steverowbotham

I have the day off and I am very bored. I just bought my new float reel last night, but I have no roe, or desire to wake up at 5am to go fishing today, so I'm doing my 2008 summary. I noticed Ben had done his report today as well and I dont want to take away from his, so make sure you check his out too... It's called My 2008 YEar in Review by BenBeattie. It's a good one. Every year I do I recap of my season for personal interest, I have them all saved since 04 and this year is no different. And I will share my season with you! I will recap on different types of fishing and not necessarily my most successful days, but my favourite days. Ice Fishing February 1-3, 2008 Lake Nipissing My girlfriend, my dad and I rented an on ice bungalow on Lake Nipissing for Friday-Sunday. We stay with Grump and Grumpy’s (www.grumpyfishermen.com) and have for the past 4 years. Great guys, great bungalows, great fishing. If you’re looking for numbers of walleye, choose a different place though. It is more focused on perch/whitefish. The huts are located in about 15 feet of water over a sand flat. Over the three days we landed over 150 perch, 30-40 herring, 5 whitefish, 2 pike and a walleye. It’s always fun to spend your weekend with family. February 5, 2008 Lake X This day we spent a few hours on a back lake searching for some brookies. My luck was completely off and I lost 4 fish at the hole, but a couple buddies landed some nice brookies. I drove, so they let me eat some February 7, 2008 Lake Y After having some success a couple days earlier, we decided to try another back lake for rainbows. Spoons caught some small fish, but the best bait …. Live worms. In February. Caught quite a few, here’s the best one of the day. Steelhead March 27, 2008 East Trib I think EVERY trib was on this day. We fished 3 different tribs and caught fish in every one, and each one got better. My buddy and I lit them up. We landed well over 50 fish, once we ran out of roe, pinkies worked just as well. Just one of those days. I’m not blurring out the backgrounds. If you know it, you know it. Don’t complain. April 3, 2008 East Trib I headed back to the better trib from the previous week, but the water was blown. Headed to another and found it high, but not chocolate. Still dirty nonetheless. Kelli and I each got some fish in the high water. May 31, 2008 Lake X This lake is an absolute gem, but I don’t want to reveil this one. Some probably know it, some wont, but if you ever do figure it out, you will have a BLAST!!! Some of the best crappie fish I have ever experienced! Cal and I were ripping bucktails for walleye when we double headered with 14 inch crappie. So we started targeting crappie, and it was non stop slabs the rest of the day! June 9, 2008 Lake Simcoe I had about 1.5 hrs left before dark and I thought I’d shoot down to the lake and get some din dins. Small tubes under slip floats revealed a school of big perch had moved in to feed!! Needless to say, I had my dinner, and a couple more! PIKE I only fished pike a few times this year, which is odd for me. Most of my pike fishing were tournaments on Lakes like Sparrow, Canal and Dalrymple where 2-3 pound pike are average. Nothing really exciting to share. The only real awesome pike day I had was opening day. May 10, 2008 Lake Couchiching We had an open tournament on opening day on Lake Couchiching. Not too many boats showed up, I think there might have been 8, I cant fully recall. We headed to our first spot and I started throwing a Shallow Invader, it’s a big musky bait, but it catches big pike as well. My buddy was throwing a rattle trap. Believe it or not, I struck first. My rod doubled over as I fought the 38.75 incher to the boat. Cal quickly landed a couple in the 30 inch class on rattletraps and we moved on. We went sight fishing in the shallows throwing soft jerkbaits and big 6 inch white saltwater grubs. We landed a few more fish, one around 36 inches. We won the tournament and big fish with the 38.75 incher, BASS Okay here’s my bread and butter! I love bass fishing beyond any other sport or hobby there is! Fishing is my passion, bass fishing is my life! Unfortunately, they are closed for the majority of the year! IT is extremely hard to narrow it down to my favourite 3 days of the year! So I decided to add a TOURNAMENT section to make it easier so here’ goes September 2, 2008 Lake Simcoe It was a flat calm day and we knew the fishing would be tough, as calm/clear water isn’t exactly the stealthiest approach. We also knew we would be able to make them bite if we were patient. We got em real good dropshotting slammers and deadsticking tubes. Caught over 40 fish! The fish right below this was released before the “group pic” because it was hooked deep and we didn’t want to risk killing it, but she was a 6.5 pounder! September 26, 2008 Lake Simcoe I decided to fish a different area of the lake than I usually do in the fall. Go big or go home right!? I looked for the same features that I do in my other areas and after 3 fishless hours, it finally paid off. We spanked em! I got em on jerkbaits, Kelli on spinnerbaits and my dad on a tube! October 12, 2008 Twelve Mile Lake Some of the best October weather I can recall. We spent the weekend at Kelli’s cottage just smashing the smallies on jerkbaits!!! BASS TOURNAMENTS June 28, 2008 Lake X Every year on opening day, our club holds a tournament where the member must fish with a girl or a child. The lake is a small lake, so I don’t want to reveil it, if it is very relevant, you can probably search it on our club’s website (www.barriebassmasters.org) I fished this year with my cousin Brent. He is 15 and a member of the Junior Bassmasters program where he has now won 3 tournaments! I’m pretty proud of him. Anyways, we caught fish almost all day on spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, tubes and spider grubs! We weighed our biggest 5 for 16.50 pounds and finished 1st July 24, 2008 Lake Champlain What an awesome fishery! Ryan and I found a spot today that was LOADED with big smallies, we weighed 17 pounds, the 3rd best weight over the 2 days of the tournament! August 6, 2008 Lake Dalrymple This was the 3rd stop on the Bass Pro Shops Employee Series. Cal and I caught all of our fish before 9am. The bigger fish came on Carolina Rigs on deep edges, the 3 pounders were on frogs up shallow. We weighed 18.56 pounds, including a 5.12 largie and a 4.84 largie, and we placed 1st. Big fish weighed was 5.48 by Eva Louie. August 13, 2008 Lake Couchiching This was a Barrie Bassmasters afternoon event. I started off fishing shallow and kept catching all 1-2 pound fish so I went to deeper weeds where I caught all of my better fish. Barrie has a 4 fish limit per angler, but we weigh 8 fish as a team. Our 4 fish goes towards Angler of the Year points and the 8 fish goes towards our team weight to win the money. My 4 fish went 13.55 pounds and I had big fish with a 4.40 pound largemouth. Our team weight was 24.65 pounds. I placed 1st as an individual and we placed 1st as a team. September 21, 2008 Lake Muskoka This was the final tournament on the Barrie Bassmasters schedule. I needed to place 3rd or better to win the Angler of the Year award, and the guy in 1st needed to place 5th or worse. The day started off slow, the I found the fish and POUNDED them! Best day I’ve ever had on that lake. My 4 fish went 13.85 pounds and my big one was 4.55 I have never caught a 4.55 on that lake so I was sure I’d win big fish too. My dad came in with a 6.15 largemouth!!! Anyways, I placed 1st and the guy that was 1st placed 7th so I won First place and Angler of the Year!! Pretty exciting! October 15, 2008 Lake Couchiching This was the Classic for the Bass Pro Shops employee series. The top 10 teams qualified. I had fished our club classic on Cooch just 2 weeks prior and although I didn’t do very well. I caught 2 fish over 3 pounds in the last 15 mins of that tournament on a spot I had found, so we figured we’d start there. We caught 3 fish arouns 3-3.5 pounds right away. We then moved to Big Chief and caught another 3.5 pounder. Another move to Cooch Point, caught a 3 pounder. Fish turned off after 11am and never caught another fish! We got our 5 and weighed 16.50 pounds to take first place and the Championship!! This was by far my best season as far as tournament success goes, I hope to have another good season ahead of me! Thanks for reading, or scanning the pics, hope you all enjoyed, I know I did! There's still a bit of time left in the year, and I just got my new float reel so I'm excited to do some more chromin', but for now, here she is.

I'll be pretty far from there, I'm going to Langley. But my roommate just moved to Banff, so when I'm visiting him, I might have to make a slight detour.

I drove by through Port Perry last night and everything I could see was frozen, with the exception of 50 feet on each side of the narrows.

Nice.. I always love the Year in Review reports ... I've got one on the way. I'm making a move to BC in April, care to share some brookie spots. ... haha

I've caught two in the bay .. ever. But they were 7 and 9 pounds.

git back at er. we're waiting lol

LOL. I hear ya. I did get it stuffed, I was 12. Haha, and my dad had to pay for it ... it was Christmas 6 months early. It's at our cottage which I rarely visit anymore.

What charlied and holdfast said is pretty harsh. Here's my experience. I started dating my girlfriend 4 years ago, and the first time I met her brother I knew he was a little fairy like. Having never been around that before, I was kind of wierded out by it. I didnt talk to him much, but as time went on, what's ups? turned into full conversations. He's a super nice guy, he just likes guys. 2 years ago, he finally admitted it to me, his sister and his mom, but not his dad. He was very worried to tell his dad not knowing what he would have to say, he was his only son, and his dad is a big burly firefighter MAN. He has since been "dating" and again, that was kind of wierd, but after getting to know his "friends", they are all normal people, its just a choice that they make differently. I completely disagree with the "your house, your rules he has to respect it thing." Let it be. He is happy that way. If the snuggling bothers you, maybe get up and leave (we never had that problem as he stays in his room most of the time anyways). What you do need to do is talk to him about it and make sure he kn ows its okay and that you love him. Dont try and talk him out of it or he will hate you, accept it and let him know that you accept it.

Nice job man, thats an awesome fish!

I'm pretty jealous, I stayed in this weekend.... shouldnt have

Thats a 43 incher from Lake Opasitaca when I was 12 years old, we couldnt even shut our livewell because it was folded with the tail sticking out. Yeah I kept it and 23 pounds was the taxidermists scale. Take it for what it is. For reference: Here's a 38.75 incher that weighed 15.3 pounds caught this year.

nicely done, I am what they call MEGA JEALOUS

my neighbour said to try gasline antifreeze, last night when it happened, it was raining/snowing. But he's kind of a stoner, so i dont kn ow if i believe him. I just took it to the store and she ran fine, no problems at all. Im so confused

yes it was raining, had been for a while.

nice buck. I dont hunt, mostly because I cant afford it, and I cant sit still. Always love reading the reports though.

my battery gage only has and H and an L, no numbers, so for voltage, I dont know. It goes right down to the L then stalls. I just went out to check it, she started and stalled, i started it again, gave it some gas this time, it revved up and idled just fine, battery gage held fine, and she drove fine. started her a bunch and seems fine, but the check engine light is on. So I dont know.

the very bottom of the gage

battery light is on after it stalls. battery guage drops when i release the accelerator, then it stalls

It starts with little problem, I have to give it gas, but she starts every time. would that eliminate the battery ?

I'm almost happy to take on the "Exploder" name lately. I have a 1998 Ford Explorer, 292,000km (i tow the boat a lot haha) LAst night, she started fine, then everytime I take my foot off the accelerator, she would stall and the battery light would come up. When I touch the accelerator, my headlights get brighter even. Is this the alternator? Air filter? Gaskets?

I won 40 bucks, I'm happy enough with that. Now I get to put it towards a new alternator for my truck. yay!

definitely a rainbow par

Told ya

Nice job man thats awesome. I never fished it when I lived 5 mins away, now I'm 2 hours away and struggle for gas money to tow the boat there

Remember when Gonzaga got his nose broken in the first round and could hardly breathe? He was spitting out blood the whole fight and breathing with his mouth wide open. He hates beign hit, and was bound to lose that fight