The Urban Fisherman

Thanks for the snappy replies guys! I'm rushing out the door right now with the kids for Bayfest! I wanted to mention that Juli Paladino won most pledges! And although the bite was a bit tough as a group we managed a 23 inch largie, a 20, an 18.5 and a bunch of 15 inchers! I excluded myself from the derby part of the event, and my 23 incher was caught pre- 8 a.m. anyways! haha so Ron Richie won Big Fish with a nice 20 inch largie! he took home an awesome prize pack donated by Dave Mercer! Cheers, Ryan

Awesome! Glad you guys had a good time Frank! Congrats to Juli on getting the most pledges ( she just keeps beating you! haha) and I can't wait to get together with you guys for next year's event! The boys were awesome to! Good kids! Thanks again! Ryan

Hey guys! I have to keep this quick and simple because I've got a house to tidy and a date with my kids at Bayfest! First off I have to thank all of our AMAZING prize donators, pledgers, fish-a-thon participants, my family for the awesome dinner, and everybody who helped with putting things together. Thanks to Dan and Shawn for helping with getting the prizes and organizing things for this awesome day. Our TOTAL for the day was close to $4500.00! It isn't set in stone yet as I have a couple more pledges straggling in so it might be a tad higher than that. We had more prizes than participants - the members of this board who made prize donations and companies from all over stepped up to the plate in a BIG way! I'll try to list them all here but DAN and SHAWN if I missed any that you picked up please add them to the thread ASAP!!!! Dave Mercer Outdoors donated over 30 Facts of Fishing shirts AND a lure and tackle prize pack! www.factsoffishing.com Dixie Dairy Bar and Tackle Shop donated hundreds of dollars in gear! www.dixietackleshop.com Knock Out Lures - a HUGE Spoon Prize pack!!! www.knockoutlures.com Lloyd - U & Me Guiding service donated a $350 value guided trip http://www.stevemorissette.com/uandme/index.html Mike P. from ONFC - Donated Musky Baits [email protected] TJ - www.ontariofIshing.net Donated all kinds of cool stuff from shirts to mugs and stickers! Leechman from OFC - Donated a hand made lure kit! Anonymous Donator - Several Tool sets and Hats! TBBA - Donated all kinds of cool stuff from hats to hooks and more! www.tbba.ca Angling Outfitters in Woodstock - All kinds of tackle! www.luremaking.com - An awesome lure making prize pack! Shawn Beaumont - Donated some great, new gear that he had at home! www.fishingfury.com - Donated some awesome Musky baits! Frankie - Donated a box full of coffee travel mugs GBW - Donated a couple of MP3 Players My my sister in law donated the giant bouncy castle slide deal which was a HUGE hit for the kids! www.par-t-perfect.com Now onto the fishing! I was on the water at 5:30 a.m. and managed my personal best, 23 inch pig of a largie in the dark!!! (re-measured once I got the picture on my computer and zoomed in) How's this for getting the hook out! haha After the excitement of getting my PB largie wore off it was full steam ahead with the fish-a-thon! We had an insane cold front, it was windy at heck, and we even had a little rain at one point. Our fish-a-thon'ers toughed it out for the the whole day and earned their pledges! I'll let all the pictures the the rest of the story! Most of the gang... Dave even made it out! haha Chad was my fishing partner for the day - good times buddy, you're welcome in my boat anytime! Averie managed a personal best Rock Bass - 10,5 inches! Feel free to post all your pictures here or in your own thread guys - Thanks again for everything and please include anything I left out. I'm doing this while chasing a 1 year old around the house! Until next year - thank you SO VERY MUCH! Cheers, Ryan

Jaques! I'm still drinking beers out by the fire with the boys! Close to 4500 dollars raised! I'll get the photos and full report off tomorrow! It was an awesome day!

First fish of the 2010 fishathon for cancer!!!! An awesome 24 inched... Measured it! See you guys on the water!

Thanks Roy! Cross your fingers that the weather turns out OK for us!d

4:20 a.m. - she's a little windy out there this morning guy so bring some warmer clothes just in case! See you shortly Cheers, Ryan

well i'm hittin' the hay guys! my 4 a.m. wake up call is going to come fast and furious (not much of a morning guy... unless i'm going fishing) See you all in the a.m. Call my cell or fire me a PM or e-mail if you have any issues finding the park.... i'll keep checking my phone. cheers, Ryan

Special thanks to a few more sponsors! We'll get all of our amazing prize donators and sponsors posted up on our final Fish-A-Thon Thread, but for now here's a few that came in this afternoon.... Over 30 Facts of Fishing T-shirts AND a gear prize pack from Dave Mercer Outdoors Inc. A hand-made lure kit from our friend Jacques here on OFC! Some amazing hand built musky / pike baits, and stickers from OFC member Clive and www.fishingfury.com A $20.00 Time Horton's cash card donated by my personal friend and member of OFC, FishnSled... He also made a $50.00 pledge! And these were actually meant for last years event but we didn't manage to connect until recently, but thanks GBW for 2 Samsung MP3 Players... Event's like this couldn't happen without the help and support from sponsors and donations like this! More prizes were picked up by Shawn and Dan and will be highlighted in our post event reports! See you all in the morning. Cheers, Ryan

if you want to and have room for it ya might as well throw it in the car!

No worries buddy, we'd have to be in a hurricane to get white caps on that lake! haha even if it was really windy there's a whole bunch of little sheltered fingers off the sides of hte lake to go fish... I'll go over some maps with you guys in the morning... cheers, Ryan

You win! one of our Navy Subs... Thanks Jacques! I got your fish-a-thon gift this afternoon! it's awesome! I'm going to post some pix on the other thread shortly! haha yeah a Navy Sub was in the way of that big cruise ship... we heard over the radio that for some reason the sub had the right of way! haha So the cruise ship had to change course and make a big wide turn around it. Yeah Frank - I said that right after my first Shark... "well anything I catch on saturday is pretty much gonna suck now" lol Cheers, Ryan

I'm going to keep this short and sweet as I still have to pack up my boat and such! Time: Our sort of official start is 8 a.m. but you don't have to kill yourself and get there for 7 or anything... arriving at 8 is OK! We'll spend a few minutes meeting one another, getting our shirts, launching boats and so on! The park is charging the standard $10 fee per vehicle, but they likely won't be there when we arrive so just come on in and head down to wards the launch. We're going to have a Big Fish prize, and I'll go over those details in the morning, but remember to BRING A CAMERA! We're giving everybody measuring tapes (special thanks to T.J. and Ontariofishing.net for them! ) I'm hoping to set up a spot to meet for lunch and talk about what's working and what isn't. Then we'll go back to fishing until the BBQ and prize part of the day! In the event that it's raining on and off which is a definite possibility I'm going to set something up at the conservation area where people can come in and warm up and or dry off. If this does happen, the BBQ and Prizes will likely happen at the park rather than my place because they have a covered pavilion. Weather permitting, we'll stop fishing with just enough time to get all the boats out and head over to my place for the post fish-a-thon festivities! I'm going to have everything from burgers and hot dogs, to salads and fruit trays so you don't want to miss out on the BBQ part of the day! Things to remember: 1) Sun Screen 2) water 3) snacks 4) Lunch 5) Rain Coats 6) cell phone if you have one 7) CAMERA 8) a pee bucket! haha they have out-houses at the park 9) bathing suits in case it happens to be warm enough 10) your pledge forms and money 11) towels 12) what am I missing?? fill in the blanks for me guys! I'm going to try to be on the water for 5 a.m. myself as I'd like to see what they're eating and figure out the most sheltered parts of the lake in the event that it's windy.... Remember, the temperature will have dropped significantly in a short amount of time, so the fish are going to be slow moving and a little more tight lipped. Small and Slow baits SHOULD be the ticket like Shawn said, but we'll try to figure them out! Fire off any questions you have! Can't wait t'il morning! Cheers, RYan

Typing some things out as we speak!

I've got a few things to sort out for tomorrow's FISH-A-THON but I had to squeeze in this report! This week I spent 3 days traveling out to Nova Scotia for a "business trip". When we go out and shoot show's we work hard, but we play hard to! Dave is a great friend and boss and always tries to get the work out of the way so the whole crew can get into some fish! Anyways, we went out with Art from Blue Shark Charters. I met him last year and we hit it off right from the start. He spent years sailing the oceans while in the Navy and any spare time he had was spent fishing for BIG FISH. He truly know's his stuff, especially when it comes to sharks. His stories alone are wroth the trip in my opinion! Anyways, on to the fish!!! Art has all the big gear for giant sharks, but when itty bitty 5 or so footers come to the boat he set's you up with light tackle! I set the hook on a 5 footer with my medium heavy bass rod and this little shark doubled it over and was gone in a split second... The fight likely only lasted 10 minutes or so but I was absolutely whooped! After measuring the shark and doing all the tagging and such we held him up for a quick picture and back into the drink he went! He was 59 inches to the inside of it's tail, and pushing 67 tip to tip. Not a huge shark by any means, but a first for me, and it out fought anything I've ever caught by a LONG SHOT! After our other camera op. got a shark I was up for #2. All on 85lb power pro! Most guys use like like that for flippin bass! haha I can't even describe how pumped you get when you set the hook into one of these bad boys and the line starts PEELIN'! Anyways, we all caught fish and had a great time, but nobody came close to the one that took Dave TWO HOURS - YES - 2 HOURS...ok 1 hour and 55 minutes.... But on heavy tackle to bring in!!!!! It was absolutely insane, but you'll have to wait for the show to air to see that one Here's a few more pix.... Sunrise... Runnin' out! yummy! See anything cool in this pic??? Who can pick it out? Runnin back in... Sunset over the Atlantic Ocean! You could feel the wind and waves getting bigger and stronger as the day went on! I hope and wish for the best for all my friends and family members back on the east coast! Hope you enjoyed my report - and for everybody fishing the Fish-A-Thon tomorrow, I'll see you out there! Cheers, Ryan

just flew back in from Halifax last night and yesterday afternoon you could already feel the wind and waves picking up! I'm hoping for the best for all my friends and family out that way!

ALRIGHT! I'm officially in Fish-A-Thon mode for the next 28 hours or so. We've got a bunch more prizes which I'll post shortly, and I'll include a few other things to go over for you guys! So far the pledges are flooding in all around, and we're shaping up to have an awesome day. We just have to cross our fingers for decent weather! I just have to run out and get some tables and chairs and a second BBQ then I'll get back to you guys with a bunch of details! Please stay tuned! Cheers, Ryan

Hey guys!!! I just got off the water after a tough day at the office... Haha I'm on my phone so I'll keep this short and get back to you all on Friday when I'm home. Our start time is 8 am for those who can make it there on time. I'm thinking it'll likely take us a good half hour or so to get everyone launched. I'm going to try to be there for around 6:30 so I can help get organized. The news paper is goin to be there shortly after 8 for a picture of the group and to ask a few questions for their write up. I'll get y'all all the info you need on Friday! The park is charging us 10 bucks per vehicle.... The gates are open all night and we can pay on out way out.. Keep up the awesome work! Thanks again for everything! Cheers, Ryan

bump

OK, I scanned a map of the lake for those who haven't fished it before. Also, we're going to run the "big fish" or derby the same way we did last year with pictures and measuring tapes etc. I have print out's here for you guys to place in the pictures with your catches. We're still working out hte details but I want to make sure all you fish-a-thoner's remember to bring camera's! Here's the map! Cheers, Ryan

Special thanks goes out to some of our Fish-A-Thon sponsors! I received some wicked prizes today from T.J. and OntarioFishing.net. As well as some awesome tool sets from an Anonymous prize donator. THANKS T.J. - Your donations from Ontario Fishing.net is awesome! Check out the website when you guys get a chance! www.ontariofishing.net And thanks to an Anonymous prize donator who put together all these tool sets. There's also a couple of hats that I forgot to add into the picture!!!! It's great to have some prizes that aren't fishing related as well! There's more coming in the mail this week but I'm going to be on a "business trip" until friday.... haha So I'll get some pictures up of the rest of hte prizes when I return home! Thanks again and can't wait to see you all next saturday! Cheers, Ryan

Hey Gang! 20+ Fish-A-Thoner's confirmed, and prizes are coming in by mail daily! Thanks again for all your time and support and keep it up! Cheers, Ryan

Hey dude! Sorry to hear about your Gram! That's what started this whole thing for me.. my Wife's Grandma who passed away shortly after last years fish-athon. I just shot you an e-mail with the pledge form and some more info. Drop me a line if you have any more questions! Thanks a bunch for taking part! Cheers, Ryan

Where's the picture of your musky? Haha just kidding dude. Ugly bugger for sure! Cheers, Ryan

Oh and Frankie, I have some cool stuff booked for the kids during the BBQ! There's also supposed to be a few other young ones coming who are the same ate as your boys!!