Kevin J Legg

Matt, I use the following recipe and have had great results. Everyone loves it. Best not to over smoke or over cook it. Meat thermometer really insures a great product. Let me know how it turns out. I use the following brine: 1 cup salt 1 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup Italian seasoning 1/4 cup garlic powder 2 tbs Black pepper 2 tbs red pepper flakes 4 bay leaves (crushed0 Mix with 1 quart of water and simmer for 20 min. Add 2 more quarts of water and let cool Add duck or goose breasts and brine in the refrigerator for around 15-24 hours. Rinse well, pat dry and rub with a little olive oil Smoke under low heat for 1-4 hours till internal temperature reaches 135-140 degrees

Just froze 30 smoked duck breast and took a batch of 18 goose breasts from the smoker. Some good eats !

Extreme day of duck hunting. I got a call late last night from Matt Garlock asking about hunting ducks this morning. Drove to a ramp at the lake and it was iced in but we launched and broke ice looking for a place to hunt. The outboard was acting up so we limped back to the launch and were barely able to pull the boat. We tried a second ramp that was also frozen in and finally decide to call it a morning. On our trip home we found a couple open ramps and after resolving the engine problem drove back to the lake at 1130 and had a great afternoon shoot. Ended up with a limit including mallard, black, green winged teal, buffleheads, broadbills and whistlers. We needed to put down rock salt to get the boat out of the ramp and the decoys, boat and our cloths were covered by a sheet of ice.

One old stand by recipe is to cut up rabbit into 6 pieces; legs, back, and rib cage. Dredge in seasoned flour and brown in oil. When brown add cream of mushroom soup and some water and simmer a couple hours till tender. Serve with potatoes and carrots. It comes out tender and moist with it's own gravy. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

I spent many enjoyable days running both cottontails and snowshoes both as a boy and a younger adult. It's kind of like the pan fishing of the hunting world. Great sport to share with a kid and truth be known, often more fun than big game hunting. I also enjoyed eating them. Unfortunately there aren't the rabbits around that there use to be and I don't have a dog. I would love to spend a warm winter day listening to the sound of a hot beagle once again.

We saw many BB flying down river on Thursday but few on Friday. Not sure if they kept going or dropped on one of the big lake bays. Hope to find out this week.

Nice birds. We've been invaded by masses of merganser. Still have been able to have decent shoot of other birds but they can be irritating.

Nice fish.

Great buck!

Sounds very similar to my birthday buck story. Congrats and Happy Birthday!

Amazing how fast things can change

My family is also here for the rest of the week so no ducking for me till Monday. With the snow we have it would be incredible.

Perch River, and much of Black Lake and Goose Bay are frozen as are most all the marshes. Certainly moved the puddle ducks to the big water and there also seems to a decent migration of divers.

Shot a nice mixed limit this morning on the lake including broadbills. whistlers, a mallard and two blacks. Saw a fair number of birds early but they slowed down by 9:00.

My family always had venison for Christmas dinner and the year my dad past the only deer we had was the 4 point he had shot. It was tough to chock down the first few bites but we manage to continued the tradition and I only remember one year that we didn't have any venison on Christmas. We still carry on the tradition 30 years latter. When I went home for dad's funeral I decided I should take a walk behind the house and look for a deer, as that's what dad would have wanted. About a half mile from the house I jumped a 4 point like the one dad had shot. I never even shouldered my gun. It just seemed like spiritual experience.

He probably drove it to me!

Tomorrow is my birthday and I planned to deer hunt. I decided to sit a stand near my house this afternoon. I got set up about 3:30 and at 4:00 this buck came strolling through the hardwoods. I shot at 90 yards and it just kept walking toward me. When I got another opening he was about 60 yards and I shot high on the shoulder and down he went. Turned out both shots hit less than 2 inches apart. Not sure why the first shot didn't drop him but it must have been a different angle. 11 points around 180 lbs. Very nostalgic time of year for me as I was born on my dad's birthday and he died the day after out birthday 31 years ago. He had killed a 4 point and had a heart attack and they found him laying next to his buck. Not a bad way to go!