Bob

You'll find that these things are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them. Professional dealers will obviously try to low-ball the price so they can profit. I have complete sets for the Jays for the years they won the series. What would they be worth? Who knows? I wouldn't offer them to a dealer though.

Could be a log perch or one of the darters, hard to tell without seeing the dorsal fin.

Nice guit-fiddle. Laney amp is a little scary, they make nice sound but hard to find repairs. I have a Laney mixer and can't find parts for it. Blew the outputs. Might have something to do with living out here in the boonies but no one around here seems to be able to get a line on parts.

I have fished trout for years with spinners, often with dressed hooks (hair, feathers etc.) and I've fished early season trout with 5" rapalas very successfully. I caught my biggest pike at 43" on the same rapala. I can't fathom why anyone would ASSUME someone was targetting OOS fish at the mention of a lure type. Many lures are good for multiple species. Are we going to call for a restriction of lure types which are allowed if there happens to be a OOS species that may hit said lure? Too much!

Great report TJ, that pic of you in the boat on the ice is priceless. My only question is, "Where's the tutu?"

They are not native to the Great Lakes basin, the first breeding pairs showed up in the early 1800s. In the 1970s, they were almost wiped out again by DDT (so THEY say). Now the population is exploding and this invasive species IS causing damage to the environment. Oiling eggs helps but it isn't enough. I'm planning on doing a little hunting this fall and some target practice would do me good.

On reading that, it sounds to me as though the test was never performed. Sounds like he ran into problems before he ran the tank low enough to do a proper test (in his opinion). To me, the idea of running a car on a litre of gas at a time until it runs out has got to be the most bizarrely (is that a real word?) stupid idea I've ever heard. What kind of gunk are you going to suck up out of the bottom of your tank into the fuel system? With today's electric fuel pumps, you have to be careful too, they run dry and they get pooched pretty quick. Strikes me that a reasonable test would be on a two-way trip, same distance and the first leg without the additve. Then top up the tank adding the additive and noting how much fuel it took so that you can compare with how much fuel it takes to top up when you get back.

Now ya see? That's why I love living here. Lakers and specks opened January first and rainbows are open all year. No such thing as opening day crowds. Oh yeah, a traffic jam is waiting for 6 cars in a row to go by before you pull out and if there's more than that, it must be rush minute.

A friend of mine swears by mothballs (naphthalene), he drops a couple in the tank every time he fills up. It doesn't double his mileage but he does better than I do with basically the same type vehicle. I'm thinking of changing vehicles soon and I believe I'll try it.

I looked at a couple of the local lakes yesterday and I don't think I'd be walking on them. They're awful black and punky looking with some spots starting to open.

According to Canada AM this morning, we're forecast to be the warmest spot in northern Ontario today. We're supposed to hit a high of 20 today and 21 tomorrow. What a treat!

There are half a dozen species of hooded gulls but not many have black bills. I'd suggest that these would be Bonaparte's gulls. Red breasted mergansers would be my guess on the ducks too.

Nearly all scientific studies are funded by people looking for specific results so said scientists will do their best to prove the desired results, otherwise they lose their funding. Because of this, most studies are biased and always will be. I like fish and am not about to stop fishing for them.

I'm with TJ on this one. My dog enjoys a boat ride but my boat is big, solid and stable. Would I put him in a canoe? Never!!! I'm real careful about the people I put in a canoe with me, especially if I'm carrying expensive gear.

That looks like a young cormorant in that pike. I once saw a good sized pike come 3 feet out of the water and take a swallow that was chasing bugs. Don't know how he coordinated a hit on that fast moving bird but he nailed it right out of mid air.

I'm sure some will remember the old cars that had the little shiny chrome push button on the dash that activated the starter but do you remember the early 50s Buicks that had the starter button under the gas pedal? You had to turn on the key and push the gas pedal right to the floor to engage the starter. These dumb things just keep coming to me ever since this thread started.

8 trck cassettes, yeah they were from more modern times. I had a '65 Fairlane that had a 4 track cassette machine in it. Sound was great but after the 8 track units came out, I couldn't find tapes for it. My '69 Mustang had an 8 track. Sound wasn't as good. I also remember in-dash record players that played the 45 rpm records. They were a big hit with the girls around 1960 or so. You only played them when you were parked. Roads were too bumpy and the record would skip all over the place. 2 mile walk to school, always had boots and the road was up and down but always seemed more downhill on the way home. PF Flyers were running shoes, also Keds. Brush cut was a butch haircut and butch wax was to make it stand up straight. Green stamps were a premium thing at some stores, you got them according to how much you spent and stuck them in a book and after you got a zillion of them, you could trade them for merchandise. All computerised now, you get bonus points on your card at Zeller's, Shopper's Drug Mart etc. Same idea and you still need a zillion of them to be worth anything.

Nothing of note in our forecast, +4 Wednesday, +3 Thursday possibility of rain or snow, less than 1 cm. The birds tell me it's spring so I'll go along. Be a while before iceout I think.

I think when we got our first tv, there were 4 available channels, one each in Toronto and Hamilton and two in Buffalo and I remember climbing on the roof to turn the antenna until you got the best reception. It was a three person operation, one to watch the set and yell instructions to the one at the door who relayed them to the guy on the roof. I remember rope swings over the swimming hole in the east branch of the Don River. Check the colour of the river before you grab the rope though, there was a paint plant up the river and sometimes the water had some strange colour to it. Polio was a big issue then but not to us, we were indestructable. We were forbidden to swim in the river but that didn't make much difference either. I lived near Warden and Danforth and used to tie my fishing rod on the crossbar of my bike and ride out to Pickering to fish Duffins Creek. Used to be some nice pan sized trout in there, I guess it has a salmon run today. Flat top haircuts! Used to call it a boogie cut, brush on top and long and combed back at the sides. I had one like that when I started high school.

Spring must finally be coming, the birds at our feeders are starting to change. In the last week or so we've had goldfinches, purple finches, tree sparrows and juncos and this morning we saw our first robin on the lawn. Holy hat! I just noticed I got an upgrade, I'm now a fishing icon.

If you find them in the woods you can take them. If you want them for rattling, you can likely buy synthetic ones. If you hope to find shed antlers in the woods, you need to get there when they're dropping them because the porcupines chew them up pretty quick. Also, you'll seldom find a pair in the same place because they don't usually drop them simultaneously.

I like them!!!

Only fish I ever had mounted was a lake trout just under 36" and I didn't get it done because it was a major trophy but because it was such a pretty fish. Most lakers get fat like a football but this one was long and slender and looked really nice. A fellow named Haegemann on Hwy 17 near the Espanola turnoff did it for me but I think he's retired now. What an artist he was though.

Yeah, I remember the plastic "colourizers" for the tv screen. Speaking of backfires, Dad's old Hudson had a habit of not starting in the mornings and he hated to use the crank because it sometimes backfired and would snap the crank backwards. The solution was to roll it down the driveway and get a bunch of us neighbourhood kids to push it to the hill at the corner so he could roll start it. Chuck, chuck k'Pow! and away he'd go. Yeah, transistor radios except mine was usually on CFGM, not CHUM. I was country when it wasn't cool yet. I wasn't too stuck on that new Elvis guy but I didn't mind Bill Hailey. Mostly I listened to Don Gibson, Marty Robbins, Eddy Arnold etc. OX..ford 9724. Did my driving test in a '58 Pontiac wagon, that was really uncool and I remember the swing-arm turn signals on the Austin, my buddy had one. My first car was a '50 Pontiac that had the business end of a 9 iron for a gear shift handle, L-head in-line 6 cylinder that would make todays sixes look like they came out of a Singer but lots of room under the hood to work on them. I think the best car I ever owned was a '57 Pontiac, prettier than the Chevies in my opinion. I get the notion you and I are pretty close to same age Lew. I have just a couple of years to Old Age Pension.

I'm with Nipissing on this. That's a real pretty family runabout and I bet it would do a great job pulling skis or wakeboard. Not everyone insists on a boat strictly for fishing.