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I am a testament to that.

Looked out the back door this morning and saw a dead deer that was ripped apart right beside my garage last night. I back onto woods and often hear the coyotes but last night never heard a sound. Couple years back they killed a fawn 100' from my back door. I'll drag the carcass back into the woods later today.

Hi all, Managed to get out a bit later than I prefer but still did ok from around midday till 2 pm.

Beautiful! Champagne all the way!

Lol….you can have the best ‘depthfinder’ in the world and still suck at fishing.

Ahh if only I was 40 years younger!

First and only brand new vehicle I ever bought for myself. Wish I still had it.

Im guessing many have given up on ice fishing on Lake Nipissing, maybe due to the 2 fish limit on Walleye, and the near unatainable slot (40-45 cm) lenght. I've recently retired back to my home town, and really noticed the lack of activity on this lake. There used to be a long string of truck headlights and snowmobiles returning off the lake at dark coming home to Sturgeon from across the lake. I made a significant investment in new gear including shelter, auger, etc. I managed to hook a couple of fish, but they were either too small, or a little too big. I may sell everything before the start of next Winter, to recoup my losses.

I have not been on Loughborough Lake the last 2 winters, even though it is only half an hour from my home in Kingston. The ice has been sketchy, and I am not religious enough to walk on water............ This winter we have good ice, probably on all of Loughborough, but certainly on one of the spots we fish on the south shore. A buddy of mine has been out a few times, and caught some nice lakers, and he invited me to join him a couple days ago. We had 8 or 9 inches of good ice, with maybe five inches of snow on top, but no slush. We were in 65 FOW according to his graph. I used to own a Vex, did not care for it too much and gave it away, then bought a Marcum LX7, which was a very nice unit but fairly heavy, and I rarely used it, so I gave that graph to a younger fellow who I figured would get more use out of it. So even though it would have been useful to watch a graph whilst jigging for greys, I did not have one. I watched my rod tip instead of a screen........ Going back quite a number of years, I would fish a large dead bait (especially smelts!) on bottom with one rig, and jig a white tube jig on my second rig. Both produced lakers, and it varied by outing whether the fish preferred the meat on bottom or the imitation up higher. Often enough we would see a streak coming up off bottom, reel the bait away, and WHAM! a laker would take the fleeing bait. My buddy reported that white tubes were not getting any interest at all this winter. SO>>>>>> I set up a line with a small Williams Whitefish in silver with a red slash on it and a live minnow, about a foot off bottom, and started jigging with a heavy Hopkins Shorty, silver with a dressed treble. Up and down the water column, banging bottom etc etc, nothing. I switched to a small gold Mister Champ, same thing, no hits. OK maybe they want something different - and I tried a larger Rapala Jigging Rap in electric blue with chrome belly, nada. Then a medium sized Williams Whitefish, with the crinkly half gold/half silver finish. No dice. OK, I switched that up for a medium Buckshot in fire tiger colours with the fluorescent chartreuse back. Nope. In the meantime, my buddy was washing a bunch of his tackle, and the only interest he got was on a small black tube about a foot off bottom. The fish would come up and look, maybe hang around for a minute or so, but no hits. It was a cold day with a brisk wind, and not terribly comfortable, holes kept freezing over, etc etc, and I was thinking it might be time to throw in the towel. So I looked again in my boxes of tackle - I am betting most ice anglers, like me, take a hundred or more lures out with them even though we will NEVER use some of them (like that 2 ounce Swedish Pimple we used in the late 80s for Quinte walleye 🙂) Anyways, I spotted a Sutton West River spoon with the silver back and copper inside, and put it on my snap swivel. I was letting it flutter slowly down to the bottom, when I had quite a vicious strike down maybe fifteen feet. And the fight was on, yeehaw! Because the fish had hit so close to the surface, I had it up to the hole fairly quickly. All I could see was a very thick back and broad tail, and away it went, sounding for the bottom... .....and at that moment, for reasons I cannot fathom, my fairly new, decent quality reel decided to loosen off the drag. By several full revolutions of the dial, what the hell??? The laker was now really screaming to the bottom, while I feverishly tightened the drag back up. Fortunately, it was going down not up, and did not get any slack! Anyways, after several attempts to bring it up to the hole, I finally got it out onto the ice. My lure was JUST hanging from its lower jaw. Weighed on a digital scale, it was 12.64 pounds, and my best trout from Loughborough. And yes, I KEPT it, to EAT!!! The flesh was a beautiful orange, and it had a bunch of smelts in the mouth and belly. That was our only fish. We stayed until 1:00, with no more action. But that one fish sure made my day! 🙂 Doug

Kesagami Lake Lodge is looking for guides this year.. if anyone's interested.. good gig.. good $$ https://mcgclp.ca/employment-opportunities/

Mine was a '65 Pontiac convertible identical to the one pictured 'cept mine was dark green with white converible top and white interior. Riding in this beauty was like driving your living room couch. To this day I wish I'd never sold it.

She's been dragged well back into the woods now and I'll just leave her there.

No salvageable meat?

Great retirement gig! Gimme a few years lol

Funny you ask, right next to one of the biggest southern Ontario lakes but I couldn't find any.

Thank you all for the replies. Blue Heron and Brennan Harbour certainly look nice, but probably slightly farther than the group wants to drive. I'll look into Woods Bay Cottages--thank you. Years ago, we used to park at Woods Bay Marina, but I wasn't aware they rented boats and had cottages.

https://www.brennanharbour.com/ or https://blueheronresort.on.ca/

Boy when you go, you sure do go in style.

I think Champagne would compliment that wood grain better

Quite the piece of art, I don't know if I would take it fishing.

Hey Lew, Hopefully I can clear this up for you. I wont provide my opinion in order to keep this thread open lol. But to put it in plain language Trump imposes 25% tarrif on Canadian lumber entering the united states, the American purchaser of the lumber pays a 25% tarrif on the lumber. The money is collected by the US government. Canada imposes a retalitory tarrif on american goods a boat for example, the purchaser (your local boat dealer) pays a 25% tarrif on the boat here in canada that is collected by the canadian government. That cost would be passed down by the boat dealer to you or me when we go to buy a shiny new boat. So contrary to your understanding, canada does not pay both ways. In fact trump has been somewhat succesful in confusing americans into believing that by imposing these tarrifs, countries like canada and china will pay for them. This is not the case at all. The entire concept of a tarrif is to promote manufacturing within your own country by penalizing anyone that purchases products from a foreign manufacturer or supplier. The most recent tariff on canadian steel is an easy one...by imposing a 25% tarrif on canadian steel the US government is incentivizing any american that needs to purchase steel, to purchase it from american sources. This should boost the economy in a place like Pennsylvania that have massive steel manufacturing. Part of me even questions if Trump understood what he was doing when he initially brought up the concept, hence the continued pushing back of the imposing date. You may ask yourself then, why is everyone making such a stink about the tariffs here in Canada if its the americans that are going to pay them. The answer is that the Canadian Economy relies heavily on selling its products such as oil, lumber, potash, uranium, etc etc to the united states. If canadian resources and products are hit with a 25% tarif Americans will immediately turn to purchasing these products from other markets where tarifs are not imposed, and thus this will severely damage the canadian economy. One blatant oversight by the Trump administration was the idea of tarffing canadian oil. What they failed to realize is that Canada currently discounts oil by upwards of $17 a barrel to the united states. By imposing a tarrif on canadian oil, Canadian oil companies would essentially be forced to begin marketing their oil elsewhere while americans would be stuck going to the open market. For areas of the United States that are heavily reliant on Canadian oil due to their distance from the american coast line such as the american midwest, transportation costs to move oil from foreign sources would skyrocket the price. These areas of the states are heavily reliant on oil produced in canada and moved down via pipeline saving significant transportation costs. If the American midwest was forced to pay a 25% tarrif, they are then looking at 1. paying 25% more immediately, plus most likely needing to go and purchase oil on the open market which they would then need to transport to the middle of the continent. I dont think theres much appetite for americans to pay what 40? 50%? more for their oil. This is the real catch in all of this. Trump can threaten tariffs etc all he wants, but at the end of the day the USA does not have/has not enough resources to sustain itself. It doesnt have the oil reserves, lumber, potash, uranium, etc etc to provide itself. It will always be reliant on countries like canada to provide those resources to it. Thats what makes this all a little nerve wracking too while Trump keeps bringing up making canada its 51st state...we just saw what Russia decided to do when it needed some resources...could USA do the same? Youd hope not.

One of many favourites. About 12L per 100. Parked it and the gas savings paid for my next car The black bullet. 2005 Buick Allure cxs. 3.6l. If you punched it at 50k it would walk sideways.

A 1969 Firebird, dark blue, white interior/convertible. Loved that car until family came and had to sell it.

I had 2 favorite cars. First was a 73 Cutlas with the 350 Rocket for a motor. A lot of high school memories with that car. One story, working at a gas station, I got to know the OPP guys quite well as they always got gas here. Working midnights, one buddy cop came in with a couple spray bombs of green paint. He told me to get the rear quarter panels painted as there was an APB on my car. After high school, I owned a 1981 Subaru Brat. That thing was bomb proof! I raced it on weekends, spent Monday getting it back together so I could get to work, only to race it again the following weekend. I even made Petersons Offroad Magazine with it! (these are just images off the net).

Beautiful ride for sure smitty, they sure don't make cars now the way they used to.

Ever since I was young I was always a fan of driving big boats as opposed to some of my buddies who were into muscle cars. With 3 kids I mostly owned 4 door Buicks, probably more LeSabres than any other model but the nicest one I had was a Park Avenue Ultra. Some of them were strictly summer cars while having a winter beater and always a 4x4 pickup year round. Nicest car I ever had by far though that I bought from a mechanic buddy in the late 80's's was a '73 Cadillac Coupe DeVille with a Fleetwood Brougham d'Elegance package. Barry had completely redone the interior in a brushed velour that drew constant comments from onlookers, sitting in those front Captain's seats was more comfy than any furniture I had ever sat on. With a 502 engine it had tons of power and just about every option available including auto dimming headlights and coil over airbags in the rear. Even though I never drove it in the winter eventually the frame in spots got past the point of doing any more repairs on it and I had to scrap it even though the body was till pretty good. Similar to this photo with the same wheel covers but with the super wide whitewalls, that car was a real looker that I loved driving for the dozen or so years I had it. Even drove it to Kipawa one year and rented a boat from Alwaki lodge. Got stopped by the QPP about 5 miles from Kipawa, I was barely speeding but the cop told me he really just wanted to take a good look at the car lol. For years every time I went up there Mary the lodge owner's wife would comment on it as it was parked in their lot for the week.

Binbrook hasn't bounced back yet.. I was involved in doing counts back when the population was massive and it's rare to catch one now. The walleye are reproducing and the Bass are holding their own. Even the pike is nothing like it was in the early 90s and the conservation authority hasn't spent a dime to find out why the fish population has been the way it has. I was involved in stocking walleye and bass and the money was raised for that with the crappie derbies..

The crash can happen really suddenly too.

Awesome. I used to love crappie fishing. They're tough to find consistently in southern Ontario now..