tbayboy

Great day on the Bog for sure but you know the winds bad when you get those kinda white caps in that body of water.

Welcome aboard and congrats on a beautiful fish and good on you for doing the post even knowing you might get a little flamed

Welcome aboard and great first report. Lets see - report, with pics, with lure in the pic and a release shot - yeah pretty much covered all the fish pr0n bases there, good stuff and congrats on your first salmon.

Great report Pikeie, congrats on those beauties. And Tinbanger - glad to see you mastered the Quinte sheepshead patterns

Fuzzy frog licking - nothing but good times can come of that . Great stuff Snag.

Congrats on a successful maiden voyage, the first of many to come I'm sure.

Happy birthday Mike!

He did all the installation work so it was nice of you to 'let' him catch a fish . Great job guys.

Great stuff Steve. Thats a hell of a year you've had (so far, never say never) , those simcoe smallies are just insane.

Love the vantage point of that second one. You're turning into a serious photo hound. The carp will be missing you soon

Hehe Snag. On the drive back me and Mike were talking about getting out on his boat again before end of season and he said 'just let me know when Patrick is dragging you back to Balsam and we'll book around that'. Patrick and I tried Balsam earlier in the year for smallies and didn't do too well but I'm beginning to change my view of that lake I'm pretty sure Patrick and I have a few more fishing trips left in us this year.

Good eye Ehg. All the hits were on the same line/lure. That bait was a custom built one but I'm sure there has to be something similar out there.

.Anytime you want to take me out in that nice new boat of yours Cliff I might be able to share some of this knowledge Ahh who am I kidding - it was all Davis, I just reeled them in and posed

A few weeks back Mikeh asked me if I'd like to join him on a muskie charter with Davis Battah of Figure 8 Muskie Charters that he'd one during one of the OFC auctions. Hmm let me think about that - 'of course' I say. Well today was the day so I picked up Mike at 5:30 and we headed for Balsam. The ride up was fun with fog, drizzle and darkness but we made it in one piece and met up with Davis. Davis was a great guy, his son was ill the night before and Davis hadn't had a lot of sleep but that didn't slow him down at all. Very professional guy who knows his stuff and really did a great job telling us what he was doing and why (even if we'd been skunked it would have been worth it just for the info gleaned during the day). His boat was great, I'm jealous of everything on it - the boat, motor(s), electronics, rods, reels, baits - all top of the line gear that had me drooling as we pulled into the lake a bit after 7:30am. At 8am we heard our first squeel of line pulling off a rod and Mike, as the guy who set it up, was given the honour of first fish. Turns out it wasn't a big guy: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/1782056112_4a83cc1384_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="First of the day" /></a> and he was let go boatside without bothering to measure him or otherwise stress out the little guy <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2154/1782057982_c19c5ada3c_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Small guy release" /></a> An hour and a half later (9:30am) it was my turn. At first I didn't think she was big but as I got a better look I realized how fat this one was. Before I could a good look though Davis took care of some dental work: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2135/1781213435_9c02d530ed_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Dental work" /></a> Then it was time for a quick measure that showed her to be 45" with a 20" girth. They're definitely putting on the feed. Then it was time for a pic with my new personal best: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2139/1782039128_0914067700_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="45 inches of fun" /></a> We quickly put the lines back out and only a few minutes later we had another hit and Mike leaped up to bring in his biggy only to have it come off after a couple pulls . I jokingly said well thats your turn I'm up next! and then an hour later when our next hit came I told Mike to grab it but he said no its your turn. I said I was kidding but by this point Davis is looking at us saying 'someone grab this' so I grabbed the rod and started reeling and saw a big head pop up in the water. ooooh Mike this is a good one. This girl gave a nice fight too (considering we were using 100lb line and other heavy gear) - a couple nice runs, a charge at the boat and a barrel roll but eventually I got her into the net. It was clear this was a little bigger and sure enough: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2131/1781194265_ee2811bce9_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="A new personal best" /></a> 47 1/2" with a 19" girth. Just broke my personal best again and its only 11:30am. Here's the required release shot: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2125/1781190063_79e66de710_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="The release 2" /></a> After the 4 hits in 4 hours so far we figured we were looking at a good day and I didn't feel too bad about Mike not getting to land a big one yet as I was sure we'd have at least one more. Yeah you can guess where this is headed - the winds picked up the rain came down, the temperature dropped and the fish switched off completely. Davis wasn't ready to give up though and thanks to the nice cover he has for the Lund we stayed on the water til 5:30pm but it just wasn't meant to be. 3 for 4 was still a good number but we'll have to go back to get Mike the turn he gave up with the big girls. Big thanks to Mike for the invite and Davis for the great day on the water (definitely recommend him to anyone looking for a great day of Muskie fishing). Now I just have to go buy some real cold/wet weather gear - dang that got miserable out there today edit: added release pic

Great pics, well done.

Cool patterns on that mirror carp. Nice little surprise for sure

Great report. Love the pic of the chinook taking off and your poor dog - that must have been fun getting rid of those burrs.

I'm a fan of flickr, similair to photobucket but with more flexibility (at least in my mind). The problem with posting as attachments from what I've heard is that you've got to resize and get them to fit within the attachment limits (but I can't say for sure since I haven't tried).

Great stuff guys - love the action pics. I can't imagine what its like on a weekend if thats a work day crowd.

Do you mean radioworld Lew? (Radio World Website) - they're at 400 and steeles not finch but close and fits the description.

What a great story, can feel your excitement right through it. Congrats now kiss your fishing budget goodbye

Great family story and a really nice bonus 'eye there. Thanks for the report

Congratulations and I'd like to pass a thank you from all the shoreline fish that will get a break during the boating season next year

Nice fish Cliff congrats!

Been overdosing on cold medicine for 3 days now so that I'll be able to head out on the water tomorrow - one more day of rest and I'll be good to go (and if I'm still sick I'm still going - been two weeks without fishing!)