singingdog

I have been fishing 20 lb PPro on spinning reels for 10 yrs with no issues.

Pike and 'eyes have been spreading through that whole chain of lakes for the past 10 years. Some monster 'eyes are being caught through the ice on lakes that were long considered trout lakes in the winter.

Haliburton. Some years opener calls for small, some years they are hitting the big stuff. My issue was lots of hits, not a lot hookups.

Curious how folks did. We had 3 yaks on the water for a couple of days. Moved lots of fish, caught 5 or 6. Nothing over 40". Weed growth here is very slow, so fish seemed to be cruising off the edges. All the fish were caught on smaller lures, couldn't get much interest on larger presentations.

Looking for a decent quality spinning rod, L or ML action. Needs to pack fairly small, so probably a 4 piece or telescoping. Lots of tackle to trade: high quality bass cranks and topwaters, musky inlines and glide baits, walleye cranks....

It was definitely a quieter long weekend here in the Haliburton Highlands. Folks came up to their cottages, but nowhere near the amount of traffic as usual, especially given how nice the weather was. I am always amazed at how little fishing traffic there is up here on the opening day of 'eye season. Several very good 'eye lakes didn't have a boat on them.

I would say that it's not as busy as a typical May long weekend. The village is certainly not as busy as usual for this time of year.

Tournament fishing doesn't drive anything but more tournament fishing. It has absolutely nothing to do with why, or how I fish.

Nice video!

Gimmicks. Direct pressure to stop bleeding, and proper wound management afterwards is what you need.

I can tell you, from being out in all kinds of water conditons, that you have to be incredibly inattentive or just seriously lacking in skills to flip a modern fishing yak: especially one with a pedal drive like he was using. But, GoPros have a tendency to do that to people.

Only thing worse than being a dough-head, is being a dough-head and putting it on Youtube: no cold water gear, no rod leashes, gear not secured to the boat. Doh!

"Next big thing"? 😆 Kayak fishing has been going strong for more than 10 years. Every imaginable species in pretty much every imaginable water has been caught from a yak. The only time I don't fish from a yak is when I fish from a SUP. Yes, you can lay out $2K for a yak, but you can also find a fishable boat for less than 1/2 that. Any stable SOT can be a good fishing yak. Specialized fishing yaks have evolved in design so that you can easily stand and fish easily. Closed boat ramps, meh. Expensive gas, meh. Lakes with no boat ramps, meh. Water too shallow for a motor.......

I really like Auchentoshan as a scotch that costs less then $60/bottle but still has some character to it.

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Never experienced that. It's a double-shame that it happened with Lagavulin 16: one of my faves as well. I would take it back as well. BTW, have you tried the Laphroaig Select? It's another really nice Islay that I just discovered.

They are super photogenic: love to perch on the tops of spruces, and very tolerant of people. Hopefully the doughheads don't start baiting it to get better shots.

Nice shot. It's a strange year for bird movement; finches are not moving at all, and several rarities have shown up. We have 2 Varied Thrushes in Hali County right now, and a Rose Breasted Grosbeak: first record in over 50 years of Xmas bird counts.

Have been out several days the past 2 weeks: still good green vegetation on deep weedlines. Lots of great smallie and musky fishing left, fall trout season is just starting to get good.

Happens all the time. I could point out at least 6 lakes in this area that used to be real gems for several different species: smallies, specks and musky particularly. They have all been ruined by dough heads bringing in other species - smallies into the speck lakes, pike into the others.

Nice fish! I am sore from throwing big glide baits the other day. I get sucked into the big bait thing, even though most of my musky have been caught on 4" smallmouth tubes 😲 Glad to hear someone else has good luck on smaller lures.

Lots of smallies still shallow here. I was on one of my favourite lakes on Saturday: 110' deep, lots of rock, points, humps. Smallies are often suspended over featureless water in the fall, but on Saturday they were anywhere there were softball to basketball sized rocks in 3-10 FOW. I love days like you describe BillM, although my arms get tired chasing them around.

Hmmmm. The records for bear attacks don't support that theory. Roughly double the number of fatal grizzly attacks over the past 10 years.

Looking for Sebile Magic Swimmers: you know you have some in your box that you never use. I have all kinds of stuff I don't use that I will trade for them: jerkbaits, topwaters, lots of great quality football jigs.....

Keep an eye out for these please Stolen Kayaks please report if found: Last Seen on the Whitewater section of the Ottawa River - 3x Jackson Kayak Big Rig Fishing Kayaks 1 Teal & Black, 2 dark green and black PM me if you have any info. Thanks