tbayboy

Hehe - your gonna make a whole lot of friends now Victor. By the way, I'm available most weekends Ignore this guy - not my fault he doesn't know when to tuck his arm in.

I was thinking of your comments from our Quinte trip when we started pulling them in Paul - its just the kind of night you were talking about. Anytime you wanna do a road trip just let me know and I'll make sure to get the number of my buddies "guy" This "guy who shall remain nameless" is a legend amongst us. Our fearless leader worships the ground he walks in and we can't do any fishing without either getting this guys blessing first or some top secret info on our location from him. Every time my buddy opens his mouth and starts a sentence with "XXXX says..." we just start groaning but I'll admit it - his info sure paid off for us this time. Thanks for the comments everyone

Congrats Victor, sure it'll be slimed in no time.

Congrats, now kiss your fishing budget goodbye, those skis are addicting!

Yeah you hit it on the head Johnny - every summer I go home and can't understand why I ever left (bugs aren't that bad really - or you get use to it) but then I go home for Christmas and I'm rudely reminded of why I don't mind being in Southern Ontario. Gotta get me one 2 jobs - 6 months up there and 6 months here.

I have this nagging urge to find me some KAWARTHA DAIRY!!! Great stuff guys

Nice stuff Jigger, congrats on sticking it through to the end.

Was back home in Thunder Bay this past weekend for a cousins wedding. While I was happy to be there for her big day you'll forgive me if I also packed some jigs, a stradic and some gulp right? I arrived at 2:30am Friday morning (no thanks to Air Canada - sigh). It was raining a bit but the cabbie said it hadn't been much. I refer you all to Dan's excellent report for what happened 1/2 hour after I got in. Wow what a dumping of water. Friday I met up with a buddy who I was going to fish with Friday night and we decided it might not be a bad idea to just swing by the launch on the river we were planning to fish (right in town - gotta love Thunder Bay). As we pulled up we could see it was really flowing and then we saw that it was solid brown - serious chocolate milk. Ah well we though - so we have to hit the fish on the head to get a bite, beats doing nothing right? Then we saw the 6 foot trees and shrubberies and fences and everything else that had been too close to the now raging river edge the night before. Ok, no way were going into that. The night was spent drinking ourselves stupid with friends as we planned out the August weeklong trip. Saturday was the wedding and from the window of the harbourfront reception you could see the huge brown line stretching from the river mouth far into Lake Superior - simply unreal. So that brings us to Sunday - another day I'd planned to fish but I figured everyone would cancel given the way the weekend had looked but nope - I get a call at 10am from my buddy - "I'm out of the kids party at 4:30 - grab Jay and be at my house at 4:45". "You got any spots in mind?" I ask. "I'll make some calls, I know a guy". Dave always knows "a guy" but sure enough he calls back 20 minutes later - he's talked to 'the guy' and he assures us the launch at a secret spot is just fine, the rain didn't really get that end of the city so I head out to the day after family wedding BBQ after rigging up my gear and picking up a couple dozen minnows. We left Dave's at 5:30, a little behind schedule but better than everage for us. After an hour drive we're dropping the boat in the water <a href=" title="Please don't sink! by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3086/2566338758_206a93088e_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Please don't sink!" /></a> And we're heading off to find us some nice walleye holding wood <a href=" title="Classic NW Ontario water by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/2566342382_ab3b589885_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Classic NW Ontario water" /></a> <a href=" title="Heading for the hole by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3166/2566345042_a88307bb81_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Heading for the hole" /></a> 10 minutes down to the spot - 10' channel with this on its edge: <a href=" title="The secret location by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3100/2566355694_ee517ee8ec_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="The secret location" /></a> All the land around is crown land - we saw lots of great spots to spend the night - might have to find a way to do that this summer. At the launch some guys had full out trailers setup - pretty sure thats stretching the whole crown land use but I'd do it too Anyhow, we're soon in the game though Dave didn't want to admit this was his fish <a href=" title="We're in the game by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3046/2565522335_dcf6de8029_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="We're in the game" /></a> Oh yeah baby, gonna be one of those days . We actually didn't expect much - things were just to crazy over the weekend but it was a really nice day out so why not be on the water. Luckily Dave's "guy" knows his stuff. Soon after we got our minnow out of the way and we'd sacrificed a few jigs to the gods of 'figuring out where the logs are' we got into some nice eaters and in true NW ontario fashion we weren't gonna give up on any chance to fill the boat with meat. <a href=" title="The photographer gets proof by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3013/2565525447_d80c518fa9_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="The photographer gets proof" /></a> <a href=" title="Can I keep him? by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3052/2566359816_edc69def64_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Can I keep him?" /></a> <a href=" title="Jay's in on the game by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3018/2565537843_cccc949db7_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Jay's in on the game" /></a> All the bites were pretty light but they sure were hungry and not very picky - orange/white/yellow 1/8th and 1/4 oz jig heads with white 3" gulp minnows or live minnows did the trick but they were happy with blue/white and chartruese as well. I do have to tell the best catch of the day story even if it has no pictures. All of had lost a fish or two due to the light bite and our lazy hook sets but we thought there was a pike in the area as well as we'd all lost some to cut lines. Well Dave looses one like that with a big ol' orange 1/4 oz jig head. About 20 minutes later he's got a fish on and I start laughing as he looses it at the side of the boat (tension Dave - keep the tension up!). Not to be denied his meal Dave throws his arm in the water and to my amazement seems to grab the fish before it realizes its free but no - the fish scoots out of Daves hand and I continue my mocking laugh. Then dave lifts his hand and he's got line in it. He pulls harder and the fish comes back - holy carp, did this fish hit the jig that was lying in the water in its attempt to get away? "Hey there's my old jig" yells Dave and we realize he's not holding his current line - he's holding the end of about 5 feet of line thats dangling out of this walleyes mouth and the other end of the line is tied to a big ol orange jig firmly embedded in the fishes gullet. The damn thing broke off Dave on a log or something, swam around for 20 minutes with a big jig in its mouth and 5 feet of line dangling and still hit another jig! Yep, they were hungry all right. Certainly the longest played fish I know of. After 2 hours we had our limit and several besides that were free to go and we headed back with big silly grins on our faces - we really hadn't expected a good day on the water but in 2 hours we'd landed 20 fish. Nothing big but a whole lot of fun <a href=" title="Heading home by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3117/2565541855_dfb6d98bea_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Heading home" /></a> Pulled the boat out of the water and started to work through the not so fun part - we though the bugs were bad before but once we started cleaning fish - yikes <a href=" title="Dinner is served by Sean Maurik, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3079/2565545107_d3c73c1fde_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Dinner is served" /></a> Thats the other thing I always love about going home in the summer - its 9:44pm in that pic and the sun was still out. A quick drive back to town for a celebratory beer than I headed back to my parents to put their present (my fish) in the fridge and pack my stuff up for the early flight back to Toronto this morning. 2 more months til I'm back there and I'm counting days already, I gotta find me a job up there, oh and a boat and a camp Sean

Great stuff. Congrats on the 2 personal bests and on surviving the black flies

Anglinated! I'm totally stealing that Drew (with appropriate TMs I promise). Great stuff as always, the viewpoint of your youngest should be published - made my day right there.

Love the bug suit

$15! Damn it I could brought an easy bakers dozen back from the logging road we ran down last night. Stupid buggers were everywhere. Next time I gotta pack a .22

Hehe great read John, thanks for the morning chuckle.

Nice bright fish there, looks like a nice weekend.

Cool stuff Dan. I was suppose to fish the Kam (River near Dan's area for those of you knot familiar) Saturday but we bailed when we saw the huge current and the massive amount of trees and shrubbery being dragged along in the current. Gonna give a different rivera a shot tonight before I fly back tommorrow, fingers crosed.

Nice start guys.

Nice report JB. Sounds like you salvaged some pretty tough conditions - that walleye is a beast, sure you hadn't ended up in quinte somehow?

Congrats Minnow - great way to start the season off

Amazing video Cliff, thanks for putting that together but comments like this: remind me to sell CTC shares

Hi Taper, There was a bit a discussion about it last week on this thread Rice Fishging Lately that might help. Didn't help me a whole lot unfortunately as the cold and winds made things a bit of a mess but we ended up with a nice accidental musky trolling the edge of some weed beds if that helps (if he wants to try trolling small walleye targeting spinners for musky )

Nice eye, congrats!

Great stuff as always you two. Congrats on the PBs

Great report, thats one pike I'm sure you'll never forget -what a beauty.

Nice mix Steve

Nice stuff Eric and congrats on the PB. One of these days I'd love to try fly fishing but I spend enough on gear as it is