Camping Overnight and Fishing with Doug - Cooking Trout we Catch and MRE's

So we've been up in the mountains for a couple days. It's been raining and storming off and on since we got here. My good friend Doug is joining me for this trip. We've been exploring new hunting and camping grounds, doing a little mushroom hunting. That's a nice batch. Found a good cluster of chicken of the woods. It's an edible fungus that tastes just like chicken. We're gonna take it home, bread it, and fry it like chicken tenders. We tried to do some fishing yesterday. Rivers and creeks have been really high from all the rain, so we haven't had much success. But the rain's finally letting up for a while. We're gonna try again today. Then tonight we're gonna find a place to camp out and cook whatever we end up catching. We've been seeing some wildlife along the way. Lots of deer, some turkeys, and we even got to see something very rare near the campsite late at night. So stay tuned. It's going to be a great time. Ready to do some fishing? Ready to attempt. We brought some food with us, but not a whole lot. So we're hoping to catch something so we can have a decent dinner. See if we can catch anything. I'm thinking we're gonna catch some trout today. I'm showing Doug my secret fishing spot. How do you like it so far? It's so promising. It's real deep in here, even when the water's low. And this is where the trout hang out. Put a worm on here so we can catch. I've been coming to this spot with my family since I was a kid, and I've got a ton of trout in here. But today, no matter what we throw at them, we're hardly getting any bites. The water's high, that's why. Every fisherman needs a good excuse. But that's okay because I have a plan B, my other secret spot. A little rainbow trout. It's a small one, but we're keeping them because fish are hard to come by. All of a sudden, the fish started biting. We're about 20 feet off on the rock, and he landed a big trout. Got him. Nice. Looks bigger from up there, but still, that's a good size. That's a keeper. Not a bad trout. It's right next to that rock. There's a nice deep hole over there. Oh, we got another one. We didn't get to record that catch. Technical difficulties, my bad. Nice one, yeah. Little sucker. Doug got a sucker. Nice. You gonna cook them? Nah, I'm good. They taste good, but they have a ton of small y-bones that can be a pain to take out. Did you get one? Yeah. Nice. Now you gotta get him up here. Not a worm. Nice. Got him. It's not a bad size. Beautiful. He's definitely a keeper. Not as big as yours, but... Not a competition, Doug. I guess not. Get him. Don't fall off the rock. Oh, that's a brown trout. That's a nice size one, too. Must be feeding time. Yeah. All of a sudden, they turned on. Yeah. We'll put them on the stringer. It's down there with the rest of them. Only one worm left. Is there really? Yeah, we're breaking in half, Doug. The only thing they've been interested in so far is worms. After a lot of rain, worms will get washed off the creek banks into the water. That's kind of what the fish are looking for. So right under there, and in front of that rock, looks like a really good spot. I'll try there for a little bit. Might be some hiding out in there. Any kind of structure or deeper, slow-moving water is where a lot of the fish like to be, where they can conserve energy and wait for food to come by. Got one. That's a nice one. Beautiful fish. Nice rainbow. I'll put this one on the stringer, and we're gonna have a good meal tonight. Getting any more bites? Ran out of worms. They're not interested in nothing fake. Well, it's getting a little late. We're out of worms, so we have plenty to eat anyway. So we have to find a camp spot for the night. Probably just gonna camp out close to the truck. I know a couple spots where we can do that. Sound good to you? Sounds good. First, we gotta clean them. Clean the fish. Nice and clean. We're gonna take these back to camp, wherever that's gonna be for the night. Getting dark again. It is. Went from a terrible couple days of fishing to a great one. I think the water going down a little bit helped some. That definitely helped out a lot. We finally have had, what, eight hours without rain? Yeah, a little moot. Looks fine. A little tiny one. This looks like a good camping spot here. What do you think? Looks good to me. I'm ready to start setting up and cooking. I'm hungry. All right, so this is gonna be home for the night. This will be a good spot for the tent. Have a nice fire ring here. Use that one as a charging block. Use this for firewood even. And since we're camping out right next to the truck this time, we're gonna use the inflatable tent again. Makes our lives a lot easier. This tent's called the Panda Medium from RBM Outdoors. I had it set up with the wood stove a little over a month ago. The ground's a little rocky, huh? Oh, man. You didn't get to stay in this tent last time. No. We got the tent set up, so now we're gonna cook some fish. So I'm gonna get a fire going. Smells good. A lot of fatwood in here. Fatwood is pine wood, saturated in pine resin, which is highly flammable, and it repels water. Great stuff to have when you're camping out in wet weather. You can find it in dead pine stumps, the base of dead branches. There's a lot of red pine around here, which produces a lot of it. Fire kit here. In here we have some fatwood, even though this pine has a lot of fatwood in it already. Not much better of a smell than fatwood burning. Mosquitoes are a little bad today, huh? I'm hoping the smoke will help keep them away. Yep. Got no wi-fi, no service. Wow. I'm putting in the wi-fi password, Woodbound Outdoors, but it's not working. Must have forgot to pay my bill. Got some incense. We're gonna keep the bugs away. Might just surround the campsite with them. Yeah, wouldn't hurt. Got the cast iron skillets on the fire. Let them heat up. Got my seasonings here. What temperature you want to set this fire to? Medium low. Medium low? Okay. So not quite on the fire, just about a quarter of the way on. Yeah, not coals ideally. Yeah, we're rushing things because we want to eat. We're hungry. So what's the seasoning in the bag? That is Hunt Chef fish seasoning. Hunt Chef fish seasoning. Goes great with trout, smallmouth bass. So basically you're saying it goes good with fish. Yes. I've only tried it on trout, bluegill, rock bass, and smallmouth bass. Okay. Good on all of them. We got three more fish to cook, so switch those up. You can go a little Cajun style with Slap Ya Mama. One of my personal favorite seasonings. I use this for everything. We're gonna season these with this. Put it on rice, fish. It goes great on chicken. This is the big one. It is. I caught that one, right? No. How spicy is this stuff? It's a very mild Cajun seasoning. It's just packed with flavor. Anytime I make like a soup that requires any Cajun seasoning, that's it. Like my cheesy ramp potato soup. Oh, I load it up with that stuff. This guy knows how to cook. It's raining a little bit. Seems to be all it does anymore. It does not feel like summer. It has felt like a November instead of June. Definitely feels like fall. Cooked the one already because it was a small one. How's that look? Looks pretty good. Yeah, it does. All right, I'm gonna have some of this kind and some of that kind. I'm gonna have like one of each. I'm gonna try the Cajun one first. That is good. Good stuff. So what's your favorite fish to eat, Doug? I mean, well, favorite fish would be salmon or tuna. I like salmon. Yeah, but uh... Salmon's probably my favorite. Stuff that we can catch around here, I would say walleye. Walleye is high up there. Perch. I was about to say perch, actually. Trout's good too. I love trout, yeah. Perch is just special. I do like that seasoning you brought. Yeah, it definitely hits a little bit harder. I'm gonna start using that. A little kick to it, but not too much. We're gonna get this fire nice and smoky because these mosquitoes are out in full force. It's getting a little chilly out here. So as we're sitting around the campfire listening to the coyotes howl, we were also watching the fireflies light up in the woods. But not just any fireflies. We noticed that they weren't just lighting up randomly like normal ones do, but instead different groups of them were lighting up in unison. One or two would start, then the rest of them would start lighting up almost at the same time. Synchronous fireflies is what they're called, or at least we're pretty sure that's what these are. Apparently it's very rare to see. This area is known to be one of the few places in the world that has them. It was a really cool sight to see, and I filmed them the best I could. I think this is a different species of lightning bug, honestly. I'm not sure though. Yeah, not sure if it's picking up on camera or not. I'm trying to film it. Phone's actually picking it up. Looks like it. All right, I set up my cot, sleeping pad. You want the sleeping pad, right? My wool blanket. Pad's self-inflating. It's got plugs on that end you just open up. Well, we're going to bed. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Good night. Doug's gonna get a fire going. All right, let's heat some water up. Water's boiling, so what do we got to eat, Doug? All right, so chicken and rice, apple turnover. Nice. Blueberry turnover. Wow. For filled french toast. That blueberry turnover does sound good. I mean, it all sounds pretty good. Yeah, we split the french toast. Heat them up. Turned out to be a nice day. It is, real nice. Oh, the MREs should be ready. Time to eat. Which one do you want? You can have the blueberry if you want that, and then I'll take the apple. I'm gonna reheat this water for coffee. That's what it looks like. Beautiful. Oh, look at that. That actually is really good. Now for the blueberry. That is good. Makes a good breakfast. Almost like a soft pop tart. French toast. French toast. They're stuffed. It's like a cinnamon glaze, it looks like. Oh, it's almost like a maple cinnamon. It's a hot one today. Very muggy. Supposed to get up to what, the mid-90s this week? A few days, then it's gonna hit the real field like 103. Awesome. So what was your favorite, the apple turnover or the french toast? I'm gonna go with the apple turnover because I'm like a big apple pie fan, so. Not much better than apple pie. Yeah, apple pie. I'm a warm apple cider guy, so. Yes, apple crisp. Apple everything. The blueberry was good too. We got some toasted hazelnut coffee. You like toasted hazelnut? Coffee's coffee, man. It's good in gather. It was cheap. Coffee's at a nice boil. Yep, we'll take that off. It's been boiling for about a minute. Oh, that breeze. Yes. Oh, where'd that cold front come from? Wow, that breeze feels great. Coffee. Had a little splash of cold water, or I guess lukewarm water by now. Yeah, it still feels cold. Cheers. I like it. Yeah, it is pretty good. Well, it was a good trip. We caught some trout. Fishing started out rough, but got a lot better. Saw a lot of firefly action last night, which was pretty cool. Heard some coyotes. Think you're gonna come camping with me again? Oh, definitely. Yeah, just being out sightseeing, exploring, finding new land makes it all priceless. Well, we're gonna start packing everything up and get out of here. This dug has places to be. Yep, I'm still in office, man. Doug's a busy man. It's been fun. Thought it has. Well, thanks for watching. Hope you guys enjoyed the video and join me in my next one.