tbayboy

Yesterday I saw PatrickGs post saying that he was heading out to the islands today and wanting to be just like all the other cool kids I dropped him a line and this morning the two of hopped on the ferry at 9:30 am. Right off I want to say thanks to PatrickG - great guy to hang around with and had lots of great tips as this was my first time to the islands. He also came in rather handy later on in the day but first lets start with our first action of the day: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/205/441227920_83b266024b_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Big stick" /></a> And the release: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/193/441230251_5c998dc960_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="The release" /></a> The next several hours can be summed up as SKUNK but I prefer the following detailed description: Walk, cast, cast cast, change lures, cast, cast, change lures, cast, cast, grumble under breath. And repeat for a few hours. At one point Patrick looked over and said I'm going old school and pulled a red devil spoon out of his box. I matched him a 5 of diamonds yellow/red spoon. At that point we knew we were done and headed back. On the way we decided to take one more stab at promising spot we'd tried earlier. I put on a perch patterned 4" rapala, tossied it out and started slow retrieves - jerk, jerk, pause 5 seconds, etc. Second cast and boom my lines moving away from me in a hurry. With a triumphant 'Hot damn' I let Patrick know we'd beaten the skunk. After a fun little fight and an awesome landing job by Patrickthis nice girl made our day: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/189/441257551_c5c42deae4_o.png" width="763" height="1278" alt="hiddenloc" /></a> Sorry for the photo editing but hey, its more fun if you put in the miles yourself right? We quickly put her back in the water and she swam away for another days fight but we forgot to get a tape on her (I think its a her as it was really fat so probably a near spawn female) but judging from the pic and measuring my arms after it looks about 32" (and about 10 lbs). Damn did that ever put us in a good mood. Suddenly we figured we could catch the next boat instead and started throwing again. Unfortunately that was to be the only fish landed - we had a few follows and a big one spat Patricks rapala back in his face but nothing else landed. Once again, big thanks to PatrickG for showing me around, can't wait til May to try again.

Nice pike, good to see all that work rewarded so nicely.

And I thought blue blockers were damn ugly:

Pretty funky stuff - use a dial to switch colours as you want by realigning the particles in layers of gel in the glasses. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/12995 Guess its time to move up from my $20 polarized no names though the article doesn't mention if they're polarized or not.

I took a little peek over at frenchmans bay today with the same results - still lots of ice and miserable rainy cold weather so that didn't last too long.

Perfect Cliff. I'll meet you here when its done: (come on its way to nice for anyone to be expected to get work done in the office - google images will have to do!)

Definitely a pan fish:

Make it the weekend and I'd love to join you and anyone else but can't pull of tomorrow, damn job always getting in the way

What a beauty Snog and a great job on the story telling too. My god I'm dying to wet a line now, time to check the weekend weather forecast.

Why do I picture a 3 kilometer stretch of the harbour front full of OFC hats this weekend .

I went Saturday and while I do agree on the lack of deals I found it to be a good show for what I went for. I'm thinking about a canoe or kayak purchase as well as some solo camping for this season and the show was a great opportunity to talk to a slew of different vendors including some dealers I wasn't currently aware of and, maybe surprisingly, most were more than happy to take the time to talk to me about my needs without any concern of me committing (heck the swift canoe guy made a points of telling to wait for their used/last year model sale in april). I did end up buying a new tent while the lebaron no tax deal was still on but only after I was also able to talk the eureka guys directly then went back to lebarons loaded with info on what I wanted (of course they still suckered me into dry bags and other stuff ). Anyhow, just thought I'd throw in with a 'I thought it was good' post.

Seems fine to me Maureen - try this direct link maybe: Click here for BPS Spring Classic Circular

Well said Tomcat, that actually points it out quite well thanks.

Here's a couple options: 1) Google docs: docs.google.com - has a save as PDF for docs and spreadsheets (among other features) 2) OpenOffice: All of the apps (shreadsheets, presentations, word files, etc) can be exported to PDF: www.openoffice.org

Great report Moose thanks.

I went in today to swap a rod I'd picked up on the weekend (wasn't paying attention and got the wrong one). Also picked up today special - the fish fryer for $30 and a Shimano Sahara (I can't believe I held back on the Stradic) but here's where I think (hope) I've set myself up for a good summer of fishing. The woman working the service desk was pretty frazzled, someone was trying to put 4 or 5 of the fryers 'on hold' behind her while some other guy was pestering her about where the other person who, I gathered, was suppose to be helping her was and well she just seemed to be having a bad night. So needless to say she was getting all confused with my exchange + new purchase then as she's typing it all up some other guy walks into my rod so it spins and wacks her in the arm pretty good. I meekly said thanks and walked out. As I got to the car it popped into my head - I was billed $50 but the Sahara was $70 and the fryer was $30, whats up? I checked the bill and sure enough she'd taken off the $100 for the old rod but hadn't charged me for its replacement. Up pops the little devil and angel on the shoulders - Run away screamed the devil and I thought about it for a bit but then I remembered how bad this girls night was going and that probably was enough to make me go back but then the real reason popped into my head: Would you want to fish with a rod holding bad Karma like that? Hell no so back I went and she seemed quite relieved as I'd also walked out with the store copy of the exchange form by mistake. I'm now out a hundred bucks but I've got a rod that I'm hoping is full of some good fishing Karma. Of course if it breaks on the big hookset I'll know to listen to the devil side from now on

Thats great stuff. This year I'm definitely gonna head down and try the harbour pike action, I keep here great stories like yours.

I'm with you Tiz - kept the big items on budget but wound up spending way more than I planned on the little things that ended up in the basket.

Hey Huey, thats the same reaction I had the first time at BPS as well. Now the reaction has changed to 'ok store, you know you own me. So how about we just skip the formality of shopping - you just take my wallet and I'll meet you at the checkout' . That store is just evil to impulse buyers like me. I picked up a can of that Uncle Buck's mix as well this weekend (sucker for a display). Let me tell you - the hot and spicy really is pretty damn spicy. I think I was trying it out on the perch I caught Sunday night but damned if I could taste anything besides the mix (may have layed it on a bit thick I suppose).

Yep Lexx your right, that 1/2 degree was would've done it. Heck to be honest I'm such a fishing newbie I just wanted an excuse to play with the drag but thanks for the tips on the thumb use guys - that might have worked if I'd have thought of it but thinking isn't a strong suit of mine . And yeah Lexx your right - come softwater season my goal is to find the monster with a 1/32 oz white glo jig hanging out of the corner of his mouth - that cost me umm 50 cents? and I want it back!

Nah, wasn't a matter of backreeling in this case - he was flying away and any pressure would have (and did) broke it off so if set the anti reverse on I wouldn't have been able to do anything to bring that in (was on a very low drag setting for the perch and I just moved it a single bit tighter when she broke off). Only thing I could have done (well that I can think of) was let him take as much line with the drag setting I was on - wasn't much but at least he was fighting and not breaking the line then hope he got bored before I ran out of line (and didnt find anything to wrap me up on). There's just no way I could have backreeled fast enough to stop him from breaking off. Thats the fun of it though - the woulda shoulda coulda that makes you want to get back out there and try again.

First off let me add I hate daylight savings time - Agreed to hook up with Lexxington at 6:45am. Of course my body still thinks its 4:45 when the alarm goes off Ah well, got my extra large timmies (woohoo - free coffee now wheres my free car mr horton?), got some minnows and wse headed to Innisfil for a last perching trip. It started off pretty well with a couple double headers on my minnow line and Lexx pulled in the first keeper and it was pretty big. For the next while it was pretty good action, not totally non stop but steady action with small jigs being the winner (over plain hooks, spoons, etc). Here's the only pic I took, at this point it was starting to slow down: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/132/418025396_76499fc85a.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Lexx On the ice" /></a> About 11 or so it really started to slow down but Lexx's sonar was still showing the odd school which he would call out and we'd stare at our lines or start jigging away trying to temp another keeper up to the surface. One such time Lexx calls over 'something big, maybe a small school.'. Okie dokie I pick up my $30 crap tire rod/reel with my 1/32 oz glow jig tipped with the smallest shiner in our bag and give it a little pop... wiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz "Woah, this ain't no perch!" wiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Hmm its taking a whole lot of line and running like mad wiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Now Lexx is over peering down the whole wiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz I'm reeling but I'm loosing ground fast wiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz "Damn this thing is gonna spool me" wiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz "What line you got?" "I think its 6lb mono" wiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz "Okie gonna tighten up the drag just a bit, maybe tire him out" Reach for the super hi tech drag control and turn it one click ..... (you can guess where this is going) .... wiiiiiiiiiiii POP :wallbash: :wallbash: Brought in the line and its a clean break just above the jig head so I'm gonna go with 36" pike - at least! And of course - that was the last action we got all day, Apparently that fight scared away all the other fish. So now I'm sitting here picking at my perch poppers running through all the things I should have done differently and kicking myself that the last fishing action I have until May will be the one that got away, ARGH. Ah well, at least I got a story out of it. Sean

Its amazing what a difference seeing the behaviour makes. Great report and great video Terry, thanks a bunch!

Congrats Gerritt!

So who else made the trip today, lets see your new toys I managed to keep it under control I suppose but boy does that green basket of baits, hooks and plastics add up at the end of the day. Got a couple nice new one piece rods that I can't wait to break in though. Oh and apparently GULP works well with cats too: <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/416922114_69f7c89d74.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Cat likes gulp" /></a>