Rizzo

Beauty spot to live. I grew up not too far away and as a youngster put a canoe in Grenadier once so I could fish your side. Caught a giant carp pretty much out front of your place. I am hoping this Karen was just trying to prevent people from trespassing on your property...hoping.

great job!

That fish is nearly 30 inches? I would agree to me it looks like a juvenile pike...but 30 inches aint no juvenile!

pike bait

I also don't believe fish feel pain (at least not in their mouth). If they did, they would only eat soft things not spiny fish or crustaceans. Imagine putting a spiny perch in your mouth and chomping down on a dorsal fin, or a catfish and getting one of those spines in the roof of your mouth...you would never eat a perch or a catfish again. And of course we know that doesn't happen. I believe fish fight because they are being pulled in a direction against their will, not because of pain. If you stop pulling the fish stops fighting. Seen lots of fish just sit quietly in one spot if you stop reeling.

oh wow that beats the rubbermaid container with aerator that I keep in my garage all winter! Every 10 days or so I dump all the water and get 8 buckets from the local river...that is my filtration system. If my pool cover hasn't frozen over then I don't have to drive to the creek, I just get a few buckets off the top of the cover! Not a fancy system but does the job

man I used to love fishing Balsam, was my go to lake for musky. Once we started to catch more pike than musky I moved on to other waters. The pike were a good size in there too. I caught some pike in South Bay 10 years ago that were pushing 40 inches.

any luck to those who got out?

I use a big rubbermaid and drill holes in the perimeter...too cheap to buy those fancy boxes.

He must have lost his mind bringing that in!

beauty. For me April is just a dead month. The one month of the year where I do next to no fishing. Glad to see others catching!

hahaha...whoops. Wondered how still having 2 feet of ice led to a short season. My bad.

you think you had a short season.... here we are using our boats already!

sounds like with enough speed and some ingenuity...maybe

Yes I used it in the garage. When the winch broke we didn't quite have the boat as snug to the front as we would have liked. Just hauled it forward the last couple inches no problem.

It did still turn, just had no power move anything

arrived today and installed in minutes! Holes line up perfectly. Need to get the boat launched again to put the winch to the test!

kind of you to offer but looks like I have it figured out!

Thanks guys. I have been looking on line and found a "Camco 50000" winch on Amazon which has good reviews. Some of the pictures seem to show the same bolt pattern that I had on last winch...a bolt sized hole in one spot, and then a bit of a slot where the other bolt goes (allowing for a bit of flexibility of spacing). That is probably what I will do since I don't have a Princess Auto nearby. Had a look at some at Cdn Tire but they had poor reviews. The dirt cheap price didn't instill confidence either.

Took the boat out for the first time of the season yesterday...good news and bad. Boat worked great as it always has since I owned it, but when winching it up the last few feet on the trailer the winch stopped working. It was like the gears got stripped or something. Today I pulled the winch mount off...it was secured with 2 bolts. Do replacement winches usually have a universal bolt pattern?

between those two options I would have to go Kawarthas.

Not exactly a good year to get back into ice fishing either!

I agree. It feels to me the past few years winters have stretched well into April. This winter has been pretty gentle, wouldn't be surprised one bit if April is colder than normal

cute snook! No offence but I have never seen one that small before

Even though I rarely eat fish (maybe once a year? or once in 2 years?) i would always pick up a copy. Pre-internet days it was a good resource to know what kind of fish were in each lake.