Telling the difference between a cockle and a clam

I went for a coastal bimble last week after a storm to see what Poseidon have coughed up onto the shore, always an interesting adventure.



A huge mid part of a nipper from a brown crab, this fella must have weighed 2 pounds easily..



A leg from a spider crab. These were not originally that common around our shores but seem to be more readily found these days.



Lots and lots of razor clam shells



And lastly quite a few clam and cockle shells, and the easy way to tell them apart... the radial lines on a cockle are vertical and those on a clam are horizontal..its as easy as that.

Both taste really good in a clam chowder !!

Rainbows end.

It's the first time we've been able to wet a line this year but it was thoroughly enjoyable when the chance happened by.

I'm not much of a fly fisher but am an absolutely obsessed lure angler believing that it's much more difficult to catch a fish on something that looks nothing like a natural prey item than something that does!

So off we went to a local fishery and I tried every bait and lure I had from powerbait to rapalas and nothing was working. However you may remember me making some inline spinners in a post a while back so I chose one of these as a last resort..3 casts had 3 fish..

And another few casts and I had my 5 fish limit. All on a homemade spinner..the best fish was 3 1/2 pounds and the smallest 2 pounds..though Davy had the biggest fish of the day at about 5 pounds on the fly.

We smoked one on the day for lunch

And a tasty treat it was, here's hoping for many more days like that one.

The wrong way to tap a Birch

I went for a walk in one of my usual haunts and came across this rather poorly camouflaged attempt to tap a birch.

I could tell straight away by the duck tape, copper pipe and poor attempt to hide it using hydera that whoever was doing this knew they shouldn't be and also didn't know what they were doing.

I dismantled the contraption to find they'd drilled into the tree a good 2 inches much farther than necessary

So I took out the pipe and cleaned the hole and sealed it up. To be honest I'm not too sure if the tree is going to survive after this but I'll keep a check on it.

I've no problem with people tapping a birch as long as it's done correctly, I just hope I bump into the person who did this.

Buzzard gets an Award

Buzzard Bushcraft was recently voted one of the top 40 bushcraft blogs on the net by Feedspot. So a mighty big thankyou to Anuj and all at Feedspot for their award, it's very much appreciated.

Whilicks with garlic butter

Over here we call them whilicks, often pronounced 'whileeks'. These are the common periwinkle, a sea snail commonly found around our coast, and they taste very nice.

Simply boil them for a few minutes then add them to some garlic butter

Get a needle or toothpick, hoke them out of the shell and eat, quite delicious.

Ceramic rod sharpener

I've found over the years that people often sharpen the entire bevel of their knife when all they rwally need to do is refine the very edge.

I often do this with a ceramic rod.

They can be brittle but the heftier the rod the more resilient it is, so..

I found one that should last a while

Not exactly packable but it certainly helps realign the edge on your knife quickly rather than spend time removing metal that doesn't need removed.

Bone fish hooks.

I had some pieces of camel bone left over after a project and instead if consigning them to the rubbish bin I thought I'd make a couple of fish hooks.

The first thing was to scribble a basic pattern on the bone after I had flattened it out.

Then with a coping saw carefully cut out the pattern

Then the sanding and the finishing

Of course these hooks aren't meant for fishing but are based on the Maori pendants I've seen.

These are worn as good luck charms but also as an indication that the wearer is able to provide from the wild to feed himself and his family.

Very apt indeed I think.