fishnsled

Very cool pics! Congrats!

INCREDIBLE!!! Great report and some awesome pictures. I'll be happy to get into one that big on my trip this coming weekend. Congrats and thanks for the post.

Cool report, great pics and video too! It's certainly nice when the cards are delt in your favour.

Great report Cliff! Very nice colours on that rainbow. A pleasant surprise I'd say.

I guess you could hang some baits off of it. Maybe bettter for putting some plastics and worms. Thoses hooks might hanging a bit too low and could cause damage where you don't want it, if you know what I mean.

I'll be on the look out as well. Man this really makes me PO'd reading these reports. I'll making a trip up north in a couple of days and will keep my eyes open for ya as well as locally. Hopefully one of us here will be able to lend a hand in finding your equipment and put it back where it belongs, in your driveway.

AWESOME REPORT! Excellent pictures too!

Nice going Terry! Some great looking fish.

Sweet fish!!! Congrats! I was very close once with a 49 incher. Maybe this year that same fish will come back and say hi! lol! WTG

Well there goes my coffee all over the keyboard! LOL! Some nice fish there guys!

It's nice to know that some kind words said can mean so much to someone. It's certainly a great place here for that. All the best Aunt Kathy, we're pulling for you.

It varies with the time of year. Early winter Perch, Winter -walleye, lakers and whitefish, Late winter/early spring- perch, crappies, steelhead, Spring - walleye and pike, Late spring/early summer - muskies, Summer - bass and walleye, Late summer/early fall - bass, walleye and muskie Fall - muskie Late fall (after the Kawarthas close down) - walleye Then it starts all over again.

Great job there Weeds! Congrats!

Hey Zib - I wish I had seen that episode. Would have been cool to watch. Wolfville - Malcolm started off doing it as a hobbie, in fact it still is. He does a few of rods a year and that is it. Mainly for himself and friends. Doesn't want it to cut into his fishing time or to become a second job. Because of some postings on a couple of boards showing the work he does, he has be asked by a few people to make either rods or wading staffs. As for costs it varies on the rod and how much time goes into it. As Zib said it is 40-80 hours. If I remember correctly the Mark IV went for $1000. I've heard of bamboo rods hitting the $5000 mark depending of who has made it. I've got a 4 weight fly rod that Malcolm made for me a few years ago and I just had to pay for the supplies. Very good friend I'd say.

Hey Brian, My prayers are with your Aunt and your family. Be strong.

Speedy recovery Cliff. Good thing you didn't put it off much longer. Take it easy and enjoy the pampering.

There has been some interest, past and recent, about my buddy Malcolm and the rods that he is making. So here's the link to his own site. Bamboo The following is an interesting read, it's a diary of a Mark IV Carp rod he has recently finished. Part 1 Part 2 Enjoy!

I've got a Motorguide as it came with the boat. It's alright and gets the job done but my next one will be a Minnkota. I have found them to be a great motor in the past, still got my first one. My buddies that have had problems with the Motorguides in the past did switch to Minnkota and have been very happy. Good choice Lew. Great shots of the eagles BTW!

I noticed that the air is much fresher today. Congrats on another great outting. Good to see that things are back to normal. Pretty strange how those fish all jumped at the same time, cool to see.

That's one good looking family! Congrats!

Hey everyone, thanks for the replies. It certainly was a great start to the muskie season. Sorry for being so late but I wanted to have the links for Malcom's cane rods for you Tonyb. Here's the diary of the Mark IV carp rod. And to his personal bamboo site. Bamboo

I was wondering what that smell was. It was pretty bad. LOL! Better to be out and seeing what you saw then not getting out at all. Still a good night out IMO.

Long report?? Seems like you were just going with the flow. Lots of them this week. I little bit cool to have the shirt off?

EXCELLENT!!

My weekend started off by helping my grandfather get rid of some stuff. He's down sizing and moving into a condo at the end of the month so a lot of stuff to clear out and either family members are taking it, goes to Salvation Army or to the dump. Since I'm the lucky guy with the pick up, I get to go to the dump. After a couple of trips, it was time to make the girlfriend happy and go to Ikea, man I hate the store, the layout really sucks. Once we were done there it was off to BPS and time to make me happy. I ran into Roger and had a nice chat. Apparently there were a few ofncer's that were in before me. I picked up some supplies for my up coming trip and headed home to prepare for my Sunday fish. Sunday I went out with my long time buddy MC. Some of you may remember him as the guy who makes cane rods. When he showed up bright and early Sunday morning he brought along his latest work to show off. A Mark IV carp rod that he made for a guy in England and was to ship off today and a 3 weight fly rod he made for himself. He does some incredible work on these rods and has made 17 to date. After a bit of catching up and loading we were off to the Kawarthas. On the way we saw 4 deer off in a field and I knew that if we never even got a fish it was still a good day. We arrived at the lake and started off working a weedline for walleye. On my second cast I had what we guesstimated was a 15 pound muskie follow up to the boat. Worked the area for a few minutes but he didn't come back. I continued working the weedline for muskies and MC kept going for the walleyes. About 20 minutes later a bigger muskie then the first one follows up and swims away. Didn't return either. Well a pretty exciting start to the day and even thought there was nothing boated we were very happy with the start. We ended up seeing another fish of about 10-12 pounds just lying around that wasn't interested in our baits. I had another smaller fish of about 4-5 pounds come and take a swipe at my bait and missed it. Then things went quite, nothing for a couple of hours. We stopped to have some lunch and noticed a bunch of smaller fish busting at the surface. We went to investigate and saw a ton of perch. So we down size and must have caught 30 perch in a half hour. A nice break in the day. We decide to try some shallower water and must have seen 7 or 8 smaller muskies sunning themselves but were not interested and our baits. We went back to the deeper edges. The wind had picked up a bit and what do you know??? FISH ON!! It was a good size fish and was putting up a great fight. At a first sight we both agreed it was probably a mid teen fish. After a couple of runs and a much better look we decided it was pushing 20 pounds. At the end of the battle the fish was 47 inches and weighed in at 20.5 pounds. (We have a weigh sack as not to hurt the fish) Back into the water and after some reviving time she swam away strong. Another hour or so on the water got MC a follow of a smallish fish and I had a fish on and lost after a couple of seconds. We decide it was a great day and headed home. MC made a call home to his wife to let her know that we were on our way. He found out he had another order for a cane rod, this time it will be going to Sweden. He's starting to get known all around the world for his work, pretty cool. OK enough with chitchat and onto some pics. Enjoy! Resident loon. Always nice to see. One of the many sunbathers we saw that were not interested in our baits. FISH ON!!! Thick fish. Not done yet. Beauty! Back ya go. And finallly many thanks to my long time buddy MC for taking such great shots. After nearly 20 years of fishing together it's always great to spend the day together. We'll do it again in a few weeks.