Tomorrow - a first attempt

Postponed fishing update

It was my intention yesterday to head out for lake trout today, and document the effort for SS&S. It's been a while since the last update, and the trout fishing has been ridiculous. Between yesterday morning and today, however, was a tobogganing party, in which I participated with what was, in retrospect, perhaps too much enthusiasm.


Consequently, there is no lake trout fishing update today, as it looks like my augering days are on brief hiatus.

The Winter Project.

I've started building a fly rod, under the guidance of some of the guys in the office who have been at it for years. Seeing as I've found zero time to tie flies, the fact that this project is being accomplished over lunch at work is pretty sweet.

The specifications: I've gone with a 9 foot 4 piece 6 weight blank, that apparently can be lined up to a 7 (being fairly stiff) if one so desires. This will be a heavier streamer fishing rod, and if I find myself back east, a good bass and walleye stick. I'm using all black hardware on a matte grey blank, because badass looking rods catch more fish.

What you're seeing above: So far I've glued on the reel seat, and fitted the cork rings. Once the cork is glued, I'll lathe it into the final shape, then start on wrapping guides. The space at the back where the piece of blank sticks out is where I'll be attaching a fighting butt. This goes on last because you need to use the hole in the blank to turn the rod as you lathe cork and wrap guides.

Updates to follow...

SS&S Christmas

God bless America. In two Acts.

Dre and I are in the US, in my future home state (we checked
our site at Shady Acres last night by the way; still lookin’ good) for the
holidays, and being back reminds me how much I love this country.

Act 1: If you can buy a gun, you can buy a beer.

Dre and I went out to dinner and to see the Muppets (it was okay,
but nowhere the series and original movie) with
Bryan last night. When we got to restaurant
there was about an hour wait so we got drinks. The drinking age is the US is 21, as you know, and most places, at least
in Minnesota, are super strict about this law so we were all carded. I had forgotten my wallet and wasn’t served. But it was happy hour and beers were 2 for 1,
so I decided to check the car just in case my wallet was there. Lucky for me it was, but my licence was
not. That figured, but I did have my
PAL.

“What the hell is this?”

“A gun license. I can’t
find my driver’s license. I’m from
Alberta, in Canada; we get those for guns there.”

Laughing, the bar tender hands me back the PAL without further
inspection. “Good enough for me. What’ll you have.”

Between the 3 of us, 6 beers cost $15.

Act 2: “I’m gonna [expletive] choke you out.”

This morning I opened the paper, the Metro Section of the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and read about an altercation at a youth hockey
practice. A youth was angered that he
wasn’t getting sufficient time for a particular drill and in frustration swung
his stick “like it was a baseball bat” striking a teammate in the legs. A coach reprimanded the youth who then
stormed off to the locker room. The
youth’s father was not at all pleased by this. He rushed the coach and “started screaming at the victim [the coach]to ‘Get
over here,’”, and then put the coach in a stranglehold. Before others rushed to his aid, the coach
said later we was blacking out. After
the father was pulled off and ejected from the rink he was heard shouting, ‘“I’m
gonna [expletive] kill you,” and “I’m gonna [expletive] choke you out.”’”.

I’m sure it gets any better than this, but if it does I’m
waiting excitedly.

After 2 days of This American Life podcasts in the car courtesy
of Mara’s iPod, I really want to contribute something to the show.

Happy holidays to Jews and non-Jews alike!!

Man-crafts #2 - Leather mitts by ABAS

For the past three years I have been getting my deer skin turned into leather at Halford Hide. I love the store and the clerk has assured me that all the tanning is done in Canada.

At ~$6 per square foot, each hide costs around 65 dollars. It takes about 8 months to get done but is well worth the wait.

A while back I picked up a mitten pattern at Halford's. For Christmas, Kim and I decided to make mittens for the family. Here are some of the final products:

The mit on the left was the prototype and hand sewn by yours truly. As I imagine Mark can attest to, hand sewing leather sucks. The pair took close to 10 hours to complete - contrast that with the 60 minutes it takes to do by machine. That said, the hand sewn mit looks a lot better as you can control the leather and seams a lot easier (it just looks nicer). But one hand sewn pair was enough, and we did the rest by machine.

In total we made 8 pairs of mittens, which took ~2 deer skins and a few evenings of work. We shrunk the pattern for the Shafong ladies.

I have already worn mine ice fishing and in -30 degree weather.

A bit of science (en francais)

Just to add a bit of science and bilingualism to our blog - Laval's newspaper wrote a story about our mountain goat work in Alaska.

It is a pretty cool story involving a bit of Russian-American ethnohistory. Try reading it in french before hitting the translate button:

Surprise en Alaska: Des biologistes découvrent une population relique de chèvres de montagne