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It has been since Mid March that I have spent any close time with my granddaughter. Seeing from a distance was the rule for about 8/9 weeks now and I held her to that and said we will be close again. All the treats I had made for her and her new brother was good, but not the same as a close bound .Today finally, we had our time together. And there was no better way then for her and I make a pizza together. She had to see for herself,poppy can make all those treats I have been sending over. I have to say, I finally had a real smile on my face ( ya wiped a tear or 2 away too ) . Been to long, but we both understood and her being only a grade 3 student,she understood as well. She is one smart cookie. Didnt get it from her poppy,s side, that for sure . LOL I will let the pics do the talking. She did perfect. 🍕

Seals are shot. Replace bearings to be safe and install new seals. As long as the spindles aren’t pitted you should be fine. Watch princess auto for deals on tires l.

I heard MNR wasn’t sure which slot policy was the best. So they did both as an experiment. You’d think after 15 yrs they’d know

Since the weather forecast was a lot cooler for Sunday I thought it would be a good day to smoke a beef brisket. Here's it is, kosher salt and pepper rub with a small amount of bbq powder all held on using a mustard glue. I used a mix of apple and mesquite wood over charcoal. About 8 hours start to finish including 2.5 hours wrapped to beat the thermal stall. I let it rest for another 1.5 hours until the temp was down to about 140F. The bark was still fairly crunchy even though I wrapped it. Turned out great...man I love this stuff!

So I have been looking for a little while now and I finally pulled the trigger on this 89 today. Now to remove the items I don't want (Lowrance X-4) and add the new. I know the former owner so it was well taken care of and has a new floor and carpet installed in the past month and all new seats too. Everything works too but thinking I may replace the axle (age of trailer and bearings are a year or two old) and the trailer wires and lights. Oh I need two new tires too so I may get a new axle and say the hell with rebuilding the bearings and spend the $250 on a complete axle. Thoughts? At least I now have a boat at home and can take off anytime I want to go for a fish vs having to drive to the family home to take a boat out.

Fisheries Management Plans have more going on than the average person knows. The whole idea is to balance the pressure and keep pressure off fragile ecosystems. Balsam is very fragile so with the slot many meat fishermen hit the Kawarthas and many trophy anglers hit Quinte.

Dangnabit it was a crispy morning. Arrived in Fergus 5:30 this morning to fish the Grand and it was well,,, Was a very refreshing fish this morning, but a fish would of been a real nice bonus,but I got to get more practice in. All good. The ole stogie was smoking away this morning. LOL And NO, I am not getting the hair cut. I can live with it.LOL Great seeing you again Brad. Will try and meet up in the fall again.

Looks good i would take it apart and see how it looks. Most likely just change the bearings and seals

I got to see my nephew and niece for the first time since Christmas this weekend. My 7 year old nephew wanted to trampoline, then basketball then take me down to the forest to see his fort, then play hockey then play basketball...I’m tired lol

In my personal experience, I saved myself a hell of a lot of time and effort by just swapping the entire hub as a kit rather than doing the seals and bearings. I think I paid an extra $50? replacing the races with a race punch is a total PITA. Cracked one of my hubs one time trying to replace one. Said forget it forked over the little bit extra and it’s like plug and play, the races are all ready in when you buy the hub you drop the bearing in and put it on the spindle done deal.

That is what I’m curious about my guess is that the province is in so much debt that changing the fishing regulations isn’t a top priority. I always thought that at some point the guys would figure out which slot system worked best and would implement it across the board

The Balsam slot was 5 years before the over all slot for Kawrarthas started. If they changed the Balsam slot to general Kawratha slot the lake would be devastated as the throw back Balsam slot is the Kawrartha keep slot. Still fun to go wachm.

Gord is a smart man. That lake has a few magnet areas for walleye and thus would be easily fished out with standard slot limits. With the 'reverse' slot limit anglers let many go which are prime breeders. MNR does try new methods to experiment with different ways of managing a fishery. Your son catching two shows it may be working. To not be able to keep the two may simply mean wrong spot or presentation. These days most carry cameras so if a 'trophy of a lifetime' was caught (yeck to eating it anyway) a pic would probably be taken by another person in the boat as being released and should be no issue getting a replica mount done if desired. With Quinte abounding the past years with easily caught monsters a true trophy these days is no longer 9lb but wayyyyy bigger and prob around 12lbs. so very hard to find one anyways. The lake is kept secret by many and anyone going there knows the regs so have to deal with it. Or else hit other places.

Gord Pyzer spoke to this during his recent video podcast with the gents from fishn canada. i specifically asked about why fmz 14 had different regs than the kawarthas with an even stranger “closed” middle slot <16 >22 slot limit for walleye. What Gord explained was that the original concept for the “one over” keeper idea was to allow people who had caught a fish of a lifetime to be able to keep the fish in order to get a mount made. He indicated it was the exact same train of thought as the musky over keeper size. He then explained in hind sight it was in error and that if we truly care about our walleye populations people need to stop targeting over fish for consumption. You will even hear folks up in pointe au baril talking And celebrating about getting an over to keep. He explained that contrary to what some falsely believe, the best breeding fish are the largest. They have the biggest eggs and best genetics and therefore their populations should be protected. Gord also mentioned that there are very very few if any actual healthy self sustaining walleye populations in Ontario. As he indicated “stocking” is a reflection of failure of the fisheries management system. He truly believes that with better regulations the need for stocking walleye could be removed through some common sense approaches. i know my family has now vowed to never keep any over fish again in accordance with Gord’s advice and hopefully some others will follow suit. I’m not certain what it would take for the fishing regulations to change? But perhaps after 15 something + years a revision could be considered? i just know that when it was explained directly from the God himself’s mouth, that was enough to change my mind forever

A over keeper will be just over 3 ib on Balsam . Balsam never really needed a slot, some locals got on a focus group and said the couldn't catch walleye. The truth was they couldn't fish. MNR did't a short study and found this slot was best. And the first slot was on the Kawrathas. Now the true giants are almost non existent. 8-10lb Walleye. This slot has been 15 years or more and they can't change it now.

Hei Brian we did the same thing! we went to see our 3 grands in Newmarket! Daughter supplied all of the eats, great few hours with them. Next week we will do another. Train her well, she looks like a natural to learn.

That’s great

Awesome story Brian and good to hear you got to spend some well deserved time together.

I wasn't telling a fib. PEACOCK on the road, AGAIN. This thing has some great fly feathers.

Fished Glasgow today. We had to work hard. Very few marks, some bait. Did best in 35 fow. 8 in the box plus a bow. Tough bite, lots of knock offs on riggers And blew several fish, several rips on the boards resulting in lost fish, dropped 3 at the net, and changed rigs all day just to produce what we did. It was a good day of fishing as we actually had to work for em. Biggest came in at 8lbs. It was not the usual hot fishing that you’d see there in a few weeks, but it was definitely worth it for our first Erie shake down this year. Whackum purple redfins put the majority in the boat. Good luck!

First of the season on Erie. Yesterday, Out of Port Maitland. Worm harness on 20 jet . Shallow! Let this big momma go to mabe more babies!! Cheers

Cut and pasted from another site. What a disappointment this morning. Got to the launch in Barrie at 5am this morning to find it was closed and they are issuing tickets to all non residents using the ramp and parking. So... the area moves to a phase 2 of reopening and Barrie city council decides to close things down. Thanks for the ticket this morning. Hope this may save some non resident the aggravation of driving up here and finding this.