Rizzo

some great fish pics! Pretty sure I bumped into you at Petit Dragon that year you went to L St C the first time

I had friends on Rosseau a week ago, they said they had around 5 to 6 inches of ice. This was not too far from Windermere. So the ice was decent...but apparently they didn't have any luck with the fishing (were after lakers and walleye)

sorry, never fished there

You know how some guys go golfing on the day of their wedding? Well me and my men went ice fishing in our tuxedos at the exact spot being talked about here. Yesterday was actually the anniversary of that. Didn't last long...was around negative 30 that day and these were not insulated tuxedos.

oh yes those 30 lb barricades would most certainly keep me out🤫

I suppose it depends on how much extra $$. If it is 2-3 k extra, personally I would do the Yamaha. 5K more? I am sure the Merc will be just fine thank you very much!

haha you I bought a used one a couple years ago so I could have 6 rods going when fishing St. C with a couple buddies. I keep hoping that rod won't go off...probably have to stop the boat, maybe even reverse to get the fish in

very cool. Would have liked to see more fish, but what you gonna do

Amazing! I have never done a fly-in so have zero tips but I trust you will have a memorable experience! Congrats on this "family time" investment. If my wife even was remotely interested in fishing I would love to do something like this...but she isn't (which is weird because she sure seemed interested when we were just dating!)

I could...but I am only 51 and weigh 175. Not the biggest guy and not tooo old yet. Plus I bought a weight set a couple years ago for my 4 sons. Since they are too lazy to use it, and I am too Dutch to allow this purchase to be a waste of money, I do a few workouts myself each week. If i go through it would likely be the shock to my heart that gets me rather than the inability to get out!

wow you are bored! I think a lot of things in this world are "not quite as they appear to be" and apparently we can add some "smoked" meats to that list

ya I tested ice strength earlier this year...went 30 feet out (about 3 feet of water). Ice was around 1.5 inches and I could hit through it with one hit of spud bar. I did walk around for a bit (5 minutes) and never went through...which actually surprised me. I expect it was only a matter of time...but since I did not want a wet boot I kept my stay short. This was possibly the first time I have used my 25 year old spud bar....every other year I have just waited until I knew it was safe. But for those who venture out early, a spud bar would be a very valuable tool. Not sure how many hits before you would consider the ice safe...but it isn't one!

years ago I was fishing L St. John near Orillia. I was catching pike after pike from the same hole. Well don't you know...the clown who set up around 60 feet away comes and drills a hole like 10 feet from the one that was producing! Best part was he didn't get any...served him right

congrats! I didn't know people target whitefish in 23 feet of water.

I needed to be able to select 2! On St Clair for me "natural light" has been great. But that same lure on other bodies of water hasn't done much. On those other bodies bright orange has been the ticket. Since that one "natural light" bait has probably caught around 40 fish (and it still keeps going!) I had to go with that. Funny thing is, I have bought new versions of the same bait, and they just don't produce as well. Send out the old chomped up one...it is only a matter of time.

Ya we actually are having our bell disconnected today! We have been paying $220/month for satellite tv, internet and home phone (which we do not need...but it didn't save us anything to cancel just that). Well with homeschooling we have discovered that our internet is total crap (5 mbps??? or something like that). Only one kid could be on video call at once...but we have 4 kids! Anywho, when may wife called them for better internet they were going to jack our price even more. She told them no way, gonna start shopping around. They basically did not care and made minimal attempt to keep us (were gonna knock like $20 off bill). Anyway, she found options for waaaaayyyy cheaper. After some hardware costs (ie android box) it was only going to be $70-80 a month and we would have more channels and 150 mbps (?) internet. Called bell to give last warning that we plan on leaving, would they drop pricing to keep us...nope. So we get the other stuff set up, call bell to let them know we are cancelling now and THAT person made the most sincere attempt to get us to stay....uhhh a little late we had already bought the android box, got a firestick and had the other company in to get us set up. You would think with people leaving in droves bell would scratch and claw to keep their existing customers. We did not have that experience!

Oh man the world we live in right now. Let's look at this quote from the article: . "It's basically the same idea here. We don't want people going out for non-essential travel, period. The point is, you go out, you get your exercise, you enjoy nature, you enjoy fishing, but then you come back at the end of the night." Uhhh....don't they realize they are causing MORE travel? The guy who stays the night travels THE EXACT SAME amount as the guy who just goes for the day! Once there and once back! Now, since they are not permitting you to stay, you have to travel more if you had planned to fish a couple days...drive there, drive home because not permitted to stay, so drive back out in the morning, then drive home again.

sounds amazing congrats on the move!

Yes lots of good times and unfortunately some bad times since that day

ya its a classic. That pic was taken probably around 22 years ago when a bunch of us from this board got together on simcoe for some ice fishing. Since I didn't want to carry the auger out and I couldn't find my own sled...I snuck into the neighbour's garage and took their daughter's barbie sled for the day! As far as the picture being blurry? Well back in those days we may have enjoyed a few brown pops out on the ice.

haha yes that would not go over well with those you work with. Having said that, if it were true, it would take a bold person to say it. You would have to REALLY believe you are right, because you know the backlash would be severe.

No the death rate is basically the same as past years...each year it goes up a little bit as the boomers age. However, because of government restrictions people can't have the type of funeral they would want. So instead of having visitations, funerals, receptions etc we are quite often simply just cremating people or burying them. This type of service requires far less "man hours" and also generates less revenue. So...less work to be done, less revenue available...something has to give. And that something is the job of the common guy.

I think you may have missed the point with your first statement. My claim is that depending on your opinion, you can use those statistics to prove it. People have a starting point (hypothesis) and then use that data to support it. So whether you want to be a fear monger, or whether you want to say it really isn't that bad, you can find a way using the same set of numbers. With respect to the survival rate - I also don't get where this 99.98% comes from. Like you said, pretty simple math gets you to somewhere around 97.5 to 98% survival rate. Having said that, this is based on reported cases. I personally know around 15 people who have gotten covid...only 3 of them ever went in to get tested. So in this small sample size (people I know) the cases were actually 80% higher than what the statistics show! All the others immediately figured they had it and right away isolated from friends, family and co-workers. The point here, is that the number of cases is significantly higher than what is reported. As soon as you raise that denominator in the equation, guess what, your percentage changes...and possibly by a lot! So is the survival rate 97.5% like the government shows? Or is it 99.98% like the others say? As I mentioned earlier...it is probably somewhere in between. p.s...if anyone is worried about those 15...they are all fine.

When I was in university taking statistics our profs made it very clear that you can prove basically any point (often opposite points!) by looking at the same set of statistics. For instance...you might say "there are 300 people on ventilators in Ontario due to covid, isn't that terrible"? Someone else might say "there are 450 hospitals in Ontario, with only 300 people on ventilators. Isn't that great? Not even 1 person per hospital (on average) needing a ventilator". The key is, you have to look at information with a critical mind. Don't just say someone has "spewed misinformation" and used "false statistics" simply because you prefer the message the other side says. Do you really know that their information is accurate? Have you been present at all the testing? Of course not. We just tend to "agree" with the information that suits are belief. But does that make your opinion correct and the other person wrong? We can't discount something as false if we don't really know so. Many prominent doctors agree with Baber. Shoot, even the previous Chief Medical Officer of Health in Ontario, Dr. Richard Schabas, who served for over 10 years in that capacity, has publicly stated that Baber is correct. Who are we to say "one guy is lying" when you have real professionals on both side of the argument? Like most situations, the truth generally lies somewhere between the 2 opinions. But let's put it this way...real life, not depending on "information" that neither of us can prove. I am a funeral director and I have been partially laid off for almost a year. Every single funeral director I know has also been partially (or fully) laid off in the past year. 25 years I have been doing this, and NEVER in my career have I ever seen a single director laid off. Now everyone I know has? You don't think that is a bit ironic? Funeral directors laid off in a pandemic? That is real life...not a statistic. All I am saying is don't be so quick to discount an opinion simply because you disagree with it. Laid off funeral directors are living proof Baber and Dr. Schabas may have a point.

yes he is open but the number no longer works. If you go at a prime time I assume you will find him there. Non prime time (ie weekdays) he is hit and miss