Dead chicken squawking

 

<Leafcutter ruminations>

If you couldn't get through the post about killing, plucking, and gutting chickens without getting queasy, I recommend you skip this video.

However, if you liked that post and want more, click play.

Background: When I gut chickens, I take out the crop and the tubes (trachea, oesophagus) as a last step. Not sure if that's the proper technique, but it works for me. On this day, I found out, quite by accident, that if you have your hand inside of a gutted chicken just right, forcing air through the intact trachea will still illicit a squawk.

At first it freaked me out a little, but very quickly all the kids gathered around (you can hear one laughing in the background) and were quite entertained.

Trinidad kayak salmon

<<Otter fishing report>>

Epic morning for me on the north coast! Woke up at 4:30 and headed for Trinidad. Got to the beach at 5:00 and bumped into Crash. Super nice guy who gave me the lowdown on where all the good reefs and kelp beds are. He was taking his buddy out rock fishing since it was his buddy's first time.

I launched solo into the fog and headed around the corner to try some rock fishing. Without GPS or a companion I was nervous in the fog. After jigging the kelp for 30 min or so I worked up the courage to head out to the whistle buoy. I couldn't see it but I could hear it and figured I could use the Lighthouse fog horn to find my way back.

I got out to some deeper water and deployed my trolling gear. Dog whistle sinker release with a uv krippled anchovy and a 1.5 # ball. Nothing for a while but when I got closer to the buoy I started to see lots of murre working the surface.  Soon the water started to change color and then bam hookup!! I took a couple extra strokes to make sure he was hooked well and then proceeded to fight my fish. Mid fight a whale exhaled right behind me and scared the crap out of me!

The whale continued to swim directly under the boat and scared the fish into a dogged charge straight down. Couple small runs later and I had him in my woefully inadequate and half broken folding promar net. Why I passed up buying the new lininger the day before I will never know.

After bonking the first one I started trolling again with a fresh bait and a new weight. The adrenaline is still coursing through my veins when I'm hooked up again! This one is a brute and manages to bust off my fresh 40# leader. I think it was tangled with the sinker release so it wouldn't drop the weight.

After quickly rerigging with a deep six and an rsk and a chovie I dropped in again. Less then five minutes later and I'm hooked up again! Stoked at my good luck I bring this one to the yak with little drama in spite of my lame ass half broken net.

I considered releasing him to try for a bigger one but being solo on the water with the swells building I opted to head for the barn. I tried several times to hail Crash to call him into the good bite but I couldn't raise him on the radio.

They are not the biggest salmon by any means but good enough to stoke me out for days and feed my whole family for the rest of the week down in Petrolia.