Jimmy & I do an Overnight in -10 degree Eastern Canada

Review of the Stan Sport 360 Stainless Steel Mess Kit

Stan Sport 360 Stainless steel mess kit available at LostCaper.ca

In summary

 it is a great light weight, compact stainless steel backpacking mess kit that is good to feed one person under 300 lbs.lol

For those who like to read more:

The Stan Sport 360 is a perfect match for my j-creater portable stainless steel outdoor camping wood & alcohol burning stove.  The size of the mess kit fits perfect on my stove allowing me to cook  with confidence that it is not going to tip over.  The copper bottoms on the mess kit heats up quickly so a hand full of wood cooked my breakfast by the river’s edge. 

Packs size and weight: 

The pack size is 7”’X 3” (17.78cm X 7.62cm) 

It nests inside itself  and the handle on the frying pan is hinged so it folds over the nested kit and locks in place holding everything snuggly together. 

It is light to carry at only 567 grams. Go with stainless steel when you can.  Stainless is a few bucks extra and a few extra grams heavier over aluminum, however it is not noticeable in my pack or in my wallet. Cooking with aluminum can have serious health repercussions. 

Materials and quality:

It is made of stainless steel with a copper bottom. The copper bottom allows it to heat up quickly and distributes that heat evenly. Using it with my j-creater portable stainless steel stove, I boiled water in less than 4 minutes.  Another 15 minutes or so cooked my eggs and bacon to perfection. 

I read where one person said “ I warped mine a bit “ . No-one else that I know of had a problems not to say there isn’t any.  After using it several times,  my guess is if you do not have it on a roaring fire exposed to extreme heat, it should not warp.  A perfect cooking heat is a heat you can hold your hand over for a few seconds.  I personally had it exposed to the direct flames of hardwood to boil water and it never warped. This is not to say giving it that kind of abuse will not warp it.  

I like the fact that the handles are stainless and not nylon or plastic. This way, I need not be concern with melting handles. The stainless steel handles do not get extremely hot if not exposed to high heat. To be safe, I use a cloth when picking it off the hot fire.  The bacon smells to good to drop on the ground. 

I would off like some sort of a removable handle on the dish but overall with the great fit & finish, great price and all things considered, I would give it a thumbs up for quality and for being a great buy.  Having said that, I included it in my handpicked reviewed items on our LostCaper store at lostcaper.ca  

P.S. This week I plan on doing a “finish boil” of maple syrup in the pot so that will be the real test. 

Thanks

Ray & Jimmy at LostCaper.ca , March 2,2016

March 2, 2016

Stainless Steel wood or alcohol burning backpacking stove

Reviewing the stainless steel wood and alcohol burning backpacking stove.

We were at the stump reviewing our new stainless steel wood/alcohol burning backpacking stove. Over all we were very impressed.

The first thing we noticed that it packed quite small when it is nested inside itself. It came with a carry bag. The packed dimension is 5 inch x 2.7 inch(H).  Item weight: 390g/13.6oz. 

What makes these stove work so good?  

Like most of these camp stoves, they have air holes on the bottom part of the stand which allows the air to flow in. The inflow of air is efficiently drafted into the fire because the wood is held off the ground by a grate and by additional air holes on the inside top of the fire box. The fire creates draft which further drafts oxygen into the fire.  The heat is stored in the firebox and there is only one way out and that is out to the cooking surface.  

How good does it work?

The stove burns very efficient and clean. It burns dry wood into a very find powdered ash. The fire box stores the heat and there is no way out but through the top to the cooking surface.  A hand full of dry material will boil water. 

How to use the stove.

1. How to light the stove.   

Some fill the fire box with dry wood and reach in with a lighter or match. We are minimalists so we only had the spark of our ferro rod. We found the easiest way to light the stove was to load the stove with dry tinders.  Make a small 2 inch/5cm fire out of birchbark and tinder then set the stove on top of the small fire. The  dry tinders in the stove then ignites in less than 10 seconds and within a minute you have a hot fire at the cooking surface.  

2. A good cooking fire 

Jimmy says a good cooking fire does not flame out of the top of the stove.  A good cooking fire you should be able to hold your hand near the top of the stove for a few second but no more than 10 seconds.  So keep your fire under control.  With this stove you do not have to load it completely up.  You can easily add a pine cone or a little wood to the fire via the load port near the top of the stove.  Using the loading port you do not have to remove the cooking pan to add wood. 

3. Use dry material.

Dry material can be found even when it is raining.  The inside layer of the birchbark is usually dry.  We also baton/split 4 inch peaces of wood. The inside of the wood is usually dry and ready to burn.  

4. You can use the stove with Alcohol.

If you prefer, or if you cannot find dry wood you can use Alcohol with this stove.  It has a little dish which can be place in the firebox and filled with alcohol.  Light the alcohol and start cooking.

5. Packing away your stove.

Once the fire is out, the stove cools down in about 5 minutes. The stove can then be disassembled and the peaces nested inside itself.  Put it back in its carry bag and put it in your backpack. A total of 30 seconds. 

Like any other camping skills, you become more efficient with practice.

Check out the backpacking stoves on Amazon

Miramichi Salmon Fishing Trip

To fish crown reserve waters in NewBrunswick you must be a resident of N.B..  You have 7 picks which entails you choosing one of the 20 7 km stretches and one of the scheduled dates. If you win the draw you get aware a camp and  approximate 7 km of water for your party to fish for three days.  We got chosen for Groundhog Landing Aug 29,2015.  As always my buddies Chad, Aaron,  Denis and myself had a great time, staying up late playing guitar, and fishing most of the day.  We ended up with 10 hooked and 7 salmon landed. Chad got a beauty about 15 pounds.

A late but beautiful night on the river . We fished well after dark

A guy with a crazy sense of humour.  We used ATVs to get to the pools thus the helmet.  Helmet 

and fishing glasses makes a funny combination but not really a fashion statement.

We enjoyed some incredible camp food.

Some flies I tied up for the trip.

Goddard Caddis

green machine

The successful flies were the Carter's Bug, this orange bug,  and the L.T. Special.

Here is a great fly rod for salmon fishing the Miramichi and other such rivers.

tying the Goddard Caddis

A great little trout fly that seem to work anywhere is the Goddard Caddis.  It is tied on a dry fly hook from size 8 to 14. The body is deer hair with a brown hackle collar. Some tie them with two antennas but it does not seem to matter so most times I do not bother. A picture paints a thousand words so here is a couple I died up.

Three days in Elgin, N.B. 2015

Bad luck with co-ordinating enough vacation days forced us to skip our planned canoe trip and stay at Aaron camp in Elgin, N.B. for two nights instead. Doesn’t seem to matter where we end up we always have a great time. 

Aaron’s sons in there teens were old enough to experience what we do on our fishing trip so they came along.  A km or so up the road Aaron’s uncle has a camp.  We all ended up at Aaron’s camp with guitars and songs.  Aaron’s uncle surprised me because he knows every Stoppin Tom song and sounds just like him when he sings them.  Many songs, many beer, and many laughs were had.   

The morning was tough but after a quick stop at Creg’s to get some tylenol we were off like the horse poop and we hit the dusty trail.   We rode many beautiful trails in the Elgin, N.B. area, stopping to catch tasty brook trout along the way .  Here I experienced some of the most beautiful trails that I have been on.  The trails took us under huge virgin forest meandering along the Pollett River.  We came to an area where 4 nice camps sat in the mids of this beautiful trail system.  A family owned several hundred acres and never cut any more then what they needed for firewood and to make the trail.  The property is worshiped by this family and they refuse to sell it to anyone especially a big logging company who would destroy it in a matter of a few months.  A unique, winding, majestic trail indeed.

The second day and night repeated itself with more song, guitar playing, ATV and fishing.  As they say, “all good things must come to an end”  and this was no different.  I bid farewell to my buddies with a sense of loss for I would be heading to Cape Breton, 500 km away and would not see them again until our coming 5 day remote fishing trip in the last of the summer 2015. Until then I will sit at my fly tying bench tying flies and swapping emails with my good friends in N.B. 

Doing such trips is more enjoyable when you have a GPS.  You can go with confident that you are not going to get lost and when you get home, you can download the track to your computer.   It is always interesting to view your path on the big screen.  It displays better mapping details and shows where  you have been in relation to the area.  You can share your tracks with your friends so they can follow your path.  I take one with me when ever I go on an adventure.  

I survived the Pollett River Run 2015

The water was high and fast but just about right, at least for the canoes that could stay away from the cliffs and sweepers. There were people that got wet and the water was very cold. We collected a few beer that was lost from overturned boats. I do not have many pictures because I put my phone in a plastic bag so it would not get wet and the pictures did not turn out. I will however share a gps map of the route that was taken while on the river. It is a 16 km trip. With this high water, at times we were going 13 km/hour but overall average speed was about 8 km per hour. It was faster then normal. Most years it take about 3.5 hours canoe time and about 4 hours for beer stops. This year about 2.5 hours of canoe time and 3 hours of socializing on the banks.

The hydro sensors 01bu002 petitcodiac near peticodiaclevel read 1.8 meters. For further reference that means high water levels on the Pollett. There were 3 to 4 foot high rooster tails that slapped the bottom of our boat like a sledge hammer but the old town 20 foot tripper handled it well. We got some spray but stayed afloat.

The snow was just after leaving the take out/mud bogging field so the entire field was mud. There were sure some beautiful trucks hitting the mud.

All and all it was a great day.

Cain River Trip 2014

After a long hard Canadian winter, the warm sun on our backs was welcoming and brought on a flood of river memories and emails. Our cravings to indulge our thoughts deeper into a trans of the coming river trip dictated that we meet and spend a few hours together for some planning. Well as usual laughter and beer over shadowed our planning process and a couple of hours later we walked away not knowing what the hell our plans were except that our busy scheduled coincided on June 15 to June 19 of 2014.

June of 2014 arrived and with it organizing, planing and training had to begin. My training aids was my pipe, pipe tobacco and beer. I had to build up my endurance for I knew I would be exposed to more of the same during the trip..

After performing a refit on my canoe(patching a hole and repainting), I carefully organizing my supplies into the dry bags and felt I was ready to go. Now the challenge was to endure waiting for three more days until we set sail.... a feeling that a small child has for his wait for Christmas day.


We arrived at the put in under the Doaktown Bridge on route 123. We bid our driver Albert farewell(which is Chad's good friend)and guaranteed him we would meet him at Salmon Brook Pool at 7:00 P.M. five days from now. Albert knows his way around this neck of the woods and we could trust him to find his way into Salmon Brook Pool through old remote logging roads that were barely on the map.

The Cains is a slow moving river. To canoe it without scraping on rocks, water levels has to be above summer levels. The excitement of fast rapids and falls is non existent from the Doaktown Bridge down to the mouth but it is a river where you can enjoy the scenery, friendship and fishing without having to break for precariously navigating through white water rapids riddled with boulders and big drops.

Typically, we like getting our tents set up around 4:00 pm cook some trout then have the evening for fishing, camp fires,lies, guitar playing, and a few refreshment well into the night. Our energy runs out long before our conversation and laughter,  but as soon as we awake we start all over again. The first night, June 15,2014, was no exception. Around the Upper Trout Pool Area, under the comfort of the hardwood trees and a roaring camp fire, we partied well into the morning before cashing in and calling it a day.

The second day was colder then average for this time of year - around 15c. Early morning a moose crossed 150 meters downstream from where I was fishing. The day progressed with lots of stops and the cooking of freshly caught trout. The day came and went in a flash and before we knew it we were setting up camp again. We tarped our tents to shelter us from the rain.
A few showers didn't stop us from the usual guitar playing, having a warm fire and cold beer. We all slept well and stayed dry.

We awoke to a warm hot day. Mid morning Aaron's neck was getting burnt so he borrowed my hat. Denis's forearms were getting burnt so he borrowed some wet grass from mother nature and tied it to his arms. Our third night camp was near Blackville at a pool I think is Dr. Island Pool. The camp spot was up a hill about 150 meters away. Dragging the cooking gear would of been a task so we cooked and ate our supper by the river's edge. Despite the dropping temperature, we had a bath in the icy water. I am not sure what was worse, the cold water or hauling the camp gear up the hill. It was however a nice place to camp and worth our efforts.

The forth morning greeted us with a bright sunny day. I dressed light thinking it would be warm. It started to rain, the temperature dropped and we all got wet and I got very cold. The down pours caused the day to be rained out as far as fishing was concern. We paddled hard for several hours until we got to Fin Pool where we found a wet campsite up on a hill. We pulled our gear up the bank and about 100 yards into the wood, quickly got a fire going and pitched our tent complete with an over head tarp. I changed into dry cloths and put on my rain gear and started cooking supper. The rain let off and although it was not an ideal camp site we though it would be decent spot to spend the forth and last night of the trip. Well we got more then what we bargained for because about 3:00 a.m. we all awoke to strange screeching noises and branches being broke by an animal that would have to be as big as a bear. Now folks we are not new to the woods so we figured the screeching may have been an owl, but the breaking of big branch and trees had to be by something big. I joked a big foot but the boys settle there minds to be a simple old black bear with no claws and dull teeth. The sounds seem to go away and we fell back to sleep for another couple of hours.

The 5th morning was cold and I dressed for it. I used my neoprene waders, a sweater and an oil skinned rain jacket. Despite the cold and rain we were all fairly comfortable and enjoyed the day fishing and floating down the river. Early afternoon the temperature dropped again and we had one heck of a hail storm. The pellets were bouncing off my hooded rain coat like a rubber ball on pavement. We sat in wonderment of the storm and somehow enjoyed it's splendor.

After the storm we continued our way downstream. I spent an hour or so fishing at Pickards Pool which is about 1 km upstream from our take out at Salmon Pool. I caught a few small trout and like most of the fish we catch, I released them back into the river to live another day.

We arrived at our takeout at Salmon Brook Pool. We walked our boats up Salmon Book about 100 meters to a steep embankment where we unload our gear. Off in the distance we heard our drive coming up the woods road. The timing was perfect so it wasn't long before we had our boats and gear loaded on the trailer and heading back to Moncton. The trip back home was endured with many colourful stories each replete with exaggeration and humour.  I am not sure when we will be back but I will sure miss this 40 km, 5 days on the Cains River.
This book will surely kindle your sense of adventure.