lew

Personally, I think it's pretty sad when a new member joins this board, posts a picture of a couple fish he's proud of, then has to sit back and see his story go downhill the way this one has. If this new member never posts again I hope nobody is surprised. I catch + - 100 muskies a year but seldom post stories or pictures anymore and it's exactly because of the type of responses that have been made to this thread. We've lost a lot of excellent members from this board over the last couple years and there's a very good reason for that.........

Thanks everyone I'm heading north again in a couple hours and I may be home Sunday for a day or 2, but if not I'll see y'all again in a few weeks. Good luck on the water

Howdy folks !! I've been away from the board for about a month now and up at my trailer while my wife & daughter both recover from surgeries and I'm happy to say their both coming along very well and on the road to full recovery. I only got home a couple hours ago to take care of some business and am heading back up north again tomorrow morning for at least another couple weeks but just wanted to drop by and say hello to everyone. Myself & a few of the boyz just spent a week at Lakair and I was able to get myself another nice musky from the West Bay area so I figured I'd post the pics while I'm home. I was fishing with Mistyriver on Monday and he nailed a gorgeous big musky, but I'll leave that tale for Jim to post himself when he gets home next week. Tuesday I took Jims son (mistyjr) out with me and I was able to boat this girl. I was tossing a big black/orange bucktail but nothing was interested in it and seeing as a large cold front had moved thru the evening before I decided to downsize my bait and went with a smaller green / white boo-tail and this beauty nailed it on the very 1st cast.......ya gotta luv it when a plan comes together I missed another biggun the day before when she blew up outta the weeds and missed my bait but this girl made me forget about my bad luck.

Awesome fish Shawn, couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy !! That big girl will be a definite brute by November, maybe you'll have to go back & pay her another visit.

Thank tou everyone for the many good thoughts for my wife and also the PM's I received, and Diane also sends her thanks to you all. Were heading north in a couple hours and I'll talk to you all again in September. Have a great summer everyone, and good luck on the water. Your a great bunch

My wife has recentely had some very serious, very scary, but extremely successful neuro surgery and she got home from the hospital today and everything is 100% and the neuro-surgeon says she'll make a total recovery in no time. He wants Diane to relax, do nothing & enjoy her "vacation" for the next 6 weeks while everything heals so were heading off to the trailer tomorrow morning about 9:00 AM and except for a couple mini trips back here to the city, we'll be gone till after Labor Day We have to come down next Friday so she can get 30 steel staples removed from her head and then we'll head north again right after that. As long as Diane is doing well, I'm heading to Lakair in Mid August for a week of musky fishing, then possibly another trip to the Ottawa River but other than that I'll be hanging around the Kawartha region. .........On a side note, I find the skill of a surgeon truly amazing and what some of these surgeons can do is absolutely unbelievable, specially the guys who can repair something as complex as a brain, and I really have to wonder why they're payed about 1/10th as much as a 20 year old kid in the NHL, but that's a topic for another day.

WTG Bill, that's great news & congrats on your 1st ever musky. You worked hard to get that girl and it's good to hear you enjoyed the experience so much. I haven't been on the board much the last few weeks and missed this post entirely.

Happy belated B-Day Roy !! You deserve all the good stuff that came your way.

I dunno Glen, it just depends on the fish & the situation I spose. I've just gotten away from taking many pictures the last couple years, specially when I'm alone in the boat. It's less stress on the fish and besides, after awhile they all kinda look the same and I just don't really see the need to photograph them all. I think I've only ever weighed one fish in my life and that was an 8 pound largemouth, I seldom measure a fish anymore and now I take very few pictures......jeeeeez, maybe I should just give up musky fish'n altogether

I headed out just after 5:00 AM on Saturday in search of my weekly musky fix and as usual headed for shallow weedy water and started off tossing spinnerbaits but couldn't find a fish in the usual spots, so I headed to an area I haven't fished this year. I continued with the spinnerbaits & bucktails but the fish'n was tough without even a follow. By 8:00 the sun was high & bright and I decided to try a different approach and switched over to a white/pink Sledge which turned out to be the bait they were looking for as I got 2 fish in the next 10 minutes but that was it for the rest of the morning. Sunday I was back on the water again at 5:00 AM and headed to another favorite shallow spot in the pencil reeds. I was tossing a large black spinnerbait well back into the reeds and just as it came into clear water I could see the torpedo wake coming from the left side about 10' away and watched as it homed in on the bait and nailed it about 30' out from the boat. That's always a blast to watch and a great way to start the day I took this picture just after releasing the fish. I think the best part of my weekend though was getting up close & personal with 2 pairs of bald eagles sitting in a couple dead trees off to the side of the road near Bridgenorth. I got my camera out and moved slowly towards them and got this pic of the 1st one. I was just getting ready to snap a pic of the 2nd male but he took off before I got it, but I took the pic anyways and got really lucky with this shot of him in flight. These have got to be the most beautiful birds anywhere and it's really great to see so many of them moving into the Kawarthas. The other male and both females took off before I got anymore pics but it sure helped to make this a fabulous weekend. Muskies & eagles........about as good as it gets

I have a photo-copy of my registration in a zip lock bag and it's taped inside a compartment in my boat and readily available when ever I'm asked for it. I've been stopped & checked by the OPP many times over the years and a photo copy is perfectly legal and it keeps the original in a safe place at home.

Mornin Roy, I know you've seen these pics before but it's an excellent way to hang your baits, specially the ones you use most often. It keeps them very handy so your not digging thru a box to find them, plus it allows the boo's & spinnerbaits to dry. I also made up this box for all the ones I don't use on a regular basis, but it would also work well in your boat and again, the vent holes allow for air circulation.

Heyyyy, now there's the way to do it Will, 2 casts, 2 muskies No sense messing around and wasting too much energy Great fish'n tale Will, thanks for passing that one on to us !!

For fish with teeth, the best method is to get a firm grip on the gill plate with one hand, then put your other hand up under her belly to support the weight in a horizontal line. The gill plate is strong and offers a very secure grip, just be extremely careful not to get your fingers in the red gills as this could to some very serious damage to the fish. It's also a good idea to hold the gill plate on the opposite side from the hooks cause you sure don't want to get hung up on a fish with a bad temper.

My 1st car was a 1961 Corvair that I bought when I got outta the Navy. Fun little car to drive and handled really well with the air cooled engine in the rear. But my FAVORITE car out of all the ones I've ever owned and the one I wish I still had today was a 1965 Pontiac Parisienne convertible. It was identicle to this one, cept mine was turquoise instead of red but still had the white convertible top and interior. This thing was as big as a bus but just floated down the hiway and handled like a dream. Put down the top, crank up the tunes and me & the Mrs would cruise the hiways for hours I've still got the Mrs. after 42 years, but I got rid of the convertible 35 years ago and am still kicking myself for ever letting it go. It was still in mint condition when I traded it in.

John, that's hilarious that your folks had an A-35 too, I just added a picture that I found on the net. Your right about the different rules today, you'd be tossed in the clink now if you let your kids do what we did. And Roy, do you remember how Agincourt was waaaaaaay out in the boonies back then, man that was an expedition just getting out there.......today it practically downtown

I got my license in 1961 up in Agincourt and used my Mom's little 1955 Austin A-35. A funny little English car not much bigger that your kitchen table with a 4 speed floor shift and for turn signals, there was a big knob on the dashboard. When you turned it either direction, a lighted plastic arm would swing out from the side of the car pointing in the direction you were gonna turn In order to swing the arm back inside the car you simply turned the knob back to center. I was making a left turn and switched the arm back in before I completed the turn and lost a point for that. The driving tester had never seen a contraption like that before and I don't think he knew how to penalize me properly so he said he'd let me off easy Crazy little car but me & my buds sure had some laffs in it for the next couple years.

Have a great vacation Bill

Good to hear everything worked out OK for ya Joe.

WTG bud, good to see you having such a great few days up there

Thanks everyone And Musky or Specks, just so you know the technique actually works, here's a pair of back to back muskies from last fall that came within 10 minutes of each other as the sun was poking it's nose over the horizon. Even the fish like Lew O'clock As for the pics, I've decided that after all these years it's no longer neccessary to take pictures of every fish that grabs my hook and it's much easier on the fish to leave her in the water and less stress on her too.

As I've mentioned in every musky report so far this year, I like to be positioned on a good spot as the sun breaks the horizon in the morning and so far it's worked out very well for me this season. I headed out in some pretty dense fog about 5:15 AM on Saturday as my GPS had sunrise at 5:32. I was casting to a weedy point and sure enuff, at 5:45, I got my morning fish almost right on cue although he was about 13 minutes late....perhaps he missed the actual sunrise because of the heavy fog layer Sunday morning I thought I'd change things up a bit and decided to troll another good location as the sun broke over the horizon. I took this picture as I was trolling a 10" Jake over weeds in 8 FOW and the fish hit just a few minutes later. For the most part I've gotten away from taking fish pictures while I'm alone in the boat, but both fish were in the 40" range. The hooks were removed while the fish recuperated in the Frabill and then released without ever leaving the water. I missed a fish yesterday while day dreaming and not setting the hook fast enuff, but other than those 3 I never saw another musky all week-end even though I spent alot of time on the water from Saturday till this morning. Maybe all this crazy changing weather has got the fish confused too Still beats goin to work though

As a matter of fact I did Glen, and I figure she's about 5 pounds heavier now. I've still got her address, so maybe I'll go see if she wants to come out and play again if we go up this September

Thanks Mike, I was waiting for your report to see how you guys made out this year. Too bad about the lousy weather but it looks like it was an excellent trip anyways. Incredible wildlife pictures too !!

I'm back up at Lakair from August 14th - 20th Glen, but another trip in September sounds like an excellent idea. I was there in September '06 and we practically had the lake to ourselves....perfect