Comparing two homemade alcohol stove designs: Unican (left) versus Supercat (right)

To save weight for my End of July Pacific Crest Trail attempt, I am going to take a homemade alcohol stove instead of a heavier and expensive commercial unit.  The ‘best’ two models I found were the Supercat, which is made from a cat food can, and the Unican, which is made from a single soda or beer can. On a side note, Heineken is not my favorite beer, I just had a lot of those cans handy from previous alcohol stove experimentation.  Also, please be aware that playing with fire and flammable liquids is dangerous, so don’t go blaming me if you burn your patio down or set yourself on fire.

Read on to see who wins the Supercat versus Unican challenge:

Oh, before we get carried away with this challenge and the rules, regulations and fairness, let me just say that I made the rules up as I went along while seeing which one would be a better fit to come on my backpacking trip.  I built both stoves for fun.  So, now that my disclaimer is out of the way, let’s fill ‘em up with some Denatured Alcohol and fire ‘em up!

The Homemade Supercat and Unican Alcohol Stoves getting their Flame On

Here are the two Alcohol Stoves in full flame, side by side.  I’m using a small Heineken can-pot for both of them.  The Supercat pressurizes and sends the flames out to the sides of the can, and doesn’t do a very efficient job of heating the water.  The Unican, however, takes an extra 30 seconds to pressurize, but once it does, it gets the water boiling in half the time as the Supercat.

Supercat Alcohol Stove heating up a pot of Water

The Supercat did a better job with an actual larger pot, where the flames would still hit the bottom of the pot.  This won’t work, because I’m not bringing a larger pot than the 24oz Keg Pot.

Unican Alcohol Stove with 24oz Keg Pot

The Unican alcohol stove won the day by doing the best job heating up my 24oz Heineken Keg Pot in about half the time that it took for the same test with the Supercat.

Since my Unican stove was golden, on account of it being made from a Miller Genuine Draft can, I have dubbed it c3po, after everyone’s second-favorite droid in Star Wars.

In case you’re interested, here are some of the links that I used:

• The Supercat Alcohol Stove
• ZenStoves – More Alcohol Stoves and Pots
• The Ultralight UniCan Alcohol Stove part of the Troop 73 Alcohol Stove Project
• Low cost backpacking cook kit

Paula's Trout - 1/2 of First Double

Two weeks ago, we took the canoe out on a lackluster 2010 maiden voyage.  So we took it out to Estacada Lake for the first time this year, and the Rainbow Trout fishing was HOT!  We were making our very first pass and BOOM, both Paula and I had fish on!  Double!

Jeff's Trout - Other 1/2 of Double

After we boated our Rainbow Trout, we tossed our lines out again and resumed the troll, and within a few more minutes, we had another double!  Paula and I were tied at two fish each!  At this rate, we should be finished quickly… or would we?

There were some big ones out there...

There were some good-sized trout in the lake, too.  We were using slightly larger hooks than everyone else, so naturally, our fish would be a little bigger.  I caught the largest trout this time around.  (Of course, it didn’t top Paula’s Super Trout)

Blue Skies for part of the day

I limited out quickly with my 5 Rainbows, while Paula was still on 2!  Paula, always dignified, refused to let me “help” her by leaving my rod out there and pass it to her.  No Pity Fish for her!  So, while she reeled in fish #3, I took time out to take some pictures of the sky.  It started out with nice blue skies, but then as soon as we got out, it switched to gray and drizzle.

Gray Skies and drizzle for the rest

But, we had our rain gear and were prepared, so as soon as we put on our rain gear, the drizzle took a hint and almost immediately stopped!

Paula's 4th Rainbow with the Hot Lure!

Even though she wouldn’t take a pity fish, she did take my hot lure and immediately, she started to hook up!  Here is Paula with her fourth trout!

YouTube Video Here once I post it.

Here’s Paula getting her last fish of the day!

o/~ It's the circle... the circle of Trout! o/~

Paula posed our two limits for a photo before we cleaned them.  Think of the Lion King theme song…

Preparing the Rainbow Trout for the Smoker

After eating two barbecue roasted rainbows for dinner, with mango slices and some bok choy, I prepared my apple-juice marinade to marinate the rest of them overnight to put them on the smoker in the morning.  These will be good!

So, I lead the 2010 Estacada Lake series.  Paula conceded defeat yesterday evening:

Jeff and I went trout fishing today and we both caught our limit! I must admit though, he limited out way before I did, and won fishing bragging rights of the day. We are going again tomorrow, and the race will be on again!

We’re going out again today to see if Paula can tie it up!

Alder Smoked Tuna

I was rooting around in the freezer in the garage and stumbled upon a vacuum-sealed package of albacore tuna bellies that I set aside for smoking last summer.  You may remember that I smoked some tuna bellies up not long ago.  This is the other package that I had from those same tuna.  Tuna steaks or fillets come from the “top” of the tuna from about the mid-section of the tuna on up.  The belly portion below the mid-section is kind of oily, and perfect for smoking.  Here are a few pics of the tuna fresh from the ocean.

In an attempt to improve upon near-perfection, I slightly modified the preparation.  First, we packed the tuna bellies in sea salt and let it sit in the sea salt for about 20 to 30 minutes.  I heard or read somewhere that the salt draws the moisture out of the surface layer and somehow “seals in” the moisture in the interior of the fish, leaving it tender and juicy inside.  After the salting stage, we rinsed the sea salt from the tuna and patted the bellies dry, letting them sit for about 30 minutes to air dry some more, before loading them onto the smoking racks and loading them into the Little Chief Smoker!

One pan of Alder chips for about 3 hours, then flip and toss in another pan of chips for another hour (long enough to get some cold beer) and then you’ve got a tasty tuna treat!  Darker beer seems to go a little better, so Newcastle was the one this time–I didn’t want so dark that Paula wouldn’t drink any.  Anyway, try not to drool on your keyboard!

Super Bowl Sunday Native Winter Steelhead

James and I hit the river early this morning to see if we could score a Gameday Winter Steelhead before the Super Bowl.  As you can see by the picture, we managed to get into the end zone for a score!  We got this picture seconds after getting the fish near the bank, and seconds before popping out the jig.  You can even see the water still dripping off this native winter steelhead buck!

James Fishing the Seam

I had my rod rigged up with my starters (some salmon eggs for a while, followed by another jig), but the ticket today was when I went to the bench and put our old pal, the pink worm, into the game!  My float danced down a nice little seam between some fast and slow water, and suddenly, the bruiser took my float down like a blitzing linebacker!!  It was strong as an offensive lineman, too, as for the first two minutes the fish was on, my reel was screaming like a packed stadium as he was taking line and heading downstream!  Imagine Chris Berman’s “He… Could… Go… All… The.. Way…”

Then, once he got out there, he did some high flying theatrics, getting completely out of the water twice!!  But after a short battle, I was able to get his head turned and pulled in for the score!  Touchdown!

James with the Float and Jig

Despite his bad cold, James was able to get his game face on and endure a few hours of fishing!  A steelhead for him would have cured him of his cold for sure.  Don’t worry, James, we’ll get you into a fish soon!!

Pink Worm Strikes Again: Native Winter Steelhead

Here’s another picture where you can really see this Winter Steelhead’s tail.  You can imagine that tail launching this guy out of the water like a big green football! Also, for all my non-fishing readers, you see that fin on the steelhead’s back right before my thumb?  That is the adipose fin and they get clipped off on hatchery fish, which is how I know it’s a native.

Anyway, this native steelhead was released unharmed a few seconds later to finish the trip upstream, where hopefully he’ll settle down with a nice steelhead hen and spawn another generation of biters like him!  Meanwhile, the Pink Worm was named the MVP of today, and is certainly having a good start to a Pro Bowl Season!

For those who don’t know, we fed our cats “high quality” dry food and canned food for years, and thought we were doing right by them. They have had numerous health problems over the years, and when Dakota was diagnosed diabetic last year, I did some major research. I found that many people with diabetic cats, had switched to an all-natural raw diet, and were having great success with it. So I immediately switched, and within a week, the change was noticeable. Dakota had more energy most certainly, as did the other 2. When I brought him back to the vet, for his first insulin shot, it was found that his levels had stabilized, and he didn’t need it. The only thing we had changed was the food. They have all lost weight (a good thing for them!) they are all spunkier than they have been in years. And they are all as soft as minks, with no dandruff, and they are just incredibly glossy. I was skeptical, but wanted to try something else before insulin, and now I’m a total convert, they seem to like it better too. And honestly, we’re spending way less per month than we were buying them the premium dry food.

So here are the links I referenced. There are many more out there too. Good luck!

It all started at this page

http://www.felinediabetes.com/

There are wonderful resources here, even if you don’t have a diabetic cat. Lots and lots of information and very nice people on the message boards.

Probably the most helpful page. Very informative and easy to understand.

http://www.catinfo.org/

Another good page

http://www.catnutrition.org/index.php

And the recipe we’re currently making for our kitties

http://www.catnutrition.org/recipes.php

The food we started off feeding them before we started making our own. They give it 4 paws up!

http://www.radfood.com/

Tuxedo

Jasper

Dakota

Jeff at Bonnie Lure Park

Early this morning, I met up with my MotoSport pal, James, for some Winter Steelhead Practice out on the Clackamas River, and then over to Eagle Creek.  (if we caught something, we wouldn’t have called it practice)  James hadn’t been out steelheading in quite a while, but after a few minutes, he picked up right where he left off!    Tossed all kinds of gear, bait, colors, scents, but couldn’t get a steelhead to even look.  Got to break in our 2010 fishing licenses somehow!

This pic is Bonnie Lure State Park up by Estacada.  A lot of people like to fish Eagle Creek for steelhead (and also Coho Salmon, when in season), but personally, my favorite is to wade across this stretch and fish either the Clackamas River or Eagle Creek from the island.  However, today, when the Estacada river gauge is at 13.7′, this stretch is just a little too high for my hip boots!

James took this picture, and if I had thought about it, I should have snapped his pic and posted it up here, too.  Next time!

Jeff with last steelhead of 2009

With 2009 drawing to a close, and still no steel on his 2009 tag, there were mere hours left for Jeff to get a steelhead.  After getting inspiration from another ifisher’s mega-hen caught yesterday, Jeff hit the banks of the river with fishing pal, Mitch (of Kevins Driftboat) in the pouring rain at sunrise for one last chance at winter chrome glory in 2009.  Obviously from the pic above, we pulled it off.  Read on:

Since 2010 has been unofficially dubbed the “Year of the Jig“, we were armed to the teeth with jigs of all shapes, colors and sizes, and covered a lot of water with them–sort of the jig warm-up for a hot 2010.  We had been skunked twice floating jigs at this same spot in the past 7 days, so we had our spinning and drift gear along as well for reinforcements.  Several hours in to the trip, with the rain reminding us what it means when an Oregon weather forecast says “100% chance of precipitation”, i.e. varying from hard to very hard, we started thinking that we’d end 2009 on a down note.  Mitch paused for a moment when his jig hit a rock and went down–Hold up!  That’s no rock, FISH ON!  Mitch got the party started.  The steelhead hen played a chess match to the death with Mitch’s light leader, the snags and the slippery rocks.  Mitch got her close enough to the bank to safely land.  I got the assist by popping her up onto the bank to seal her fate.

Mitch with his Last Steelhead of 2009

I had been alternating between my drift gear and float gear all morning, but with Mitch getting the rally started, I committed to the float gear and put my drift gear aside.  I had a jig that looked fishy as heck, so I tossed that, promptly snagged up and broke off at the knot and had to retie my whole rig.  This time, I went to the bench, and pulled out my old pal, the pink worm and rigged him up for some cold December action.  I worked my way back upstream through a fishy-looking seam full of rocks, didn’t snag or hit any of them, so I knew I was well off the bottom.  My next cast took the pink worm back through that same stretch, and something from the depths took that worm and headed for the ocean!  I was kind of caught by surprise, like “holy crap, did my float just hit a rock?”, and gave the rod a yank, and that winter steelhead hen on the other end gave it a yank right back, and it was game on!   I worked the fish back in toward the bank as Mitch made a video with his phone (if he posts it, I’ll link it below), while the fish made a few mighty runs, but in the end, I was victorious, as this trophy shot testifies!

Jeff with his First and Last Steelhead of 2009

Yeah, I know, Mitch has the posing for the trophy shot down.  I was just REALLY glad I broke off earlier and retied my gear, I probably would have pitched my rod into the river if the line broke on one of the steelie’s runs for freedom and I lost the fish!  (Note to self:  Retie the float gear once in a while!)

Jeff's and Mitch's Winter Steelhead Hens

My steelhead was about 28 inches, while Mitch’s was about a half inch to an inch longer, and as you can see by the pic above, just a tad brighter, too–cookie cutter hatchery brat steelies and when we cut them open…

Steelhead Eggs!

GOLD!!  Nice steelhead eggs!  I’ve got them out in the garage drying out to cure for bait.  We’ll see how they do in a later post!

Anyway, that’s the post for today, and right now, I can’t think of a better way to close out 2009!

The End

Team Tuxedo Burrito 2010 Motoxdream Supercross Fan Poster

Here is the official Team Tuxedo Burrito 2010 MotoXDream Fantasy Supercross Fan Poster.  Click the link to sign up to play Fantasy Supercross against Tuxedo.  You’ll also notice the cool motocross backgrounds courtesy of MotoX Photography Go ahead and set it as your computer wallpaper! 

These are also some banners that automatically update with the latest TeamTuxedoBurrito standings in the most important Fantasy Supercross Divisions.

]]> http://www.jkbworld.com/cats/teamtuxedoburrito-fantasy-supercross-fan-poster/feed/ 1 http://www.jkbworld.com/fishing/siletz-coho-salmon/ http://www.jkbworld.com/fishing/siletz-coho-salmon/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:28:02 +0000 Jkb http://www.jkbworld.com/uncategorized/siletz-coho-salmon/

Siletz Coho Salmon

I would have loved to have had an actual photo, because that one was an awesome fish! Ah well, we still had a good laugh about it!

Paula and I went downtown into Portland for some coffee and ran into the Portland Day of the Dead parade–who knew!? They had the hearses and a mummy drum corps. The video is the parade passing by. More pictures below!

Lead Hearse with Police Escort

Line of Many Hearses

Zombie Bride Haunting the Hearses

Skeleton Poking out of Hearse

Zombie Brides

Drum Corps before Marching Off