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Hey guys, looking back i realize it has been much longer than 6 months since i've done this. Some of you may remember the turmoil in my life from previous reports, life had me sort of bouncing all over the place but things for me have seemingly fallen right into place over the last year and a bit. I realize at multiple points I sit back and literally think...wow life is going perfect right now, it almost gives me anxiety knowing that it wont always be so good. My truck seems to have finally settled down and is running as good as it has, my boat is running well, my girlfriend and I moved in together to get through this pandemic and we are doing fantastic. The one thing i do miss, is I miss my friends and fishing with them a lot specifically our small derbies that we have every summer with each other are basically all but dead at this point and that's a downer, but we all have our health and I can still socially distance and chat with them regularly...On my half the fish have actually been biting for me...i'm on somewhat of a hot streak. So let me tell you about it! Without further adieu its AKRISONER's (AE-KREE-ONE-ER-S) semi annual review! When we last left off, soft water season was done and the wait for ice was on. The ice came quick...but what we were left with was a scary scary mess that seemingly lasted for far far too long. Looking back at this photo explains exactly when in the heck I was stuck fishing close to home for so long. December 28th rain not helping the cause at all. Some of you may recall that after one cold snap in january we made the decision to maybe just move down the lake a few hundred meters to do some fishing and my dog unfortunately went through the ice requiring my rescue. A mistake by me indeed, it turns out my story was spread around town by a witnessing neighbor after my dad having coffee at pointe au baril station heard a hear say story from another resident about an idiot and his dog going through the ice. My dad replied that he was pretty certain that that idiot was his son ahaha. Can only laugh now at the severity of the situation. As mentioned in my previous post about it, i was simply very glad that I was totally prepared and lesson learned, when the ice isnt 99.9% safe, dont bring your furry friend with you. More weird warmth was the pattern this day specifically stood out in my head, it was 10 degrees and i specficially remember the lighting, just something about it had a "summer feel" to it. the weird humid fog and sunny warmth.. not exactly what you hope for when ice fishing to be honest, especially in january. That weird warm blue day had the snot rockets fired up, our tip ups went off all day long. It at least made the staying close to home thing fun as it could be. you can tell how warm it is in this photo..no gloves, no hat, float suit half off...ice fishing. I think I even got a sunburn. I specifically remember this next day...it was the day of the huge rainstorm in the GTA that brought record rain to Toronto and muskoka. Pointe au baril however was on the absolute boundary of the freezing mark. So much so that the temperature gradient on the weather map between Parry sound 50km to the south was 5 degrees warmer than Pointe Au Baril. We got the odd spit of rain but most of the day the wind howled and snow flew. The storm had the fish biting tip ups. The wind being so strong the lake flooded with a layer of slush on top of that terrible ice. I recall however that as the storm passed the temperature dipped below freezing and that slush suddenly flash froze. All of our gear started freezing into the ice. It was incredible how a 4 inch layer of slush didnt just crust over, it froze solid like a brick over the course of an hour. We had had enough of being out in the wind and snow and started packing up and putting the tip ups away when my buddy jake grabbed my tip up line to break it free from the ice and he says, "Scott your line is snagged" I said thats impossible, i dont put my bait on bottom when running tip ups for pike. I immediately ran over grabbed the rod reeled up the slack and set the hook and felt exactly what he was talking about...no drag pulled, just dead weight...and then suddenly with one fast movement the battle was on and the drag started screaming. As a rule, when we hook into big pike ice fishing, someone is making the sacrifice of getting their arm wet and their hands potentially scraped up. I threw jake my glove knowing it was the end of the day anyways and told him if you cant get a good gill plate grab, screw it, lip the damn thing. Which he did! a PB through the ice pike with the cottage in the background, i was happy about this one, but it brought back memories of one even bigger that I lost years prior. I was still very happy, my smile (and me looking 10 years younger in this photo lol) telling as such. Finally, winter arrived and arrived well. Only an ice fishing weirdo wakes up and sees this and cheers Things began looking as they should for January, the ice was getting thick, one last evening sitting out in the calm -25 degree temperatures with frozen hands and eyelets, the real ice fishing season was taking off It was pretty incredible how fast the ice changed, we went from falling through to being able to venture into areas that traditionally can be problematic on bad years. This was the type of ice fishing I was used to. Snowmobiles, huts and heaters and walleye. The fishing this year was slow slow slow though. We caught some, i think our best day being 12 walleye? but the size was really hurting hence, the lack of fish photos! One thing I was happy to see was the intense pressure being put on pointe au baril by the MNR this winter. I got stopped literally every single time that i ventured out to fish walleye. We became buddies with one of the CO's. By the end of the season he would even stick around for a chat with us for a half hour. That same day Dave hooked into what he said was a trophy walleye and broke off. I said "nahh it was a pike" Dave not being convinced a minute later, my old man having trouble with his HT tip up rigged it up with the drag still set. Me standing out chatting noticed his rod start going nuts and then literally load up full force on a heavy lake trout ice rod and spring 3 feet into the air with the tip up still attached and nearly down his hole. I sprinted and dove for the rod while this was happening and stopped it from disappearing down the hole. Dad ran over and landed this guy. Not a walleye indeed lol nice try Dave! I took some time off of work that week and volunteered to do some work with the local snowmobile club. What I thought was going to be a chore, really just turned out to be a tiny bit of work, with a good excuse to go run the trails with the club while the trails were closed. Being one of the young guys, I even specifically did most of the work with the other two kids while the old timers stood back and supervised lol. It was a cool experience none the less. Throwing skids in wash outs and plugging them up with tree branches, then using the groomer to pack snow in on top of it all. I can attest that our makeshift snow bridges held up all winter. A cool experience and I am sure to lend a hand again next year! It was worth it just to hear the hilarious stories that the old guys told. The following week, i had a bit of a crew of various friends up to the lake. These are all folks that don't fish, dont get to cottage much but can appreciate a time out on the ice. I sometimes love guiding people that can truly appreciate fishing even if they don't get to do it often. My one friend Jackie that I went to college for graphic design with who owns a clothing company based out of Go Home Lake in muskoka called "Made for the lake" also showed up with gear in tow hoping to do a makeshift photoshoot for a new line of ice fishing shirts and sweaters she had made. yes, she makes fishing and ice fishing graphic t shirts long sleeves and sweaters all with the absolute highest quality materials. Made in Canada...it doesnt get any better. Ill plug her here, check out https://www.madeforthelake.com/ Her stuff isnt just basic clothing, its on another level. Her clothing is made in Canada or sometimes the United States and the quality is unparalleled. It all has that feeling of that shirt that youve worn 1000000 times. Her sweaters are warm and soft. Worth the price for a quality made in canada product made by small business, but that also produces just ridiculously high quality clothing. Here's a few candid shots she took of me. Very cool. Me in "the anglers T" which i already owned Then hooking into a nice slab, I quickly threw on the "ice anglers sweater" for this photo op...to which she then proceeded to make me keep the sweater and refused to let me pay her for it. I still owe her for this one big time. What a fantastic weekend with friends, catching fish, eating incredible meals and just having a great time socializing in a big group...and then the world changed I remember coming home that week, it was a wednesday, the coronavirus news was starting to get hot but there was a lot of uncertainty of what it would entail. I went to hockey that wednesday night and it was definitely a hot topic of discussion and then one of the guys says "holy crap the NBA just cancelled the season" and by the end of our hockey game the NHL had followed suit. Then rumours started to fly on the Thursday about a potential total lock down except for essential services, my girlfriend and I actually needing groceries figured it would be smart to go grab our groceries then and what we walked into was the busiest grocery store I had ever been in, and that included days like christmas eve, and thanksgiving. Madness had taken over. That weekend i ran up north thinking that there may be a chance that I may not be able to come back for a long time. lots of uncertainty for sure, I brought my skates, did some ice fishing, did some skating (which at this point I knew it was going to be a long time until I got to skate again) took my last skate, which is super weird because I normally play hockey twice a week year round and i havent been on skates since march. (even more telling of how long this thing has gone on for, i still have my skates with me at my parents!) Did some more fishing, ran into plenty of folks out on the bare ice riding around on ATV's and the like. People weren't sure what to make of corona virus, I can say it was my last normalish interaction having a casual beer out on the lake with strangers ice fishing. Funny enough chatting with a local guy i know i hook into a PB crappie and I was going to hand him my phone to take a picture when all of a sudden i realized I couldnt, he said no problem i can text you from my phone...man the world had changed on a dime. The following week it was my anniversary with my girlfriend, I had planned to take her up the CN tower having not gone myself since I was a child, and my girlfriend having never been. We had drinks, went to steamwhistle brewery, had lunch at a mexican restaurant and it was pretty apparent that things were quieter than they should have been for a Saturday. It made for a nice quiet afternoon for us, and was a nice final hoorah before the existence that we now know begun. Then lockdown really began, My girlfriend and I fled the city and moved to my parents house in Georgetown. A new home base of sorts where we could work from home, but also have some space and a yard to spend time in without being locked into an apartment building in Toronto. My parents both moving full time to Pointe Au Baril due to my mothers immuno compromization and me making regular trips straight up to deliver groceries to them. For the first time since my family has owned our place, I got to watch the ice come off of the lake. A very cool experience. Heres my mom holding a big piece of hollowed out ice with the ice flow moving out of frame behind her. It was cool to see the skidoo tracks in the ice flow by and then crash into shore and pile up. The sound was really cool as well. The biggest flow missed our dock by about 2 feet, we were happy about that. Just like that, it was open water season. The boat launches closed, i rigged up my old tinner magic just like back in the day, the water still in the 40's the fish were still in their winter pattern. Laying in bed i figured out a way to present my favourite crappie buckshot presentation to them suspended in 30 fow on a slip bopper. Seemingly it worked! Heres the first fish of open water season Im not one for keeping many fish, but with the meat shortage that was going on, i took a few home to make tacos. A couple weeks of crappies fishing, Trout opener was approaching. Im not much of a river guy at all, but I do like fly fishing. My buddy jake (more of a trout guy) got permission this year to access a stretch of river through a farmer's private property. So in this weird existence we all drove separately to this spot and accessed the river socially distancing...it was just nice to get out fishing with the guys again and even better that we were able to do so in a totally safe manner. Every time i see one of these fish, im in total awe of their beauty. I just wish I caught them more lol (i still have never caught a rainbow in a river on a fly rod) Then rumblings started firing up about boat launches and their total closure..rumours were about that they may open, what that signaled to me was it was time to get my butt in gear and get my actual boat up and running...which turned into me not only fixing the hydraulics on my boat, but also a full deep clean, wax vaccum, cleaned the trailer, fixed some rivets and a photo shoot since I didnt have a photo of the boat with the new seats in it. A friend that used to be in my car club back in the day said to me "so you traded the turbo car for a bass boat eh" and i clued in, holy crap my boat is just my old mazdaspeed car re-incarnated lol Me getting all ready for the warm weather and boating season, I wake up to this on May 11th, as if the year wasnt weird enough as it was. (10 days later it was 32 degrees in my yard) And then it happened, the boat launches opened. I spent a pile of time on the water that weekend and got skunked the entire time! Ive always struggled with early season fishing in my neck of the woods, When the water is in high 40's and low 50's its as if the fish disappear waiting for the water to warm up just a bit more. I marked some fish on my front unit while over 35 fow and my old man pulled in this beauty slab...needless to say the craps were nowhere near shallow yet lol I couldnt remember the last time I had been skunked for 3 straight days, yet here I was. I was appreciative of my time being able to drive the boat and just be in it again. I kept reminding myself "you are paying the fish gods, they will pay you back" The heatwave hit, my girlfriends birthday came along. In the absence of friends I did my best to make light of a crappy situation, We ordered food and while she worked in the office upstairs I secretly converted my parent's dining room into a movie theatre. I utilized a borrowed from a friend "marquee sign" to put at the entrance saying "now playing" and projector from a friend and a popcorn maker from another all in secret. I dragged a couch up some stairs by myself and set up a surround sound. Made Snack combo and theatre signage by hand with a marker and bristol board. It was damn close to the real thing. She loved it! Then last week the end of the heat wave I raced up north on Thursday, thinking that last day of warmth before the big pattern change would have the lake on fire...instead what i found was that the spike in water temperature had totally screwed the lake up. The water went from the low 50's to 75 over the course of a few days. The fish clearly did not like it...I caught one single dink pike...it felt good to break the skunk but I knew something had to give. Friday it started pouring, and it didnt stop all day. This gave me the opportunity to do some more work on the boat to install all new batteries and install those new rod buckles that I made a thread about. Did the cut outs, installed them and they work absolutely incredibly. I couldn't honestly be more happy with how they turned out. I would recommend them to anyone! The batteries are also so noticeably different. I didnt think that they could possibly do much different aside from lasting longer since 12 or 24 volts is 24 volts...but holy crap did they ever. My trolling motor now turns faster and when i crank my motor it sounds like a bloody machine gun going off it turns it over so hard and fast. That two stroke Yamaha fires better than a car! Unreal. In an absolutely superb mood, out for another fish I went. Thinking that maybe out towards the bigger water on the bay, and away from the back bays after two cooler days and rain the water may just be a bit more stable. I had noticed a slight pattern the prior two days of fishing where I noticed my pike bites were coming out in water in the 10-14 fow range where I could mark old weeds. Pulled up to a the spot i intended that I only sort of found last year. I didnt even realize that around the point from this spot was another spot that I had bass fished during the summer. I had had some real success catching smallies on a nice sand flat in what i remembered to be about 10fow. I figured, im near a nice flat, i remember there being weeds, i remember it dropped way off into 60 fow and I figured, heck i should probably give the other side of this point a shot before i work my way back, so i sped around the point with the TM and threw out the 6 inch bass pro paddle tail. Im looking at my screens and yup, this spot is exactly as I thought it was...for lack of a better word it was "ideal" Third cast, I let the bait hit bottom and start my retrieve and i feel like i catch a snag immediately, and then i feel that oldddd tail kick that I seemingly haven't felt since last October. This thicc momma fought like the dickens, put on a couple of arial shows and found her way into the big old musky net. She behaved nicely once in the net. A testament to huge musky nets, its very clear that allowing the fish to just sit naturally in the net while you grab your pliers to unhook, and then back in while you set up your camera etc just ensures proper catch and release of these big ol girls. The fish gods finally paying me as they always do. Were 18 days from bass season...lets hope my heater keeps on burning. Till next time. Thanks for reading!

Lunch time I have not bought a pizza since I have been off. I have probly made over a dozen since then. 1/3 the price and I know whats in it .

I have been trying to get out as much as I can this year, regardless of this Covid mess.. This is my 4th fishing trip. 4th camping trip, and 8th time paddling this year. So needless to say, it was about time i caught something!!!! The water was really high on the river, up about 3 feet for the usual level this time of year. I had to line a few spots that I normally don't need to. And had a couple spots we needed to portage that we could normally line. I earned my beer, lets just say that!! It was worth it though.... Got back to my truck and there was 2 CO's there waiting for me. Not sure how long there where there waiting. Everything checked out OK in my boat and in my cooler, and they where on there way. Very nice guys, from the Perry Sound detachment.

and if it's silver and curly, guess who snuck into your kitchen while you were out............😉

Don't get a hydrofoil. If you need to help get the back end up get Smart Tabs. https://www.nauticusinc.com/smart-tabs-sx/

Yeah hydrofoils were really meant for motors that didn’t have tilt/trim

I was 100% honest, and told him I was camping. My small mistake was my fault in not reading the regs right for that area. A very good lesson learned. I was camping on Wahta Mohawk Territory. Not crown land. And he did not care that I was camping.

thank all for your input, much appreciated. I’ve had quotes up to $3,800 + tax. And anywhere in between for the similar door. R16 and not common colours really tally up the $s. I’m looking at a quote for steel insulated with ALL NEW hardware, installed. At just under $2,000. Taxes will see. After a face to face I’ll decide which direction I’ll go, but there seems to a lot of variance in prices, more profit, more overhead who knows. Some came back with just numbers, other forwarded the manufactures (garaga)quote and plugged in the dealer/installer name, others sent colour brochures with different models . . . With prices per model . . We’ll see how this transforms the doors I have now still close Well but being wood are going down fast. I learned a lot from doing my basement and shopping around can save a lot of money.

Here's a couple of my favorites. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUUU29AwqBBdItwah3CfbDQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCay9_VGBzEtcSy-QuN8yyrQ

Hey thanks for the tips. It's actually quite a bit of work to replicate the post here. As of today I make $0 from the site but I understand if you don't want to link out to it. Cheers Andrew

Dave, they save $ when you are dead not alive (thankfully you are alive) so add your CPP to your OAS and multiply by the number of elders who have died in Canada from Covid-19 and think of how that adds up per month in 'savings'. US has 100,000 dead from the virus so far but apparently many more haven't been counted. Likely the same scenario here since gov't would obviously like as small a number of victims as possible being reported.

For those of you who might be curious about the Navionics SonarChart Shading feature and are looking for ways to be productive with your time in CO-VID 19 hell, check out this webinar by Travis Huckaby! He details about all the different layers & overlays available on your Navionics Boating App & Chips, how to access them and how to use them to help you catch more fish.

Was the lady of romani descent? There’s a crew of them in southern Ontario that are conducting Pan handling operations now in coordinated fashion with a sign that literally says exactly what you describe. the scam is that they are actually all working to provide funding to their overarching boss. For some reason there’s always at least two of them at the lights at warden and the 401. I saw them every single time I went to Pro J last summer. It’s brutal, you go through one light and you see one lady, and then you look across at the other light and you realize there’s another one making the same hand gestures with an identical sign begging for money for her “children”. They have clearly been trained. Ive seen them other places once again, same acting, same signs at Union Station, Yorkdale Mall and yonge and dundas