I go on the web and research recipes. One recipe I ran into utilizes a Buerre Blanc Sauce. It is a butter sauce with a dry white wine or white vermouth. Works with salmon and halibut. Julia C. would approve.
Thick pan seared halibut can dry out, but using this recipe can leave your fish moist and succulent. I will try this out.
Good Eats!
Doing some research on my upcoming Alaskan fishing trip in early June, I found the following information.
https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=halibut.printerfriendly
To best catch halibut, fisherman often send bundles of fish chum to the bottom (100 to 300 ft) after anchoring. Then fish around the ball of chum. The scent will draw halibut from long distances. Some chum made up with more oily scent makes a difference.
Experienced halibut sport fisherman prefer eating smaller halibut up to 50 pounds and let the larger ones (usually female) go. The thicker older larger “barn door” fish are harder to cook thru correctly and can dry out the fish during cooking. We shall see…
That said, If I hook an 80 lb. halibut, am I going to throw it back? Probably not. But the rules state one of the two halibut per day you can keep must be smaller than 32 inches thus keeping sizes and gender under some measure of harvest control.
Male halibut are much smaller usually less than 3 feet in length. Large Females can spawn upwards of seven million eggs.
Author Note: My strength and upper body, arm and hand exercise routine just finished week one. I can already feel the success. Fore arm and hand strength is terrific for a start. Only two of my Alaska fishing boat trips will be for halibut. The other two focus on salmon and a fly-in for brown bear photography and salmon.
Good Fishing!
This NH Rifleman video compliments my previous article on Alaska Fishing Strength Exercises for Halibut.
As an older sportsman, without conditioning to fight trophy size fish, I have an opportunity to seriously damage my upper body, shoulders and arms if I am not in shape for reeling in say up to 100 pound halibut pulling him up from say 200 to 300 feet.
Or catching numerous lesser fish from similar depths and then hooking a whopper.
Accordingly, core conditioning and working my upper body and arms is essential before the trip. It will take me at least 3 months or more to get in shape and stay in shape. It’s all about stamina as I will be on a fishing rod every day for hours.
Below are some exercises that will aid in building stamina and muscle strength.
I have a rowing machine for cardio, stomach, back and arms. Below is my inexpensive $179 Yosuda Machine that I have been using for this past year. I like it for my daily exercise, quality and price (some assembly required).
But that may not be enough . Hand and arm strength is essential. Below, I bought a “Twister Arm Trainer” set from Amazon for $25 dollars. I love it because I can exercise while watching tv or news.
In case of muscle cramps and lactic acid buildup, I purchased some Theraworx® Muscle Cramp and Lidocaine roll on products to test before my trip. If they work, I will have them in my tackle box.
Ultimately, I want to be very prepared mentally and muscle wise for multiple Alaskan adventures in just a week. I eat well and daily take Balance of Nature fruit and vegetable capsules (I swear by these for their positive effects on my overall health).
Don’t let your older body keep you from being at your best in the outdoors. Some say check with your doctor if unsure of these exercise thoughts. I say as President Trumps says, Fight, Fight, Fight!
Good Fish Hunting!
Life is too short. I have a bucket list and Alaska is on it.
I get email invitations from hunting and fishing outfits now and again, and found one that works for me. Fishing Alaska is achievable on my bucket budget.
I booked 6 days with a large well established outfit along the Kenai River (Alaskan Fishing Adventures www.alaskafishing.com ). I have no personal experience with them at this time but expect the very best.
I will surely write and video on my trip in June 2026.
I will be fishing primarily for halibut and salmon as we encounter them.
Just Some Of The Species That You Can Catch On Our Boats.
Yellow eye is a deep water rockfish that is a prized catch as well. All fish are filleted, vacuum sealed and frozen for return to New Hampshire.
One such trip includes a fly-in to fish salmon and view the neighboring brown bears fishing near us.
We catch fish with rod and reel… brown bears catch them with teeth.
Needless to say lots of pictures and video.
My Job is to get in shape, especially my arms, to reel in these huge fish.
Good Fishing!
I recently was on youtube and observed a hunter who was hiking way off the grid in Alaska. He needed fire for the night. He gathered twigs and sticks, then opened a tin with his home made charcloth. Then with a square piece of the charcloth he launched a shower of sparks from flint and steel and… the cloth took an ember to which he started his fire. Using fine tinder nest, he grew the fire. This is a Bushcraft technique we modern folk rarely use.
Honestly, I’ve never tried lighting a fire with charcloth and a spark. I pull my Bic lighter or a special outdoor match, but I was intrigued. I thought, “Maybe I’ll give that a try” for fun and emergencies.
You might try this too to make charcloth!
I used an empty Campbell soup can (paper label removed) and aluminum foil to cover and cook twenty 1.5 inch cut denim squares and cooked them on my Weber grill.
The good news is that I lost some weight, so I cut up my oversize cotton dungarees for the cloth. Boy, it felt good to cut those dungarees up. Right?
After some experimenting on the grill, I put the can on its side, it worked great. I monitored the process every 10 minutes. After 10 minutes smoke and flame came out of the 1/4 inch hole I punched in the foil.
When flame stopped (30 minutes) I let it smoke for another 5 minutes and placed it in some nearby to cool. It snowed yesterday, so I put the can where it would cool, snow helped.
Note: The cooking and smoke is a quite stinky so do this outside.
Let the can cool completely, maybe 30 minutes or so. Empty the can onto a sheet of aluminum foil.
If embers are present on the charcloth, enclose it in the aluminum foil to remove oxygen and the embers will die out quickly.
I had some tins to put the charcloth in. Below is the tin with charcloth shown.
You can use a flint and steel or a ferro rod to throw sparks at your charcloth. Once the charcloth takes an spark, use tinder or a cotton ball with Vaseline on it to grow the flame.
Happy Emergency Fire Making!!
Honestly, I like all of these wild game stews, but my very favorite of-late is Black Bear. I say “of-late” because I was reintroduced to hunting Maine black bear in the fall. Especially after gorging on blueberries, raspberries and acorns, bears are plump and delish.
I covet bear fat and render it for cooking, lubricating, softening leather, my hands, and even rust prevention. Great for my Flintlock, cleaning and lube for patch and round ball.
Springtime east coast black bears on the other hand are also leaner and eat more carrion and grass.
You are what you eat.
I like the idea of eating game fed on blueberries, fruits and nuts.
I met folks in Alberta, Canada who avoid spring black bear meat as it smells and tastes strong.
The grain of Northeast US black bear meat does not separate into large strands (to get caught in teeth when chewing) like other wild game, yet very tender when day long stewed or pressure cooked. I prefer pressure cooking till meat falls apart, say 40 to 50 minutes or so under high pressure.
Good Eating!
Revisiting My Original “First Time” Carvings and Brass Inlays, I believe there is nostalgic beauty in Rococo floral carvings in Pennsylvania Flintlock Rifles of the Revolutionary War era by Lancaster Counties Jacob Dickert.
I earnestly desired to build my own flintlock rifle several years ago and was quite successful. Maybe you can too!
I used Jim Chambers Flintlock kits with a premium curly maple stock to begin my Flintlock build. These kits look like ABC and voila you have a flintlock? Not a chance! You will have to earn it!
I went on-line and researched chisels and studied sharpening and chisel techniques.
The opportunities to make chisel cut mistakes abound, yet I persevered to put chisel and hammer to wood. Chisel Fitting the 43 inch barrel, trigger, trigger guard and lock to the stock needs another article.
Below is my first and only Rococo C scroll carving on raw wood. I made a template from drawings of Jacob Dickert 1770’s flintlock rifles, then put chisel to wood.
Below is my first Rococo C Scroll Jacob Dickert made on his era rifles. “Not half bad”, I thought.
At the tang below, I added this Jacob Dickert floral design.
To be sure, I was and still am a novice at carving but for me, I was “pleased as punch” for a first. My success asked for more carving however I stopped scroll carving and began to chisel and inlay my already assembled daisy brass patch box and other brass lock plate and brass star accoutrements. I purchases and fitted a second brass patch box, as I damaged the first one and used inappropriate oversize mounting screws. Drilling the big holes in the stock below was a bit scary.
In fact, I sent the brass to an hand engraver familiar with the Jacob Dickert’s work to engrave as Dickert would have done for a top-of-the-line Flintlock. Below is the engraved and inlayed patch box. Can you say stunning!
Below, the engraved Lock Plate!
My finished rifle below and it shoots very well.
Just recently, I took my Pennsylvania Flintlock to Pennsylvania to hunt Red Stag with patch and round ball. A doe below taken at 65 yards, full penetration and exited the offside shoulder. She fell in a few yards.
Good Hunting!
It has been almost a week since I put my Tioga PA red stag doe meat in the freezer. After viewing some online recipes, I honestly got a meateater attack, so I grabbed a small backstrap section from the freezer and sous vide it in a 125ºF water bath (below) for a few hours till it hit 120F.
The sous vide does a great job in prevention of overcooked venison. Set it for time and temperature and forget it.
Next, I lightly seasoned the meat with Montreal steak seasoning and a touch of garlic powder. Then…
Then hickory smoked it at 225ºF on my Traeger for an hour till it hit 123F internal temp.
I cranked up my Weber grill to 400F and quickly seared the meat.
I put a temp probe in the meat at the end of searing. It read 125F.
The meat came out rare to medium-rare. And so tender and delicious.
I had some leftover cooked Basmati rice and mushrooms and served that with it. Wow!
Can’t wait for more to eat and serve to family!
Good Hunting!
My TenPoint Turbo with Swhackers are a formidable hunting combination.
Upon examination of my huge Russian boar found the entrance and exit wound of these Levi Morgan Swhackers. Looking closely, the exit wound is seen here in this picture below.
One inch entry Wound seen here looks like it clipped a rib bone below, then the virgin blades opened to 2.25 inches
Exit wound below is 2.25 inches cleanly severing 2 ribs seen on exit. The arrow exited so fast that it was never recovered. Shot was taken at 25 yards with my TenPoint Turbo S1. Muzzle velocity is 350 fps.
I was impressed. Equally the Standard 2 blade (straight edge) swhacker 231’s fully penetrated and exited my estimated 200 lb. September Bear with such velocity/energy that the head exploded on striking solid granite after exiting. 
I’m a Swhacker fan!!
Good Hunting!