lew

I've never been sold on red hooks myself and If I get a bait with them, I replace them with Mustads. Most of the larger red hooks I've seen always seemed to be very soft and of extremely poor quality, specially the ones on Suicks. I use Mustads on all my musky baits, but it's just a personal preferrence and something that I know works well.

Pretty snazzy job you did there Nip.......VERY nice !!

I think Andy must keep those tanker locations a secret whenever I fish with him

This is one of the baits that Robin makes with the large stainless lips, and I'm certain he get's them from luremaking.com

Thanks for the heads-up Sam, it seems like some folks just can't grasp the concept of what thin ice actually means

Thanks Dan, some great pictures there and there's nothing more impressive or powerful, than BIG storms on BIG waters, and Superior certainly comes by her name honestly !! I've had the pleasure (usually) of crossing the Atlantic Ocean quite a few times and it's absolutely incredible how rough it can be sometimes. Storms can, and often do, last for days and the worst I ever saw was 75' waves, which is pretty undaunting when your ship isn't much more than 300' One minute your riding the top of the mountain, and then seconds later your bow is stuffed under a wall of water the size of an apartment building. Not sure if the term to describe massive waves is exhilarating or terrifying Again Dan, thanks for the great pictures and rekindling some awesome memories.

Tom, all I get is ......."Sorry, the Server failed to retrieve the requested data"

My Mom is old school from the Depression era, and refuses to use a credit card, infact I doubt if she even has one, and pays everything with $$$$ or cheque. She has no interest in the "new fangled" debit cards either. She recentely wanted to purchase a new fridge from Leon's, who she's dealt with for years, but they wouldn't accept her cheque because of all the trouble lately with bad ones. When she explained she didn't have credit or debit cards and didn't want to carry close to $1000 cash in her purse, they basically said sorry, but there's not much else we can do. In the end I had to go and pay for it with my debit card for her, but that seems to be the norm in alot of places lately. Large bills are no longer accepted, and neither are cheques Makes life difficult for those that don't believe in plastic.

Hey Clampet, I thought fer sure you'd be offering up one of Grannies backwoods recipes for those gobblers

Ya gotta luv nice fat pike !!.......VERY nice !!

Yup, it'll be good to see the pair of youz again

Sometimes it's just plain hard to feel sorry for people......

In all honesty Zack, what those people are doing is actually something I see suggested on this, and other boards, many many times. People are always asking how's the ice on such and such a lake, is it safe to walk on, howz the fishing ??.......and often, board members will tell them to check with the locals, the tackle shop owners, or the fish hut operators, as their the experts and will know the current conditions. You folks are well known up there and seeing as your right on the water, they just assume your gonna know everything about the ice conditions, and when people need information, you folks are unfortunately gonna be the 1st ones they go too. Actually you could take it as a compliment, being considered the local expert As for the garbage they leave behind, well, theres not much you or any of the rest of us can do about it. There's pigs all over the world and unfortunately, it's probably always gonna be that way, and we'll just have to keep cleaning up after them

Never used one myself solo, but with the single hook and forward weight, it'd be good for digging fish outta the deep weeds.

Harry, that's the most up-lifting post I've read in a very long time. Good luck with todays procedure and all the best with so many great things happening in your future. Nice things happen to nice people

That's tough luck Rob and sorry to hear your bad news Hope everything turns out good for you.

It was a good try anyways Ron. I remember watching them launch that boat and head out from the harbour while we were all sitting in the restaurant having breakfast that day on the pier. I'm sure they've somehow got wind of this ongoing investigation by now, so I doubt if we'll see them in the area again, but if we do, they can be sure there'll be ALOT more cameras pointed at them next time !!

Hey Nip, I go by your place a couple times a year, and I'm ALWAYS early, so don't be too surprised if you hear me banging on your door about 3:00 AM some day lookin for that coffee And donuts too, I like donuts with my coffee

Nippissing, thanks for those pictures, it looks like you really do have a little slice of Heaven up there. I especially like your 1st picture, there's not a better way to start the day than sipping a coffee while watching the sun come up across the lake There's also not a better way to end the day either, than sitting around the fire with family.

I luv it Chris !!!!

Just an FYI for anyone driving to the show, you no longer buy your parking ticket at the little booth as you pull into the lot, you now park your car 1st, then go to a meter and purchase your ticket. It doesn't take cash either, only credit cards.

I went to the Boat Show yesterday but it'll be my last one. Used to be you could park at Ontario Place for free and just walk an extra 5 minutes, but they've done away with that now and it cost me $10 to park my truck. The entrance fee has gone to $15 now so your lookin at $25 just to get in the joint.......take your wife and it's gonna cost you 40 bucks I wasn't in there 5 minutes before somebody came from a booth trying to get me to buy a ticket for some charity, and then I was hit up 3 more times by different people for charity $$$$ in the next couple hours. I dunno, it used to be an enjoyable way to spend a winter afternoon, but now it's just getting to be an expensive money grab, and I think they've got my last dollar. Think I'll be giving up on the Sportsman Show too........same reason. This isn't a rant, just one man's observation.

Thanks solo, that made for a great early morning read !! You've certainly made some interesting treks over the years and hopefully you've got a few more tales to share with us.

I was at the Boat Show today and stopped at the Navionics booth to ask about the chip for Nippissing. It'll be available in about 2 weeks for about $200 cdn The salesman was alone and very busy and didn't have time to do much checking, and he didn't know what other lakes would be covered along with Nippissing, but he didn't think it would include anything in Southern Ontario. That's all the info he could give me.

Sure thing Jim, but you'll need to loan me about 60K first