Caribou tufting one of our cabin's wall hangings

There are some interesting things hanging on the walls of the cabins at Bow Narrows Camp.

Several cabins have antlers or animal rugs on the walls. Others have paintings (some of them originals) but others are prints.

Cabin #1 has this interesting depiction of a barren land caribou.

I wonder if many people know that the image itself is made of caribou?

This art form is called "tufting," and it is practised by First Nations people in Canada, especially those in the Far North.

The animal shape is created with actual caribou hair which is intricately sewn to the canvas on the rear side.

Click here for a great website from Nunavut, the large territory in Canada's eastern Arctic, that explains the art of tufting.

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One of the jobs to put camp away in the fall

When we close camp in the fall there are a lot of things to do. Some are pretty obvious such as pulling out the boats and winterizing the water system.

Here's one you probably wouldn't think about.

Brenda takes apart the kitchen range, kitchen griddle and range hood and cleans everything until it is spotless.

It takes a big tub for this job. We had to special order this stock watering tub from our hardware store. Brenda says it works perfectly!

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Casting strategies for catching northern pike

Casting for northern pike is, in my opinion, the most productive method of catching these tremendous gamefish. It sounds simple -- cast an appropriate lure around the shoreline and weedbeds -- and I've written about it before (See Casting Techniques for Pike). Still, within this broad method of fishing there are "tricks" and tips that are worth passing on.

One of the first things to do is to dispel the notion that where you catch tiny northern pike, you won't catch anything larger.

The middle and bottom photos of Bow Narrows angler Kleve Granger should dispel that myth.

Kleve and his fishing buddy, my great-nephew Hunter Baughman in the top photo, have learned to keep fishing any place you catch a northern pike, of any size. One reason is that tiny pike are food for larger pike.

So the notion that there is a "hammer-handle-only bay" isn't accurate. What is sometimes true is that the shallowest end of a bay is where the tiny pike are hanging out but in slightly deeper water are bigger fish looking for little guys that stray too far from the shelter of the shallows.

A lot of times the little pike and the big bruisers are in the very same water. The little ones protect themselves by hiding in cover like weed patches and shoot out only to grab an opportune snack, like your Mepps spinner for instance.

It's a thrill when you start pulling in the small fry through the open water only to have it inhaled by a "monster pike."

As in all fishing, it pays to stay alert to how and where you are getting action. For instance, you might find that virtually all the pike are as close to the shoreline as they possibly can get. This can be inside the weedline that develops around some shores from mid-summer and later. Conversely, other times the fish might be smack dab in the center of weed patches. If they are, then casting around the edges of the weeds isn't good enough. You've got to get right in the weeds. They can also be laying in deeper water outside the weeds.

Other times the fish seem to be on rock piles or around fallen logs. Frequently the feed beds (piles of sticks) in front of beaver houses are hotspots.

If you pay attention to where you are getting the most action, then you can concentrate your time on these locations and thus catch more fish than if you were just plugging the entire shoreline. Or at least, if you are plugging a shoreline and come across the favorite habitat, you'll know to work it thoroughly before moving on.

Lure color and size can make a tremendous difference. I've seen times where a Mepps #4 or Blue Fox #4 would catch twice as many fish as a #5 and vice-versa. See Lighten Up for Northern Pike. Mostly, follow this rule: the clearer and more calm the water, the smaller and more subtle should be your lure. So, on a bright day with absolutely no wind, you might want to use a Mepps or Blue Fox #3 in black. But on a cloudy, windy day you might better use a #5 in bright orange. Of course the same holds for other lures: spoons, plugs, etc.

Speaking of the wind, it is usually the largest factor when it comes to fishing. If you can, fish where there is a chop (medium size waves). This always stirs up the fish. However, don't fish where the waves have been so strong that the water is muddied. The edge of muddy water is OK and muddy water itself is great for walleye fishing but usually is not good for pike.

I think the reason for that is because walleye can hunt with their lateral line sense while pike hunt strictly with their eyes. If the water is so murky that they can't see, then they move to someplace where they can.

Time of day is always a factor. Northern pike do not bite at night (they can't see). They usually like sunshine to the point that on a day with broken cloud cover, you'll catch pike every time the sun pokes through. Those are favorite pike days, sunshine that peaks out from between clouds and a good chop to the waves.

Finally, one other tip. As we've written in some of the above-mentioned blogs how much better pike can hit smaller lures, it cannot be emphasized enough that to use these smaller lures you will need lighter weight steel leaders. You need to watch every time you go in tackle stores for these because most stores just stock the heavyweight 30-pound variety. If you can find leaders around 18-pound with a snap big enough to connect to a pike spoon, grab them.

I often use a South Bend or RedWolf 12-pound leader for using small lures when pike fishing. These have tiny snaps that aren't the best for catching lots of pike but the light gauge wire certainly lets the lure perform flawlessly. As soon as I notice the little snap getting bent out of shape or the wire getting kinked I tie on a new leader.

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Kicksled my favorite way to go ice fishing

Our son, Josh, skis on a kicksled across Whitefish Lake, Ontario, on his way to an ice fishing spot.

For nearly 10 years now I have used this Nordic-invention to carry my ice fishing gear and to speed travel across the ice.

With about the same effort as walking you can propel yourself about 50% faster on the sled, say six mph. With slightly more effort you can double your speed to about eight mph. Give it everything you've got and you can reach 12-15 mph.

What you do is stand on one runner and push off with the other foot. As soon as your sled starts to slow down, you push again. When one leg gets tired, you stand on the other runner and push with the other leg.

The whole contraption is very light, something like eight pounds. The sled has a seat that can be used for carrying a kid or gear like an ice-fishing pail. I lay my auger --I have a new six-inch Nils hand auger -- from the handlebars down to the front of the sled and keep it in place with a bungee cord.

Kicksleds have metal runners, something like ice skates, that are about seven feet long. These work incredibly well on bare ice. But if there is snow, which is the usual case, you must fasten plastic skis under the runners. These are made for this purpose and just snap in place. I put my skis on 10 years ago and have never taken them off.

Kicksleds on skis do, however, require a packed surface to slide easily. Early in the winter the wind usually clears most of the snow from the ice but later on there is always eight inches or more. In these conditions I just follow a snowmobile track.

Other than whoever is accompanying me on my spare kicksled, I've never seen anyone else use a kicksled for ice fishing. That's a pity because it's a great way to travel and good exercise too.

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Timber wolves begin whitetail deer hunt

No sooner do I speculate that it's time for timber wolves to appear on the scene to go after the whitetail deer behind our house than my trail camera catches that very scenario.

These photos were taken one day apart.

The wolf is just a medium-size one. Since it carries its tail down we can figure it is not the alpha male or female in the pack.

There are five deer in the other photo. Part of one deer can be seen over the back of the one in the foreground.

These deer were not coming into a feeding station or anything like that. They were just traveling in a group along one of our snowshoe trails.

The photos were taken about 100 yards from our house. So far no wolves have come into the clearing by the house. I hope it stays that way.

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It's time for all registered guests to send deposits

Everyone who has made reservations and not yet secured them with a deposit should have now received a letter from me.
If you have not gotten your letter, you should call or e-mail because something is wrong.
We ask you to send in your $100 per person deposit as soon as possible.
You can do this by sending us a personal check covering everyone in the group or checks from each person in the group. Make the checks payable to Bow Narrows Camp and mail them to our winter address:
Bow Narrows Camp
RR 1 Old Mill Rd.
Nolalu, ON P0T 2K0
Canada
You can also call us at our winter phone number and make your deposit with a credit card.
Our winter phone number is 807-475-7246.
Deposits ensure that the people who say they are coming fishing next summer are serious about it. We advise group organizers to always get a deposit from each individual in the group rather than paying for everyone's deposit himself. In this way he knows he can count on them coming. A lot of people will say they would like to go fishing in Canada but until they ante up the $100 deposit are really just thinking wishfully.
When they don't show next summer it embarrasses the group organizer and hurts our business since we had reserved a larger-than-necessary cabin for the group and consequently lost income.
So, the lesson is, get the $100 from each person.
We would like to receive everyone's deposit before the end of January.
All deposits are fully refundable upon 60 days notice of cancellation.
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Deer "treats" just out of reach of this buck

My trail cam captured this buck in Nolalu.

The deer have eaten virtually everything palatable to them within reach including the leaves of white cedar and Old Man's Beard lichen seen framing Sam in just about the same spot as the buck was photographed.

The snow here is about 18 inches and the deer have stopped moving in the open, preferring to stay under the conifers where the snow isn't as deep.

Any day now timber wolves will appear on the scene and will start their annual hunt.

These big canines are always a worry for us since each winter they kill dogs in the area.

Sam is excellent at staying right by the house but last year there were wolf tracks there too.

If they repeat that behavior this winter I will get a wolf licence and we'll have a few more rugs to put up in the cabins at camp.

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Beautiful sun dog in field this crisp morning

This was the scene in front of our home in Nolalu, ON just after sunrise this morning.

The "sun dog" appeared to be right in our neighbor's field.

Sun dogs are created from light that is refracted by ice crystals in the air. You usually see them on either side of the sun when it is high in the sky. I've never seen one that appeared to be nearly on the ground before.

It was quite snappy here this morning, -20 C or -5 F.

Northwestern Ontario is experiencing what most of us would call normal winter weather this year. In Nolalu we have about 18 inches of snow on the ground. Nightime temperatures have been around -20 C and daytime -10 C or so.

Most people here enjoy such winter weather. We like to cross-country ski, snowshoe, snowmobile, down-hill ski and go ice fishing.

You just need to dress for the season. People who do find the winter an exhilarating time of the year. People who don't scurry in their tight jeans and leather jackets from the house to the car and back and thumb through catalogs for Caribbean cruises!

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Top-down method of lighting a wood fire

Here's a great way to light a fire in a wood stove that works every time yet boggles the mind. It's called the top-down method.

Start with a few medium sizes of dry, split firewood. On top of that place 12-20 finely split pieces of kindling. You can criss-cross these into a few levels.

Next roll, cornerwise, 6-9 sheets of newspaper into tubes and tie overhand knot in each tube. Place these on top of the kindling.

Light the paper knots, close the door to the stove and completely open the draft control.

Leave the draft open while the kindling flares away and only close it to half way once the kindling has begun to turn to glowing embers and the main wood has begun to burn. Leave it that way until the stove is producing sufficient heat, then close the draft to 1/4 of its opening. That's where the stove will burn most efficiently, producing the most heat value from the wood.

This system seems upside-down compared to the traditional fire-starting method which is to put crumpled paper on the bottom, kindling above that and bigger pieces of wood on the very top.

The thought was that the fire from the paper burns upward and its flames ignite the kindling whose flames go upward and light the firewood.

The problem is that once the fire is lit, frequently the weight of the firewood will compress the whole works and snuff out the flames. Or, as the kindling burns down, the firewood shifts or rolls out of the burning pile and consequently the fire goes out. This never happens with the top-down method. Also with the traditional method many people leave the stove door open a crack so the "wind" of the air coming in carries the flames from the bottom to the top. This is highly dangerous -- sparks can jump out of the stove onto the floor of the cabin, and also if the stove is left unattended it can burn extremely hot.

So the top-down method is far safer and more successful to boot.

But how can it work at all? After all, the flames of each level of components don't even touch the next level.

The reason is wood just needs to reach a certain temperature to ignite. It doesn't need to "touch" the flames. The heat of the burning newspaper, reflected against the baffle plate in the top of the stove, radiates its heat to the kindling below which ignites and burns even hotter and then does the same thing to the firewood on the bottom.

Rolling the newspaper into tubes makes the paper burn longer and tying it into knots keeps it from falling off the top of the pile.

Here's a couple other wood stove tips.

Never add wood to a stove until it has burned down to coals. Then put in several pieces of wood of varying sizes rather than all one-size. The irregular shape of the woodpile in the stove makes it burn better.

Round, unsplit wood, burns slower and longer. It makes the best wood for keeping a fire overnight.

Incidentally, when burning wood in a stove, you must let the stove "cycle" through the burning process to properly consume the wood, heat the cabin, and make the stove operate efficiently.

This means letting the fire burn down to coals each time before adding more wood.

If you keep feeding in wood every time there's an opening in the stove, the stove never gets a chance to consume the creosote produced by the inefficient first-burning of the firewood. The glass door will become blackened with such creosote. That's a clue that you aren't doing things right. When you let the stove "cycle" the glass will stay clear.

At night, put in several pieces of wood, round ones if they're available, otherwise just larger pieces and close the draft entirely, and go to bed. The temperature in the cabin will fall. That's what is supposed to happen. It should be cooler at night. You should still be warm under your blankets and the cooler cabin air is great for sleeping.

When you heat with a woodstove the temperature continually rises and falls. It isn't like you were heating with a natural gas furnace that runs on a thermostat.

Even when the draft is closed at night there is a small opening that lets the fire burn slowly. This is the only time you should allow the fire to burn so slowly and inefficiently. In the morning, there should be some glowing coals left. Rake these into a pile and put 12-20 pieces of finely split, dry kindling on the top. Open the draft and soon the kindling will be blazing. When it has mostly burned down, put larger pieces of wood on top, close the draft to half-way and the cycle starts again.

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Red Lake's walleye population is sky-high

Walleye were so numerous and aggressive on Red Lake, Ontario last summer, and for that matter, for the last several summers, that many times you could catch them virtually anywhere using any technique of fishing.

I caught and released this beautiful, chunky walleye last July while casting for northern pike in the middle of the day. It was one of several that I caught that afternoon, along with about a dozen pike.

I was using a 1/4-oz jig with a 3.5-inch salt-impregnated twister tail. I was also using a clip-on spinner on the jig turning it into a somewhat larger version of a Beetle Spin.

To catch walleye I would cast it parallel to the shore and let it sink to the bottom before retrieving it. For pike I cast it right to the shore or around weed patches. I was also using a six-inch black steel leader, something that would normally scare off walleyes.

Many members of my family caught walleye also while pike fishing that week. Most of them were using spoons like Little Cleos and spinners like Mepps and Blue Fox. No one was using bait.

While we were catching walleyes fairly handily with pike lures in shallow water in protected bays, other anglers were nailing them out in 16 feet on the edges of the deep bays.

The point is the walleye were just everywhere, at all depths, and biting virtually anything. (Of course the real walleye fishermen, using live bait like leeches and worms did far better than us pike fishermen and it is always advisable to use bait if you are targeting walleye.)

Although we normally catch almost nothing but big walleye at our western end of Red Lake, now we catch lots of small ones as well. It would seem there is a walleye population explosion.

You can easily just keep the perfect 14-16-inchers for eating now. In the past you felt guilty about bringing in a 22-incher for lunch but that was the smallest one you had caught all day.

There's still lots of 22-26 inchers out there and even some 28-30 inchers, but in addition now, there are schools of 9-18 inchers as well. In other words, there are more walleye than we have ever seen.

The reason for this bonanza isn't totally known but we have had a number of warm springs and early ice-outs in the last decade and this is known to make for spectacular walleye spawning.

Climate change here has meant ever-earlier ice-outs and perhaps, warmer water temperatures in our lake that has a great variety of water depths including some very deep, cold bays that didn't used to be so good for walleye.

At the same time the lake trout population has drastically declined. We know that is being caused by poor reproductive success and that too could be a result of climate change.

The trout seem to be coming back, however. as we are starting to catch small lakers again. (All trout must be released in Red Lake.)

However, they may have a hard time getting a foothold because, unbelievably, even their deep locations are now populated by walleye! Ministry of Natural Resources biology personnel, searching for little lake trout, have simultaneously found walleye inhabiting depths of water from 60 feet to the surface. They are just everywhere!

And the great variety in sizes means Red Lake is going to have incredible walleye fishing for many years to come!

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Stromatolites another reason Red Lake is special

As I understand it, the earth was created about 4.6 billion years ago.

Then, about a billion years later, the first cyanobacteria (also called blue-green algae) appeared. They were single-cell organisms and the very first lifeform that could photosynthesize, that is, they could use the sun's energy to create carbon-based sugar and in the process produce oxygen. That oxygen was released to the amosphere which up to that point was mostly carbon dioxide and other gases.

The cyanobacteria became incredibly abundant, virtually covering the Earth, and over another billion years ended up creating the very atmosphere we breathe today.

They were so numerous when they existed that they created thick stringy mats that became fossils. Those fossils are called stromatolites.

There are three places in Canada where stromatolites are found. One is on Red Lake, in fact, right on the shoreline in front of Bow Narrows Camp and also other locations nearby.

The other two are Steep Rock Lake in Atikokan, Ontario, and near Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

They are also found in Australia.

This photo, which was taken just down the shore from Bow Narrows Camp, shows the stringers of fossilized algal mats.

For more on stromatolites visit this website at Queen's University in Toronto.

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Check out West Red Lake Mining Museum

Make sure you check out the West Red Lake Mining Museum this summer.

This self-guided museum is largely finished after being under construction for several years.

It is located near the western entrance to West Narrows, only about half a mile from Bow Narrows Camp.

The log building is actually an original cabin from the 1926 Gold Rush to Red Lake which was the third-largest in the world. The cabin was formerly located at Bow Narrows Camp (our old Cabin 10) and was moved to the current site when the concept of the museum was first broached about seven years ago. Only one story of the original two-story structure was re-erected at the museum site.

The entire project was done by volunteers under the guidance of Brian Kreviazuk seen here repairing the museum's dock last fall.

The museum location was originally the home site of Bill Brown, Red Lake's first postmaster. He is buried on an island in front of the museum. If you look carefully you can see his headstone from your boat.

Back in the 1920s and '30s the west end of Red Lake was a hive of activity with many small gold mines in the area. Eventually everyone moved to the east end of the lake where the town of Red Lake is now situated. Almost none of the mines at the west end produced any gold while the ones at the east end were winners. Today the town of Red Lake boasts the world's richest gold mine, owned by GoldCorp, and there are new mines under construction.

It seems incredulous that the wilderness at the west end where Bow Narrows Camp is located was once inhabited by hundreds of gold rush pioneers. It is nothing but trees and bays and islands today. About all that remains are the rock piles from the mines and a few corners of the old log cabins.

There is also a large glacial erratic or boulder behind the museum that is a real stunner. The size of a house, it is one of the largest boulders ever discovered from the glaciers that covered this area 10,000 years ago.

As of last fall the museum contained old photographs of life in the area back in the gold rush. Photos are changed from time to time and other exhibits are planned next year as well.

There is no charge to visit the museum.

Although there is a large museum about the history of Red Lake in town, it largely ignores the mining history at the west end of the lake. The West Red Lake Mining Museum attempts to correct that oversight.

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How to prevent Gulp Alive jars from leaking

A lot of people have found Gulp Alive baits to work nearly as well as live bait; some say it's even better.

But everyone hates the smelly, sticky liquid that always leaks from Gulp Alive jars once they are opened.

The solution is not to take off the cardboard cover on the rim. In large baits such as Gulp leeches and Gulp worms, just make a double cross-slit across the surface of the cardboard, leaving the entire cardboard piece in place. You can just push your fingers through the cross-slits and get the bait.

In smaller baits such as these Gulp Alive waxworms which I like to use for perch ice fishing, you can cut out the inside of the cardboard leaving the cardboard over the rim. This leaves room for your fingers in the small jars to pick up the bait.

The cardboard acts as a gasket on this popular artificial bait's jars. If you take away the cardboard, the jars will leak.

Do Gulp Alive waxworms work for perch? Well, I've got to go clean a mess of perch right now and oh yes, a nice northern pike as well.

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Merry Christmas from us at Bow Narrows Camp

Brenda and I and our dog, Sam, wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Our wish is that you will all have a joyous and peaceful holiday.

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The balsam fir -- call it the first aid tree

Growing just about everywhere in the Boreal Forest are balsam fir trees.

Visitors to Bow Narrows Camp might know these from their massive number of branches, often covered in grey arboreal lichens known collectively as Old Man's Beard. The trees also have very pointed tops.

Balsams are also a favorite Christmas Tree and are sold for this purpose everywhere.

They have a wonderful fragrance and soft, flat needles.

Something that isn't as well known is that they also provide a great wilderness first aid salve for cuts.

The trunk of the balsam, especially older trees, is covered with bumps or blisters, and in each of these blisters is a clear sap. That sap makes a first-class antiseptic salve.

Take a knife blade or even just a sharp twig and puncture the blister. You'll end up with a drop of the sticky sap clinging to your blade or twig. Spread this on a bandage and place over the wound.

I've done this countless times and, in my experience, it works wonderfully. The wound heals quickly and never even becomes sore.

I first learned of this from old Bill Stupack, the prospector-trapper who first built Bow Narrows Camp. Bill spent most of his life living alone in the bush and swore there was nothing better for treating wounds.

One bitterly cold winter he was on his trapline at Prairie Lake, about 20 miles west of Red Lake, and accidentally cut himself badly on the head with an axe. He had been swinging the axe when it struck a branch and came down right on the top of his head, creating a large gash.

It was a 40-mile snowshoe to medical help (this was before snowmobiles) so that was pretty much out of the question. So Bill ended up stitching up the cut on his own with needle and thread. Then he found a balsam and cut a slab of bark to bring back in his little log cabin. He needed to thaw out the sap before it could be used. After plastering the sewn-up gash with balsam he bandaged it and made his plans to head to town. But then the weather took a turn for the worse and he ended up staying put for a week.

When the storm finally cleared Bill decided the cut was healing up just fine and took out his stitches and stayed another couple of months trapping.

They made them tough in those days.

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Never use treble hooks for bait fishing

If there is one fishing regulation I would change it would be this: I would make it illegal to use treble hooks for fishing with live or dead bait. The reason is it kills so many fish.

We still have fishermen who use treble hooks when dead bait fishing for northern pike, especially in the spring.

Most of them say they know exactly when to set the hook so that the fish doesn't swallow it and end up dead.

The photo above tells a different story. It is a pike taken on an artificial on the second day of the season and already someone had caught and lost it leaving a treble hook in its stomach and leader hanging out its mouth. This fish was doomed anyway if this angler hadn't kept it. Fortunately, it was of legal size.

How many fish are hooked in the stomach and released because they are in the slot size?

We catch quite a few pike each summer with treble hooks protruding through the walls of their stomachs. Fish with single hooks inside them are usually fine. The single hook doesn't poke a hole through the stomach lining. But with a treble two or all three of the hooks will work their way right through, eventually killing the fish.

It's all so needless. With a quick strike rig the hook can be set the instant the fish takes the bait. There is no reason to let the fish "take it" before setting the hook. That's because there are two hooks on the rig, a single hook in the front of the bait and a treble hook in the center. If the bobber goes down there is a hook in the fish's mouth-- set the hook immediately -- before the bait is swallowed.

With a circle hook you can let the fish swallow the bait a little, then slowly pick up tension on the line by reeling and as the circle hook comes sliding out of the fish's mouth, it catches it right in the very corner.

Both methods allow you to safely and humanely release the fish.

See Use circle hooks and dead bait for pike

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Burlap bag simply the best for keeping fish

Angler Steve Wilhelm brings some fish in a burlap bag to the fish house at camp last summer.

We have used burlap bags for keeping fish for 50 years now at Bow Narrows Camp and my great-uncle Bill Baughman used them at his camp, Rainbow Lodge on Pickerel River, Ontario, for nearly as long before us. So collectively we have been using the bag system for keeping fish for nearly 100 years. And we've never seen anything that worked better -- not stringers, not mesh baskets and not livewells.

Did you ever notice how it's the simple things that work best? Well, there's nothing simpler than this.

Here's how the system works. Dip the bag (also known as a keep sack) in the lake to get it wet. Put the fish in the bag and lay it on the bottom of the boat. The evaporation of the water from the bag produces a cooling of the fish. It's the same principle of the old cowboys' blanket canteens.

You can keep fish in excellent shape this way all day. Just dip the bag back in the lake if it dries out.

Although it seems counter-intuitive, it's actually a bad idea to keep fish alive once you've decided to keep them. For one thing, keeping fish on stringers or in livewells will make them excessively slimy. This is because the mucus on their skin needs to be continually washed away by the fish's swimming forward.

A lot of the stereotypes people use about northern pike comes from the fact they kept their fish on stringers. I've seen pike kept overnight on a stringer that seemed to be encased in a mucus-gelatin. They had to be blasted with a hose and let dry in the sun for several hours before they could be cleaned.

Fish in the bag never get this way. They are clean and cold and not slimy.

Fish kept on stringers and in livewells also get water-logged. Their stomachs are full of water when we clean them and their flesh is soft. Again fish in burlap bags are not like this. Their flesh is as firm as if it had been kept on ice.

When you keep fish on a stringer you also stand a good chance of losing them. I wish I had $10 for every time someone using a stringer lost the entire stringer overboard or forgot to bring it in the boat and the propeller chopped up the fish or another fish "ate" the fish on the stringer. It's just not a good idea.

We've tried other types of bags and have found that only the burlap "potato sacks" work. Burlap is organic and is absorbent and this has something to do with it. On the downside, burlap decays quite rapidly so we must get new bags about three times a summer.

If you are new to camp, there is a supply of bags on the drying line beside the fish house. When you bring your fish to the fish house for cleaning, you can leave your bag in the cleaning bins with your cabin number and grab another bag to take back to your boat.

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Studies find walk in the woods really is good for us

I really like walking in the woods, and so does Sam, our dog, and I can vouch that that there is something therapeutic about the experience.

Now medical research has proven the connection. Walking in the woods is more beneficial to our minds and bodies than just walking along the road or street or in a gym.

John Swartzenberg, MD, chair of the editorial board of the University of California, Berkeley Wellness Letter, reports in the December issue that "green exercise" pays big dividends.

Tests have shown people have better memory and attention when hiking in the woods compared to indoors. Hiking lowers stress, blood pressure and heart rate and improves immune functions better than does exercising at a gym.

Researchers also found a "third-day effect" where after a few days of hiking people attain a special stage of relaxation and mindfulness.

We've seen something similar with our guests at Bow Narrows Camp. It was my father, Don, who noticed that people who come fishing for just three days, rather than a week, never have a very good time. He was right. As proof of this, three-dayers almost never return to camp whereas the vast majority of week-trippers do. Once we realized what was going on we started not taking the three-day guests. After all, we want people to enjoy themselves.

Although the medical studies didn't analyze fishing trips for their benefits, I think the situation is the same. When we're off in the woods on a fishing trip we reach a state of deep relaxation. No doubt some of this is because we're out of range of cell phones and e-mails. But there's more to it than that. It really does seem to come from the fact we are physically outdoors.

After a day or two of of not hearing street noise, we become absorbed in the natural sights and sounds around us. The calls of birds and the whistling of the wind through the pines occupies our attention and our thoughts turn to what a great world this still is.

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Northern pike are feasting on crayfish

It might surprise you to know that a big part of the diet of northern pike in Red Lake is crayfish!

We find crayfish in the stomachs of a great many pike that we clean for our guests. Of course, crayfish don't digest as easily as minnows and other softer prey so they linger longer but still, there's no doubt that pike do eat this crustacean.

A careful examination of these crayfish last summer indicated they are all the native species of crayfish which is Orconectes virilis and not the invasive species O. rusticus or rusty crayfish that have gotten into a great many lakes in Wisconsin and Minnesota and other places.

It is not a good idea to use live crayfish for bait for fear of transferring invading species to new lakes. However, there is an artificial bait favored by bass fishermen that is known to imitate crayfish and that is the tube jig.

If you want to try something new next summer, bring some tube jigs in 4-5-inch size in various colors and work these around rocky shoals, points and entrances to narrows.

If you are unfamiliar with tube jigs they look like a regular jig but have a bullet-shaped head that allows a hollow plastic tube to fit over the top.

Pike are well-known to hit regular round jigs, either bucktail or with plastic twister tails.

The tube jig differs in that it is entirely covered by the tube. It's a bit slower to fall through the water and often spirals which could imitate a dying fish or swimming crayfish.

To fish a tube jig for pike, cast it out and let it sink to the bottom. Give the rod a slow jerk and let the jig fall back to the bottom while you reel in your slack line. Repeat the process until your lure is all the way back to the boat. You can also just reel the jig right in but with the occasional pause or twitch of the rod.

Crayfish like to hide in crevices of rocks and in boulder piles so those locations would be good places to try the tube jig.

Weight of the jig head makes a big difference on the jig action. Light jigs fall more slowly and so must be given more time between jigs. Try 1/8, 1/4 and 3/8-ounce sizes.

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Put your Canadian tax rebate toward your deposit

If your bank refuses to cash your Canadian tax rebate check from your trip to camp last summer or is going to levy some outrageous service charge for cashing it, then just send it to us as part of your deposit for next summer's trip.

Depending on when you came to camp last year that rebate check could be as much as $55.90 if you came on the American Plan and $42.25 on the Housekeeping Plan.

The rebate was larger after July 1 last summer. It amounted to 6.5% of the cost of your trip.

The rebate was only offered to non-Canadian visitors.

We require a deposit of $100 per person to hold your reservation. If you want to include your rebate check in your deposit then just send us a personal check for the remainder of the $100.

Finally, make sure you sign the back of your rebate check. We are not able to deposit it without your signature.

You can also send us your normal $100 deposit plus your rebate check and we will put the entire total towards your trip.

As always, your deposit is fully refundable upon 60 days notice of cancellation.

We also have guests who prefer to pay for their entire trip in advance. If they need to later cancel then we refund the entire amount if they give us 60 days notice and refund all but the $100 if less than 60 days.

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