OhioFisherman

Loosening the drag will help, but if you are fishing around heavy cover expect to lose some fish,

Hook quality on jigheads can be a real issue and it basically comes down to the old saying, "you get what you pay for". I used jigheads all the time and was unhappy with the quality of hooks, same issues, the standard hooks in most inexpensive jigs straighten too easily. I started making my own jigheads years ago, when it was a lot harder to find jigheads with better quality hooks. I also adapted some of my molds to accept larger sized hooks than the standard ones for the mold. For general use I use Mustad 32746BLN hooks, a light wire hook but with more strength than the standard hooks. i have land carp in open water up to around 35 pounds on them with no issues. Not a hook I would recommend for fishing around heavy cover though, I have lost bass 4-6 pounds trying to bulldog them away from cover, they will bend but not easily and tend to spring back into shape. A reasonably priced hook though,like 10 bucks a hundred here stateside, 70-90 a thousand depending on size. Gamakatsu 604`s are hard to beat, a bit pricier though, like 32 bucks a hundred, or vmc barbarian`s, not sure of the pricing on them any more, like 16 bucks for 70? Expect to pay 2.99 to 4.99 for 4 or 5 painted jigheads already made and painted unless you buy in bulk. http://lurepartsonline.com/cart.php?m=prod...etail&p=402 http://lurepartsonline.com/cart.php?m=prod...list&c=1968 http://lurepartsonline.com/cart.php?m=prod...list&c=1368 A stateside source, you may have someone up north with similar items. I used the mustads for fun fishing, didn`t lose fish on them often, tournament days the gammies or vmc no hook issues, don`t want to lose them if they count. Can`t help you with the rod eyes, I used what they came with.

LOL BassKiller, most Americans don`t like it either. Funny that Mexico is very strict on who enters there from it`s poorer neighbors(is that possible?) but they certainly don`t watch who is leaving their northern border well! Something on the news this morning? Between the amount of money illegals are sending home to Mexico and the illegal drug trade it equals almost half the legal trade between the US and Mexico. Our problems seem to be with the southern border. But politicians can screw up anything.

I have used mono and braided dacron- nylon for pike super braids weren`t out. Important thing was getting the lure - bait in front of the fish. Best plan for fishing for them is fish at the depth they are at which can vary over the season. Early spring shallower and deeper for the bigger ones as it warms up, except maybe early or late in the day. Any lure that you would use for bass has a decent chance of catching a pike, mix in some spoons which most people don`t use for bass. Are you fishing from a boat or shore? Shore angling is a limiter but can be done. Your chances are better where baitfish, other smaller food fish for pike are present, any fish smaller than the pike is food. Cover,wood weeds help the smaller fish hide, shallow water gives them a place to escape to. A deeper pathway to these can be a spot to look. If your using a bait caster not hard to set it up for pike, take the line and tie a steel or flourocarbon leader to it and snap on a lure. Don`t buy leader with cheap snaps, at least get them with Berkley cross locks on them. If you can find them with the Stringease snaps they look like the way to go. Never had to use a steel leader over 12 inches when casting for pike, I have used them longer when trolling just to error on the safe side. If your fishing live bait, big chubs, shiners and such a slip float set up is a good way to do it. Steel leader snelled hook, they usually run 10-12 inches long pre-made? Put the stop on the line or tie a blood knot on the main line just cut off a piece or use left overs from your spool you used to spool your reel long enough to fish the depth of water you are fishing. Slide on a bead that won`t fit over the stop or blood knot, slide on the slip float. Weight is needed to keep the bobber upright and the bait at the depth you want to fish, some crimp on splitshot, I slid on a worm weight. I used a swivel snap at the end to attach the leader-hook allows the bait to swim without as many tangles or line twist. Any concerns about the quality of the snap just crimp a split shot over it to prevent it from opening. Bigger chubs, shiners tend to catch bigger than average pike.

nomad, sorry to say you might be right, vacations are now being called staycations or naycations. Different perspective on the passport thing, in the winter you have to leave your country to find some heat, we just go a few states south. Just me but I never needed a passport the only time I ever left this country was to visit yours. No need or desire to go anywhere else.

http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/01...any_america.php

My sister-in-law and her husband both work for suppliers of Honda in Marysville Ohio, both had all overtime cut a few months back, sister-in- law is now on reduced regular hours 3-4 days a week. They are expecting some increase with parts for the new model year but unless car sales increase it won`t hold up. Look at dealers lots in my area and they are all full, with cars to be sold and hardly anyone walking the lots.

Enough fish dinners for me as a kid, I will eat fish but don`t care to. Usually a diet thing for me , sardines, tuna, salmon out of a can. Usually kept one fish a year, decent sized walleye, steelhead for the wife and kids.

A witches brew and it can be confusing. Here in the states I had short term disability as part of my employer funded union run health insurance, it would only cover 26 weeks of disability and if the doctor didn`t word the request properly you couldn`t get it. To give an example I was put off of work completely April-June of 2003 by the doctor, no problem they paid. For us a set benefit, 300 bucks a week, less than 1/3 what I made working. Returned to work in June 2003 and not right worked 2-3-4 days a week, managed about 3, 5 day weeks until October when the doctor put me back on restrictions, but not off work completely. More or less a vague statement that I could work no more than 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week and at times a lot less, depending on my need. Company would not allow my return to work under those guidelines, union work rules prevent my return to work under those guidelines, and union run health insurance refused to pay because the doctors statement didn`t specifically say I couldn`t work. Appealed, fought with them for a couple months, then decided if they didn`t want to pay 1200 a month they could pay me 3000 a month retirement. Here in the states government run Social Security, part of it is Social Security Disability Insurance(SSDI). After 10 months off work my wife convinced me I wasn`t going to be able to return, might of been after she had to help me off the floor? Confusing diagnosis from the doc`s, all agreed I was sick, but no clear reason why, nothing was showing up on the tests they performed that would give a clear diagnosis, maybes. 2 denials from SSDI on my claim for disability. A common practice here 60% are denied the first filing, lower number the second and I had to go before an Administrative Law Judge hearing(ALJ) to present evidence on why my claim should be approved. Evidence presented, including finally a diagnosis from a specialist that took the time to run the proper tests needed to make the correct diagnosis, and I was approved back to the last day I had worked 29 months ago. A lot of people here complain about Social Security, but have no real idea what it covers, and most of us are just one accident or illness away from disability. Most long term disability insurance plans here are a trade off, you can get paid from them or Social Security but not both, SSDI won`t consider you unless you have been off of work at least a year or possibly terminal. Just guessing that most average workers can`t afford to carry an outside source disability insurance plan. SSDI here pays based on income level and a portion of lifetime earnings, the more you work, the higher you income level the more SS taxes paid up to like 106,000 bucks, so the more they pay. Workers comp? Here the trend is for the companies to fight all claims unless your broken and bleeding on the job.

Suckers mouths are on the bottom of their face, bottom feeders for the most part, right were the catfish spend most of their time, a natural food for the cats, nothing should be needed to add, if they are too big just cut them up. Shad, an oily fish and their die offs put them on the bottom were catfish can feast on them, big ones are good cut up. Up on the Shawanaga river any big minnow worked chub or shiner. Pretty easy to catch your own bait(chubs and shiners) fishing for them with a size 12-16 hook with the barb flattened down with needle nosed pliers, a bobber and maggot of tiny piece of worm. Thought I saw in the regs rambleon? posted mooneye weren`t legal as bait?

http://www.autoblog.com/tag/ford+lorain+assembly/

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/petfoodrecall/#Dog http://www.fda.gov/opacom/7alerts.HTML Might help?

You can burn in a lot of memories, how do you pick just one? LOL I will follow slowpokes lead, fishing an area of lake erie shoreline by myself on a week day, my brother fished it regularly for walleye and frequently caught a decent sized smallie. I had fished it with him a couple times but it was hard to get him to concentrate on smallies. Fished the same area with my buddy and usually got one or two 20 inches+ made me upgrade my golden rule to a 22 incher. Spent like 8 hours searching and not much action from anything but sheephead, a big area to fish and it`s run up against the wind and get a good drift going and repeat. Last pass of the day, around 3ish I got the hit I was looking for bam, and I had to fight to keep the slack out of the line, she was coming up! Lipped that rascal and threw the marker buoy over, a nice 20 or so inch smallie. and in the next half hour I got about 18 more, all between 18-22 inches. Then they shut down again and it was like no fish in the water. A week or so later I took my buddy and his 2 sons and had a repeat, we all got some good ones. Never could break that 22 inch mark though, a spot over the years that has usually produced at least one 20+ inch smallie a trip. There are days when it ain`t easy. LOL maybe I am spoiled? under 19 isn`t what I am looking for? LOL except on tournament day? Lot of days putting 2-3 times that many in the boat,but the size wasn`t there, 2-3 pounders are average.

We have 2 boston terriers and a lab mix mutt. Bostons are great dogs, but not particularly an outside dogs, they can`t handle heat or cold for long. Pictures of ours i my avatar. White spotted one we got after I was disabled from work, he listens because I was home with him since a puppy and had time to train him, a great dog! Bigger than most bostons, around 30 pounds but a baby unless it is play time. They are not really yap dogs, they bark when someone comes over, until they meet and greet then every things cool and they want to play with their new friends. Great with my grandkids, youngest just turned one and they just inspect her. She grabs the white one and he just looks or moves away, the black and white one just runs. Black and white one is going on 7 years old, we got her when I worked 10 to 15 hours a day and fished when I could on weekends, wife at work, kids in school so not a lot of time with training, a good dog but independent, has some obedience issue she will take off when outside, the white one doesn`t. White one has more of the bulldog in him, more of a massive front end, black and white(female) dainty at around 19 pounds. Clean looking dogs, real short hair. The lab mutt is typical lab, mud or water and he is in it.

I am in the states and was a truck driver, no idea on the EPA regs now it has been 6 years since I worked. I was a city driver 35 city delivery trucks that were parked at the terminal at the end of every day. The company contracted with a mobile unit to wash them like once a month. They usually had it done on Saturdays and I wasn`t there to see what hoops they had to jump thru to meet the laws. A lot of road drivers are owner operators, some truck stops have a truck wash, T/A has one near here at their place off of I-71 and state route 224. Some do it your self washes here will handle a tractor, one in Lorain Ohio. Just higher ceiling so you can safely pull the tractor inside, but no room for a trailer. Just not enough room to get in. A lot of the owner operators just do it themselves when they get home. Company drivers generally won`t pay to have it done unless they get compensated for it and that doesn`t happen at many. 30k seems like a big investment with out a sure income from it and I am guessing with the economy one of the first things the companies and owner operators cut back on is washes. If fuel spikes up again they will cut back even more.

When I bought my 17 foot aluminum it came with a 36# thrust bow mount (minn-kota) easily enough power on calm to moderate days not good when it got windy. On a 12 footer a 30-36 should be fine, mine is sort of heavy, casting platform, wooden decks and a 35 merc hung on back. One battery would last me most days, but I always carried two just for the trolling motor. Think I got my charger at wal-mart a 10 amp automatic. I also have an old shakespeare 30# stern mount I used on all electric lakes here no problems on aluminum boats up to 16 feet,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_Terrier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_Terrier

Have a great day Norm!

All 3 of mine eat Nutro lamb and rice, the oldest will be 14 this year.. Neighbors lost 2 of their dogs feeding them that cheap stuff they had problems with a few years back.

Laws are a bit different here in the states than up there, with good reason. We are more of a warm water fishery, trout except stocked species are a tough deal to find here. Some of the large baitfish will compete with trout for food. Not a good idea though to ever use any baitfish that isn`t found naturally in the waters you are fishing. xeon, a very good list. It`s been a long time since I have been to Ontario, but even the bait stores up there that I went to made mistakes, Granted it is hard to look at every "minnow?" in the tank, but I have gotten small smalmouth, small brook trout and a moon eye as bait from bait stores up there. Ya goldfish are carp, and tougher than you think, they were in Lake Erie when I was a kid and still are. Back in the winters of 78-79 which were pretty severe for us here a lot of small lakes and ponds had massive fish kills. Too much ice and snow on top the ice, oxygen depletion kills. Seemed like it killed everything but the carp and goldfish in some waters, a lot had to be restocked. Not unusual here to be fishing along the shores of Lake Erie and see a 2-4 pound goldfish swimming around, usually have to get into calmer back bays and tribs to see smaller ones. Back in the 60`s I used to see carp at Pointe Au Baril, sort of a surprise to me as a kid, I also thought the waters were too cold for them.

Great pictures and report, nice to see you got some fish.

There are a lot of good reels out there now and it is just a question of how much money you want to spend. Left or right hand retrieve might narrow your choices a little but not a lot anymore. For either purpose the same reel will do something like a Shimano Citica or if you don`t mind spending a bit more a Shimano Curado, Abu Revo. and others. More of a comfort thing some feel better in your hand and most of the brands in that price range will probably be a quality product. 6.0 - 6.5 to 1 gear ratio is all you need unless you really got it in your head you need a 7 to 1 retrieve reel, I don`t thing so, unless you plan on tossing buzzbaits all day and even then the slightly slower retrieve reels are not really a problem. Just me but my reels generally serve more than one purpose, except when I am fishing for truly outsized fish 200 series Shimano would be fine for either unless you are catching 40+ inch pike all day, or Muskie fishing on a regular basis. I have reels in a variety of retrieve ratios mainly because of the reels age and what was available at the time.

Congrats! sound like a fun time, maybe a little work but is work by the water really work? Have a great season and keep smiling!

LOL Ted, my brother used to raise them in moms little backyard pond, walleye and smallies ate them like candy on lake erie.

Nice Solo, looks like an East of Cleveland trib, The Grand? Never been far enough up the Vermillion on the west side in my boat to see what is up there. My days on the Grand were before Steelhead.