lew

Great news Art, and yes, I certainly do have a spot for you. Lookin forward to seeing the pair of youz again !!

Where abouts ??

I've never been to Sparrow Lake so can't offer anything really, but if there are indeed pencil reeds, that's a place muskies definetely hang out. Toss some large spinnerbaits in there and work them fast through the reeds and you should do OK

I've got 3 Rapala knives hanging in the garage but haven't cleaned a fish in 20 years so I can't remember if their good for that or not. I did use one for cutting sod the other day and for that job, their pretty darned good

When I was in the Navy back in the 60's we used to spend alot of time working down in the Carribean. We were in Barbados one time when we were ordered out to join a search for a fishing boat with 3 men aboard that was 3 days overdue from an island south of Trinidad. We headed south and fortunately we were the ones that found them a couple days later. They were all in pretty bad shape after all that time baking in the Carribean sun but at least they were still alive. We got them aboard our ship and under the care of our medical staff and were able to lift their rickety old boat up onto the helicopter pad with our crane. It was an old wooden boat with an inboard engine and they'd snapped the drive-shaft on the 1st day out and began drifting with the currents. They had enough water and food for 2 days and when we finally found them they'd been drifting for 5 days in the hot sun and were near death from lack of water. They'd caught and gutted a shark and were eating that raw. They were extremely poor folks and there was no such thing as VHF either on their boat or on the island that they could use to call for help. We sailed to their island and used one of our smaller boats to transport them ashore and tow their old boat in. We also took up a collection, plus gave them a ton of food, clothing, tools, books and anything else we could find that would help them. They told us the money we gave them was more than they'd earn in a year of working yet it didn't seem like very much to us. It was half a century ago but is still something I think about every once in awhile and this thread brought it back to me. It's something I was very proud to be a part of so long ago and I'm sure to this day folks on that tiny Carribean island are still talking about how kind a ship load of sailors from the Canadian Navy were to a group of total strangers. No doofus awards for those folks as they were just 3 very poor men trying to earn a living with terrible equipment and I thought I'd pass on the story. Hope my thoughts from many years ago didn't bore anyone.

Sorry Mike, I wasn't putting anyone down , just being sarcastic and I spose I should have added the emoticom...or whatever it's called

I just removed Hamilton Harbour from my bucket list

Why ??

Biggest one I ever hooked into on the Ottawa, 25-30 pounds, came on a yellow Boo-Tail with gold blade in 4' of water and pencil reeds Mike, but like anywhere else, different baits produce at different times. Was in a boat with another guy who got a biggun twitching a white Sledge and I've trolled up a few with Bumble Bee Believers. Myself, I like that murky water much more than clear.

I'll be back at Lakair in a few weeks boss, c'mon up and we'll go see what we can find You guys had a fantastic week with some amazing fish from the looks of things and that sure does make for a great vacation.

Wonder if it was the same loser that blew by me last week about 70 MPH and so close I coulda darned reached out and touched him, even though there was 1/2 a mile of water all around me.

Those high temperature readings are close to the surface and it'll be much cooler even just a couple feet down unless your fishing very shallow water. I like shallow water fishing myself, specially in the evenings, but when the water starts to warm up as the summer progresses I'll just move deeper and fish the cabbage patches.

Always tough to lose a big fish Darren, but if we landed every biggun we hooked, the sport would be called catching rather than fishing

Sorry to hear that, he seemed like a nice guy. We went musky fishing to Midland harbour 7 or 8 years ago and seeing as we'd never fished there before we stopped into Backwater to ask a few questions. Not only did Brian give us some advice, he even loaned us one of his good laminated maps and marked some good spots on it for us. He said to just leave it outside when we got back as he'd be gone home by then. Not alot of guys would help strangers like that.

Congrats on the new boat Skipper, she should handle the big waters with no problems.

Real purty fish Phil !!

Nope, none at all Pete, I used to use an Abu Big Game and it was a nice reel but it only lasted a couple seasons even though I keep my stuff well maintained.... Maybe I just had a bad one. After the BG gave up the ghost I switched over to the 7000 and never had a problem.....yet (touch wood) It's a big reel but not a problem at all and I can cast it all day long. You'll notice a huge difference in the ease with which you can crank in large blades and it's also very good for bringing in jerk baits where you want to take up line in a hurry between jerks. The large spool along with the power handle just make life a whole bunch nicer.

Big fish for sure !!

That's the part that counts right there !!

Be good to see you again Moe.

Alot of the 400 series reels are good, I use CT's & TE's myself for most baits, but for sheer cranking power for large bladed musky baits you can't beat the 7000 series reels. Crank Double 13's with a CT or TE for a couple hours, then switch over and use a 7000 series reel and you'll be amazed at how much easier it is. I'm a diehard Shimano fan and have been for many years, but unfortunately they don't have a 7000 series I like for casting and Abu does, that's the only reason I'm using it. As I said earlier, it's not nearly as smooth as my Shimano reels, but for sheer cranking power, it's excellent.

On my 8" musky twitch baits with 3 trebles I remove the center one completely and up the front treble from 5/0 to 7/0. Baits bigger than 8" I leave as is. Don't know if that helps you or not....probably not

For big hard pulling baits and jerkbaits I use a 7000 Abu Pete. Not the smoothest reel on the market but with large spool it brings line in very fast and has plenty of power for the Double 10's

Where you work Moe, you can't tell if it's sunny, raining, winter or summer anyways :lol:

Just one more advantage to retirement, if it rains the day you had plans, just change your plans to the next day :lol: