Things You Can Do In Paradise

Things you can do in paradise!

I am absolutely in love with our home country in lower northern Michigan. Within one hour or so of Traverse City there is fantastic fishing and bird hunting (at least most years), very good deer hunting, water-fowling, predator hunting that I have not done yet, marvelous landscapes and pristine waters, not to mention great people.

But sometimes I must go further north, especially around the third week of September, when small game season opens in Ontario, so that besides hunting bear and fishing I can also shoot grouse and at least try my luck on the most elusive of creatures, the true and only king of the northern latitudes - the timber wolf.

While sunrises over old clearcuts are breathtaking, I almost never have the pleasure of watching sunsets since that is the most critical time to be waiting for bear at a bait site, the shadows taking over the shapes, trees growing darker and closer together and silence engulfing everything. Although I've shot bear at early hours, the hunter that leaves the wood before full darkness is handicapping his chances.

Grouse are plentiful, both spruce and ruffed, but tamer then the ones around us and must be motivated to go airborne. With the local wolf population being what it is, it is just not practical (or safe) to use bird dogs, so we count on friends or acquaintances to flush the grouse. It can be quite sporting in its own way, especially with a small bore shotgun.

The waters reflect the skies, at day or night, and the mirror like surface is only shattered by the fight of a walleye or the strike of a northern pike. Sometimes it is only disrupted by the wake of a swimming beaver or otter.

When driving, blacktop or logging roads, we are always scanning ahead; moose may appear from anywhere, and they are BIG, even the smaller ones. Nowadays tags are almost impossible to obtain, or at least very, very difficult; and while I can't pursue them, the natives can, either the four or two legged types.

And during a cold cloudless night, a warm and friendly fire makes the stars glow brighter, and if you really let Ontario into your soul you will be able to see yourself among the stars, Orion pursuing Ursa Major!

A Macnab...of Sorts

According to the prestigious English publication THE FIELD, "the Macnab Challenge has its roots in the 1925 novel John Macnab by John Buchan. The story follows three protagonists, all desperate to relieve the ennui that has engulfed them. The solution can only be something devilish, with a dash of daring. Under the mantle of John Macnab, they issue a warning to three Highland estates: within 48 hours they will remove a salmon or stag, undetected, and present it at the door of the house. On this, they stake their reputations and the danger proves innervating. The modern Macnab Challenge: bagging a salmon, stag and brace of grouse within one day between dawn and dusk, is derived from Buchan’s tale. It is a thrilling test of sporting skill (with a dash of luck thrown in)."

I also read about Macnab Challenges in South Africa, where the sportsman will attempt to hunt a Vaal Rhebuck ram, shoot a brace of Francolin on wing over English pointers and catch a trout on a fly rod, all in a single day. Also, my good friend Del Whitman Jr. and I have been discussing for some years the institution of the "Neverland Macnab," which would require a ruffed grouse shot over dogs, a whitetail deer during either bow or gun season and a brook trout fished from the Mann Creek, all within the borders and boundaries of Neverland's 35 acres, during the same season, as I don't like being pressed or hurried on pleasurable endeavours.

I can imagine multiple other Macnab Challenges across the world, from Patagonia to Alaska or from Europe to Asia, but I would like to talk about the Macnab that I just completed in the forests and rivers of Ontario.

My friend Bob Scott and I had been discussing another bear hunt, and last February we met at the Grand Rapids Huntin' Time Expo to discuss arrangements with Jeff Helms of Agawa Canyon Outfitters. As in the case of our last hunt in 2013 we were looking for hunting "later in their season," which means after Small Game opener (September 15th). We penciled out arrangements, but Bob was unsure about making it due to family issues. The plan was that Richard Hobbs from South Africa would also come, but he later had to cancel due to a knee surgery.

In the meantime, I was able to convince another good friend, Eloir Mário Marcelino, from Tietê, Brazil, that he wouldn't be eaten by a bear, and that he would really enjoy big game hunting under absolute fair chase conditions in the "Canadian wilderness." And after many false starts, Eloir finally landed in the beautiful Cherry Capital Airport of my hometown, Traverse City, MI, on the last September 15th, the a few hours after I hunted the Grouse opener with Del and Matt (of Lake Ann Brewery), and a few hours before my wife traveled to Houston, TX, to spend time with the "man of her life," our grandson Sylas.

Eloir and I spend the Friday getting ready for the trip, buying some groceries and organizing our gear (or kit as the British would say), and for him bear spray, a new camera and other odds and ends.

And about four thirty on the Saturday morning we started four hundred plus miles trip to Halfway Haven, driving through the Mackinac and Sault Sainte Marie bridges, following the shores of Lake Superior on Canadian Route 17 to Wawa, and finally taking 101 towards Chapleau until we exited the black top on Much Lake Road. But I will let Eloir tell the details of the trip and borders crossings in his own blog.

We got to Halfway Haven by mid-afternoon when Sean - partner, cook, waiter, public relations, maintenance, and who knows how many other hats - welcomed us and showed us to our rooms. For good luck I stayed in the same room of my previous hunt, No. 8. We were a bit tired and just wanted to relax and enjoy a bit of conversation. Sometime later Jeff arrived from a bait tour and we lost no time in pestering each other.

On the next morning Jeff, Greg (of Kalamazoo area), Eloir and I went out on a bait run in order to reconnoiter and select our stands. During the brief outing I shot my first ruffed grouse of the week, on the wing, inside the bush, flushed by the reliable Jeff. Good work, old boy!

Grouse, the tastier of them all

When we returned it was time to demonstrate to Jeff and Sean that all ten hunters could hit the mark at about 30 yards. Everybody hit the mark well enough, and there was a long list of calibers used: 12 and 20 gauge slug guns, and rifles 30-06, 308, 300 Savage, 460 S&W, 348 Winchester and yours truly 9,3x74R.

Due to two repeating rifle failures that I had witnesses during my last bear hunt in 2013 - I short stroked the bolt of my 375 H&H after shooting a bear at 13 yards and jammed it, and another hunter failed to totally insert the magazine of his Remington 7400 which did not feed the cartridge to the chamber causing a click instead of a BOOM when his bear showed up - I hear the wise words of John A. Hunter and brought a double rifle for this hunt, in the ubiquitous (or almost) 9,3x74R caliber, paired up with the excellent RWS H-Mantel 286 grain bullets.

By two thirty in the afternoon and with the beginnings of a fever that would pester me for the next couple days, I climbed on Jeff's Ranger and drove the three miles to my blind at Hoppy Creek. I took my place at the tree stand and tanked the nearby waterfall for camouflaging my annoying coughing, another sign of the cold that I was nursing.

Jeff had almost ordered me to shoot a bear on that first day, as it would bring good vibes to the camp. And I tell you, I would rather be lucky than good, as around five, and despite the all the coughing, a beautiful boar black bear materialized to my left, maybe ten yards away.

I had the double rifle over my legs and just waited for the bear to look elsewhere, and as he was about to start circling me I sat the crosshairs of the Swarovski scope on the middle of the middle and pressed the trigger. And the bear collapsed; went down like a sack of bricks! But amazingly, after what seemed a long time, he struggled to get up and when it was apparent he was going to run I let him have the top barrel. I think that the energy of the second shot helped him move forward, but soon he rolled up and rested under some logs.

Two old bears

Even without having planned it, I was in the way of a Macnab, put there was no reason to rush it. Just like Ernest Hemingway, I don't think that we should impose a time limit on hunting, or fishing. We must enjoy these activities according to the pace established by our souls.

Then, some days later, when the weather was perfect, no wind, and all the hunters had been cared for, Jeff and I took his jet boat on the slow moving Montreal River to jig for walleyes. Before the purists attack me I need to say a couple things: I am not much of a fisherman, the closest fly-fishing waters were several hours away, and walleye are great eating fish, not to say very sporting ones. So, what is the problem if my Macnab was not completed with trout or salmon?

An almost magical evening in the Montreal River

And this is how I completed my unplanned Macnab Challenge of feathers, fur and fish, but I need to say that without great friends taking part in it, the achievement would be meaningless.

Algoma 2013 - Day 6: More Action

Beaver dam overtaking road

Yesterday both Bob and Wayne, Bruce's son, had the the opportunity to take a shot at black bears, but they passed either because the bear was not big enough or because it did not present a good broadside shot.

Wayne and Bruce left this morning and Randy and his wife Sally arrived around lunch time. Randy was here in the beginning of the season but could not get a bear at the time, so he is back for a second try.

After lunch Bob went back to his bait site at the Shanty Creek Road, Randy went with Jeff out to "Bait 5" at the Loop Lake Road, Joseph went rock hunting and I stayed at the lodge nursing my knee. By mid afternoon both Jeff and Joseph were back and dragged me to go fishing.

When we arrived at the boat lunch we saw the camp of Canadian native hunters after moose, and because of the intermittent rain we took a small pontoon boat with a top instead of Jeff's jet boat. Soon the three of us were fishing on the tea-like waters of the Montreal River. I caught a small pike on a spinner and after trying different lures and baits we all set on jigs with night-crawlers and eventually caught a nice string of walleyes.

At around 6:30 PM we heard a shot coming from the direction of "Bait 5", so we raised anchor and got back to the boat lunch where we met Randy by the time we had put our fishing gear back in Jeff's truck. Randy had shot a bear, and like me yesterday was coming to get help to track and retrieve it.

By the time we got back to Halfway lodge it was dinner time, and we decided to eat the great bear stew that Steve prepared with one of my bear's loins and decided to wait for Bob to get back so he could take part on the night adventure.

Eventually we left on party of six people, Randy and Sally, Jeff, Joseph, Bob and I, to track a wounded and potentially dangerous animal at night only armed with bear spray, a Canadian law prohibits the use of firearms after sunset, even when trailing wounded bears.

The four ATV convoy took some time to negotiate the bad logging roads and trails to get to "Bait 5" and once we were there we soon found a good blood trail and we found the dead bear with a beautiful white chevron in its chest within fifty yards of the bait barrel.

Bob and I will go home in the morning, but we are already talking about coming back.

From Fish to Feast

A Florida Red Snapper...

Sometime time ago I was invited to join friends Bruce and Steve for a fishing day on the Florida Panhandle Guld Coast. So earlier this week I flew from Detroit to Atlanta and finally Pensacola, and then took a car to Destin to meet the guys at Bruce's condo. Due to bad weather throughout the Midwest all flights were delayed and I arrived quite late, but we still had time for some drinks and snacks before hitting the sack to get ready for our adventure next day.

At breakfast I met José Maria that was sleeping when I arrived, and soon after we were at Bruce's boat, a twenty-one foot Boston whaler with twin 200 HP outboards, and went looking for "rain" in Choctawhatchee Bay. Actually we were after Threadfin Herring (Opisthonema oglinum), a baitfish common in Florida coastal waters, and their schools make the water surface appear to be boiling or under a heavy rain when they are feeding on some small fishes that are no longer than an inch.

We soon found them and Bruce prepared three rods with a sort of surf rig with multiple small hooks that resembled a small shrimp. We barely had time to drop the lines in the water for the herring to bite and when we pulled them back most time we would bring three or four fish to the boat's live well.

After stocking up with live bait (we also had some frozen bait that looked like big sardines), we made a stop to get some ice and crossed under the Highway 98 bridge to gain open waters and cruise on a generally southern direction for over an hour until we reached Bruce's well kept fishing grounds.

And that is all the direction you are going to receive, since I never wrote the GPS coordinates for the place were some artificial reefs help attract small fish, that attract larger fish, that attract large fish. Clearly the ocean is a continuous smorgasbord and every species is constantly eating or being eaten, and only taking a break to breed, and any kind of structure, natural or man made, serves as a dinning room. Bruce showed us some floating seaweed and when he shook it several small shrimps fell back on the water, and immediately some small fish came to feed on them. We also saw several almost transparent jellyfish floating around these seaweeds.

When we reached the first spot marked in the boat GPS Bruce gave a heavy casting rod with a very heavy sinker and passed the circle hook attached to a 60 pound lead through the eyes of a whole Threadfin, and told me to let it go all the way to the bottom, about one hundred feet down. in seconds the bait was taken and the tip of the rod was bending down while I started fighting some unknown monster. A little later a nice grouper surfaced, but we had to release it, even if it was clearly sick, as it was not in season. As the grouper drifted away the water erupted under it and the two feet long fish just disappeared. The former predator had just turned into someone's else dinner.

Next fish came to José Maria, a beautiful Red Snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) that was also released, but in much better health, as it did not meet the minimum size. And then Steve brought another snapper in, and them me, and we basically started reeling in Snappers in sequence, releasing most of them and keeping a selected few.

There were a couple of pauses on the hooking, reeling and either releasing or keeping of snappers. First José hooked some pelagic inhabitant that absolutely refused to cooperate, not only by not moving an inch at first, but by then stripping line from the spincast reel as if it had nothing better to do. I must say that we were all envious of José's luck of having the privilege to fight such a fantastic opponent, especially when he started to be able to recover some line and bring whatever was on the other end with a circle hook on its mouth closer to the boat. But before we had enough to write a new book on the "Middle Age Executive and the Sea" whatever was deep under water, Bruce believes it was a shark, cut the line and bid us farewell. And we never ever saw it!

The next stop was when Steve volunteered to go into the water to untangle some fishing line that got wrapped around one of the propellers. Of course we felt obliged to remind him that José's shark might still be around, but we only did that after he was in the water.

After the second incident a large school of bottlenose dolphins swam around and under our boat, and it was a pleasure to having them around even if they disrupted fishing.

Upon reaching our eight fish limit we sailed (or better saying, motored) back "home" and on the way shared some beers and tall tales about our feats. It is impressive how we try to exaggerate what we had just done even in face of eye witness. I guess all fishermen are alike.

After docking the boat, and getting some more cold beer we took to the task of cleaning the fish, and after the half of the beautiful snappers had been filleted I must confess that I initiated a culinary mutiny. I like to eat whole fish a lot better than I like fillets, and I just had to voice my opinion.

With all kindness "Captain" Bruce compromised and we selected a very nice snapper to be prepared whole, so I gutted it and turned to the marina's restaurant waitress just to have my plans challenged. The chef refused to cook anything that was not a fillet. This time I really rebelled, and asking Bruce for permission to damage his kitchen I said that I would prepare the fish and dinner myself.

I was probably as skeptical as Bruce, Steve and José, but I was already too far to turn back. So we went back to the condo, put the fish on the fridge and drove the golf cart to the Publix to buy whatever I needed for dinner.

Due to my culinary limitations I already had decided to prepare pesce al sale (fish in a salt crust) as it is very simple to do, and even I should not be able to screw it up. In a large disposable aluminum tray I poured a couple pounds of koscher sea salt, placed the gutted snapper over it with scales on, placed a handful of  fresh herbs (dill, thyme and rosemary) in the belly cavity and completely covered the fish with other four or five pounds of salt before sending the whole thing to a 400 degree (F) oven for a couple hours.

To help the time pass I prepared some side dishes. First was a Brazilian "vinaigrette" salad which is made by thinly slicing a large yellow onion, dicing a couple tomates (no seeds, please), and after placing them in a bow joining the juice of two limes, some good live oil and salt to taste. The lime will neutralize the onion and vice-versa, and the result is very pleasing.

I also sliced some nice tomatos, topped each slice with a nice slice of Feta cheese, basil and large amount of the same fresh herbs I used on the fish, plus a generous amount of extra-virgin olive oil. This sample but tasty salad was served on top of good French bread warmed until crunch and drizzled with the same olive oil.

As a side to the fish we had some young potatoes boiled to tender, slightly smashed with a knife handle to allow the dressing to soak in, and dressed while hot with the same herb and olive oil mix. Finally we had baby arugula salad and fresh limes and more extra-virgin olive oil.

When we took the fish out of the oven the salt had formed a nice protective crust that kept the juices and flavor inside.

While modesty is clearly not one of my qualities, I believe that we had an exceptional dinner, that was only made better by a couple bottles of chilled white wine and better company and that crowned a fantastic day.

...becomes Pesce al Sale!