OhioFisherman

Pike are rare here, even more so after April, and a 4-6 pounder is good sized, most of the ones I have caught have come on small chrome and black crankbaits.

I started using firefox after I found out about on this board, bye netscape! LOL

Congrats! The new boat smell goes away after you get some fish slime on it!

https://www.reddit.com/r/barrie/comments/2dxom8/little_lake/ " Little lake is a great little lake for bass, pike, crappie and cat fish to name a few. you do have to know or want to fish heavy weeds and mats, here are a couple of clips of fish I've caught from little lake. " Info seems sparse on what is actually in that lake, but why not channel cats? I have had incidental catches of cats in a lot of waters, but most of the time it requires actually targeting them?

If you're fishing for bass or pike? 20 - 30 pound braid sounds a lot better to me than 8 pound mono! LOL, especially up north! 20 - 30 pound fish here are usually carp, and losing one doesn't bother me! I used 8# test for drop shotting and fishing wide open waters with no junk.

What Art and Rizzo said, I have see pike choking on Bluegill that went down the wrong way, that bass looks too big for that pike, but once they commit the problems happen?

It has been a long time since I have fished, and even longer for intentionally fishing for Walleye on Lake Erie, but catching very small Walleye usually didn't happen, even when Perch fishing. 2-4 pounds was an average size and it could double that at times easily. I think the smaller ones stay away from the bigger ones, some areas are known for producing 8# plus fish depending on the season. On Lake Erie the success of the spawn seems to be the main factor in maintaining a " sustainable fishery ".

" California,Texas,Arizona,Florida " I'm from Ohio, in those states you would be fishing a long time to catch a walleye, pike or ski? A lot of the in between states also don't have those species or limited numbers and size.

It seems weird to require your name and address on a minnow trap but not a gill net?

It's probably not the case with your reel as it is newer and only happening in the cold, but I collected old reels, the grease in some hardened with age. Sounds like it needs a good cleaning and fresh lube.

LOL!

I live about 35 miles southwest of Cleveland Ohio, about 25 miles due south of Lake Erie, defining a normal year here can be a problem! Ice here is known to be suspect most years, although " safe ice " seemed to more common in my youth. The local weather has the high temp today at 62 f and we get wide swings in our temperatures that make you question the safety of the ice. It gets even worse as you move south from here, it's not unusual for Columbus Ohio to have temps in the 50's when ours are in the low 30's. There is no ice here, there was a bit of thin sheet ice on some of the local ponds a while ago, but it disappeared. Once you get into Kentucky? Finding safe ice becomes even more of an issue. https://www.glerl.noaa.gov//res/glcfs/glcfs-ice.php?lake=e&type=N&hr=00 Lake Erie lack of ice conditions!

Around 50 years ago a guy my dad worked with and his son or buddy got busted for having 27 northern pike, the limit for the two of them was 12. They kept their boat, motor, trailer, and fishing gear as collateral to make sure they came back for court, we never had anything to do with them again.

One from Pa and both from TN had the same last name? Sounds like it could be a family affair? I'll bet they consider themselves sportsmen?

Are the Browns going to the super bowl?

7.6:1 gear ratio (HG) 40 inches per crank That's a pretty fast troll?

No seat belts or helmets? J/K Saw that earlier today on CNN, they were very lucky! If you have ever been on one of those bass boats that can go 50 - 70 miles an hour? even rain can hurt!

It's just my understanding that fat head minnows travel better than emerald shiners and are less susceptible to changes in water temperature and oxygen content, so bait stores have less trouble keeping them alive and they are easy for fish farms to raise for bait. Emerald shiners will catch more fish everywhere I have used them, even in waters they aren't native to, like our inland lakes. I remember some bad years on Lake Erie when the bait stores had trouble getting Emerald Shiners and they were selling Fatheads instead, they didn't work nearly as well for perch or crappie. All the streams and rivers in my area have suckers in them, they make good walleye bait, never had much luck catching anything else on them, even in Ontario. Pike here are few and far between, I don't recall ever catching one after mid May, and only on tribs of Lake Erie, a 5 - 6 pounder is pretty big here.

The only minnows I bought up there were pike sized to huge, i had a pretty good idea from fishing here as to what was a minnow and what wasn't. I have seen some people here that thought minnows were small carp and didn't want them in their ponds. The selection of minnows here at our bait stores tends to be a lot more limited than yours, along the Lake Erie shores it is almost always just emerald shiners, once you get inland it is fathead minnows ( panfish sized ) and golden shiners ( bass sized ) you generally have to go to a bait store right by a lake that has muskie in it to find suckers or really big creek chubs.

My area is loaded with farm ponds, I have seen some loaded with silver dollar sized crappie and bluegill, on those ponds the crappie and bluegill seem to take the place of minnows as the source of food for bass. I like to see a pond with some 8-12 inch golden shiners in it, a breeding stock of baitfish that get too big for some of the other fish to eat.

http://www.cleveland19.com/story/34289927/more-work-needed-to-identify-lake-erie-toxins The commission is inviting public comment on the draft, which is available at http://ijc.org/files/tinymce/uploaded/Publications/Draft_TAP.pdf .

I went to Rice Lake once with my dad back in the 60's, it and the Kawartha lakes at that time were not supposed to have pike in them, that was a choice of lakes limiter for him.

LOL, what would you tell a CO if he found a sturgeon or trout in your bait bucket? I got that at a bait store? ya right!

No ice here either, one of my neighbors has a half acre pond in his front yard and I don't think it has had more than sheet ice on it all winter. Temps in the 50's for the next few days, some of my friends may be having mid winter bass tournaments!

I remember buying bait up north and getting smallmouth, trout, and mooneyes in the bucket too. Er, sir, I will pass on those!