Victor

Did an overnighter at Hamilton Harbour with Marko and FISHHERO last night. It was a rather slow night for me, only went 3/3. Marko found a honey hole and got better numbers but the size was still lacking. Here's my biggest fish of the outing which is a new PB mirror @ 12lbs. This fish totally made up for the lack of action/sleep. We moved to another location in the morning and with the help of another experienced carper, FISHHERO and Marko both landed a decent size fish each. I think FISHHERO's was around 18-19lbs and Marko got his new PB common coming in at 22lbs. I'll let them tell the story and post their pics. Now let me catch up on some sleep....

Victor .. means... Victor. LOL

Thanks for the reply Bill & bigbuck, will report back if I have a half decent day.

Hey everyone, A family friend has rented a cottage for the upcoming bass opener weekend and I'm hoping to join them with my boat on Sunday. However the cottage itself doesn't have a boat launch so I'm hoping if someone can point me in the right direction. Free/public launch would be nice, if not, at least reasonably priced I guess, I did a search on here and saw some that's over $20 near the HH area ... O btw, i'm pulling with a nissan pathfinder and it's a 14' tinny, so we should be able to get in/out of any launch without too much problem. Thanks and have a safe+fish-ful opener, Victor

According to the GRCA, there's only carp in there. Laurel Creek Reservoir Why not try the Grand? It's minutes away from there.

With light tackle, all you can do is attempt to tire her out and hope that it won't spool you in that process. Avoid tightening the drag much during the fight, you will often set it too tight and end up snapping the line. Also, remember to use the rod to its fullest to ease off some of the tension. When you bring them close to shore, they usually will gives you their best shot to run away so just expect that they won't come in calmly even if they're just 5-10ft away from shore, and if you've come this far, be patient and continue to fight it, the end is near .

Holy crap, A trip with solo, moose + billm, the report is going to be E P I C !!! definitely looking forward to it.

Great shots Dan, very interesting pics.

How's the gf silvio? You seemed to have disappeared!!! LOL. Talk to mike and get him to take you out for some carp.

Congrats on the new toy Cliff! I'm not creative at all so I can't help with names, but mine is called "Girlfriend#1"

I'm glad you caught one after all the effort you've put into it, guess now you can get some sleep !

I have also heard about people catching pike at Balsam, I used to fish that lake quite alot, hopefully it won't turn into another canal/dalrymple as you said. I don't really know much about muskies so I'm hoping some of you more avid muskie anglers can fill me in, with regards to tiger muskies, I know that they're a hybrid of pike/musky, but do they do any harm to the fishery at all? Or is it just an indication to show that pike has started to invade the specific lake? Do tiger muskies behave any differently compared to regular muskies?

Great pics frozen-fire. You seem to be a turtle expert, so what is the best bait for them? LOL just jk, good on you for posting this up!

Hmm, i know that this thread is about conditioning in fish. But I was conditioned to buy gear . man i don't know what I would do when carp decides that corn is no good anymore.

Largebass, there are many ways to catch carp and if you are just getting started, I suggest you just try to stick with the simplest method. See what works for you, and what doesn't, before spending tons of $$ on something you realize isn't for you. You don't necessarily need a 13' rod to float fish, your 7' would do just fine for now. Essentially all my carp fishing is by ledgering (still fishing on the bottom), for starters, as Marko said earlier, get some canned corn, chum some out, put some on your hook (or you can learn how to make a hair rig), and hold on tight to your rod. Do let us know how you make out, even when you don't catch a fish.

Seeing how Lew is having such a great time fishing all over the place now, is that why you wanted to do fire fighting? School really isn't that bad. I'm almost done my 5 year co-op undergraduate program and I have been doing a work/study schedule on a 4 month interval. To be honest, I enjoy school alot more. Good luck to whichever you decide to pursue in the end!

I have only caught a little guy so I have no first-hand experience. But quite a few people do say that they fight harder. I say, that's because they have less scales, it's like when swimmer put on a sharkskin swim suit which makes them just that much faster. HAHA.

I hear "overnighter" + "hot dogs/burgers on the bbq". Where've you been Mike? Too busy hitting on bridesmaids? Have you seen my report with Randy?

TWO MIRROR out of 4-5fish?? Geez, why is everyone catching them but me... I would be happy if I catch only one fish that day if it's a decent sized mirror. Glad you finally got into them Beans, one of these days I'll have to come try out your "Carp point" swim.

Everybody who replied already put out some great ideas, just my 2 cents though, it might be a better to give prizes like the ones A2F suggested instead of giving them senkos/flouro leader. For a kid who doesn't know a whole lot about fishing probably doesn't appreciate "winning" a flouro leader as much as a spiderman rod since he/she doesn't even know what it is.

To each of their own I guess, carp is considered to be a delicacy for some europeans/asian after all. Yup, all of them were released to grow bigger and to be caught by me again

Thanks for the replies everyone! It's a fish lol so of course you can, just a matter if you want to or not. Personally I don't eat carp, but even if I am to eat one, I wouldn't eat one of that size, too much toxins built up in the bigger ones. Yup you got it right Glen, it's just a gene variation with the "regular" Common carp.

Headed up to the Kawarthas with wolfville on Saturday for the first time this year, wolfville brought his kids along so we had a relatively late start, fished from 9am-5pm. For the first 2 hours it was really slow, nothing much happening other than the occasional line bump. We decided to move about 100m away from where we were and we were rewarded. All in all, wolfville managed over 15 fish and I got around 8 (and i lost around 5, my streak of losing fish just continues ). Wolfville got 2x26s and my biggest of the day was just over 20. Here's one of wolfville's 26. My biggest of the day @ 20. Another good one by wolfville, not sure if this was the other 26, sometimes it's so hard to tell from all the pics which one is which. This one was REALLY FAT and short. I was suprised that it only came in at 18lbs. And I saved the best for last... This guy came over from the UK for a 2 week carping excusion, he has been here for a couple days and unfortunately hasn't been catching too many. I was hoping he would be catching more seeing how he paid big bucks to come over here. Just before we had to go home, the fish just turned on all of a sudden and I was into one, then wolfville's rod went, the UK guy's rod went, and his mate who's fishing 20m away from us also got into a fish. A quadriple header, I don't think I'll ever see/be part of that again. And What's more amusing, the UK guy hooked into this ... a 25lb mirror. I was just speechless, to him it's not a big deal (a good sized fish of course, but the mirror is nothing really special for him). I haven't been carping for long but that's the biggest mirror I have seen/heard of. (Please do share guys if you know of a bigger one, I'd love to see a pic of it) Now that i think back I should have taken a pic of the other side of the fish as well. It sucks sitting here now in front of lecture notes and homework, just can't wait to get back out there. Till next time ...

Hey how come you never told me about that story lol THAT IS HILARIOUS!

Hey, nice to see you come out of hibernation and back at the "daily-arm+back-workout". I hope you have strengthened your back during the off-season lol! Love the scales of the one on the last pic.