Dealing With Cabin Fever In Winter
 

Well with the temps hovering daily between -24 and -33 ice fishing has been put on hold. Cabin fever has set in and now it's online shopping taking over. Only two days into the week after arriving home on the weekend for days off from my FIFO job and I'm wondering what is next? Monday I picked up 8lbs of Hodgdon High Gun and Perfect Pattern at $20-$30 less per pound than any other stocking dealers then 5000 wads and 3000 primers to load up some low pressure 1oz loads then Tuesday morning I see under "consignment shotguns" on the same dealers website a nice condition A.H Fox Sterlingworth 12ga with 30" F/M choked barrels and semi-beavertail forend. A buddy who lives 1 mile from the dealer popped on over for me to look the gun over. He said the lever is right of centre, locks up tight, opens and closes smoothly with a nicely broken in feel to it, locks up tight, has excellent bores and looks really good overall. I made an offer on it which the owner accepted. Saturday I will head over with another friend to pick up my new to me Fox. That finally gives me a decent shooter Fox I was looking for at a price I was very comfortable to spend to join my spring snow goose lineup!

Up here in New England's winter doldrums we don't refer to it as 'cabin fever' anymore. Instead we're in the season of the "Shack Nasties" and our wimmens can sure attest to that... and vice versa.

Heck, I even bought two 'new to me' Parkers in the last two months... Both GH guns...
More to tell when they get here. :whistle:





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It snows almost every day here on the Lake Ontario shoreline of NY. It has been a great winter so far, cold but minimal snow, only 6 inches on the ground. If you go 60 miles east of me the snow is 5 to 6 feet deep at the east end of Lake Ontario. We know how to deal with winter, snow removal is a constant and we have very little trouble getting around. My bunch of friends shoot weekly and I hike with my dogs daily. I only get the winter doldrums when I can't move around which means deep snow.

I grew up on the west side of the Welland Canal on Lake Ontario, lived right on the shore watching the ships come and go. In my years living there I never saw more than 6" of snow on the west end of the lake except for the Blizzard of '78 which we saw about 3 feet that melted away almost as quick as we got it. Here where I reside in Alberta now we don't see large snow volumes typically. Currently we have 12"-14" on the ground but we have had a good cold snap going now for the past few weeks.. Overnight temps as low as -37 and a few daytimes as low as -33. The average has probably been around -24 to -27 the past three weeks. I may need the auger extension by the time this weather breaks and I can get on the ice again to chase the fish!

My best escape is watching "Grumpy Old Men" - it came up on TCM the day after our recent snowfall and is still a great respite from the local news media hysteria created at the first flakes falling from the sky!

I worked at SUNY Oswego for a couple of yrs. The hunting and fishing there was terrific. Hated to leave but couldn't turn down the offer from Stone & Webster Eng'rg in Boston..

Oh yeah; online shopping. Have bought a knife I didn’t need but have wanted for a while, a vintage knife/hatchet set (wanted one for ever), some guitar strings (Nano custom lights) - have restrung my HD28 but not the J200 yet; I’m horrible about replacing guitar strings; some bumpers to keep my guitars which are hanging on the wall from banging when I bump into them. So far I have resisted buying any books, tobacco or pipes, fishing flies or any of the other stuff from the ads I’m bombarded with - marketers know about cabin fever!

Lake effect dropped 30” today in Fulton. We have about 24” on ground now and have had snow cover on the ground continuously since Jan. 1st. Winter in Oswego��