Wairoa (Clevedon) Jan 3, 2014

[farleycat]

Nice trouts and sandwich sounds enticing.
How do you "make your own blu cheese"?
Bernie

[JeffHamm]

Thanks guys! Making cheese isn't all that hard, just takes time. To make blue cheese, you just add a bit of blue mould from a blue that you already like, and it will grow in your new cheese. You can make a really simple cheese, called "Quark", by just putting 4 tbls of cultured buttermilk in 10 litres of milk, warm it to about 30 C, add a drop of rennet, and let it sit overnight. It will thicken and you'll get this gluggy stuff like yogurt, and then just pour it into a cheesecloth bag, hang and drain for a couple hours. This won't be a hard cheese, and you couldn't make a blue version of it, but it is very tasty and is good for cheesecake! You can strain yogurt and get cheese too. Hard cheese is, more or less, a similar idea but you add more rennet (which is what makes the milk form a curd), and you cut, stir, add salt, and press it in a mold (ok, a bit more details would be needed, but that's the basic idea).

- Jeff

[farleycat]

In my "retirement" I have been making all sorts of goodies. My own yogurt, pickled eggs, pickled beets, applesauce and now can add CHEESE...thanks Jeff. Sure wish I had the wherewithal to go to New Zealand for fishing....looks like Gods own country.
Bernie

[jimsnarocks]

Thanks for the new year report Jeff. Looked like some nice fishies. Jim

[Grubb]

Hey thanks for the report.. I like the simplicity of your trips and also you including the home made lunch.. Your trips go alot like mine... Time on the water a fish or two at hand, a a nice lunch to sit back and enjoy, while at the same time checking everything out all around, ( and in most cases thats when I see things I might not have noticed, like a cool flower, deer walking by, or a brookie feeding in the corner of a pool) nice looking trout you caught there..

[JeffHamm]

Thanks guys. Most of the time when I go out I'm out to relax and just enjoy the outdoors. I've scared up the occasional pheasant at this river, and a few wood pigeons (which are a protected native bird) too. Spotted a possum one day, which was odd as they are typically nocturnal, but this one was out and about like a real trouper. I'll often change flies or technique if I'm catching a lot, rather than keep doing what already seems to work. It's my way of experimenting with the idea of how particular the trout are. Often, it just seems that they've come on the feed and changing flies doesn't matter too much (I'll change from soft hackles, to wee wets, to nymph, to streamers, to dries, etc), mixing up collared wets, with throat hackles, with palmered bumble type things, and so forth. However, it's not often that I get to the river when the fish are really on the take, but I'll usually get my one or two and be happy.

- Jeff

[ronnie_mckee]

Thanks for the report and pics, enjoyed it.