Drill holes in the "tub" of an old scoop shovel and it makes cleaning that slush out short work.

Thanks, we'll try that!

But what you see in that pic is about all we had for slush, it wasn't bad. Not like when you use an auger to make the spear hole.

What do you do with the large piece you saw/chip out? We used to just slide them under the ice downstream of our hole on a small river. I don't know if they stayed there or the current moved them.

Pushing them down can cause issues for the anglers but it's the best way. We had a snowmobiler killed a number of years back after hitting a "plug" left on the ice. Not the folks fault for leaving it on the ice because speed was involved but it's just nice to not have those chunks out there.

I haven't speared much buy I would love to get into it. I tried it on the local river with some success.

we do push our blocks down for the reason white bare stated.