Time keeps flying by, it's already the official start of summer as the May 24th holiday weekend is here! I started the weekend right with a cold snack on a Friday evening!

Saturday morning I loaded up and headed out to the St. John's Rod and Gun Club to take care of some equipment maintenance that I continue to look after there.

Maintenance for the lawnmower came to a halt when I discovered the dealer gave me the wrong oil filter for our machine only purchased one year ago.

I continued on and got a full service done on the generator, replacing oil, oil filter, both fuel filters and air filter. This will keep the unit working well again this summer.

With my work complete I unloaded Project Foreman and headed in the country on back of the club property for some scouting and trouting.

The weather was great with clear sunny skies, cool temps and a decent breeze. While the wind made casting tricky, it sure kept the flies away!

Sitka jacket coming in clutch today! I also still love my Patagonia sling pack, it keeps everything in easy reach while not being too bulky.

My Loop Q is still holding up great. It's my regular go to rig for trouting and a backup in case I break/damage my G•Loomis NRX salmon fishing set up.

On the way out, I stopped at the new pond side clearing at the club. We took on finishing this project last fall, it was one that had been started decades ago. Now we have a beautiful dry area from where members can trout and even teach casting.

The area worked great with plenty space to prevent snags on the back cast.

I loaded up early (by trouting standards) and headed home for a BBQ steak dinner. The best trouting time is usually coming on dark, but dinner was calling me home this day!

BBQ prime rib steak, baked potato and a feed of mussels.

Sunday evening after a long day of running around town, Costco, etc I fired up the Pitboss to do another delicious Beer Can Chicken. I used Frank's hot sauce as a binder and seasoned with Meat Church Holy Cow which is as good on Cluck as it is on Moo.

Meater Probe still just working great!

Sandra also threw on a Costco Lasagna as she isn't fussy on beer can spicy chicken.

Monday morning we started out the day with breakfast on the Blackstone. Fried onion/hash browns, bacon and eggs.

I was torn between spending the afternoon at a Billiards Tournament down at Westside, or being responsible and getting stuff done around the house. The later choice prevailed, I picked up the lawn tractor from storage, got the grass cut, some alders cut down on back of the fence, and Argo tracks strapped and stored for summer and the yard tidied.

All in all it was a great weekend with beautiful weather and we were glad to have gotten out and taken advantage of it!

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith