Rizzo

Thanks for the options guys, will try and check some of these places out.

haha..low man on totem pole is the way to great fishing I guess! Unfortunately my wife's shopping habits prohibit me from taking this approach. That's why I'm an OFC'er...to live vicariously through others' fishing adventures. Thanks for all your reports everyone!

nice looking fish! How in the world do you find time to go fishing that often though? I clearly need a different job (oh ya and a family that enjoys fishing)

sadly they are all a bunch of liars, and no, I do not feel I am overgeneralizing...its pretty much a proven fact. Nonetheless I will give them my vote (lesser of the 2 evils in my opinion)

isn't a gater a pike? I see 15 trout and what look to be 3 pickerel (no stinky slimy pike to be found). Sounds like a great day!

When I went fishing last Saturday my engine died when we were trying to leave to head back to the launch. Its a 1999 25hp Johnson 2 stroke. Took 20 minutes of cranking with the battery (can't believe the battery didn't die) before it fired up again. It has never acted up before. I called Sandy Cove marine but they don't work on Johnson's, although they did refer me to someone in Stroud. Unfortunately he can't look at it until next week. Anyone know someone around Barrie who works on these type of engines?

bring your wallet. I always just drove down to the end of the road, there are a few launches down there. Pretty much all of them were $20 last time I was there and that was a few years ago.

good point Lew. I really thought at best we'd find a hammerhandle pike or largemouth bass in there. Fortunately we were using heavy equipment and were able to land her reasonably quickly. It was morning (10 am) and the shallows were just starting to heat up again after cooling down overnight. Fish was lightly hooked which didn't hurt either. Luckily, a lot of factors were on our side to help with a (hopefully) succesful release. Fish swam away after about 10 seconds of reviving...and watching it swim away was one of the best parts!

I'm with you JB. Saw a group of people at the docks in barrie last winter before ice-over keeping every single perch they caught. I thought they were leaving when they had clearly caught their limit...instead just dumped them into garbage bags in their car and kept fishing. You couldn't say anything because they didn't (wouldn't) speak English, and disgusted looks when a 4 inch perch was kept were ignored.

wow, great stuff! You guys certainly get out there regularly. Those big carp had better watch out

a whole worm does work great for bass in my opinion...but losing whole worm after whole worm to pesky sunfish can get as expensive as the trip to Bass Pro. I find bass will readily take a 6-7 inch plastic worm, just make sure you fish it properly, not dangling under a bobber.

That is the last line of the link that was posted. If seeing one is good luck, just imagine what owning one as a pet might be good for! go buy some lottery tickets and share the winnings with your friends at OFC (or at least me since I recommended it :thumbsup_anim:)

both my set-ups are 80lb powerpro with 150lb fluorocarbon leaders...snaps and swivels strong enough to lift a small car

I roughed up a grouse before. More "hands-on" than shooting them I figure. Are they still ok to eat after you've slapped them silly?

Nice report..always fish making it into the boat! I know what you mean about the powerpro...its gotta be hopeless before I'm cutting my way out of a birdsnest (too much $$$ to respool)

pretty sure the cottagers were as shocked as me that a fish like that was lurking in the shallows

good luck to all of you heading up, lets see lots of photos of big (released!) fish when you get back

So I head out early Saturday to try and get some musky fishing in before the dreaded "family reunion" that afternoon. Turns out it doesn't get light so early anymore! We got to the launch and she was still pitch black out. Hey, better early than late though. The rain was the real annoying part...I had checked the forecast and watched every conceivable weather network numerous times and was told 0% chance of rain...I cursed the weatherman as we raced away from the launch as I got soaked with my rain gear back at home. Turns out extra pfd's do work as an umbrella though. We were trying out an area of the Trent severn system that I had never fished before. My partner for the day, Alvin(some of you met at Lakair 2006) had some experience on this body of water. He has fished a couple of bass tournaments there, and each year has seen some muskies. One year he thought they hit a shoal with the trolling motor, went to check it out and a musky was head-butting the prop trying to make a meal out of it. We tried some rocky points, bluff shorelines and some deep weed edges that produced a couple of bass and hammerhandle pike. Alvin, bass-fanatic that he is, wanted to check in some weedy back bays. I have no problem with that...except when we get there the water is crystal clear. In my head (and perhaps I said it aloud) I'm thinking we're nuts. We're talking 2-3 feet of water, good weeds, but clear as crystal. Why in the world would anything but sunfish be in here? I mention to Alvin I have never had success in the shallows when the water is this clear...he claims that it has worked for him before. Thinking he's a big liar, I snap on a bucktail to work what water is available. I've got zero confidence in this spot, but fire a few casts out anyways. Not too long in, Alvin has a strike and claims he's hooked a big bass. From my better vantage point up on the platform, I see the profile and the beautiful silver colour and know that this is no bass, but clearly a musky. Seconds later the fish flies through the air, coming down with a huge splash and startling the cottagers a few feet away on their dock. I believe the comment they made was something about never swimming again. Here's Alvin giving his best Lew impersonation. After a quick photo op the fish was released. It was really neat to release the fish in such shallow clear water and watch it swim away. We didn't measure the fish (much to Alvin's dismay as it was his personal best) because the tapemeasure wasn't readily available. Naturally here is everyone's favorite...the release shot. For me, that was a first, seeing a musky caught in such clear shallow water. Don't think I'll give up on my usual spots of rock/weed drop-offs, saddles and points, but I may not give up so easily anymore on areas that I don't think will hold a fish! Anyone else have a similar experience where you catch something in the last place you'd expect?

think I may have figured it out, will try and post a new thread about a real shallow water musky caught on saturday

So its been a while since I posted a photo, now I know why...I can't remember how to do it! On the old board I would upload the photo, right click on the photo in the gallery to get "location" then copy that location inbetween the thingees. I've already uploaded into my gallery, but can't seem to get a proper location when I click on properties. Sorry to be a trouble, but I can't seem to find in the "help" section where it describes how to post a photo, and when I do a forum search on "image posting" I'm not having any luck either (even though I'm sure this topic has been done to death). Please assist a computer ignoramus in AS SIMPLE A LANGUAGE AS POSSIBLEZ

great report and photos. I used to fish east and west lake all the time. My yearly trip with the grandparents when I was a wee one we stayed at either Martin's Outlet Park or Log Cabin Point at the mouth of the outlet river. Both are great lakes, but a good haul from Toronto when the average fish usually aren't too big. Funny thing is, East lake has even better numbers than west, west tends to have the bigger fish (proximity to the big lake affects that I'm sure)

wow, heck of a first fish, and from GBay to boot. nicely done

50 plus inch on a figure 8...better grab the heart medication. My knees shake when a 40 incher is showing some interest!

great report and great hospitality. Sounds like a good day

in the immortal words of roland martin..."oooooh son, that's a big'un"