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Personally, I have a problem with these tournaments that are held during the spawn, and where the winning strategy is to fish beds. This is a C&R tournament...watching the same guys catch the same fish multiple days in a row....and sometimes the same day...well, is that what a competition should be ? The same guy will keep catching and releasing the exact same fish to the point that it's exhausted and can no longer defend the nest. The fish aren't even eating...how much skill or talent is there in pulling fish off the beds, or the knowledge required in bait selection or presentation... And don't get me started on the floggers...specifically used to find fish on the beds. 1000's of $$$ of electronics on the boat and it comes down to a plastic cone with a piece of glass in it....please. Anyway, like I said personally I just don't get it, and frankly I think it does the "sport" a big disservice. It certainly doesn't meet my definition of "angling".

Well, this is day 4 already, I've been too busy enjoying it to sit down and post. What a beautiful place! We are in The Point cottage, the view is spectacular, and the cottage has everything we need. It's been hot, 28 -29 sunny, with little to no wind and the lake is like glass. It's taken me a couple of days to get orientated, the lake is 12 miles long with something like 80 islands. Even with a detailed map learning which island is "cabin island" or "Ray's bay" was a challange but John (the owner) aranged for some other guests with 15 years experience to give us a tour and point out landmarks. Now I am comfortable running right down to the end of the lake. Smallmouth are hittin like crazy fight like heck and are amazing eating. Clear skys and calm waters are not the best conditions for walleye. There's no shortage of them, we have seen plenty and if you are willing to go out VERY early or VERY late you will have no trouble catching all the walleye you want. We haven't targeted lake trout, pike, or white fish and none of the other guests have either so no report there. This morning we went to a speck lake where the lodge has a small tinny. My friend Ken had grabbed two containers of worms from our fridge before we left. Unfortunatly there was only 1 worm in the one container and two in the other lol. We did manage to catch two nice specks, had several follows, and missed about 5 that took swipes at our spinners and didn't get the hook. I am amazed at the level of service here, new motors on all the boats, a beautiful pool (which is really handy when it's 29*c) everything is so nice and clean and they make you feel like you are family. Every lodge has it's pros and cons, I am really hard pressed to find a con here. I'll give this place a 5 star rating and you can bet I am already booking for next year.

I'll give the uni a try then!! I like simplicity!

I’m going to counter what crow says because I have issues with my hands and therefore don’t bother even attempting to tie the fg knot. because I’m stuck tying a double uni I typically tie a leader as long as I am willing to cast without the knot going through the top eyelet. I guess 24 inches is long enough. the double uni is so bloody easy to tie, that even I can tie it with cold raynauds syndrome hands. they literally never fail. Your line will break long before a uni knot fails.

That's going above and beyond the call of stupid. Or is someone selling crappie boats now? Pike boats? What the hell is my canoe? Is there such a thing as a perch dock? If I landed a Cessna 180 on floats and pulled out my gear am I targeting flying fish?

I like at least a 6 to 7 ft FC leader in clear water....actually even longer...I like the knot to be on the reel when landing the fish. I use the FG most of the time. It's the slimmest and strongest connection by far. A little tricky to learn...but I now use a "FG Knot Assist Tool"...I posted about it on here a while back. Other knots that a lot of folks use are "Back to Back Uni" knots or the "Alberto".

You might call a Chevrolet a Chevy, or call a GMC a Jimmy, but there are actual names, and names in common usage. Who cares?

This is the entire debate right now with televised fishing…especially in 2023 with forward facing sonar its just becoming less and less entertaining. You aren’t going to see many tournaments won throwing a frog or buzz bait. Up north it’s a heck of a lot of using floggers with hair jigs and drop shots. down south it’s become a lot of throwing baits into brush piles using your forward facing sonar. It doesn’t make for great tv. gussy’s win at the classic basically gave everyone an aneurism, cap that with how decimated the fisheries in the south are becoming with every increasing tournament pressure and bed raping the fisheries, plus mix in a little herbicide spraying (I still can’t believe this stuff goes on” things are getting really ugly.

So in Manitoba they know "Jack" right!

Both lol

I don't know whether to laugh or cry..

The colloquialism is strong in Ontario. Basically anywhere north of muskoka they are still pickerel. It’s only once you get too close to the border people start saying walleye. I can assure you that the pickerel river is not named after the chain variety lol If you really want to confuse Americans, we tell them that we fry up pickerel and they are lossstttt lol here’s one of my favourites, in Manitoba pike are called jack fish.

I was fishing crappie in the spring 50 deg water temps, fishing out of the only boat I owned at the time i was in the reeds or just off them ultralight rods 4 lb test and crappie jigs did not have a bigger rod line or lures then what is standard for panfish 3 ft of water and the mnr/police boat comes flying up to me and stops beside me their wake was so big my motor hit the bottom of the lake and it pushed me about 20 ft way from them They told I was under arrest for fishing bass out of season i said , but I’m fishing crappie yeah, you are in a bass boat you are not going to talk your way out of this one well I only own one boat and this is it if you look at the back you can see the plates for downriggers. the continued to try to get me to say I was fishing bass i showed them the 4lb line the ultralight rods and jigs and told the they were welcome to look in my boat for any bass equipment still not happy i opened the livewell and showed 8 crappie nope still harassing me about fishing spawning bass i explained at 50degs bass will be following the minnows and feeding to prepare to spawn and would not be here yet at that point I got rude threw the F bomb and many other words and to charge me or F bomb off. they finally said well we don’t have enough evidence so we will let you go but if you come back we will charge you next time I told them I’m not leaving and will be back again tomorrow so feel free to charge me now they left ps. I was fishing crappie all the bass were near shore and in the rivers. None where I was

I never had any interest at all in bass fishing and fished musky almost exclusively for decades and a very successful tactic in the very early season was throwing smallish spinnerbaits into shallow water pencil reeds which was also a favorite haunt of largemouth bass. Yes, I caught some which were always released but can honestly say I don't ever remember being accused of targeting them but wouldn't have been surprised if I was.