lew

^^^^^ chestnuts roasting on an open fire ?? LOL

Can't see it in that picture Brian but it was raining when I took it. We had some light rain till around 2 but it;s pretty nice here now.

And a Happy Thanksgiving right back attcha Because of other family commitments we're doing our turkey today and I can't wait to dig into it !!

Raining here in the Kawarthas but still getting a nice sunrise over Clear Lake

Get yourself a large square bottomed musky net and you'll be happy you did, it's much easier on both the angler and the fish, specially when you can leave her laid out in the bottom of the net while you cut the hooks and then let her rest for awhile before attempting a picture.

Someone who obviously needs to get a life me thinks.

Atta boy Simon, your on your way now bud !!

If following fish are coming from structure, mark the location on your map and come back to the same spot after dark and toss big, black & noisy slow moving baits near the surface and you'll often get the same fish.

Ontario is a VERY large place so it may help with your question is you say where you live and what part of the province you want to fish in.

I can't sit in one place long enough to watch a 2 hour movie, I need to get up and go do something and can't even remember the last time I sat in front of the boob tube and watched an entire movie start to finish LOL Sitting in a movie theater is even worse and believe it or not, the last time I was even in a movie theater was 1977 when we went to see Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind...wow, that was a very long time ago hahaha

Good times fishing with the family Hank and sounds like a fun trip. Never fished Balsam and only once on Sturgeon but fished Pigeon a huge amount and always enjoyed that lake and gotsome very nice fish.

Pair of good looking dogs you've got Dave

Put a cover on it. My boats sat in the water all summer long for many years with both an automatic bilge and quality covers and I never had a problem

I've got 2 lawnmowers that are used alot and I change the oil every fall without fail. I've also got a TORO snowblower and even though I have 250' of driveway to clear I usually do it all by hand just because I like the exercise. I still change the oil on it every year but last winter I only fired it up once for maybe an hour so didn't bother with the oil change and figure I'll be fine with it.

Great video on the hook removal Drew and one of the main reasons good hook cutters are an essential part of of any tackle kit. Nice too that you were able to freeze your own finger although everyone doesn't have that equipment LOL I was lucky and after about 45 years of musky fishing I never got hung up on a large treble but did get cut by large teeth a couple times including once for 8 stitches.

So did my brother

I don't think anything's dividing this group Art, just a bunch of guys having a discussion about something important and everyone giving an opinion.....not unlike a bunch of guys having a few beers around a campfire discussing stuff and we've all been there.

We crossed lake Champlain by ferry from New York to Vermont a month ago and the lake was unbelievably rough with big wind coming straight out of the south. That old boat was rockin & rollin with waves coming over the bow and I was waiting for the tractor trailer parked beside me to end up in our laps. Darned near took me back to my Navy days LOL Real pretty lake though.

I actually used a hybrid net as I always found the Frabil handle and hoop to be stronger than Beckman but much preferred the large square bag that Beckman had. I kept the Frabil hardware and purchased a Beckman bag and it fit perfectly and I then had the best of both worlds and the square bottom bag made it MUCH easier to lift the fish out. It's all a personal choice though but that's just what I found worked best for me but any of the larger musky nets should reach the water OK.

Big square bottom net is invaluable when landing big toothy critters, and sometimes it's better to leave her in the net and work from the outside while cutting those hooks. You can use your long nosed pliers to grip the hooks while you cut them and hopefully keep your hands while she thrashes....and she will. LOL Looks like a nice fish there and congrats.

We were in Charlottetown PEI a couple weeks back and stopped into Sobeys to pick up a few things and they no longer put your items in plastic bags, it's all paper bags now. Small start but for sure in the right direction.

I think it's great to see so many thousands of young folks taking such an interest in this.

Seems to me I read somewhere that the folks that were killed were on a pontoon boat and if so, I guess it would be somewhat easy for the other boat to possibly ride up over it and hit the people ??

There's truth to what you say as I actually posted here about the guys dying on Stoney Lake and it received very few replies. Guess it just takes a celebrity to be be involved to bring out all the OFC forensic experts.

About 15 years ago my daughter was in a serious accident on the 115 and her car was so badly mangled she had to be cut free by the Fire Dept. Fortunately the seat belt & air bags did their job and she wasn't too seriously injured. After she got out of the hospital we went to where her car had been towed to retrieve her stuff and found that her suitcase was missing. We went to the accident scene and walked the shoulders but it wasn't there so we can only assume someone stole it. We talked to everyone involved but nobody knew anything. It can be a sad world sometimes.