passthepitonspete

It didn't rain enough in Oakville yesterday to bring 'em out. I'm a-waitin', with Algonquin and hungry brookies just around the corner. C'mon rain!

Woo-hoo! Thanks so much for all your kind replies! Sorry not to get back to yous yet as I've been pretty busy this week. I will definitely reply to your posts and PM's shortly, as soon as I get the chance. I haven't shown my dad this post yet, and will wait til a few more reply as I'm sure he'll get a kick out of it, and get him psyched for this year's carries. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! [Actually, Ian is joining us this year, so we can take it easy on the guy this time....] Dano, when I said "far north" I meant far north, like downstream Albany and Wakwayowkastic Rivers towards James Bay places. My dad and I did a 120-mile trip down the Albany a few years ago - drive in and fly out - and while the waterfalls and rapids are beautiful, paddling for hours along extremely "samey" river with nothing but ugly little trees growing on muddy riverbanks without a single outcrop of rock to be seen is [to me] nowhere near as pretty as Algonquin or Quetico. And if you think the far north of Ontario is samey, you oughta see the Yellowknife River in NWT [or whatever they call the place this year] - you get excited by a small stand of three-inch-diameter trees. One wonders how Franklin ever constructed Fort Wilderness out of miserable little twigs like those.

Thanks, guys. I split the post into five so that guys with slow dialup connections would be able to see it, too. My email is the same as my MSN instant message, which is in my profile.

Yup, yer in the right spot ... finally! Sorry to confuse y'all, I just had to make all the links work properly. Yeah, it was a ton of work, that's for sure! Probably put in about twelve to sixteen hours what with all the photoshopping, uploading, writing, copying and pasting, and fixing links. I definitely appreciate some positive feedback! THANKS!

This is Page 2 of a five-part post. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. As per the instructions linked above, may I request that you please do not reply to this post! Instead, would you please make all your replies and comments here. Like thanks, eh? I don’t recall catching any fish along the way, but we didn’t really care too much. Except for the loons, we were the only souls on the lake and had our pick of the place. We selected this superb campsite on a point close to the portage into the next day’s lake, where you see my dad setting up camp. He usually looks after the kitchen stuff, and is especially skilled at the crucial task of levelling the grill which he checks by putting water-filled pots on top of it. Meanwhile I collect firewood and set up the tent. On a perfect evening like this one, you know we didn’t bother with the tarp. I love Algonquin Park for its classic campsites equipped with hand-cut wooden benches and pre-existing firepits. While purists might poo-poo these home improvements, I just love ‘em. Only Quetico rivals Algonquin in beauty and whining’ness of campsites, but in Quetico you don’t even get the “wooden box” at the end of the trail out back, let alone the furniture. Both parks are so much more scenic than the far north of Ontario, where you’ll never see a red or white pine, just ugly aspens and scruffy black spruce and if you’re lucky, the odd jackpine. While my dad wasn’t looking, I snuck down to the point at the end of the campsite to cast a gold and orange spoon out over the shallow boulder shoal I knew was there. It only took a few tries before I nailed the first laker. “Grab the camera! I got one!” “Hey, I never even saw you go down to the water.” “That was the idea….” “Well, I guess you get the first nickel. Maybe the whole fifteen cents.” “Forget that, mate. I want a double shot of Julius Kessler in my Algonquin Coffee tonight!” This little laker had luck on his side since I had carried a fat juicy steak along the portage, so we cooked that up for supper instead. Some instant mashed potatoes from Denninger’s [Mike’s tip!] and we enjoyed a repast fit for kings. Medium rare, please, with some Montreal smoked meat seasoning. The next morning was chilly but dry with a bit of a cold front rolling in, so we cranked up the fire good and hot. Breakfast if not fish is usually bacon freshly sliced “off the slab”, toast made from crusty caraway rye bread, and maybe some goatmeal. Our next portage was fairly short by comparison, so I humped both packs and the canoe in three quick trips. We trolled around the second lake, and knocked off a few small lake trout here and there. We were sure to hit the hotspot next to our favourite island – one time years ago with my friend Ian we fought 40 mph winds to troll across this shoal, and on each pass we got a triple-header before being blasted back into the lee of the island as we tried not to get tangled or smashed on the rocks! The crux of our second day, or so we thought, was to be the mile-long portage into the next lake. As I helped my dad into the heavier BFP, I was pretty sure I’d put in too much weight for the old fart. Oops. Handing him the rods, I asked him if he was OK with the load. “I’ve carried worse, I’ll just take my time and rest where I can,” and without a further word he wobbled down the path. I dashed ahead with the canoe and the “lighter” pack, and got to the far end as quickly as possible, which was not very. I’m not sure if the word “dash” properly describes a slog that crushes body, mind and spirit for each interminable step, and I was pretty darn glad to find a soft muddy landing where I could unceremoniously shuck the canoe. As my vertebrae decompressed, I thought, Ah – that wasn’t so bad. I jogged back up the trail to “rescue” my dad, which turned out to be a pretty steep uphill pitch which hadn’t quite registered with me on the downhill leg. I found him resting at about the halfway point where he described in great detail falling over and “turning turtle” before righting himself and carrying on. I was amazed when he helped me into his pig. “Dude!” I exclaimed, “you’ve ‘Carried Your Age’ for at least half a mile! For sure this pack is more than 81 pounds! Damn, nice work.” We entered the next lake by way of a long marshy estuary, and the frogs were so loud we literally had to shout to be heard. You can click here to You can see in the video that the wind was really beginning to whip up, and we were soon paddling our asses off as hard as possible into 45 mph headwinds, hugging what little “shoreline” we could find in a whats his name with two-foot-high banks. The main part of the lake was insane, so we pulled into the lee of a point to take a breather. We were feeling pretty knackered after the carry, but unfortunately there wasn’t really anywhere to camp, so we were forced back out into the tempest. “Paddle hard! Once we clear the point it’ll be a bit easier!” "Yeah, right!" "Shut up and paddle!" With our stale winter triceps burning, we crawled up the lake barely netting a half-mile per hour, aiming for the first campsite on an island we hoped wouldn’t be too small to block the wind. It turned out to be a split-level affair, and we gratefully chucked out our stuff and scarfed the upper more sheltered campsite. It was way too windy to try to fish, and besides we were toast. Fortunately for us, the wind abated during the night, and the next morning we knew we’d be fine and wouldn’t be windbound. With clear skies, we hadn’t needed the tarp. Despite still feeling the effects of the day before, we tried not to wank about too much in the morning and managed to get underway before the wind decided to get nasty again. We set out across the main part of the lake in a slight chop, trolling as per usual. We appeared to be the only people on this lake, too. Suddenly I noticed the sky. “Uh-oh, check out the clouds. See those lens-shaped ones? Lenticular clouds like that usually mean bad weather is moving in, but with any luck the falling barometer will turn on the fish.” Evidently the lake trout had read the forecast, because when we trolled past a shoal marked by a big dead log out in the middle of the lake, Bang! Fish on! In quick successive trolls as the grey clouds rolled in, we nailed half a dozen spunky lakers up to about five or six pounds – suh-weet! You can see the Killer Lure this day, the orange-gold J-11. I like this photo because of the reflection of the lure and the colour of the laker’s eye. A couple lakes later I lost a nice eight-pound-or-so trout when it wrapped itself in the line at the side of the canoe and swam away my nice chartreuse J-11. Uh, excuse me – the Wank Factor* was running a bit high just then. Please click here to move to Page 3 of the Algonquin Park photo essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. In order to reduce clusterfriggage and to keep everything together, may I request that you please do not reply to this post, and instead leave your comments here. Thanks,eh? * Wank Factor [Co-efficient of Wank] - that unitless number, which when multiplied by the total amount of time spent on a fishing trip equals that amount of time lost to unproductive activity [i.e. wanking about]

Like, how’s it goin’, eh? Here’s a little photo essay trip report of my May 2006 canoeing and fishing trip to Algonquin Park with my dad. We’ve been fishing here most springs for nearly twenty years, and every trip is an adventure. It’s always been my belief – and sometimes it’s actually true! – that “the quality of fishing is directly proportional to the discomfort in reaching it.” Accordingly, the photo you see above is my dad holding a 4¼-pound speckled trout that he caught three years ago – our Family Record – and for which we portaged five miles in each direction! I’ve split up the photos into five posts, each post with about six or seven photos hotlinked. You can just scroll down and read the story as you look at the photos, and follow the link to the next page. For me, this was the easiest and most effective way to present the story, and it will save you poor buggers with dial-up connections a bit of bother since all the photos won’t load onto a single page. Now here are the INSTRUCTIONS FOR LOOKING AT THE PHOTO ESSAY: 1. The post is in six parts – this is the instruction page, and the photo essay follows in pages one to five. 2. May I request that if you have any comments to offer, that you please reply to this post only. This way we don’t have everything split into six different places. Fair enough? 3. If you enjoy this photo essay – it was an enormous amount of work – and would like to see more, then please say so, as I need some positive reinforcement to repeat the effort for other trips! Thanks a lot, eh? 4. Only after I spent about six or eight hours photoshopping, resizing and uploading all the photos at 700 pixels width [the normal size for internet forums] did I realize that this place automatically resizes bigger images to around 500 pixels. Arg, all that hard work. So please do me a favour and click on the image to see it in full size! 5. The shortcut is to click the photo in the black border at its top edge, then hit “F11” to expand it immediately to a full page. After you look at it, you can hit “Alt + F4” together to close the window [rather than clicking on the X in the top right corner]. Thanks. 6. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of beer [depending on whether you are reading this before or after Changeover Time] and enjoy! I’m warning you it’s going to take you a while to read, so make sure your vessel is fully topped up. You can click here to begin our May 2006 Algonquin Park photo essay. Cheers, Pete [and Ron]

This is Page 1 of a five-part post, and is the beginning of the May 2006 Algonquin Park photo essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. As per the instructions linked above, may I request that you please do not reply to this post! Instead, would you please make all your replies and comments here. Like thanks, eh? Our trip began like it usually does, with our “double-decker sandwich” of car-topper plus canoe. You can see from the license that my dad is a veteran – he served as a radioman in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific during WWII aboard the USS Rotanin, a Liberty Ship familiar to aficionados as that of “Mr. Roberts”. Just behind us and out of the photo is the picnic table we used to complete our packing job. After getting everything ready to go, we remembered we had to go buy our park permit. “Let’s leave the stuff on the table, it’s too heavy for anyone to pinch,” I suggested. “But I’d better put the rods back in the van – they’d be pretty easy to grab.” Last year [like most years] we began at Opeongo Lake – Algonquin Park’s largest – and a starting point for trips to many of the bigger lakes in the park. It’s twelve miles to reach the portages leaving from the north and east ends of the lake, which is a half-day’s paddle at best, but on so huge a lake even a moderate wind can turn a long hard paddle into a full-day – or even a multi-day – epic. But any fool can be uncomfortable, so each year we bring our own “water taxi” and tow the canoe to the end of the lake with our ancient 15 HP outboard, taking us less than an hour and about three gallons of gas for the round trip. It is, after all, a holiday. Ya just gotta love it – white pines and granite outcrops, plus the smell of the evergreens, the water and the outboard – all under crystalline cobalt skies. A couple hours later we reached the far end of the lake, heaved the car-topper out onto the shore, and dragged it up against a tree where we chained and locked it along with the outboard motor. In case you’re wondering, that round white thing next to the rock in front of the water is a hunk of bracket fungus someone left there. We hid the oars and some other stuff deep in the woods, then it was time to hit the portage. “Uh, dude – I think we’re missing something …..” What the…? No way! We forgot the dang’ rods in the van! Of course we didn’t notice thirty minutes sooner before we had everything out of the water. Arg, so we had to unlock the chain and drag everything back to the water, laughing and cursing ourselves in the same breath. Sheesh. The best use of our resources was to sic me on the portage, and send my dad back in the boat for the rods since he was likely to have more success scrounging a refill for the gas tank. I did remember to give him the key to the van at least. With no small amount of trepidation, I handed my dad the maps and pointed through the labyrinth of islands. “It’s that way – this is here and that’s this hill on the map….” He looked confused. On canoe trips, I’m always the designated map reader. This is because I am better at it, you see – we have only ever portaged into the wrong lake twice. My dad set the map down on the boat seat in front of him, and after I turned it upside-down to orient it correctly, he set off down the lake in what appeared to be the right direction. With any luck I’d be able to shuttle all of the gear most of the way along the portage before my dad returned with the rods. And hopefully gas. Figuring I’d ease into things a bit, I hoisted the canoe for the first load, adjusted the tumpline to get part of the weight off of my shoulders and onto my head, then set off down the trail. When you get the tumpline perfectly set up, you can portage the canoe without even having to balance it with your hand, which really saves your shoulders on long portages like this one. But it feels perversely good, the first portage of the year, as your muscles ache and you try to enjoy the sights and sounds and smells of the fresh forest from beneath your gigantic bobbing helmet. Ignore the pain – shut up and portage. After two or three kilometres, the refreshing sight of our first lake materialized through the tree branches – always a welcome sight and particularly beautiful this day. I set down the canoe, took a bit of a rest, then ran back down the portage. No sign of pops yet, so nothing to do but grab the first BFP* and repeat the process. My pack was too heavy to pick up on my own, so I balanced it on a rock as I tried to climb into the thing. After falling over at least once, I rolled onto my hands and knees and somehow reached a standing position. Then it was back down the portage. Again. These guys and hundreds of their buddies were making quite a racket, and each time I trudged by them they leaped into the creek, only to be waiting for my return to jump in again. I had to guess when I expected my dad to return, and didn’t figure I could make it all the way to the end of the portage this time, so I left the pack balanced on a fallen log at about the three-quarters point and ran back. Fortunately he wasn’t there, so I chilled in the sun for a while. Eventually he returned with the rods and enough gas to get us back, so we dragged all the crap back out of the water and chained it up once again. “This is starting to become a drag.” “Not as bad as five times down the same damn trail.” The “three-quarters point” turned out to be more like two-thirds [ain’t that always the way?] and there I helped my dad into the first BFP I had left. Some time later his relief is evident as you see him finally reach the end of the portage. What a lovely spot, with mature white pines carpeting the ground in their soft brown needles. Nice fishing rods, eh? We’d made it! Our first crux was behind us, and we had perfect sailing weather to cross the lake to our first campsite. I’ve been at this same beach in years past when there were three-foot breakers rolling in, but this day there was barely a ripple. We slid out from the gentle sand beach, paddled into deeper water, and chucked out our lures for our first Algonquin troll of the year. “A nickel for the first fish, a nickel for the biggest, and a nickel for the most!” Please click here to move to Page 2 of the Algonquin Park photo essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. In order to reduce clusterfriggage and to keep everything together, may I request that you please do not reply to this post, and instead leave your comments here. Thanks,eh? * BFP - Big dang' Pack!

This is Page 3 of a five-part post, and is the beginning of the May 2006 Algonquin Park photo essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. As per the instructions linked above, may I request that you please do not reply to this post! Instead, would you please make all your replies and comments here. Like thanks, eh? We reached our destination lake and with [yet again!] nobody else to be seen, we nabbed the primo south-facing campsite and quickly set up the tarp as the bad weather closed in. Along the way we had stopped to fish a rapid with spinners, and we kept two of the three 13-14” specks we caught to have for supper that night. Now here’s a great campsite setup! Our big-ass tarp is angled into the north wind, and is low against the ground on the windward side to keep out the rain. The fireplace is directly under the highest corner on the leeward side so the wind blows the smoke away from us when we’re sitting underneath on our padded bench. In case the wind changes direction, all the suspension cords on the tarp can be adjusted for height and tension without having to climb any trees, and there is a clothesline running beneath for drying stuff. To the left we have coaxed a few more hours of life into an ancient plywood table precariously balanced on rickety legs, which annoyed us continually by collapsing at least once every meal, usually at the most inopportune moment. Having a tarp [Voice of Groucho Marx: “…and knowing how to use it”] is fundamental to your comfort on any canoe trip. Sure, you could use the camp stove to cook in the vestibule of your tent, but why would you want to? It’s so much nicer to hunker down under your beloved tarp and cozy up next to a roaring blaze while the rain and snow pour down viciously but powerlessly around you. Proper tarp erection [insert Groucho Marx Voice again] is something of an art and a science, and not as easy as you might think. Tarp Theorists frequently spend too much time on the job, turning it into a “science project.” The legit Tarp Pros know how to get their charge up fast, and get it right the first time. While maypoles can and do have their place – usually right where you’ll walk into the damn thing – the Better Way is to bring enough cord to connect to any tree within fifty feet of the fireplace. Positioning the cords properly is all about angles and vectors, as any pool shark or Dipsy-Diver fisherman can tell you. The next morning, I awoke in my bivi sack from the not altogether pleasant feeling of snowflakes impinging on my cheeks. The previous year at this site, Ian and I found that the water in the pot had frozen solid overnight, but fortunately it wasn’t so cold this morning. We were feeling pretty encouraged by the consistently good fishing so far, and were really looking forward to exploring the lake. My dad cooked up some cheddar smokie sausages for breakfast, one of which still remains on the grill. He taught George Foreman, you know. I made the coffee using my French coffee press which you can see sitting on the table to the left. I’ve wrapped it in blue closed-cell foam and duct tape which keeps the coffee scalding hot for half an hour, and the insulation also prevents breakage each time the table collapses. Note: If it appears to you as though the “evening” campsite photo and the “morning” campsite photo were in fact taken at the same time, never for a moment would I imply, suggest or otherwise [HINT] that this is precisely the case. We set out trolling and casting the shoreline, seeing what we could catch. We were fishing one of the more remote lakes in the park, so one hopes it doesn’t get too much fishing pressure. It didn’t take long before we started connecting with specks, most of which averaged 18” x 2 lbs. You can see the rod holder behind my dad that we have mounted on the gunwales of the canoe, which makes trolling so much easier. The only disadvantage is you don’t get to feel the fish hit, so when the fishing is hot I squeeze the rod between my legs when I’m paddling. Fish were scattered all over the lake, but we did locate two definite speckled trout hotspots, both of which were off of points. My dad caught the biggest one which was about 20” though kind of skinny at a little over 2½ pounds, however he threw it back into the water before I could take his picture since we were fishing the windy shore and were about to get smashed on the rocks. Plus it was too early for supper. Favourite brook trout spoons were of course EGB’s in all colours, along with a few obscurities we tried like this little red and yellow Dardevle and a similarly coloured Len Thompson. We caught the occasional lake trout like the six-pounder you see above, or at least I did. For whatever reason the lakers seemed to be selectively avoiding my dad’s lures, though he had no problem nailing the specks. Cool backlighting on the fins, eh? This chunky eight-pounder was the biggest trout of our trip this year, but I guarantee you that you can catch much bigger ones – and plenty of them – swimming round these lakes. Our Algonquin record is a beauty 33” x 18” 16¼ pounder which you might remember seeing in an article I wrote for Cronzy’s Ontario Fisherman Magazine. We’ve both caught lakers up to thirty pounds in Lake Athabasca, and the 31-pound pike in my profile photo came from Athabasca as well. Please click here to move to Page 4 of the Algonquin Park photo essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. In order to reduce clusterfriggage and to keep everything together, may I request that you please do not reply to this post, and instead leave your comments here. Thanks,eh?

This is Page 4 of a five-part post, and is the beginning of the May 2006 Algonquin Park photo essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. Can you hear it? Listen – it’s calling! “Petie! Ronnie! Come drink me!” Arrrrrrr, may-tey, shiver me timbers! Algonquin Coffee. Insidious stuff, that. You’re out on the water, busy fishing as evening approaches, but you can hear it calling you from miles away. No point denying it, or trying to ignore it, cuz it always gets you in the end. You might as well just give in and get it over with. Mix coffee, hot choco and whisky, and Bob’s Your Uncle. Have a few more and Bob just might become your aunt. It is recommended you bring along freeze-dried coffee for such occasions, because when your Algonquin Coffee calls, you have to maintain an appropriate sense of urgency – it’s highly unsportsmanlike to waste time using the coffee press. Clearly this was a particularly diabolical brew, for the sun is still quite high in the sky. Believe it or not, both of these differently coloured fillets came from speckled trout caught in the same location. I can’t explain the variation – maybe one is an insect eater and the other a fish eater? Whatever – you couldn’t tell them apart once they were cooked. Truly delicious! Here you see my dad constructing what we Tarp Pros call a White Man’s Fire. Note the huge pile of firewood stashed upwind of the fireplace. Not visible and directly above the flames are a few holes melted into the tarp from a similar White Man’s Fire built on the Wakwayowkastic River a few summers ago. Before long – oh, maybe an hour or two – this fire will burn down to a nice bed of coals for cooking the fish. Unfortunately we will have to wait, throw in more wood, and probably have yet another cup of Algonquin Coffee. {sigh} After supper, I decided to perform a cunning little stunt whereby my lure snagged, then as we drifted helplessly in the 2 mph gale, we watched as my rod and reel went flying out the back of the canoe and down to the bottom of the lake. Fortunately I had practised this maneuver, and knew exactly what to do. After I finished screaming, cursing and crying, I reached for a heavy spoon, put it on my dad’s rod, and carefully dragged it along the bottom ninety degrees to the presumed direction of the sunken fishing line, and retrieved the rod and reel which you see in my dad’s hand. I have successfully executed this party trick on two of my last three Algonquin trips, and it is my fervent hope not to do so again this year. Just before dark, we picked off one final brookie trolling across another rocky point. Please click here to move to Page 5 of the Algonquin Park photo essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. In order to reduce clusterfriggage and to keep everything together, may I request that you please do not reply to this post. Thanks,eh?

This is Page 5 of a five-part post, and is the end of my essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning. Back at the ranch after a successful morning of hunting for historical artefacts, we packed up all our stuff and headed back towards civilization, taking the long way and making another stop in our circle tour. Some people look like their pets, and some look like their fish, but not this time - clearly my belly is fatter and whiter than that of the fish. This feisty guy gave me quite a tussle just before we reached our first and only portage. We had been across this path once years before, but had forgotten how steep it was climbing up and over, and especially down the height of land over which it crossed. As per usual, I ran back for a rescue – good thing as the muddy path was very slippery and embedded with unsympathetic wet boulders. We fished the rest of the day and evening in our familiar hotspots, but for whatever reason the fish weren’t very co-operative in this lake. The woody bay where my dad caught his biggest ever speckle of 3-5/8 pounds x 20½” didn’t produce a single fish, and the shorelines where we hoped to entice other brookies out of the wood only coughed up a couple mini-lakers. It wasn’t until right at dark when we were heading back for camp trolling J-11’s across the middle of the lake that we tied into a couple decent lakers like this guy above. We had camped in this area before, but something didn’t seem right. I was convinced that the campsite we had used had been dismantled, and walked over to where I thought it used to be, but there was no sign of it. The hemlock forest looked completely virgin. Still not satisfied, I walked back a few hours later and poked around some more under the deeply shaded canopy. Sure enough, I found a blackened fireplace rock and a splinter of the old bench. Aha! I knew it! This was the place where the owl had flown right through our campsite, and where we had enjoyed some of our best fishing ever. We lounged though a leisurely brunch, and decided to bail. We were pretty disappointed in this perhaps our favourite lake, especially considering we were drinking our coffee [our regular coffee, OK? It was not yet Changeover Time] less than a long cast from where I had caught my big laker. We knew we had made the correct decision to leave the lake when we trolled and cast this great looking shoreline, and didn’t catch a single fish. They just didn’t want to bite for us. This penultimate series of portages gave us quite the spanking. We’d done it before a few times, but always in a team of three. This was our first time as a team of two, and it’s a good thing we had eaten most of the bacon. Long portages between tiny lakes add up to plenty of discomfort as you never get long enough to rest while paddling before the next slog clobbers you. We finished up here on our last night of the trip, one of our best Algonquin springs ever. We ended up catching 45 trout over the week – 19 specks and 26 lakers. We ate four brookies and one lake trout, and released the other 40 fish. We are particularly pleased with our net C.U.E. over the entire week of 0.58, nearly double the 1999-2004 census average of 0.31. We’re heading back up to Algonquin for this year’s trip around the last of April, and this time we’re bringing along my friend Ian to help with the carries. Three in a canoe is certainly the most efficient way to make it over the long portages, and I’m hoping my dad won’t have to “Carry His Age” this year, at least not too far…. Anyway, I hope y’all enjoyed the show! Thanks for stickin’ it out for all five portages, er, pages. My “canoe” [i.e. email] always has space, so if you need a bit more information or wanna trade a few secrets {wink} then drop me a line. So like, have a beauty day, eh? Please do not reply here, but instead if you liked the show, please leave your comments and messages HERE. If I get enough positive feedback, then maybe I’ll make you up a few more photo essays, however the converse is also true. But when it comes to fishing pix, it’s not like I’ve got any shortage... Sheesh. Cheers and beers [or Algonquin Coffee!] "Pass the Pitons" Pete Zabrok [and Ron Zabrok] P.S. If you want to see a cool photo essay of a recent two-week big wall climb I did, then please click the link in my signature.

Last spring I was quite distraught to see an island in Algonquin's Opeongo Lake completely taken over by the buggers. All the trees were killed, of course. I can't stand the things. I'd love to see a lot fewer. But how?

Hey guys, I was just speaking with Greg Betteridge of the MNR up in Algonquin Park. Apart from being a helluva nice guy and a passionate fisherman, he is also the dude who processes your creel censuses, and accordingly is a great source of information [provided you share, of course ] As you might expect, ice cover on the lakes this year was thinner than usual due to the very late onset of "winter". I was fishing open water in the Bay of Quinte on January 3, 2007 and would have been able to fish for a couple more weeks had we not headed south to Florida. You can read my fishing reports with photos on the "Beg and Brag Forum" of www.quintefishing.com - plenty of 11-, 12-, and 13-pounders! On April 1st, Greg told me there was only 11" of ice remaining on Opeongo, and that only half of it was "good" ice. Currently things are pretty slushy with only about 6" remaining, and Greg predicts that with this warm weather finally coming our way, the ice should be out around this Monday April 23. At any rate, there won't be any problems with the ice by opening day Saturday April 28. My dad and I are heading into the park a few days after opening day, so maybe we'll see you up there. Like, this is us, eh? Be sure to say "hi" if you see us. I also thought you guys might find this chart of Opeongo Ice-Out Dates useful. That's quite a downward slope on the graph, eh? The average ice-out date has moved forward from around May 3 in 1964 to around April 27 these days. Sheesh. Maybe that can help for next year's planning.... Cheers, Pete Edit: ARG! I didn't realize this forum will resize photos if they're too wide! Frig, I just spent like five hours photoshopping photos from last year's Algonquin trip to post here, doing them mostly at 700 pixels wide. Oh dear....

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! I told ya Mike can catch fish - even with only one eye! Hey, Mike the Pike. I made a few posts in the "old" OFC board. Am I correct in assuming this is still the same place - I'm not sure I "get it"... However I see familiar names. Cheers, Pete

Holy frig! Great fishing, great pix! But cooooooold..... Few can catch 'bows [or anything else for that matter] like Mike can catch 'em. Cheers, Pete