dinorocks

A labor of love for me! Tough check today in all this snow…one more week until land trapping ends...then I’m moving to beaver and mink mode. (I trap the “nuisance” mink at my trout club). I’m currently self tanning a few of my furs…the “exotics” got sent to the tannery this morning.

Wish they weren’t busy…they are going to miss my curling tournament this weekend; if my brother and I can get our ice ready in time. (Some picts below were from last year…tough season for ice this year but we have been trying!)

Waterproof GoPro I’m trying to find the video but after two years of prototypes, my son and I finally made a carp camera harness using his GoPro that worked awesome!! We could get hundred of feet of underwater live video thanks to the carp. And when we would get nervous that the fish was getting too far away, we could release the harness and everything would float back to the surface so we could safely reel it in back to shore. I think the Carp Anglers Group (CAG) used the video in one of their videos… While I was looking for the carp cam video, I came across the video below that I believe was produced by CAG (my daughter wrote a song about carp fishing…photos of my son were also featured in the video).

Missed if someone showed one of theses…they come in different sizes.

This was fun to clean! Smoked beaver balls with homemade BBQ sauce! (Not actually beaver testicles but ground beaver meat).

I too love getting out on my skis! I call these my extreme x-county skis…short enough to get through thick cover and a blast to bomb down steep hills!

Wow! Must have done well with your fur sale! Now you will be back and forth to your trap line in no time!

A little late, but FYI…I’ll be there lending a hand… if you stop by, please say hi! Hope to see you! Dino

Thanks for sending the link Bolt Action! I appreciate it!

I was in ground zero…snow was more than half way up my door. Two miles north (towards you), there was green grass…crazy tight snow band! We received over a foot this morning…but not enough to put the fire out….still burning!

That's a fun idea but no material donations or "go fund me" please...there are a lot of others who are worse off than me. Just wanted to tap (no pun intended) your potential sources to buy some things to get back on track. Thanks to all for your help, I have some promising leads! If you have wood stoves in your camps, sheds, man caves, etc., I urge you to regularly clean and inspect the pipes, etc., especially where the pipe leaves the structure. As a trapper, I hear of many trapping sheds that start on fire...very sad! ...even though the traps are made of steel, if the fire doesn't melt the traps, it ruins the strength of the trap springs. Again, thanks for the replies! Take care! PS. some photos of how I want to remember Bone Creek Sugar Shack - good times with family and friends!!

Looks good! Did you dip them in a pot of wax or was the wax floating on the dye? I have used both methods and they both work. I go a bit overboard and boil the traps in water to get the old wax, odors and oils off. I dump the water (don't pull the traps through the water as the stuff floating on top will recoat the traps). I then simmer my traps in the dye (again dump the dye or strain the stuff floating on top before removing the traps)...I let the traps completely dry and then dip them in a pot of melted wax. The trick is to make sure the traps heat to the correct temperature before pulling them out of the wax...too cold and the wax builds up too thick (you would be able to see the wax - white) and too hot, and the wax is too thin. From your photo, your traps look good! After waxing, I like to use a small file to clean the dog and pan a little. Good luck! PS. do not use wax on your body traps.

Thanks guys! You are all very generous and I appreciate all the help…this group is a one of a kind…I’ll get it figured out. Not the end of the world (although it felt like it)…when I take a step back, there are a lot more important things (like family and health)…my heart goes out to people that have to deal with house fires where there is much more loss than some maple syrup equipment. I’m not going to be able to replace the character of the sugar shack but was thinking possibly a rough-cut thick lumber hybrid lean-to (I would need to be able to lock it up) next year…I may be hitting you up down the road on rough cut lumber sources. I’m not sure if I can get the maple syrup “operation” up and running before the season but will give it the college try. I evolved from using milk and juice jugs with plastic tubing connectors from the hardware store to where I wanted to be with the traditional taps and metal buckets and lids. I just really loved the nostalgic look, feel, and sound of sap dripping into those metal buckets hanging on my trees. Again, thank you very much for the support and I will be following up on some of your leads. I’ll keep you posted. Take care, Dino

.....after I removed the tree and planned how I was going to fix the grout between logs in the cordwood walls and window/door jams with my buddy the other day, I checked on things yesterday morning…not good. I had a fire in the stove the previous evening and one of the stove pipe sections must have separated when the log fell on the roof…it separated just enough for a hot ember to fall onto one of my plastic sap drums I had stored in my "sap cooler" and start on fire. In addition to loosing my sugar shack, and everything inside, I lost six food-grade 55-gallon sap storage drums, 50 food-grade 5-gallon sap buckets (and lids) and 75 metal sap buckets and lids. Not sure if I will be able to get these items replaced in time for the upcoming maple syrup season…not sure I can muster up the mojo right now either. Again, very upsetting to say the least.

Thanks for looking! I just had a catastrophic fire at my sugar shack yesterday and lost my all of my maple syrup equipment I had stored there (as well as most everything else primitive I had there). Like everything else I do, I like to go the “primitive” or “traditional” route. With that said, I’m looking to purchase about 75 metal sap buckets and lids. If you have any for sale or know of someone who might have some that they would want to sell, please let me know. I’m completely heart broken and devastated that I lost my sugar shack…especially after I just saved it from a large cherry tree, thanks to a recent wind storm. Guess it could be worse…I could have been the squirrel that got squished when the tree fell. PM or [email protected] or 716.866.8222 Thank you, Dino

mistake post

"All windpipes should be shipped to @dinorocks so he can make them into grunt calls " humm...that sounds interesting! Instead of a grunt call you blow through, maybe dry it out and make something like a Guiro...

Found it!

I should have hunted with my brother…heading over to help him track a doe he shot…he also shot a doe a couple days ago…me and my two brothers each harvested 2 deer this year (assuming we find his and I don’t harvest another tomorrow;-)

It has been a very exciting holiday hunt so far…lots of time in my blind and I even harvested a nice walnut tree the other day…just hoping I can seal the deal with something a bit furry’er! I’m actually feeling very confident as I used my garden cart (previously stashed in the woods for a potential deer harvest) to haul home a 65# beaver after this morning’s hunt (I forgot to bring the cart back out with me…). Right now all I can smell is beaver castor and the stink dog I put up earlier (imbedded in my nose). Good luck!!

That’s cool!!

I didn’t get a chance to talk to him in detail yet…we will be butchering deer later today and I’ll get more info and pass it on.

This didn’t work out too good for my brother yesterday. He saw 15 deer walking through the woods in a single file (yarding up?) and shot at the last one…sabot hit the deer at 40 yards and bounced off. Apparently only part of one of the pellets ignited.

That’s a cool photo!

The police pulled some lead out of the front of my neighbors house across the street last month. 9F (I was out of town)…investigators interviewed a bunch of neighbors and didn’t find the the “smoking gun”.