Episode 141: Lake Simcoe Ice Fishing Recap With Hotbox Huts

The best ice seasons are not always the ones with the most chaos, they are the ones that run smooth from first hut to last pullout. We’re back with Donny Crowder of Hotbox Huts to debrief a Lake Simcoe winter that started early, stayed stable late, and gave his crew something rare: time. Time to stage “Hogtown” properly, time to avoid panic days, and time to connect with clients one-on-one so families leave with more than just fish photos.

We get into what showed up under the holes this year, from big early-season perch to walleye talk and the odd sightings that make you question what you thought you knew about Simcoe. Donny also breaks down why underwater fishing cameras can be a game-changer for stationary ice fishing, especially for kids and new anglers who learn faster when they can actually see the bite and fish behaviour in real time.

Then the conversation goes deep on ice safety. Donny explains how heavy snow, melt cycles, shoreline runoff, and springs can turn a “good” year into a constant monitoring job. He shares how measuring core ice temperature helps predict breakup, and why candled ice can look walkable while being structurally ready to separate when sun and water do their work.

Off the ice, Donny walks us through his hundred-acre conservation-minded property, a thriving duck pond, semi-guided waterfowl hunts, and the realities of regenerative farming and making maple, birch, and silver maple syrup the old-school way. If you care about guided ice fishing in Ontario, hardwater safety, conservation, and building a life around the land, this one delivers. Subscribe, share the episode with a fishing buddy, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Teaser And Season Mood

SPEAKER_09 0:05

The highlight for us was related to operations. Because we got on the ice so early, we got to have a slower, staging, smoother start. And because we had good ice at the end of the year, all the way up to the March 15th cutoff, we got to uh take things off slowly in anticipation of that. The ice didn't go bad on us real quick. We were never in a hurry. So that meant our team, you know, got things handed to them a little bit easier than in other years. There were no panic days, there were no hardworking, stressful days. Every day was a fun day on the ice this year. And when our workers are happy and having a great time, it tends to trickle down to the clients. And it allows for us to have more time to fish, you know, one-on-one. And it really made for a special experience for everyone involved.

Building Hogtown On Early Ice

SPEAKER_04 0:51

This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast, Networks, Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North. Today we spend some time with Donnie Crowder from Hotbox Hut and dive deep into his past season on the ice, recounting the hides, the challenges, and the tales that make his guided adventures stand out. Beyond the ice, we explore Donnie's hundred-acre paradise, where he's created a thriving duck habitat and leads guided hunts that are as much about conservation as they are about adventure. And he's not just about wildlife. Donnie is a champion of regenerative farming, tending his land, tapping maple, birch, and even silver maple, all while keeping the tradition alive. So join us as we journey through Donnie's world, where ice jacks meet ducklines and maple slap flows, riches the stories of the north. This episode you don't want to miss. It's a taste of nature, heritage, and the heartbeat of the land. Here's my conversation with Donnie Crowder. Welcome to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North. And we've got uh a special guest on today to uh kind of recap your season. And we have Donnie from Hot Box Huts. We spoke with him uh in January, had him on, and we uh it was really exciting because it was uh actually, was it January or even earlier than that? I think it was earlier. I think it was uh preseason. Yeah, it was preseason because you were just getting your huts on there, and uh it was one of the earliest seasons. So welcome to the show, Donnie.

SPEAKER_09 2:45

Happy to be back, Steve.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Yeah, yeah. So I'm excited to uh now I went and saw your huts. Uh I took the girls there for a day of ice fishing, and uh it was uh very early season. We were fishing uh very shallow water right up at the uh shoreline, and uh it was um I didn't get the full experience of having Hogtown all laid out in front of us. Uh, we actually did an ice report and you were just moving all of that stuff out. So listen, tell me how your season went.

SPEAKER_09 3:20

Yes, that's right, Steve. When you came out and visited us, we were we were staging to build Hogtown, which is uh a first step we like to take when we have that early ice shelf, if we're lucky. It's not there every year. Um, it did come this year, so that means we start to roll the huts out and have them on the ice ready to go, which really speeds up the process when uh when we do build Hogtown. Um this year, man, that that shallow fishing. I mean, I don't think it was too hot for you guys that day, but I know at the other end of the row there they were doing pretty well.

SPEAKER_05 3:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 3:52

But there was some massive perch caught early season. I mean, we're talking before Christmas, even. Wow, which was just incredible. There was whitefish sightings and two, three feet of water, uh, channel cats, uh, walleye, even, which we these things are just unheard of where we are on Lake Simcoe. Uh season was good, man. Uh right, we were operating Christmas Day this year.

SPEAKER_04 4:15

Yeah, they're that's very cool.

SPEAKER_09 4:17

Yeah, like I you know, I talked to my wife and I said, Hey, do you mind if uh you know I got people wanting to book Christmas? Are you cool if uh, you know, I run out for an hour here and there and take care of them, and then everybody got the day off except me. But it really was a treat to to be able to fulfill people's Christmas wish, right? And hit them on the ice. That that was awesome. I think that's the first first time we've ever done that on Christmas Day, man.

Cameras And Sight Fishing With Kids

SPEAKER_04 4:41

That's very cool. Well, I know one of the very cool things that uh that we did when we were there. Um uh the iPhones are waterproof, right? And it was a it was a bright sunny day, and in that hut, it's nice and it's it's a little bit darker, right? So the holes were lit right up and the and the water was lit up, and the water in on Simcoe is is clear, it's gin clear. And uh, we were sticking our phones down the hole and taking video of what it was what it looked like down there. And uh that was that was very cool. And we did get a few uh a few perch and and uh we saw some moving around. Um, but um the camera would be a very cool thing to have in uh in there. And I know you you you rent cameras, do you?

SPEAKER_09 5:32

Yeah, we do. Yeah, we have them available for rent. Um they are really popular, especially when we're out in the deeper water and you can't see down and and sight fish like you were able to where you were uh yeah, cameras are key. Uh JP Bushy got us onto the camera thing years ago. He says, nothing. Yeah, he said, nothing beats a camera. You know, when you're when you're looking for intel for fish and you're stationary ice fishing, nothing beats a camera. You won't get any more information back than uh than than being able to see exactly what's happening. Because even compared to live scope, live scope gives you a bit of an idea. Yeah, you can kind of see the way the fish are moving, but with the camera, you mean you can see which way they're even looking.

SPEAKER_05 6:11

Yeah, yeah. It's a camera.

SPEAKER_09 6:12

Yeah, yeah, it's it's a it's a fantastic way to fish. Yeah, if you have young ones, especially that sight fishing is uh it's a killer setup, right? Because they know when to set the hooks. They're not going by feel, they can see it, you know, they can see it in the mouth. Set that hook, get that fish up. Yeah, and even my daughter, who's uh less than two years old, she set the hook on a few perch this year. She's unable to reel them up herself, but you know, she hooked a couple already. You know, she's off to a good start.

Trophy Perch And Big Walleye Talk

SPEAKER_04 6:39

That's great. What a way to grow up. Yeah. So when you got the the the huts out finally and you were in full steam ahead, um what was uh what was the biggest fish that uh that you guys uh brought in as a whole?

SPEAKER_09 6:58

Uh this year I think we were hitting 15s. Oh yeah. Um, which is actually pretty common on Lake Simcoe now. All of the lake, not just down where we are on Cooks Bay. The north end's getting them as well. Um, and that's getting pretty close to what I think is the biggest one caught here, which was a 16 and a half, I think it was a few years ago on the other side of the bay, which is just phenomenal fish. I've seen them that big site fishing shallow like that too. Um, I'm positive that they were over 16. But they uh when they get that age and they're they're that old, they get kind of you can see the age in them, and they get kind of roly-poly. They're not real interested in working for food. They they might take one little nibble at what you got, and if if it didn't get in their mouth quite right, they just move on to the next thing.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Yeah.

unknown 7:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:45

Well, they didn't get that big for eating people's baits.

SPEAKER_09 7:50

You got it. It's it's their behavior that definitely led to them getting to that size. And they just look like round footballs, like like legit footballs, too. They got a real cool look to them.

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Oh, yeah. Well, at 15, 16 inches long, those are nice sized walleye. Like those are eating-sized walleye, right? And uh, I couldn't imagine a 16-incher. Wow, that'd be something else.

SPEAKER_09 8:13

Absolutely. We're we're hoping that one of our clients gets one one of these days, man. That would be one cool fish to either release and allow spawn to hopefully make some more, or you know, even put that one on the wall. That's that'd be one heck of a fish. They they are they are gigantic.

Surprise Species And Fishery Shifts

SPEAKER_04 8:29

Oh, yeah. So what did you catch any um uh offside species that you weren't expecting?

SPEAKER_09 8:36

Um, we had some people catching uh you know bullheads this year. That that was kind of rare uh for us before, but it was more the sightings. Uh seeing uh you know channel cats down here. I've never heard of that or anybody seeing one down there. Someone thinks they saw a sturgeon, but it was uh near the end of the day and it was getting darker, so we can't really confirm and you know necessarily believe what they thought they saw.

SPEAKER_04 9:03

Yeah. But um this was on the camera?

SPEAKER_09 9:07

No, this was sight fishing.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

Sight fishing in the shallower water.

SPEAKER_09 9:10

Yeah, yeah, this was with their own eyes, but this you know, the shadows were getting casted over the end of the day. But uh, you know, the walleye are are definitely starting to show up in in the Cooks Bay area again, which is pretty cool. Um hopefully that fishery starts to boom again, because you know, it was a good thing here many, many years ago, uh, you know, when I was a young guy. And uh hopefully that comes back. That'd be pretty cool to have down there.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

And then with the walleye, what happened with that? Was the were the uh spawners intercepted in the in the creeks, or is it just uh the fact that it's a southern lake? And well, I guess it's not southern. Like, I mean, uh, Lake Ontario is one of the best uh walleye fisheries on the planet.

SPEAKER_09 9:51

Yeah, no one seems to really have a concrete answer on that because there is walleye in the lake. They're pretty tough to catch. There's a few areas where where you can get at them, but down where we are in Cooks Bay and in the weedy area, which you would think that's where they're gonna be, running those weed lines, um, they're just not here. And and nobody's really too sure why. Maybe the perch are pushing them out. You know, it's gotta be a species competition thing, right? Um, no different than Skugog with the with the crappy kind of pushing the wall out there. Maybe the perch are are dominant here right now, but things can always change. You know, we're seeing more and more pike in uh Cooks Bay starting, geez, I guess it was probably six or seven years ago. I noticed a whole pile of them in the 25-inch range all of a sudden show up out of nowhere, you know, and it was like overnight. But I reached out to some friends at uh MR because they did they have fish traps in the lake, and they were seeing the same thing, and they were thinking that the pike had migrated down from the very north end, like we're talking up in Kucha Chain. Yeah, and for some reason they made the move down to the very bottom, which is where we are in Cooks Bay, and they're still here. There's there's pike everywhere. Any day you're out fishing with us, you'll probably see one swimming under your hole because they swim right below the ice too.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

So, what was one of the bigger ones? I know that when we were there, uh we set a couple of lines for northerns.

SPEAKER_09 11:16

Yeah, uh, I can't recall the biggest this year. We didn't have any tanks, I know that. The biggest one I personally had on my boat here, though, right out where our huts are, is uh 39 and a half, which is a good one. It was skinny, but you know, it was a 39 and a half. That was a big deal for sure for for where we are. Because pike don't usually hit the the size here they do up north, right?

Operator Highlights And Dream Team

SPEAKER_04 11:38

Yeah. Yeah. So over the season, what was your highlight as an operator? Because I know when I run the lodge, in in when the year is over and you start kind of finally downloading and analyzing um what had happened over the year, uh, you always have uh a highlight. What was the highlight of your season this year?

SPEAKER_09 12:05

Well, oddly, the highlight for us was was related to operations. Um, because we got on the ice so early, we got to have a slower staging, smoother start. And because we had good ice at the end of the year, all the way up to the March 15th cutoff, we got to uh take things off slowly in anticipation of that. The ice didn't go bad on us real quick. We were never in a hurry. So that meant our team, you know, got got things a little handed to them a little bit easier than in other years. There were no panic days, there were no hardworking, stressful days. Every day was a fun day on the ice this year. And when our workers are happy and having a great time, it it tends to trickle down to the clients. And it allows for us to have more time to fish, you know, one-on-one when we're visiting the huts and we're checking on people. So we got to connect with clients a bit more this year because of that than we normally do. And it it really made for a special experience for everyone involved. And we had an absolute dream team working for us this year. Um, I mean, we had guys as young as 14 years old, uh, 15, 17, most of the guys and even gals working for us are still in high school and working and working weekends, right? And uh, you know, looking forward to coming to out to work and getting on the ice. And everybody was there because they loved it and uh really got to engage with the clients, which I I love myself because I had time this year because we didn't have the panic modes and rush, rush, rush to go out with uh, you know, my daughter and my wife and fish ourselves a bit too, which is a rare thing to do when you're when you're running an operation like this, as you know from running a lot.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 13:43

For us to be able to get out of fish was fantastic, you know. Being able to balance family and work was uh I I hope we can do this more years, you know. It was incredible.

Snowmelt Risks And Ice Monitoring

SPEAKER_04 13:52

A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Well, that um uh congratulations for that, because it's not uh it's not easy to to to balance family and uh and business, and especially when you're you're in a a tourism-oriented business where everybody else's um experience takes precedent over yours and and really your family, right? So good on you. But you know what, with every highlight, there and and I know this from experience, there's also a low light. And uh, did you have any uh lowlights uh over the season?

SPEAKER_09 14:32

There was uh there were a few stressors this year, and I would say that they were weather related for us. Uh we did have heavy, super heavy snowfall, uh, I think three or four good dumpings in this area. And then shortly after those snowfalls, we were getting melts. So we were having snowpack runoff into the lake, and there's springs in our area in in Cooks Bay, and those springs can uh make for some sketchy shoreline areas, and it also led to uh so when we when we we did have a lot of ice this year, but not ice is all the same. Everybody hears me preach that. So we actually measure the temperature of the ice in the middle of the ice. So we'll drill down, let's say we have 20 inches, we'll drill down 18, and we use a uh laser thermometer, and we actually measure the temperature of that ice in the middle, and that gives us an idea of when things warm up, how fast is that ice gonna go? And yeah, and because we had so much snow, followed by cold and then warm, when we got that snow, you know, it's built up on top of the ice, and we got this real cold that helped build layers of ice, but the cold didn't penetrate that ice. Yeah, so when we drilled down about two-thirds way through our season to start planning for the end, we we measured that ice in the middle and we're going, oh my god, it's only minus six degrees, you know, where we were hoping for that minus 10, minus 15, which means we're gonna have ice for sure, without a doubt. So we were saying, you know, it that's the downside or the bad part. It just means we're always a little on edge and having to do more monitoring. And in the back of our head, we're always trying to set up, you know, for for a quick extraction, should should something happen or something change, yeah. Which means that the property that we store the huts at, we need to keep the snow plowed. We we can't let anything slip and slide because when we go, we need to be able to go quick. Yeah, thankfully that didn't happen. That's actually happening uh over the last week or so. We have uh we have a live camera aiming out there that we have on our YouTube page under Hotbox Huts where you can actually watch the ice break up. And that was pretty neat. You know, people got to watch the ice bouncing back and forth. And I think it actually led to guys getting out in their boats that were watching it a little sooner than they usually do. Because the second they saw open water, man, there were there were boats in it where normally it's uh a few weeks behind, right? But no, those guys saw that open water, and there's there's literally uh a four kilometer sheet of ice bouncing around, and the guys are fishing in the open water on one side, and we're watching them just hoping the winds don't change direction because you you know what happens then.

SPEAKER_04 17:14

Oh, yeah, you'll get locked out.

SPEAKER_09 17:16

Yeah, or locked out or pinched ashore.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 17:19

When I was a kid on Shimong Lake, I lived on the uh the east side of it there for a while. I remember jumping out in my canoe and all excited to head out because there was some open water. And as I'm paddling, I remember noticing the the water getting skinnier and skinnier and skinnier, and I thought, oh geez, I'm running out of water here. I better turn around. Well, I turned around and I did what I didn't realize is the water wasn't getting skinnier, the ice was moving towards me.

SPEAKER_05 17:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 17:44

Next thing you knew, the the ice pushes me and the canoe right up and over and onto the shoreline, the canoe's rolling and the ice is crushing all around us. No way. Yeah, I mean, I was a little guy then. I think I was probably 16 years old, but that that was my lesson learned then, you know. I'll never forget that.

SPEAKER_04 17:59

No doubt. Well, yeah, that uh that's a that's a scary bit of a lesson, you know what? At least it pushed you up onto the shoreline.

SPEAKER_09 18:07

Yeah, well, I was already there. I was worried because it was at a break wall too with some rocks, and uh I got a little nervous about getting pinched in there, but everything turned out okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Yeah, lesson that uh that you uh that you hold on for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_09 18:21

Absolutely, man, absolutely. And spread the word too, right? People out there making the same decisions. Maybe they can learn from your mistakes, right?

SPEAKER_04 18:29

For sure. For sure. I'm interested in this ice temperature thing. So let's just let's just uh dive into that uh uh briefly. Um so when you measure that center of that ice, um you're looking for like the green light, the no stress is like minus 10 to 15, or what we're what did you say?

Candled Ice And Safe Exit Planning

SPEAKER_09 18:50

Yeah, any anything below minus 10, we know we're in the safe zone. We know that we've got at least 20 plus days of warm temperatures to to start to get at that. Gotcha. Um yeah, it it's a safety thing. Once you know, and it's a it's a comforting mindset thing as well, right? Once we know we're good, we we're it's something that we can uh not have to worry about anymore and focus on customer service, right? Yeah, but for example, I mean, um you probably heard about what happened on Georgian Bay this year with with some ice break up and floating away. Yeah. So I think I could tell just from looking at the photographs of the ice that it was already candled. Um, so there were some comments from the guys that were out there that day where they were saying, well, it was uh zero degrees, so we knew the ice wasn't going to melt. Well, that's not necessarily true because the water underneath is four degrees.

SPEAKER_05 19:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_09 19:43

So yeah, the ice is melting when it's zero degrees. Um, the other thing was they're saying, well, it was solid on the way out. Well, you can actually see in the pictures that it's candled.

SPEAKER_04 19:52

And once when you say candled, I've seen ice um and I've talked about it because I was out in it in a boat uh driving over to Chaudiere. I think I told the story on a on an episode recently. But is that where it looks like honeycomb?

SPEAKER_09 20:09

Absolutely. Yep, that's exactly what we're talking about. Same thing, Steve.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Yeah, and then it it just kind of falls apart, even like it uh even six, eight inches, it just kind of falls apart in these really long sticks, like a candlestick almost.

SPEAKER_09 20:23

Yeah, and that's the last step of of the ice breakup. So the ice doesn't go from 10 inch to nine inch to eight inch all the way to zero. It'll go down to about uh well, this year it was around 12 inches when it started to actually break up and the candles started to sliver. But what happened that day when all those guys went out is it had candled previously and then got cold. Well, the water actually comes up those slivers, yeah. And and freezes and glues it all back together, but it's not a solid uh one piece structure anymore. Like when black ice is formed, all the molecules are in line, you know, yeah, and and that gives you your strength. When it's candled, you're dealing with a whole pile of individual pieces of ice. They're just held together by the we call it glue, but it is more ice in the middle. So as soon as the sun hits that and penetrates that, even on a cold day or or zero degrees like it was that day, they break up and they separate. And you can sometimes still walk on them. Um, we've been out there with our Argo working in those conditions in years previous, where you park the machine and you'd have to leave it running because you'd look back after three or four minutes and the water's floating is actually penetrating through that ice on top of the ice, and you know, it's starting to go over the tires. So we would have to keep, you know, blipping the throttle and move it ahead every now and again. You know, we we just try to avoid those situations all altogether these days. Yeah, but lessons learned, right?

SPEAKER_04 21:50

Yeah. So we um now that we kind of have an idea of how the ice melts and how quickly it can happen, obviously, with all those poor Souls. Stuck out on the uh on that ice sheet um uh for all of our tax dollars to pay for to extract them. Um how would have you ever been in an in a position where you're like, okay, boys, it's time to go. We got to get everything off today.

SPEAKER_09 22:18

Yes, yes, in years previous, yes. We try not to get as close to that limit anymore. Um But you in you when you were a little bit younger, we get really excited and we just don't want to leave, man.

SPEAKER_05 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 22:30

Want to stay out there as long as we can. But we have some really big, heavy huts. And the thing is, it doesn't matter so much. Uh or our biggest concern, I should say, isn't the ice under the huts out in the lake, it's the ice at the shoreline. Yeah, you're getting the runoff. I mean, the last thing to go is the ice out in the lake. But bringing the huts to the shoreline across open water can be a little tricky. But even this year, we got a new uh a new sleigh rigged up, it's 20 feet long. And uh that that that helps us in those situations, which we did our very last day this year, we did cross a bit of open water at at our point of exit. You know, we're only talking uh you know 10 feet, you know, nothing crazy. And worst case, we're only going to drop into two feet of water, so it's nothing we can't manage, but that big sleigh sure helped uh in that situation.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Distribute the weight and it also uh spans those uh that uh that open water at the edge.

SPEAKER_09 23:26

Yeah, it's more the spanning part, yeah. And we just put the we put the huts right on the back end of it, so the front rides high with no weight, and it just kind of skips right over, and you know, it's a savior. I'm happy we picked that thing up. It's uh it's gonna open up some opportunities for us for sure. But it was wild. We got everything off and we were all done the very last day. We went to the very last minute of the very last day within hours of the M and R cutoff, you know, which which we like to do. We like to be the first on the lake and the last off when possible.

SPEAKER_05 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 23:56

And uh, you know, things were starting to look rough, the shoreline was going bad. Then we had a big cold snap. And everything, everything locked right up again. The shorelines locked up, everything locked right up. Um, people were going out fishing with their pop-ups, it almost looked just like the middle of the season again. You know, everybody started all over for another round. It was pretty cool.

Spring Weather And French River Water

SPEAKER_04 24:16

Well, it's been it's been that uh that uh spring, right? It's been cold. Even looking like I just got back from Florida golfing, and uh we had uh 25 to 30 degrees and nothing but sun every day, and I've come home to snow. Uh, you know, 10 minutes ago, it was a snowstorm here in Shelburne, and uh we're looking at you know minus eight tonight, feels like minus 12, and um it's uh it's it's cold this year.

SPEAKER_09 24:46

It's uh and it's been unpredictable too. We found so we watch the weather very, very closely, obviously, in the winter, and the forecasted temperatures they were off during most of the cold snaps by almost eight degrees, you know. So you know, we'd see a forecast for minus 15, and we'd go out in the morning, we'd be almost minus 25. And uh so even the weatherman doesn't know what's going on, obviously. It's just unpredictable. But it's for us, we we prefer it swings in that direction rather than the warmer direction. Yeah, it's it's it's it's nice. It's nice to have those real cold mornings, man. We're all out there, uh the boys out there, you know, they got their beards and their mustaches all iced up and eyelids all frozen shut almost. We posted some pretty cool pictures on our Facebook page of the guys and they're working out there, but it's uh we all dress for it and we appreciate the cold because it means less work. We don't have to we don't have to lift our huts as often. We don't have to move things around as often. Um, we know that the road we built in and out is going to be nice and solid for us in those conditions. So we appreciate the cold, man. We love it.

SPEAKER_04 25:56

Yeah. Well, you know what? That's the way I prefer winter too. I'd uh I'm I'm in the camp where, you know, uh give me till December the first, just so that I can spend as much time as I can spend on the upper French River at the uh at the island there and uh and then lock her up and have the snow come and just stay until this time of the year and then go away real quick so we can get summer going.

SPEAKER_09 26:25

Absolutely. When do you think you'll be heading to the island this year?

SPEAKER_04 26:28

Well, I was actually just talking to Bud the other day uh when I was down in Florida, uh Mark Plant, actually. We uh you were asking me who uh who uh guided you uh at Chaudiere, and and it was Mark. Um and then uh he came and spent uh day with you uh bowfishing, I think, for for carp or something.

SPEAKER_09 26:47

But that's right.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

Um Mark had sent me pictures of the flooding going on in North Bay, and while North Bay is on the shore of Lake Nipissing and I'm on uh the upper French is Lake Nipissing. So I thought, oh my God, I wonder if my uh if my docks are gonna be underwater. And uh and then uh he uh Mark uh a couple of days ago sent me pictures of the lower French. One of his buddies has a cottage on the lower French, and the water down there is as high as he's ever seen it. Like it's it's right up to the steps of his cottage, which you know, we're talking a an eight to ten foot swing. And uh I thought, oh no, because what happens is because of the large volume of water on Lake Nipissing, and Nipissing and Simcoe are roughly the same size, uh, and then it drains into the French River, and then once you go through the upper French and then uh past the dams, it narrows up significantly. And we can't let out a ton of water uh when we start to flood, because you know, one foot on the upper and Lake Nipissing equals like five feet down there because it's just got nowhere to go. So I thought for sure we'd be in trouble. But I talked to Bud, uh Doki or uh Bud Restoel um from Doki's Marina, uh, who's a good buddy of mine, and it's he that's where that's where I always uh that's where Shodi Air Parks all their guests, and and that's where I'm at. And and Bud said, uh uh, I said, how high is the water, bud? Three feet high and rising? And he said, nope, not yet, but it's it's it's breaking up quick and it's rising fast. But um uh today uh my son Rayburn uh he uh he was talking to another uh another guide, uh Corey from Chaudiere, who's good friend. Well, I'm good friends too with Terry over at the Tilted Toque, which is another lodge right on the upper French, and Terry's got cameras on his dock. So I got I got pictures of Terry's dock, and you can see my place in the distance. And um it's not quite over Terry's docks yet. So, but it looked fairly open. So I think that that uh I think we potentially could be heading north by the end of this week.

SPEAKER_09 29:11

Okay, that's that'd be amazing. So you don't have any trail cameras or cell cameras set up there.

Watching Docks And Adding Cameras

SPEAKER_04 29:16

I don't have any cameras on the island. I should have because I've got uh I've got internet up there. I could uh I could do that without a problem, but uh uh there was a there's a lot of things that I'm working on up there that uh that took priority over uh putting uh putting a camera up. But uh this year that's gonna happen just so I can keep an eye on the river, right? Because it'd be it's it's it's a cool concept to be able to watch the seasons go by on the upper French River. And and I I know from experience and being up there in the heart of the winter, um, not on uh at the at uh the island there now, but I I spent some time over at Chaudiere uh in the early days over on the island in the wintertime doing some work, and uh it gets pretty desolate and cold. You know, there's not a whole lot going on out on the upper French in the wintertime, so it'd be a very cool thing. But yes, to answer your question, I'm hoping maybe by the end of this week um we're gonna be we're gonna be able to get out there.

SPEAKER_09 30:21

Well, I hope those docks are in good shape for you. You don't have uh a whole lot of extra work to do.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

Well, you and me both. I've got um I've got barrels on them full of water to hold them down, and I've also got uh my sauna on a higher tiered deck. Um so I uh I wanna make I want to make sure my sauna's not floating away.

SPEAKER_09 30:43

I understood. And you're you're renting your place out too, are you?

SPEAKER_04 30:47

Yeah, yes I am. Right on yeah, yeah, it's going pretty good. We're uh we're pretty full. And and the goal is to also rent it out to people and then guide at the same time, right? I've got uh I've got uh um a couple of bunkies up there with the main lodge, and then uh if people need a guide, I would stay in um in the bunkie furthest away from the uh from the main cottage and the other bunky. So, you know, everybody can have their uh their privacy and and uh I would uh I would guide every day.

SPEAKER_09 31:18

Amazing. That's the living the dream, buddy. Living the dream.

Hunting Returns And Northern Rifle Revival

SPEAKER_04 31:21

Well, gotta figure out how to make some money, right? It's uh it's not easy out there to make money. And uh um it's uh it's one of those things. The other thing I'm I'm uh I'm uh launching too is um uh when I sold the lodge, but prior to owning the lodge, I really did love hunting. Back in high in uh college, uh, well, even in high school, uh as soon as I could get my my hunting license, I uh I uh got my hunting license and we used to deer hunt in the hills of Malmer up here by Shelburne and and duck hunt and goose hunt and and uh uh I did that all through my college days and and um um even into when I was working. Uh but then I bought the f bought the lodge and and that all went uh went out the window. I did just didn't have time for it, right? Kids started to happen, um, bought the lodge. I'm away for six months of the year, and uh and now I come home in in usually end of October, early November, by the time we had the lodge shut down and the infrastructure improvements that we wanted to do for the end of that year. And I couldn't very well say to Melissa, okay, I'll catch you later. I'm gone for two weeks moose hunting or whatever that might be, right? So I just didn't, I didn't shoot, I didn't uh I didn't hunt, I didn't do anything. But uh after uh after I sold the lodge, I um I I ended up going hunting uh a little bit right off the bat. And and then I just I started target shooting and I forgot how much I I love the marksmanship and and hunting in general. And um I'm uh I'm starting a new um um uh a new YouTube channel that's gonna launch in the fall called uh Northern Rifle Revival. And uh I've always been an antique collector. Um everything, you know, antique tools and farm tools and hockey cards and you know, just a collector jars. That's my dirty little secret. Um but um you you collect jars? Yeah, yeah, old mason jars. Uh no, they're not even mason jars, early turn of the century jars uh um and Canada, in Canada actually, um, there were a couple of companies that uh that started invented the um the glass preserve jar, and really that was one of the the um the the final um um the final nails in the coffin of opening up the interior of the United States because it enabled people to preserve food, right? Um, so they're uh the jar is a very utilitarian um um invention. And uh some of them can be worth a shit ton of money. Like I, you know, I've got some jars that are worth you know over a thousand dollars a piece.

SPEAKER_09 34:30

No way. Oh, yeah. So yeah, hopefully they're in a safe place.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

Well, that's the thing, right? And they've spent uh, you know, a hundred and fifty years kicking around and they haven't broke yet, you know. So, but that and and um my interest in in uh in in rifles, it's uh, you know, I I love the history of it and the mechanics they use, the collision between, you know, steel and and um machining and and wood and and uh um all of the things that go along with it. So the whole idea of the YouTube channel is I go out and and search out these um, whether they're antiques or whether they're oddities or whatever they are, and um do an episode on finding them, uh giving them a quick a lot of times uh a full-on restoration is not something that you want to do to a rifle unless it's like a unless it's it's it's has it's worthless. Because if you get a mid-grade um antique of any kind, really, when you start messing around with it, um, you take the value away. So it's it's basically figuring out where the value's at, how to maximize the value, then you clean it up, you do, you stabilize its condition, uh tell the story, and then um, and then I sell them on uh on um a uh e-commerce website. So that's uh that's the idea of Northern Rifle Revival, and and uh it should uh possibly keep me busy over the winter and create another uh another uh revenue stream.

SPEAKER_09 36:10

Just what you need another project.

SPEAKER_04 36:12

Yeah, 100%. Well, I've got a firebird in the garage that's gotta be done before then. So that uh that one's gotta that that one's taking priority here very shortly. Well, the boat is taking priority very shortly. I've got it uh 99% rewired and ready to rock and roll. So she's gotta go. And you know, there's always work on the island, man. I'll tell you what, there's uh the uh the Mother Nature up there, uh you you you need to do a lot to keep her at bay.

Family Life And Boats For The French

SPEAKER_09 36:41

Absolutely. We uh we're pretty excited to get the boat in the water here, too. We're a little behind. Uh we wish we were a little bit sooner, but we got another baby coming here in a day or two.

SPEAKER_04 36:51

Yeah, that's exciting.

SPEAKER_09 36:52

Yeah, well, hopefully she likes the outdoors as much as her uh big sister does right now. But we've got we've got a perfect boat for the baby and and for the French. Um we got a jet boat 24 feet long with uh enclosed cabin and uh the back doors on it. We can put a baby gate across it, and all so it's awesome. We can be fishing off the back, especially trolling the French, and uh baby can be inside. We we can be out catching fish, catching pike, and she can be watching from the gate in a safe place. We don't have to worry about her getting too involved, and she's she's happy with that. So it's a perfect boat for little kids, and then uh being a jet boat, perfect for the French, man. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

100%. Yeah, because you know you'll find them, they're out there.

SPEAKER_09 37:38

Hey, you will you will find them, and when the water levels change as much as they do, uh, it can be pretty unpredictable if you're not there all the time. And I I usually only go up once a year, so I I I don't know like the back of my hand, like some of these guides do. And yeah, if if there's a rock, I'm gonna find it, man. Guarantee.

SPEAKER_04 37:54

Well, the nice thing about the upper French is it's it's charted out pretty well. Like, I mean, the um the Navy Onyx um map, as long as you heed that blue water, not all the rocks are are marked. They're just they're just not, but all of the shallow area is marked. And uh, if you heed the shallow area, you'll be just fine. You'll be just fine. The lower French, not so much.

SPEAKER_09 38:23

As long as there's no delay on your phone.

SPEAKER_04 38:25

As long as there's no delay on your phone, yes. Yeah, yes, absolutely. Or your your GPS system, which, like I mean, uh when you start talking about uh your your uh Garmin or uh Lorant systems, they're pretty, they're pretty decent.

SPEAKER_09 38:41

Yeah, I think things have come a long way. When you got the older units, I think you gotta worry a bit more. Yeah.

Network And Sponsor Messages

SPEAKER_04 38:54

Welcome to Two Rivers Lodge, where we know that our hard work and determination creates your best experiences. You'll arrive as a guest but leave as family. Surrounded by a multi-species fishing mecca, like no other. Our elite cabins and professional staff are ready to make your stay unforgettable. Experience the difference. Because at two rivers, every cast is a story, and every guest is a part of the family.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Oulette, and I was honored to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as Chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials, and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession. And I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show's about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy Podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Maple Birch Silver Maple Syrup

SPEAKER_04 41:07

I've been kind of following what you're you're up to in this spring. You've got a farm?

SPEAKER_09 41:14

Oh man, this is go time for us. So we're getting ready to uh we just finished our maple syrup run. Um we do maple syrup, we pull it from uh we have some big, big uh sugar maples, a bunch of silver maples, a bunch of birch. So that's all done and boiled and put in jars and preserved.

SPEAKER_04 41:31

So you mix all three of the sap.

SPEAKER_09 41:34

Yeah, yeah. And we do the old school uh open fire evaporation too, so it's kind of kissed by the flames a little bit. Yeah, gets a little bit of a smoky flavor to it. But yeah, we blend it all together. So it's it that it's a different flavor every year, and it's a different flavor from the start of the season to the end of the season. So we never know exactly what we're gonna get, but we kind of pride ourselves on not trying to emulate the store-bought product. Yeah, it's gonna be what we offer is gonna be completely different than what you get at the store. We can't guarantee it's gonna be the same every time and have the consistency of you know that you'll get in retail, but it's gonna be different. So if you come to us, it's gonna be something that you've never had before. Um, a lot of people tell me they actually take a spoonful of it here and there.

SPEAKER_04 42:17

Oh, yeah, why wouldn't you? And like, I mean, birch sap birch sap is very healthy. Like that's that's what uh chaga grows from is the birch sap. And um, but it's a ton of work to uh to actually um refine it. Like, I mean, I think what's maple syrup 40 to one?

SPEAKER_09 42:38

It's around there, yeah. And I think the silver maples, they're higher uh water content. So I think we're over 50, 60.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

Yeah, and that's burnt.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

The birch is like 80.

SPEAKER_09 42:48

Yeah, yeah, but it adds a unique flavor and you know a little bit. Yeah, so our we it seems to be that uh two giant five-gallon pails filled right to the top will give us about a 200 milliliter bottle. That's a big ratio we end up with. I don't keep uh accurate track of the numbers like bang on. A lot of us buy feel now. Yeah, not even running thermometers anymore. We can kind of tell just by the look of things where we're at, just because we've done it so many years. But that that's one of my favorite parts of the spring. And again, what's what was nice when I was saying is this ice season that was low stress and not a lot of work, the maple syrup season kind of overlaps the end of our ice season. Yeah, a lot of times we're rushing to get huts off. I'm also trying to get the deal with the uh you know the snap flow. And uh this year we got to be able to do them both and to give them both our full attention. So that that was really nice. We got 50 more bottles. I just finished up here uh last night.

Duck Pond Habitat And Semi Guided Hunts

SPEAKER_04 43:45

That's awesome. How many acres are you uh are you farming?

SPEAKER_09 43:50

We've got about a hundred there, but it's uh mostly conservation area type property, and that's what we want to keep it as. Yeah, we get a pond on there that was going to mention to you earlier. When you were talking about finishing up uh up north there in October and November, well, that's about the same time the birds start to migrate down uh as the lakes are freezing up there, come down here, and they they pool into Lake Simcoe real thick. But we're only about a kilometer from Lake Simcoe. So when the birds lift in the air, they can see our pond, and it's over 20 acres, and the whole thing is a duck pond full of duck food. You can wade across the entire thing. So you can look across, you're looking 200 yards across, you can walk there. It's an amazing thing. It was flooded by a beaver dam in the 60s. I got a I got the lowdown from our local conservation authority. They told us how it had happened. A beaver had dammed this uh tiny little creek called Wilson's Creek uh somewhere around 1965 and flooded a forest. And uh the bentonite and the clay had packed down from the weight of the water and basically created this this shallow dish. And it's it's somewhere between 20 and 40 acres, it's massive. No way, and it's still full of the deadfall trees, so like right under the surface, and even sticking out of it are a lot of the the old the old hardwoods that were there, and uh the ducks just pile into it because it it it takes a lot of the water from uh the runoff from the farm fields and our whole community, and it's kind of like a retention pond, and then it has one tiny little outlet going into Lake Simcoe, and it takes a twisty route to get there and goes through multiple properties and out by Lafroy Marina there, but that twisty route, and it's uh it's just thick with vegetation all summer long. So those migrators, they know the food's there, and there's times we'll go down there, there could be 5,000 ducks, 5,000 geese on it at the same time. Wow. We'll have to get you out to come down and see that one day. You're saying you know you don't have a whole lot of time, you want to get a hunt in. Yeah, but that's only a few hours, and uh we're not even a few hours.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

That's one that's less than an hour.

SPEAKER_09 45:53

Yeah, and then we just uh we drive right up to our shooting site. Literally, there's there's no work, there's no walking, there's no climbing, there's no no bringing boats in and out. We got access straight to the pond. We made a wood chip road, um, going right to it. So we we even have you know, it's accessible too for people that have uh, you know, maybe some special requirements or they're differently abled, you know, someone in a wheelchair maybe.

SPEAKER_04 46:16

Do you do hunts like guided hunts?

SPEAKER_09 46:19

Yeah, yeah. We do uh semi-guided. So we will bring you out the day before or maybe a week before, kind of show you the water, show you where our blinds are, show you how the access works, and then the day of you're on your own.

SPEAKER_04 46:34

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_09 46:34

We've have uh, you know, we have groups as far as Georgia come up.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

No shit.

SPEAKER_09 46:40

Yeah, yeah. It's uh it's just uh I I don't talk about it a whole lot. It's a real hidden gem in Ontario. It's you know, there's people see it from the highway that that hunt waterfowl, they can see it from a distance, they know it's private property, they can't get anywhere near it. But it's uh it's a dream come true, man. I I can get up in the morning, go there. I don't even need to be there to crack it on. I can go anytime I want in the morning. It it's not a first light thing, so I can you know deal with the kid in the morning, head out and go hunt for an hour. Wow. Drive around the corner and drive right home because it's only five minutes from us, right? It's a beautiful spot there.

SPEAKER_04 47:14

So, what are you seeing in there? Are you seeing whistlers and bluebills and wood ducks and mallards and literally everything, Steve?

SPEAKER_09 47:22

Everything. There, there's there's nothing we haven't seen there. Um, even oddball species, like we're getting a lot of the uh oh, what are they there? The egrets now. A lot of chilly. Yeah, eagrets. We have a breeding pair of uh trumpeter swans on there every year, so we get to watch their signets grow up. They usually have six of them every year. Um they migrate. But as the temperature gets colder, we start to see some more of those rarer birds, but there's there's nothing we haven't seen there, you know, and and I'm I'm not the uh most experienced waterfowlers. There's a lot of times I'm taking pictures and sending them to my friends and going, what the heck is this thing? Yeah, you know, birds we've never seen before. We even got snipe in there on the shoreline. It's uh it's a real special place because we have uh it's surrounded by a section of savannah and then a section of softwoods and then a section of hardwoods. So, you know, we even have wood ducks nesting on the shorelines, too. It's uh real special place, man.

SPEAKER_04 48:21

Have you ever talked to uh an organization like Delta Waterfowl or places like that? Because uh knowing that you've got a place like that, they would come in and put like um there's these nesting um uh well, they're like a screen tube. You see them at the sportsman show every year. They make this uh but uh a two-foot round mesh um uh pipe, and then they stuff it full of uh of like um um straw kind of almost around the outside edge, leaving like this straw pipe opening in the middle, and then they put it on a post and stick it in the ground, so it's about four feet up off the ground, so the predators can't get them, and the ducks nest in there.

Nesting Help And Predator Control

SPEAKER_09 49:08

Yes. Uh so we we've done a lot of that stuff ourselves. Nice, uh it's it's it's fun for us to do, we really enjoy it. Uh, we do it with the help of volunteers in exchange for hunting opportunities, too. Awesome, especially younger guys, right? We we like to get the younger people involved, um, you know, building and and putting up wood duck boxes and and and nesting sites and dealing with that. We also uh we're pretty big on predator control. I'm a licensed trapper as well, so I'm I'm real hard on the coons and the skunk and the mink and even the muskrats in the area, which we all, you know, we use for fur fur down the road.

SPEAKER_05 49:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 49:49

But uh when the season's open, we actively trap just to keep ahead of things. Because we know those uh those coons and those coyotes can be hard on on waterfowl eggs, and even uh ground nesting birds. Like we have uh there's woodcock, we have uh wild turkeys. Yeah, there's plenty of kill deer. Uh I put some videos up of killdeer nests. I've actually set cameras up on them, watching them come and go and the eggs hatch and stuff, which is pretty neat. We have grouse, um, not a whole lot of them in numbers, but there's there's always a few somewhere. Uh it's it's a real neat spot to walk through, man. I try to get over there at least once a day and just uh clear my head too. I I just came back from there now before talking to you.

SPEAKER_04 50:31

Good for you. What an amazing spot. That's that's fantastic. And and you know, for somebody like you to have the foresight to be able to not only protect it, but to monetize it so that you can make a living, that's um, that's something special too. How long have you had this uh this spot?

Regenerative Farming And Food Ethics

SPEAKER_09 50:52

Yeah, so 2019 we took it over. And it it it was it back in the day, apparently, it was uh well, we can tell because we see the old fence lines, it was uh it was all pasture. And that was again around the early 70s, they stopped using it as pasture, it's just overgrown since then. So there's trees that we have, you know, giant pines that are a couple hundred feet high that that have grown, you know. I mean, they obviously were started before that, but yeah, we have some massive trees. We actually have a forest that I could walk in and get lost. And and and I own the property, man, and I can I still get lost in the forest, you know, it's special that way. But everything was just kind of growing. We try to let it grow. Um, yeah, even with our farming, we try to pick areas and we do it's all small scale, um, and uh uh as little invasive as possible, right? So we do uh we do hogs, we do turkeys, we do meat chickens, and then uh we're getting back into layers this year. So we have 50 layers again, and we try to move them move them around into different pastures using portable electric fencing, yeah, versus locking them all into one spot, you know, where they're basically hanging out in their own shit all day.

SPEAKER_04 52:09

Yeah, you don't and you don't need a whole lot of uh a whole lot of space to do that uh as long as you manage it properly, move them once every two, three, four days, whatever.

unknown 52:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:19

It's uh it's um well that that's the basis of regenerative farming is looking after your soil.

SPEAKER_09 52:26

Yeah, and that that's exactly what we're doing. We have a garden too that's probably about uh three-quarters of an acre in size. Uh it's massive. And we we put everything in there that we can in the spring and reap the rewards of that. And we sell some of it roadside. Um recover costs, right? There's a lot of inputs, but we our efforts are not to ever get into that large-scale uh feedlot type style. Um, that just doesn't do it for me. Um, we want to keep it like if we leave a pen empty, it's overgrown and goes back to nature by the next season.

SPEAKER_05 52:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 53:00

You know, and that that's we're doing things the way we want to do it. We think it's healthier for the animals. It's a more costly way of doing things with them having so much freedom to move, because when an animal's moving, it's burning calories, and when you're feeding them, which we we supplement them with organic feed, um, that organic feed goes into the the calories they use to move around instead of the calories they use to put on weight. So it at the end of the day, it's it's a more costly product, but it you can notice a difference in flavor.

SPEAKER_04 53:28

Oh, for sure. And but but having said that, um, when you market it as free range organic, um, you should be making that margin. Uh like I mean, there is a honest to goodness market for true free range organic, especially when you set up your business the way that you're setting it up. And you're already in a position where you can set up video cameras, like you're doing it out in on the ice. You're doing it, you you can you can show people and tell the story about where the food comes from. Because more and more today, people want to know where their food is coming from, because all of these factory farms are now like people understand what a factory farm is, and they understand that when you go to Swiss Let, that that four-pound chicken that you're eating, that's three weeks old. You know, like it's it, but but when when you can show people where their food is coming from, they will pay a premium.

SPEAKER_09 54:30

Yeah, and and that came from me doing that myself. Um, like that's what got me into hunting probably about 15 years ago now, is I'm looking at the geese on Lake Simco, you know, and someone told me how delicious they are, and uh that's what led to me getting uh a firearms license and my first 870 and uh license. Yeah, and I went out in my boat and you know shot my first goose and brought it home and had a delicious meal, and then that led to me uh losing uh the interest in the in the store-bought products that are off offered out there and purchasing my meat from farms, and then um made me want to start growing my own food too. And there's there's a real benefit to it. Like there's there's no hormones, you're eating a higher quality product, and there's peace of mind. Like I know that my animals have lived the best possible life that they could. Yeah, um, they didn't have they have one bad day, and even then it's not a bad day, it's a bad second. You know, the same way I look at hunting, right? Those animals lived life the way they should, um, doing what they want to do and being happy. And uh, you know, again, one bad moment at the very end.

SPEAKER_05 55:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 55:39

But uh it is peace of mind, right? Um we we all live on this planet, and whether we eat meat or not, uh, we are consumers in in one way or another. Um, if you drive your car down the street, you're running over frogs, you're running over earthworms, you're just flat mosquitoes. So regardless, we're all taking lives. I like to I like to be as gentle about it as possible.

SPEAKER_03 55:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 56:00

You know, and that's why I even with uh any of the products that do, because to sell product publicly, you do have to take to an abattoir and have it uh processed at an inspected facility. Um I'm not allowed to process the animals myself and sell it, even though I have people requesting that I do, uh, because they they don't want anyone to have hands, hands on it, and I I don't either, but unfortunately we have to. But I drive it right to the door myself. You know, when the hogs go into slaughterhouse, I'm right there to the last 10 seconds, man. Yeah, I'm making sure that when they're on the truck, in the process of them getting on the truck, they're they're not being abused, they're not being zapped at, you know what I mean? Like they're happy right up to the end, and that that's an important thing for us. And the other thing is the quality of the meat. Um, you know, the meat eater boys uh looked into it there and described it real good years ago is I never really understood how an animal that moves around more and runs, like our chickens are fairly skinny compared to those big round balls you get from uh the factory farming process.

SPEAKER_05 57:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 57:01

Um so they're running around, you would think that that meat would actually be a tougher meat, and it turns out it's not. And the science behind that and uh is that because they're active and they're actually using their cells, their muscle cells more often, those muscle cells hold more water. And that's the difference. So it's actually going to be a juicier meat, so the the juice and the moisture content is in the cells of the meat itself, yeah, versus being injected into in between those cells before it hits the grocery store.

SPEAKER_04 57:37

Yeah, and then you can tell when that injected meat and and the uh seafood industry is famous for it with scallops. They they inject those those scallops and the meat with with juice, but as soon as you put it on on the uh the the grill or barbecue or frying pan, they shrink.

SPEAKER_09 57:59

Yes. Yeah, and that's the thing. If you cut into a store-bought chicken, one of the or one of those ones, say those ready cooked ones, for example, yeah, you cut it open, uh, you see water and moisture. When you cut open one of our chickens, you don't see it because it's in the meat itself. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's not just hanging out. So it's uh and the flavors there with it, like we say our turkeys. Everybody says, Well, what's your what is your turkey taste like? I said, Well, it tastes like turkey, but turkier. What does that mean? I said, Well, the flavor of turkey that you know it's just a stronger, oh, so strong like gamey. I said, No, the turkey flavor that you love, it tastes the way it's supposed to. Yeah, and we've gotten to to have such a bland palate here in North America. Like all of our meat, the flavor, it's actually uh it's it's part of their uh their genetic selection. They over the years, they actually strive for a blander meat with less flavor because it appeals to more people. You won't turn anyone off. You know, and even salmon, the salmon you buy in the store, you know, versus the salmon that you catch yourself if you're to head out in Lake Ontario. Yeah, two different animals, you know. And you'll ask a lot of people, you know, oh, would you like to have some fish? Well, no, I don't eat fish, I don't like the taste of fish. And then they tell you they love salmon, though. You know, and salmon's the fishiest.

SPEAKER_04 59:17

Salmon is by far the fishiest. Between salmon and lake trout, that's the two fishiest fish tastes you can get.

SPEAKER_09 59:23

Yeah. So I find it it's nice to have a connection with the consumers too. You know, a lot of it are guys in the city that I I work with because I do work at Pearson Airport. So I have the benefit of uh most of my clients are the people I work with.

SPEAKER_05 59:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 59:36

And they appreciate me being able to bring stuff into them and uh saves them from having to drive out to go get it out of the you know the rural parts of uh the country around them. But I I I I I send them the videos, I show them here's the chickens today, you know, here they are running free, here's the turkeys. Oh, look, a few of them decided to roost a tree last night instead of going home. You know, yeah showing that they're living good, happy, healthy lives, right? And that's uh that's number one for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:02

Good for you. Good for you. Now, have you uh with uh with your with your acreage, now this is where you live on Simcoe, or is this a property that's separate?

SPEAKER_09 1:00:14

It's a separate property just around the corner.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:17

Gotcha. Have you thought about an apple orchard or a fruit orchard?

SPEAKER_09 1:00:22

Yeah, we looked into that. That was part of our uh our uh business plan when we had first purchased it. We're probably not gonna go in that direction, but what we do have is probably somewhere around 150 apple trees now. Um there's an apple orchard not that far away, and the seeds have been distributed probably from the birds onto the property. So, yeah, there's over a hundred trees there now, and because they're from seed, not cuttings, um, you can't even identify the species or or the uh the type, the type, and uh they're all a mix, so each tree is different, and it's it's incredible. Like, because you'll you want a sour taste, you go over to that tree. You want a sweet apple, you go to this tree. You want something big to impress your friends, you go over to that tree. You want something small for a quick snack. So when I go over there in the summer, I don't bring lunch. I uh I try to eat right off the land, right? Even the asparagus is growing wild in different places. Um mushrooms are heavy.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:28

You got leaks there too?

SPEAKER_09 1:01:29

We do. Um, fiddleheads in one area, we don't have a whole lot of those. Um puffball mushrooms. There's there is morels that pop up here and there. So you could really you can really live right off the land too. And that the point is to keep it that way.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:45

Yeah. Yeah, very, very cool. Good for you. That's uh that's something that uh that I've always loved. I uh I um I wish that uh that I had the acreage to do uh to do stuff like that. That really is um uh, in my opinion, one of the most honest ways to live um and share, right? It's um it's uh you're you're a um uh you're a steward of the land, you enjoy the land, you share what you have with with people, and um there's no better way to live. It's it's kind of what we did on the French and what I'm doing on the French with that type of thing. You know, you you you you're a steward of the land there, a steward of the of the ecosystem and the fishery, and you share with with people the uh the amazing things that can happen there. And um it it's it's all the same the same idea. Although um to be able to incorporate the farming side of things, the um regenerative farming has always been uh a huge interest of mine, and to be able to incorporate that type of of thing there too, and in an area where where we're in southern Ontario, like um good on you for finding a spot like that. It it sounds like it's a one-of-a-kind place. And uh, you know, I've been looking for for uh uh a farm over Shelburn Way here, and and the prices um since uh since COVID uh um have uh have went up and have not come down. A lot of things are coming down now, but farmland certainly is not one of them.

Protected Land And Conservation Partners

SPEAKER_09 1:03:34

Uh well we got really lucky, Steve, is that uh about half the property is environmentally protected.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:41

So developers have no interest in it.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:44

Um, so it can't be developed, but you can farm on an on environmentally protected property.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:50

For sure.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:50

You just you just can't build, so you can still do regenerative farming, and there's no issues with that at all. And uh part of that uh process too is you only pay taxes on uh on the part that's owned agriculture, not the EP portion.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:07

And in exchange for that, you sign a contract promising to basically be a steward of the land um to not hurt it and to keep it as is. And that that also gives them access to your property. Uh so you can have MR, the conservation authority, enter your property at any time.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:26

To make sure that you're doing right. And I invite them with open arms, you know, come on, guys, because when they come in, they're they're a wealth of knowledge, they'll tell you everything that happened before you had it. That's how I know the history going back into the 60s, is they they have records on properties and especially the environmentally protected portions. And uh they're they're great partners. We've done tree plantings. Um, you know, you they'll come in, help us plant hundreds of trees at a time. Yeah, they will offset a lot of that cost. Um, I think one of them there, they offset it by 90%.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:57

Was you know, and helped with volunteers with the planting. We have uh protected creek that I was talking about that exits the property.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:04

Yeah.

Snakes Herps And Respect For Wildlife

SPEAKER_09 1:05:04

So there was never a crossing. Um, you know, so to get across that, we would have to bring an ATV through it or even walk through it, you know, which is actually a no-no. Um, that's a protected body of water, right? And uh, we're not supposed to be doing that. So we I had a meeting with them straight up. I'm like, hey, you know, I don't want to be driving through this thing. What can we do? And they got back to me with a culvert project and they helped us and they they financed a large portion of it where we put this giant concrete culvert uh like you would see on uh on the side of the highway, you know, in some spots or going underneath the highway, that's so large that uh the flood waters will never go over it. Uh a beaver can't dam it, and it's also deep, it's below the creek bed itself, so it has no impact on the creek bed. So the creek bed returns to normal, and it had to be so many feet wider than the creek itself, so that the banks would return basically within it. And that that was a pretty cool project we did. And They're on your side if you're into that stuff, you know? They will work with you. And they got the experts. That's the other thing. You can try to do things on your own, but sometimes you reach out for information and then they're available. Like if you're ever into doing something like that on a property, reach out to your local conservation authority. They're the ones that know, and they're the ones that can help. And they have funding for a lot of these projects, too. I think the next one we're looking at, maybe, is I I want to get into maybe uh a hibernaculum for garter snakes. We see a few of them there.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:30

So explain that. A hibernaculum.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:34

Yeah. So in the winter they uh they all congregate in the same place underground.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:39

And um in the m in the spring when they come out, which be about now, they come out in these big giant breeding balls. And you know, you have a big female and you might have a hundred sometimes snakes on top of her trying to trying to win.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:53

Plant their seed.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:54

Yeah, to win to be first in line, I guess. Um but you know, the more snakes you have around, uh, the less uh, you know, they eat some bad critters, and you know, I always welcome the snakes. I I even go so far to put down um because I love when I have visitors and I want to kind of show the shows show people some things, you know, from the city. So I got a spot where I sometimes throw a couple sheets of plywood down or even uh you know a tarp. If I got an old tarp that's kind of going bad, I can't use it for anything. Might lay it out on some grass and put a couple rocks on it, and you're guaranteed that you know, in the middle of the day, when everything's gone to you know, hide from the high sun, you go and lift that up, you're gonna have something in there, you know. Yeah, you know, we've seen some red bellies, garter snakes, it's pretty cool. It's almost guaranteed every time, especially if you bring kids, you know. You you know, you get a five-year-old, hey, you want to see a snake? Oh, where? Like, oh let's go find one. You can all almost guaranteed it's like having your own honey hole for fishing, right? Yeah, you know, you've always got that one bass that's hanging out there. Yeah. Same thing. It's pretty cool. And uh, I've always been uh right into herps growing up. I used I got I when I was younger, I used to collect snakes and import them to South America and sell them back in Canada. Um, even going down to Florida and catching rattlesnakes and importing them back here to Canada legally. Uh there there is a way of doing it, believe it or not. And uh selling to the pet trade here. But um I I'm not all against you know pet trade either. I think sometimes the the more connected you are to the critters that are out there, and the less fearful you are, the more apt you are to protect them in the wild, too. For sure. And uh Absolutely, we try to try to do some things there. It's just we just like animals, man. You know, people don't always understand, you know, as a hunter, what do you mean you like animals? Like, yeah, we we love the animals that that we that we harvest. We we actually do, and it's you know, because we know we gotta eat. So I want to eat the health, healthiest, happiest animals, live the best life possible.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:52

Absolutely. Well, and the the honestly, um, through hunting, uh, that's where the majority of the conservation money comes from. Right?

unknown 1:09:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:05

So you're you're a hundred percent. Not to mention the fact that that it's it's part of our heritage. It it hunting and gathering is is it it goes as deep as humanity itself.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:20

Absolutely. We wouldn't have become uh the types of human beings we are now if we didn't start eating meat and cooking it. Uh it wouldn't have happened. It it it led to our evolution, right? It is it's part of who we are, it's in our DNA.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:34

Yeah, yes. And and it's something that needs to be protected.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:39

Yeah, and that's even when you when you think about it too. Like I had a hard time understanding it, but I remember when I I first hunted there, um, I shot my first turkey, and uh, I was so excited, I got the shakes. Um total adrenaline release, right? And uh, you know, people get it when they hunt deer, people get it when they hunt bear. And it's almost it seems to be in your brain, you know. It's it's your body and your brain telling you you just did something good. Yeah, do that again.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:09

You're going to do that.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:11

Yes, you are going to eat well, you're going to provide for your family or your tribe and the people around you. It's it's crazy how it works, right? You just have this total endorphin rush. Uh, I don't have that anymore, but it it was there in the beginning. I heard people talk about it, and I kind of laughed it off, you know, as I saw the videos on YouTube of people shaking in a tree after you know killing their first deer and you know, harvesting their first animal, and oh, those guys are just a bunch of wimps. Well, no, no, it's a real thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:37

Oh, yeah, buck peeper.

Turkey Hunt Story And Knowing Food

SPEAKER_09 1:10:39

Yeah, exactly. And that's uh it just shows you, you know, subconsciously, you're your brain knows this is what you're supposed to be doing, and it it's you know, it's it's a great experience. A couple years ago, I had uh a foster boy, uh he was five years old, and I had him uh watching YouTube videos of turkey hunting because he was a little behavioral and a little loud and yeah, pretty, pretty, pretty pretty out there kid.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:06

Sure, why you can't blame him being in a foster home.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:09

No, it was uh it was a tough change for him. So I had him watching YouTube videos of turkey hunting leading up to the turkey season one year, and uh got him a push-button call. You know, he just pushed the buttons, so nice and easy, and I had him try to copy what they were doing on the show, and he also saw that they had to be really quiet and whisper when there's damn around. So he got to learn how to be quiet. Well, man, I took him out, was an opening day, but it wasn't too long after, and I got him up first thing in the morning, which he was not happy about, but uh we got him over to the farm and uh had him bring a couple decoys out. I set up the hen and he set up the funky chicken turkey, and we climbed up into uh a bit of a tower box blind, an elevated box blind, which you know kind of helps keep you above the turkey's line of sight, sort of. You know, take the best option odds of it there. And I had him let out a call right away, and man, we heard a Tom Gall back, but it was far. Like it was, I would guess, 200 yards away. I could barely hear it myself. I don't he didn't hear it. And I looked at him and I said, Well, let another one go. And the same turkey called back, and I went, Oh no. I said, There's no, we don't have any toms in range today. This isn't gonna be a good hunt at all. Yeah, and so I start telling him that I'm like, Well, buddy, you know, this might not be our day. We can come back tomorrow morning, but we'll see what happens. Well, when you know, I hear I hear the gobble and it sounds a little louder. I'm going, man, I think he's coming towards me. Well, ping, my phone goes off, and he happened to go right past one of my cell cameras, running as fast as he could. And I and I'm going, oh wow. I'm like, I think that's the same bird that we just heard. And I, you know, he's running, he ain't strutting. Like you see his neck stretched out, and he's just going. Yeah. Well, within five minutes, he covered that 200 yards from the calls from uh the foster boy. I didn't call once, all on him. This turkey shows up right in front of us. I'm going, oh wow, get ready. You know, he's we had trained him covering his ears when the time came, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:08

Well, wouldn't you know four deer walk out at the same time? So we've got four does to the right, and I'm talking all within 50 yards.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:20

We got this strutton tom coming in. Well, the tom gets to 20. So I let have him cover his ears, and I shot the tom at 20 with four deer at 50. The kid lived a Disney movie, basically. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. So he got to in that, you know, he got to come home and take pictures of it and help clean it and help process it and help eat it. Um I I wish more people got to experience food firsthand.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:45

Do you know what I mean? Know where your food is. Feel the plate. Yeah. Um push the plate. We even uh a few years ago, and I I might I might do it on a larger scale, but we had some friends come and uh go through the process of slaughtering their own chicken and processing it and and putting it in the freezer. So you would come and see it from start to finish, you know, pick your chicken out of the flock, um go through everything we gotta do to get it into that bag and into the freezer. And uh some people are squirmy about it, but I I feel like more people should be connected to their food. Yeah, and at least know know the process because you might respect it more.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:24

I had all my kids come out and butcher chickens with me.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:27

Yeah, that's fantastic, Steve. Because I think you might be less likely to waste it, even right when you know that that was a life and that's in your fridge now, and you know it's half eaten. Well, maybe go finish it, you know? Yeah, maybe have a little more respect for your food too, and and care a little more about the lives they lived and also what you're putting into your body.

Summer Repairs And Carp Nights With Drones

SPEAKER_04 1:14:47

Yeah, a hundred percent. So, what's on what you what you got cooking for the summer?

SPEAKER_09 1:14:53

So it's gonna be uh well, the farm will get rolling for sure, and uh ice hut repairs, man. You know, over the over the last few years we let some things slide and uh you know get a little rough. So we got uh a lot of equipment repairs. Um some of our machines are are kind of worn and torn. We might have to do some replacing of some of those, but even things as simple as the sleighs that we move our stuff around on, right? It is beaten, bent and broken over. But yeah, it's uh it's it's a year-round gig to run 10 10 weeks of the year, you know. Yeah, nice seasons typically 10 weeks, but there's not uh not a week that goes by that we aren't doing some sort of work relating to that. And uh this year we're starting a new. We haven't officially launched it yet. We put some feelers out there, but I've always been uh pretty big on the carp bow fishing side of things. Yeah. Um, there's days where we've put well over a thousand pounds of fish in the boat in one day, and uh I've also gotten into carp angling a bit here on Lake Simco. So I teamed up with uh Carp Kit, uh a local vendor here who sells carp gear internationally, and said, I want to be I want to be set up with all the you know, top of the line stuff. Give me give me a couple good proper setups, and we're gonna be offering uh two different options this summer. We're gonna have uh a couple cottages where you can rent the cottage, spend the night. These are all gonna be overnight fishing experiences, nighttime experiences. Where you'll be able to catch, you know, 20 to 40 pound carp by a rod at night. We're gonna guide you to do it, and we're gonna provide the accommodations, which will be uh one of the cottages here right on the shores of Lake Simcoe. And then we also have uh a couple remote Crown Land locations that we've looked at too. We'll be able to drive you down there in the boat, bring all your gear, have your uh your bivvy set up, where you'll spend the night, you know, picnic table and a barbecue, and basically be camping and cart fishing.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:47

And the cart fishing that you're talking about is all off the shore.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:52

All off the shore, yeah. And uh we we we purchased a uh a shark fishing drone this year. You might have seen them, they use them on the coast uh for carrying out large 10-pound baits to drop in the water far out for shark fishing, but we're incorporating that into our cart program this year, so we'll be able to chum the waters well ahead of your visit daily. So we know the fish are going to be there when you get there. It's it's not gonna be a guessing game, and we'll also be able to carry your lines out with the drone and drop them right on the X. Oh, really? We're really excited about that. I'm I'm like a kid with a new toy here. Every chance I get, I'm I'm playing with this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:36

Well, this sounds like a whole different podcast altogether. We we're we're gonna have to dive into that. Maybe you know what? Maybe once you uh once you get set up for your first couple of uh of adventures for people, we're gonna sit down and uh explore how that worked.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:57

Well, Steve, we can even have you up for one because our backyard's right set up for the same thing. We did try it last year. We just moved in here last August, this house here on the water, and it worked. Um, it was we were successful with ourselves and friends. So we can literally sit around the campfire, have the rods out at the end of the dock and in rod holders with the bite alarms on them, and you're sitting around the campfire having a beer and you know, maybe some snacks with the barbecue running too. When that alarm goes off, hell hell breaks loose, and we're we're hitting the water and reeling in carp and some of them are big girls, man. Like we're that's amazing. Yeah, 25-pound fish is not not unusual to get here, right? So it's uh it's a hoot. We could always have you up for one of those, brother.

Wrap Up And Where To Find Us

SPEAKER_04 1:18:36

Wow, that sounds like a plan. That sounds like a plan, brother. Hey, listen, Donnie, thank you very much, all the folks out there listening. Thank you for getting here, and I am sure that somebody is going to be looking up Donnie Crowder, Hotbox Huts, for duck hunts and carp hunts and and uh uh whatever else you got going on, brother. I love your diversity, I love your passion. Um, what you're doing is amazing, and uh those uh those kids of yours are blessed to be able to uh to have an environment like that to grow up in. So listen, thank you again for for uh coming on to the show.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:19

Yeah, thanks for having me again, Steve. And I gotta give some credit to Mama here, too, because Mama's no different than me. She's she's as much in the outdoors as I am.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:27

Well, I'll tell you what, she's probably more involved with uh with how you've been able to maneuver than uh most people think. Um because it's it's not easy for um for somebody to to be able to let their partner um uh get out into the outdoors and to make those big big moves uh and and uh put it on the line to go out and buy um a business or put it on the line to buy a piece of property that you're not gonna live on, that you're gonna try and build a uh business model around. Those are big concepts. And and to to to find two people on the same same wavelength to do that is something very special. So yeah, absolutely. You've got to you you guys have have done something that uh is very special, and congratulations for that.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:20

Thanks, man. We we truly are living the dream.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:23

Right on. And folks, again, thank you for getting to this point. Um, I really appreciate it. And uh let me know what you think. You know how to get a hold of me, steve.n at fishingcanada.com, and uh head on over to fishing canada.com where you can check out our uh all of the wonderful uh merch that we've got there and and free giveaways. And uh check out our new season. Um we're coming to the uh conclusion of of that. Uh I just uh watched uh an up-and-coming Garmin episode, which actually, for me, um was one of the uh one of the best of the year. Uh so check that out. It's going to be airing this Saturday, and uh that brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North.

Outro Music And More Promos

SPEAKER_07 1:21:19

I'm a good old boy, never meeting no harm.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:26

I'll be the only you ever stall been railing in the hog since the day I was born. Bendin' my right.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:44

I'll be making my way the only way I know how. Working hard and sharing the north with all of my plows. I'm a good old boy. About a lodge and live my dream. And now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:20

Welcome to Two Rivers Lodge, where we know that our hard work and determination creates your best experiences. You'll arrive as a guest but leave as a family, surrounded by a multi-species fishing mecca, like no other. Our elite cabins and professional staff are ready to make your stay. Unforgettable. Experience the difference. Because the two rivers, every cast is a story, and every guest is a part of the family.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:04

Back in 2016, Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:13

Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:19

Thus, the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:26

Step into the world of angling adventures and embrace the thrill of the catch with the Ugly Pike Podcast. Join us on our quest to understand what makes us different as anglers and to uncover what it takes to go after the infamous fish of 10,000 casts.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:40

The Ugly Pike Podcast isn't just about fishing, it's about creating a tight-knit community of passionate anglers who share the same love for the sport. Through laughter, through camaraderie, and an unwavering spirit of adventure, this podcast will bring people together. Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our angling adventures.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:58

Tight lines, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:00

Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.