Mountaineer Chronicles

Do you have an excess of fresh cucumbers? Refrigerator pickles are a very simple and quite quick way to preserve them.  The process is very simple. Fresh cucumbers cut how you'd like them packed into clean jars and pour over a hot brine. hot brine and some jars.  To boost the flavor of your soon to be pickles, add some pickling spice or other favorites to your jars. My choice of flavors is quite simple: some black peppercorns, smashed garlic, and some fresh dill.  Another important component is to add a crisping agent, and I've had great luck with Mrs Wages Xtra Crunch . These newer crisping agents are simply calcium chloride rather than the alum used heavily by our parents and grandparents. The FDA doesn't recommend using alum any longer and this option seems to work well without the need for additional chemicals. Pack your jars. Bring the brine to a boil, pour the hot brine over the cucumbers, put on a lid, stash them in the fridge for a day (or few), then enj

 Chanterelles are my favorite wild fungi. These guys grow through a long period in the summer, have a large range, and best of all they are EASY to find! Their bright orange coloration sometimes closely resembles hunter orange and is easy to spot a patch on a hillside from even several hundred yards away. Oh yeah, and they are delicious! I came across a patch last week and picked a gallon bag full in a matter of minutes. I didn't have any plans for immediate use, and didn't want to let these tasty summer treats go to waste, so I decided to dehydrate them for future use. Washed Chanterelles We recently purchased a  Dehydrator Air Fry Combo . We have a dedicated dehydrator with numerous racks, but rather than dig that out of the basement, I opted to try out the dehydrate settings on this thing. The capacity is smaller than a dedicated dehydrator, but was the perfect amount of space for the gallon of chanterelles. The dehydrator has temperature and time control which was perfect f

Fall will quickly be upon us here in Mountain State. For most, this means the return of WVU football, changing leaves, cooler temps, and the quickly approaching fall hunting seasons. To me, all of these are a welcome change. The sweltering heat of summer and I do not get along well.  Who doesn't love college football?  For many outdoorsmen and women, the thought of a brisk October evening perched high in a tree waiting on a whitetail buck while orange and yellow leaves softly drop to the forest floor below is a special experience for which they long all summer.  I'm no stranger to the allure of fall. Crunchy leaves, back yard bonfires on cool evening, and that distinct smell of early evenings... Who, besides me, is ready for fall?

If you look closely at this photo, you can see a handful of snowflakes that were leftover on the deck from the few flurries we had last night. Many higher elevation places had more significant snow showers yesterday.  Here in the middle Appalachians, we can get spoiled by 70 degree days like we had last week, so when we get cold rains (or even snow) and 30 degree temperatures folks get taken aback.  The average last frost date for Morgantown is still almost 2 weeks away, and for the high mountains is more like a month away. You can see from the greenery in the photo that spring is certainly here, but spring for Mountaineers doesn't guarantee 60- or even 50-degree weather. Soon enough though, winter will finally lose it's grip...

For our first outing of the year, Roger and I headed to the Savage River in western Maryland. We started on the trophy section below the reservoir, but after fishing methodically for several hours, we decided to jump up above the reservoir to fish a tributary for native brook trout. The water temps above the lake were slightly warmer, and this, combined with some clear skies and strong spring sun warmed the water enough that the trout were hungry and feeding. We caught 18 trout in about 3.5 hours, each of us landing 9. All were smaller brook trout (< 8") with the exception of one 11" stocked rainbow that ran up from the river into this small tributary. We both were using double beadhead nymph rigs, and as long as you got a good drift the fish didn't seem to care which exact pattern you were floating past them. Here are some pictures of the day... Serene Small but pretty First brookie of the year Hemlocks Rhododendrons Cannibal - th

I've tried several different approaches to keeping journals and logs of my fishing over the years. I enjoy looking back at these logs and they are certainly informative for planning future trips. So far, I have been unable to really stick with a single logging format for very long. I guess this is my own fault for simply not being devoted to keeping track of things. The best free, online option I've found is http://www.mydailyfishinglog.com/  . This website is oriented slightly toward flyfishing, but the framework is flexible enough to use for any type of fishing logs. There is even the option to attach pictures to each individual log entry. The best part is that it is 100% free, all you have to do is create a username to login. In the past I've also tried creating my own log forms in Excel. The advantage to doing this is that I can customize my log entry fields to precisely what I what, but the interface and ease of use is not quite the same as the online entry optio