kickingfrog

Darn birds. Carson rd and Bayfield.

I've heard just about everything from guys tripping over birds to hardly seeing any. So that's about normal.

I know nothing about that stuff but I can see why someone would pay some bucks for it.

I don't remember cones but I did see some orange painted rocks on the hwy that were very purposely placed. As for the spruce, I've haven't seen too many either and none south of South River. My brother has done more hunting north of 17 and those were the first 2 he has seen in the area.

My brother and I were up near Temagami for a couple of days for some birds and maybe some fish (in the end we didn't fish as we really only had a day and a half of recreational time when it was all said and done). We stayed at Ravenscroft on Jumping Caribou Lake. The cabin we were in was simple, dry and warm and that's all we needed. We got there just before dark on Thursday and headed out to scout an area to see what was happening as the moose hunt was on. As we rounded a bend on the logging road there was a couple of OPP vehicles and the officers said they were checking for drinking/driving. Asked us what we were hunting for and where we were staying. Checked our hunting/fishing licences and FAC's and saw that our guns were cased as they were visible in the back seat. Zero issues and we were on our way. Saw lots of moose camps but there were a lot of trails left for us and back to the cabin for some food and sleep. Next morning was cold and still. Storybook grouse hunt perfect. Minus 5C at 7:30am. Gear loaded up and out the door. The moose hunters were easy to stay away from but some grouse guys were bombing around on their atv's and that made it hard to walk a trail that hadn't been driven but we did find a few as we went farther in and stuck to the tighter trails. As good as the trails looked we only had a spruce grouse to show for our half-day effort. I missed one and there were 2 others that we didn't get a shot at. As we pulled up to a spot that looked good we saw a Conservation Officer. We stopped and talked a bit. As it turned out he was working on a moose kill that appeared to have been poached. He gave us a bit of a run down on the grouse in the area and mentioned that the trail we were about to walk was normally good but he hadn't seen any that day, but driving in on the main road he had seen six. Not 100 metres down the trail we see our first bird. We ended up seeing 7 and getting 4 in a short section of the trail. We saw the C.O. later as he was going about his work and let him know how we had done. As we drove out at 6pm he passed us in his truck, and gave us a wave, he had been on the dirt road around 8am that day and I don't know how far he was from the office, or home. Should have got his card. Hot meal back at the cabin and bed. We had to pack before heading out the next day and knew it was going to be raining in the morning so there was no big rush to get out of warm bed. Nine degrees Celsius and raining in the am. We timed it well and the rain stopped as we were just getting to the birdie area. Since I wanted to be back before my kids bedtime we decided to hunt the same area that we did well on, rather then exploring a new one. After walking as far in as we could before needing to turn around to make it home in time it looked like a bad call because we hadn't seen a single bird. Out we start to walk and then 4 singles in a 400 metres stretch of trail. Perfect ending. I also got a spruce grouse in the rain on the way out and we were done. 10 birds, 8 ruffies and 2 spruce. The whole family loved today's lunch. Pan fried grouse and some canned sliced potatoes. Just the way my dad would have made them.

Never been, but I remember Bob Izumi fly fishing for them many years ago. He set the hook, the fish took off, and Bob got a friction burn on his hand. He was dancing/jumping around shaking his hand and still trying to fight the fish. Funny how little things stick in your mind.

Never make decisions based on anger.

Link has photo and vid: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/australian-fisherman-reels-in-huge-once-in-a-lifetime-160848769.html In the very early hours of last Wednesday morning, Brisbane fisherman Steve Morgan set out to fish the Brisbane River. It wasn’t long before he was battling the biggest barramundi he had ever heard of coming from the river: it was 110cm long. “A mate of mine caught a 92cm barra earlier this year and as far as I know, the one I caught is the biggest one to have been caught in the river,” Morgan said. It took Morgan about five minutes to reel in the huge fish. “It was pretty exciting,” he told the Courier Mail. “It put up a really good fight, we were really pumped when we landed it.” “There aren’t many barra in there, so to catch one that size is pretty great, I don’t expect to catch another one like that in the Brisbane River in my lifetime.” On Facebook, Morgan insisted he did nothing special to reel in such a remarkable fish. “Not much talent involved catching it. Ate the lure (I assume) just under the surface. I was wondering why the lure wasn’t sinking and when I reeled in the slack to check what was going on it was already hooked up. I assume it chewed on the lure for up to 10 seconds before my immaculate reflexes kicked in,” he wrote. Morgan didn’t keep the “once in a lifetime” catch. Instead, he measured the fish, tagged it, and let it go. This July, a California fisherman reeled in a 482-pound halibut. Jack McGuire planned to celebrate his catch by hosting a fish fry for his family, friends, and fellow fisherman. That same month, a British fisherman caught what was considered to be the largest fish ever caught on British shores: a 208-pound common skate. And in August, Texas fisherman Ryan Spring caught a 809-pound tiger shark off the Gulf of Mexico. He, too, shared the meat with family and friends — and then donated the rest to a coastal homeless shelter.

There is netting during the winter and there are nets in the spring before the angler walleye season opens. The claim is there won't be this year. 100 % compliance? Unlikely, but we know the anglers don't comply 100% either. It's a move in the right direction.

http://www.nugget.ca/2014/10/19/nfn-halts-gill-netting Nipissing First Nation has put a stop to gill netting on Lake Nipissing in response to concerns from its community members about the health of the walleye fishery. Chief Marianna Couchie confirmed Saturday a recent decision by the band council to close down gill netting on the lake until spring when the recreational walleye fishing season opens. She said the move comes after consultation with Nipissing First Nation community members, the vast majority of whom called for steps to curtail the use of nets on the lake. “Many people wanted us to close it right down,” said Couchie, noting the band council opted instead for a temporary closure out of concern for community members whose livelihoods depend on the fishery. She said gill netting is something that will be reviewed on an annual basis and that the long-term goal is to help find those who rely on the fishery alternative sources of income so they're no longer dependant or as dependant on the fishery. Gill netting typically begins following an annual moratorium during the spring spawn and continues throughout the fall and even into the winter months. Community consultations were called due to concerns about the health of the walleye fishery, with Nipissing First Nation indicating to its members during the summer this year's walleye harvest was expected to be greater than safe allowable estimates. That was after the Ministry of Natural Resources indicated in March the walleye fishery is in serious decline and is now only half of what it was in the 1980s, mainly due to the combined pressure of both the recreational and commercial fisheries. As a result the ministry did away with a slot size restriction aimed at preserving spawning walleye 40 to 60 centimetres in size and instead introduced a new minimum size limit to protect walleye up to 46 centimetres. The move was aimed at safeguarding young fish that have not yet had a chance to spawn. In addition, the already contentious issue of gill netting was exacerbated this summer by the discovery of more than a dozen abandoned and unmarked nets on the lake. Couchie said a total of about 200 community members attended the two consultation meetings that were organized by the band. She said one meeting was held strictly for gill netters. Couchie said gill netters aren't pleased with the closure, but she said the decision reflects the direction that the majority of community members called for. [email protected]

Better then a clingon.

Is that an early stradic in the brookie photo?

Hay, I was talkin' 'bout remote camping in a denim dress shirt and short shorts.

If it wasn't for the coffee pot on the fire I'd have never recognized you in the first pic.

Nice job Randy.

Make it web based. Less editing of the good stuff.

Oops, I really think mine does... sometimes. I'm planning a blast and cast for next weekend right now. She's at the Leafs game in a private box and I'm wearing a plastic tiara while hunting ghosts in the basement.

Nice when you get the "all clear" and she really means it.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/birth-control-pill-threatens-fish-populations-1.2796897?cmp=rss The lead researcher of a new study is calling for improvements to some of Canada's waste water treatment facilities after finding that introducing the birth control pill in waterways created a chain reaction in a lake ecosystem that nearly wiped out a freshwater fish. The study, which is being published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on Monday, found that introducing small amounts of estrogen into a lake led to the near extinction of the fathead minnow because it interfered with the fish's ability to reproduce. Summary of the article Lead researcher Karen Kidd of the University of New Brunswick said the study has been ongoing since the late 1990s, when researchers in the United Kingdom discovered that male fish began to develop eggs when estrogen was introduced in their habitat. Kidd said their study set out to build on that research to determine whether the estrogen would effect the fathead minnow's ability to reproduce and whether there were larger effects on the lake's ecosystem.introduced in their habitat. Drinking water contaminated with excreted drugs a growing concern Reseachers started introducing small amounts of estrogen into an Ontario freshwater lake research facility in 2001, Kidd said. Estrogen in the birth control pill ends up in municipal sewage and eventually in waterways. (The Canadian Press) "Right away, the male fish started to respond to the estrogen exposure by producing egg yolk proteins and shortly after that they started to develop eggs," she said in an interview from Saint John, N.B. "They were being feminized." Kidd said shortly after introducing the estrogen, the number of fathead minnow crashed, reducing numbers to just one per cent of the population. "It was really unexpected that they would react so quickly and so dramatically," she said. "The crash in the population was very evident and very dramatic and very rapid and related directly to the estrogen addition." Domino effectKidd said that created a domino effect, causing the population of lake trout, the fathead minnow's main predator, to decline. She said the number of insects, the fathead minnow's main source of food, also started to increase. A field crew takes samples in Lake 260 at the Experimental Lakes Area research facility in a 2012 handout photo. Researcher Karen Kidd said the controlled nature of the facility made it possible to study larger effects of estrogen contamination on the ecosystem. (Margaret Docker/University of New Brunswick/Canadian Press) There are several areas in Canada that have feminized male fish because of municipal water sewage being released into waterways, Kidd said, including in Wascana Creek in Saskatchewan, the Grand River in southwest Ontario and the South Saskatchewan River in southern Alberta. Fish feminizing in Alberta rivers "It's a problem that we can certainly resolve with better wastewater treatment," she said. The good news is that after removing the estrogen, the fathead minnow population recovered back to what it was before the research began, said Kidd. "It's evidence that removing these chemicals from our effluents will have downstream benefits for the fish population," she said. The research facility where the study was conducted, the Experimental Lakes Area, has been the subject of some controversy over the past few years after the federal government announced it was considering closing it to save $2 million annually. The Ontario and federal governments later came to an agreement to keep the facility open. Experimental Lakes Area research station officially saved Kidd said this is the kind of work that validates the facility. She said the larger effects on the ecosystem likely wouldn't have been detected if the study was conducted in an uncontrolled environment because of the challenges associated with it. "We wouldn't have even looked for those other downstream impacts," said Kidd. "(The Experimental Lakes Area) is such a powerful way to look at how the food web responds to a stressor."

Man, right before turkey dinner. I might only have 3 plates.

I use a rock.

Picked up our fresh turkey today from Nicholyn farms and then had to stop a 100 metres down the road to let 7 wild turkeys cross.

Saw a certain special fighter on the news tonight, painting pumpkins in Midland for cancer fund-raising. http://barrie.ctvnews.ca/pink-is-the-new-orange-midland-teen-sells-pink-pumpkins-for-local-cancer-centre-1.2045577

That's for sure. The time change is one thing but the 8-9pm start time for dinner (and you can't eat out in less then 2 hours, because the staff expect you to linger, have a conversation and savour the food) really doesn't suit me normally. It was great for a vacation without little kids but at home I like to be done dinner by 6pm. I'm getting kinda set in my ways as I get older.