Leaderboard

A few years ago, my daughter and I started a little project to create a fishing alphabet book. I figured it was a good way for her to learn about fishing, reading and books. I could also use the opportunity to try and convince her that I was a better angler than I actually am. It took about two years of long stretches of procrastination, sprinkled with some focused work, and fishing interruptions to get it done. The original idea was just to create a simple printable book in black and white but as I got more into it, it kept growing with the eventual goal of publishing it on Amazon. I'm really happy with the end result and would love for some people to see it. The book is called "L is for Lunker" and is available on Amazon. I'm also more than happy to send anyone a digital copy of the book. Just send me a pm.

Hi all, Seems like we are getting a somewhat 'normal' winter this year. Lots of snow and lots of ice with a slow and steady thaw happening. Been out lots, for every species, really nice to have the options of whatever mode of transport takes your fancy, be it sleds, quads, sXside, or just jump in your truck.

With the help from family,they are doing up some T,s . Family is getting the 1st off,s

IMG_3742.HEICIMG_3743.HEICIMG_3740.HEIC

Hi all, Sometimes its quantity but last night was about quality. I only got four fish last night, (not including a couple hammer handle pike),but three were all over 20", fun to catch and release.

Getting there, slowly, my favourite speed. The rear grip and the reel seat have been glued onto the blank (a CTS Affinity Float 13' 3-6)..... The butt cap is finished and will get glued on before the day is over.... And the foregrip with wood insert is now a work in progress....

Took this picture on my way trout fishing mid February, do I need a shelter and a heater? For me A BIG YES. Do I need a fishfinder…no, do I need a power auger? With my arthritis another big yes. Do I need live scope… nah. Do I need a snowmachine and a quad, no…. But I wouldn’t get to 80% of the places I go. Life is short…make it as fun and comfortable as you can is my thinking.

Bring eggs. HH

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Fi8w6bwW2/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I was out 5 x,s before the deep snow. I walk and my knees will not allow me to walk through that mess we had,as short of a walk it is . Past 2 season were,warm temps,sketchy ice,this season,good ice,way to much snow and slush . Am I giving up,hell no, there is always next season. As for my equipment when heading out well, KISS . A good push smitty,pop up hut,heater,3 bottles of heater fuel ( I LIKE TO STRIP DOWN ) Auger, finder and 2 sticks. Pocket radio and thermos of java.

Hi all, Had a couple hours to fish yesterday, got into a few crappie, a tulibee, some small walleye and a small pike to finish up. Walleye closes today so will have to try again, maybe find a spot with some bigger fish....fingers crossed.

For Everyone,s Interest....Hamilton Bass Masters Swap Meet Next Saturday March 29th 2025 Ancaster Fair Grounds Start at 9.00am Till 2.00 Pm Admission $5.00 Kids under 12 Free l will have a Table There with lots of Stuff

I'll be there for the swap and in the large arena my daughter will be running barrels sometime around noon or so.. its going to be a busy place

Apply before the end of the month. My son and I have done this...an experience that will create invaluable skills and memories for a lifetime. http://www.ontario.ca/page/stewardship-youth-ranger-program

Hi all, been fun fishing here. Guided some guys from Iowa for crappie a couple times in the last couple of weeks, they left and came back… lol . Weather held until the last day. So glad I didn’t have to clean any fish this time…

I wanted some more rod holders so I got four but they didn’t have a base. I remembered Misfish saying to try metal supermarket so I ordered there. They cut to the lengths I needed. I got 2 at 1/4”x3” 8” long and I got 4”sq and 3/8” thick to make the hard to find big Jon Downrigger base. They can mount offset so they clear my Bimini when stowed.

Now you just relax a minute young whipper-snapper! Trolling is healing, casting is just "itis" for the joints.

I’m going to try to make it to the perch fest. then maybe small lake for lake trout. then Erie for eyes. st Clair for Muskie. GB for salmon and rainbow. Then small lake north for whatever bites. that’s all I have so far. I’ve bought a bunch of gear. Hope to get a second boat too.

Long day nursing this one to completion in my 20 Quart pot. It'll chill until Saturday morning then rewarmed for my customer appreciation open house.

I'm itching to get down there Steve, bit of slow start this year for me. Hopefully I'll scratch the itch next week. This was April 8th 4 years ago, in a T shirt no less. Back to the OP, yes cut bait is best imo.

It's starting to get good,water is warming up. Cut bait is best.

An update to my previous thread, the handle on the G Loomis 1562 GLX prototype handle rebuild is now done. As per the customer's request the original decal was not removed so a work around was required, building and installing the new handle from the back of the blank. It does present some challenges especially when the customer states exactly where the reel will sit with new fixed reel seat, which in this case was 8.5"s from the back of the rod. And while the customer is a young man he wanted the rod restored in an Old School fashion, figured Walnut wood seat, grip inserts and wood/mushroom but cap. The next step will be to replace the original garbage Recoil guides with high quality Fuji's. The following are a series of pictures I took for him from the beginning. Cheers

Like Bill says, SI is on all the time on my units. I've found so may new small rock humps, transitions to fish in waters I really thought I knew. When it's dialed in right I am now getting the hang of picking up fish laying on or just off the bottom as they produce a unique radar shadow behind them. Works incredibly well in clean open hard bottom areas. On my humminbird I can waypoint the SI spots and turn back on them. Found a nice bunch of walleyes last summer sitting on a flat gravel bar surrounded by mud by using the SI and the fish just popped off the screen. It was like one of these perfect commercials you see.

Hi all, I had big plans for some BIG walleye to go out with a bang on the final day of Walleye season, well.....mother nature decided to throw a curve ball at my plans, near white out conditions and about 6" more snow than forecast. I just didn't fancy the trails as there are a couple creeks where the snow bridges had probably melted, making it unpredictable to cross by snowmaking, and did not want to travel 15 miles in deep snow on the quad, so opted for more of the same as in my recent posts. Got 4 small keepers in a couple hours, so mission accomplished, the big ones will have to wait till third Saturday in May. Still should be getting out for crappie in the next week, we'll see how that goes.

So I bought a whole bunch of used fishing rods in an auction last year. There were a bunch of spinning rods (which I do use) and casting rods (which I do not use). Like rods you use a baitcaster reel with. Me and baitcaster reels are not friends. 😉 The rods are used but in good condition. I would like to sell them as a lot of seven, two-piece rods: BPS Bionic Blade BNX66MHT-2 IM8 6’6” Med Hy Act BPS Bionic Blade BNC66MT-2 6’6” Med Act BPS Tourney Special TYS66MHT-2 IM7 6’6” Med Hy Act Fenwick HMG Graphite GTC 60 M-2 6’ Rapala Sportsmen IM6 Med Action 6’0” Shimano Compre CPC66M2B IM8 6’6” Med Power Fast Action South Bend ZX3-125-X 5’6” Medium All seven rods for $275 mailed to you, anywhere in Southern Ontario. Other Canadian destinations, we can talk about postage. If you would like to come to Kingston to pick them up, I will throw in two bonus rods which are too long to ship in a box under 1 metre: BONUS PICK-UP ONLY: Shimano Compre one piece 6’6” Shimano Magnumlite Graphite ML 1702 7’ Medium Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but I was not going to take these outside in the snow to take pics. Doug

I use 2D sonar way more then I use DI. I use SI ALL the time to find weed edges, rock humps, etc etc. SI all the way over DI for daily fishing duties.

My son Avery did it for a few years and guided the last one. An experience he'll never forget.

We are having to "make do" with boat fishing..............but I would have been happy to keep ice fishing! Doug

Hi all, Got out for my evening relax, boy is it wet out there, good fun. The walleye were also good fun and plenty of them, just small itty bitty guys though, loads of them. Good spot to take kids.

Some people may not have heard that last week BRP sold Alumacraft to Bryton Marine Group, the same company that builds Kingfisher, Weldcraft, Eaglecraft, Duckworth and a few other heavy-duty aluminum boat brands. Bryton is based in Vernon, BC, but their plan is to continue building Alumacrafts at the same plant in Minnesota ... the only thing changing is the ownership.

Free shipping ? I hope.

Hi all, Last week of walleye season is upon us here, still 2.5' feet of ice so even with midweek's double digit temps that are due to stretch into next week, we should be good for ice for a couple of weeks and hopefully able to ride out to some crappie holes when walleye closes. We went to the mouth of a creek last night, loads of fish around, males and females, finicky bite but plenty of action.

I use the ice transducer because it is weighted and you can just drop it down the hole without needing a bracket to mount it on to have it at the right angle to work. The bracket works fine, I used one before I had an 'Iceducer' but the unit is more portable and less cumbersome with an ice transducer, so that's why i got a live scope because I missed the inconvenience of lugging an awkward and cumbersome piece of kit around the ice....lol.

I too was a huge fan of Yes, I had at least 5 of their albums, the first one being Close to the Edge. I even had the Rick Wakeman album Six Wives of Henry the Eighth. Lol I never figured I'd be seeing comments here about partying with Sid, I was well acquainted with him too but never went overboard on it. Anyone remember windowpane?

If you are gonna get one get the Garmin…hands down superior to the Humminbird. you are correct in that it is “passive” in its use but valuable nonetheless. Even an expensive LiveScope can’t find fish that aren’t there. If there are fish there, or just a few fish it will show you when they are there and ‘how’ they are. It will show if they are suspended, on the bottom or both. It shows in real time the fish reacting to your bait. I can even tell by the angle and speed of the graph mark which fish is gonna bite and the ones that are window shoppers. I can also tell the species by the speed and movement of the signals. I don’t like to fish without mine, very effective tool to have.

Yammy 90 on my 1875 ProGuide drops to a troll speed of 1.4mph using the RPM limiter. As the hours build on the motor, you will in colder water build carbon up pretty quick using that limiter so run it hard back to launch and burn that out. The Terrova 80 will pull the boat along for a troll at up to about 2.6mph. Cruise speed at 4500rpm is about 27-28mph. Go a big tiller, lots of room to roam.

Lol, a buddy of mine just posted this on FB.

All enjoyed in the confines of home lol

As most of us sit around in the "transition" time of the year, I get excited for the the adventures I have booked (and random trips) for the 2025 soft water season. I would say right now is when I do 90% of my fish gear buying. Big trips are: 1. June - French river for a week 2. Aug - 10 Mile Loge QC (thanks Iggy) 3. Aug - Round Lake (family vacation) Mix in some trips for lake trout in QC and Big Rideau as well as some local lakes for bass pike ad walleye I plan to fish as much as possible this year. Anyone else doing anything special for the 2025 fishing season? Cheers, BM

Hi all, Got out with my neighbour for a couple hours before sunset. We missed quite a few at the hole and got a couple keepers and a couple big girls. Lots of fish swimming through that would inspect and chase without committing, frustrating, but fun.

Your right an ice angler does not need all that much gear - but it sure can be fun running and gunning, on the Reelpro Ice fishing Sled at 80 mph

We used heavy canvas tarps supported by 3 lodge poles sourced near our destination to keep outta the wind.

Everything after G2 has networking by default.

I found some awesome brush piles doing this last fall, took about half an hour to find them all in an area of about 6 acres with SI set 90’ either side. Circled back and picked them off with FFS in down mode.

Highlander tows up to 5,000 lbs without a towing package. https://www.toyota.ca/en/vehicles/highlander/overview/ So does the 4Runner. https://www.toyota.ca/en/vehicles/4runner/overview/ And the Honda Pilot. https://www.honda.ca/en/pilot All three are solid tow platforms, utterly reliable, and often available as lease-returns on the used lot to save a few bucks.

Number one rule of fishing, dont "overthink" it. If youre attempting to ice fish laketrout without electronics...good luck If youre hiring a permanent hut from an operator at the end of the season? Good luck you say you are deadsticking minnows...but what does your presentation look like, do you have all sorts of "cheater" mechanisms all over your line, like snap swivels, too big of jigs, big hooks etc? good luck. To me at least in my experience, the devil is 100% in the details, but overthinking about fishing on this day or the next or not is a load of whatever as far as I am concerned. In my observation, the moon has impact on two things, 1 in the spring for bass, the first full moon when the water reaches 60 degrees, youre going to see a huge wave of a spawning. 2. if its perfectly clear and calm during a full moon, ive observed that the fishing can be tougher as I personally believe the fish have fed a bit more through the night than normal. as far as the moon having any impact on fish that are below ice that cant see the sky, or observe any water level change on a small lake thats not tide impacted...ehhhh the presentation of your bait, the line your using, the knot, the hook is far more important. Permanent huts are the equivalent of going and fishing in your boat on the same shoal every single day all day...Seems crazy to think that the fishing is going to be excellent all of the time for the whole year doing that no? staying mobile, adjusting depths all matters, at the end of the day though, ice fishing is a giant unproductive PITA. As far as im concerned its something to do during the winter, but the really "banner" days are few and far between no matter how hard you grind at it. Laketrout specifically, its hard to get around them, once you are, then its hard to get them to bite, then if you do, its hard to land them. Thats the name of the game, youre either in or your out. The payoff can be pretty sweet, nothing in ice fishing beats catching lakers through the ice, but holy heck id much rather target them from a boat! Ill add, im totally aware that this is a lot of complaining...but your talking to a guy that has the snowmobiles, the livescope, the huts, heaters blah blah blah and spent 12(ish) full 8 hour days out there this winter chasing lakers, caught some, skunked some, literally didnt have any "great" days all winter this year, still did it!

I watched the lunar calendars for some time. If I was honest weather and time of season makes a lot more difference. Got skunked on new moons and full moons. And to be honest how many of us haven't tried to figure out some scheme to improve our odds when fishing. The theories are endless..... I'd say in all likelihood you went not over a feeding pod of fish.

Just about lol

It doesn't help us Lew, it's just chest puffing rhetorical nonsense from self important fools hoping to buy votes.