A few days ago I shot my first buck and must admit I had very mixed emotions about the experience which for me really began several years ago. When I got diagnosed with SIBO and had to switch from a vegan/vegetarian to Paleo diet I made the decision to fully embrace the Paleo lifestyle and in March of 2015 part of that became taking up hunting again. It all started when I re-read The Paleo Manifesto and the chapter where John Durant decides to go deer hunting to supply his own food. I grew up hunting in Iowa and had indeed supplied my own food before so I knew I could do it. But, I grew up hunting birds, rabbits and squirrels and while Dad had gone deer hunting I had never been along. After my first bird hunt in 30+ years I began looking into big game hunting since the amount of freezer stocked is way higher than with small game. Within a month I had read several books on deer hunting and was contemplating hunting deer.
The strangest spey casting lesson I’ve ever had
How silly is this? photo by Louis Cahill Photography
I learned to spey cast in the 90s, back in the days when spey rods were a relatively new tool in the steelheaders arsenal in the PNW. Lines were long belly mid-spey lines back then and my initial instruction consisted of about 10 minutes of my friend showing me a single and double spey and off I went. I watched videos on spey casting and the one I remember the most had this basic formula of Lift-Loop-Pause-Fire. This is how I learned to cast and after some time was able to put out a lot of line and actually caught some steelhead.
Lira’s First Hunt
After five months of training I finally was able to get Lira out into the field today for her first controlled but real pheasant hunt. Chris and I loaded her up this morning and did the long drive to Ellensburg where we hunted at Cooke Canyon Hunt Club, a private reserve where we would have an entire area to ourselves. I ordered us up some hens figuring they would be easier for Lira to deal with than roosters on her first real outing, she got her first hen when she was only five months old on a training day.
Deschutes/Yakima Trip 2016
Last year Jeff and I had a ton of fun on our September trip to the Deschutes and Yakima Rivers so we decided to do it again this year. Once again the trip was hosted by Louis Cahill of Gink & Gasoline and guided by Jeff and Barrett of Fish the Swing.
We departed on Monday morning for the fairly long drive down to the Deschutes, leaving a bit later and deciding not to fish along the way this year. We ran into The Dalles to get a license and arrived at Heritage Landing just in time for the 2 p.m. pick-up. Of course, everyone else was late due to a flight delay so we got to sit around the landing a bit and chat with Jeff and Barrett. Once the gang arrived we jetted about 4 miles upriver to our camp at Wagonblast, one of the better steelhead runs on the lower river.
Taming my blood sugar
Since my last post a few weeks ago where I discussed my high blood sugar test results I have managed to get things under control rather quickly. The amazing this was that all it really took was some chromium, cinnamon and apple cider vinegar (ACV). I haven’t been testing daily but have tested 5 times since getting my meter and each time I’ve been normal and, in fact, have dropped down into the 80’s for the first time since before SIBO. I even carb’ed out yesterday and tested this morning at 98 so high normal but still normal and lower than all my tests since SIBO which were pegged at 99. Along with the normal glucose readings I’ve been steadily gaining weight again. When I went to see my doctor last month I was down to 151, yesterday I was at 157 and I’ve been steadily rising these last two weeks. My body fat percentage has also risen from 11.5% up to 13%.
Dealing with this high blood sugar number
In my last post at the end I mentioned that I’d gotten back blood work and it wasn’t all pretty. Many markers that were bad before – B12, iron, testosterone, AST, ALT, … were now in good shape and my systemic inflammation as measured by CRP was very low but I had a few things that were not so good – cholesterol and blood glucose. The cholesterol numbers had gotten worse in a year since my last check but even then they don’t concern me too much. The HDL number is good and high, the HDL/Triglyceride ratio is good and the LDL particle size actually got bigger. Thus all the cardiovascular risk factors they show on the test come out on the very low end of the very low risk scale. So, even though my total cholesterol is at 299 (up from 254 last year) there isn’t a real cardiovascular risk here, especially given my inflammation as shown by CRP is only 0.27 which is extremely low.
Training Lira
Lira with a pigeon she flushed and caught
Two months ago Catherine and I headed to Portland to pick up our new pup, an Australian Labradoodle that we named Lira (Lira means River in aboriginal Australian). These last few months have been interesting as we have taken on training Lira not only to be a companion in the house but also a bird dog. She just turned 5 months old a few days ago and looking back we can really see how far she’s come in just a few months time. When we picked Lira up she basically knew NO and OFF and that was about it, she wasn’t totally crate trained or housebroken yet.
SIBO Symposium 2016
Another record breaking hot weekend in early June must mean it is time for the annual SIBO Symposium in Portland. This year I decided not to attend the symposium live though and instead did some of the sessions from the comfort of my air-conditioned home where I could be at my stand up desk instead of stuck in a chair all day. I didn’t attend too many sessions live and will watch the rest of them over the next few weeks as I have time. Instead I focused on some areas of interest and here are my notes. For a good writeup of the top takeaways of the whole symposium see this great post by Riley Wimminger.
A year without treating SIBO
A year ago I finally stopped taking antimicrobials for SIBO after a solid year of trying hard to eradicate it with first prescription antibiotics, then herbals and diet. I never got a totally negative test last May but it was low enough that we all decided it was not worth trying to keep chasing down the last few points. After the Symposium in June I decided that maybe I would never test negative due to large amounts of m.smithii in the colon so changed tactics to work on my colon flora and ignore the SIBO.
Soaring Eagle 5-mile
Today was the spring Soaring Eagle run, much different than the winter Soaring Eagle run which was cold but not wet for once. Today was pretty perfect with tens around 50 when the runs started and blue skies for the most part. I was originally planning to do the 5 at this event then decided to switch to the Half Marathon and then last night decided to go back to the 5 since I had run at Chirico on Wednesday morning and I’ve got Sun Mountain 25k coming up in three weeks.