Musky or Specks

I might be bias I was Shimano prostaff for years but no one makes a better product for the money and then stands behind their product as strongly for as long as they do.

Before they changed opening day of Musky this year I use to have this sweet gig where I would flyfish specks the Friday morning in a northern river, boat into a remote musky lake. Portage my motor and camping equipment. Get out for an evening walleye fish and fry and then Musky fish for the next three days. Was the sweetest combo gig I knew. Now it'll have to be just the walleye and musky.

My handlle says it all

Bass Guys arent crazy for ging fast... They are crazy because when you go that fast you might as well be pouring gas right out of your tank. At a buck twenty a litre THATS crazy!!!

Actually the bows might be better at naturally sustaining themselves than the browns. Every year people report unclipped rainbows being caught. The brown trout however dont do so well. The flow regime of the dam wreaks havoc with spawning redds washing them out and suffocating them with fines(silt deposits)We spent a lot of money intially to build a spawning channel for them. They used it successfully there were fish spawning all over it in October. Entire channel was wiped out in spring floods before any hatching could take place. They are hoping that some of the tribs might be able to produce young but the Grand is essentially a fish farm.

A guy who Im friends with who runs a charter down on Eirie once brought a whole bunch back that some commercial guys are starting to smoke. They were actually very good.

Except make it self sustaining which was the goal of the whole project to begin with. Youd be suprised how upset anglers get when you try to take fishing opportunities away. To use your own example a huge stink was raised by the pike anglers on the Grand river because the use of live bait was being prohibited. Not that they couldnt keep the pike, just the WAY they could fish for them.

Well got out to do some crappie fishing down Urban Fishermans way tonight started fishing around 5pm or so. Unfortunately the largemouth were really on and couldnt keep them off our lines. Managed one tiny crappie and finally changed up our presentation to slip floats with a Berkely Power Maggot on a single hook. It was like magic and we couldnt keep the bluegills off. We met this awesome guy from Woodstock named Pete. If your a member here Pete PM me we can exchange some more info. Heres a couple of pics Looking forward to trout opener now just have to decide wether its Algonquinn or creek troutin it.

Well they are in KW, Laurel Creek, Melitzer Creek and Strasburg Creek are all functioanally done.

Because five years is only an average life span they can and do live as long as ten years.

Ideally yes but Im talking about a comprehensive zone wide regulation and joe angling public would have a coniption if you said you cant keep trout anymore.

Excellent post you've got the gist of the point Im trying to make. Although I never said protection of the gene pool should be first, the threads original post is about genes so thats were my original contribution came in. Heck bios dont know hardly anything about the waters they are working with. Ive been informed of coldwater habitat I didnt know existed many times. Its anglers who need to participate in fisheries planning meetings and other public interations with the regulators that leads to a sharing of knowledge and a protection of all species. As for the touch of hostility, I kind of look at it as a bunch of guys passionately argueing about their favourite sports player/team. You might get excited and disagree about specifics but the fact of the matter is we all love the game.

Look in your regs. It says the regs are only a guide and not a legally binding document. If you want exact clarification youll have to call the local office.

The regs are very confusing when it comes to Bronte. But no it is not open all year round.

Actually the work I was doing with Mr Plank was all about doing just that. And it worked every season except winter.

One other note Ive basically been told point blank that brook trout will always loose the battle of habitat loss(until its to late) and so improving our genetic stock might be one of the only management tools available.

But if you felt a need to contribute which you do and should , you should read the whole post to understand whats going on before joining into the middle of a discussion. I know its a lot of work but before you become critical its something you should do. And we should have more full on brook trout threadss just to put a smile on everyones face heres some nice brook trout porn( its a fetish I have) (what I consider) southern ontario brook trout 23" of power on a an ultralight and a rapala still in its mouth.

This is the way I beleive the law is interpreted

The vest is nice because of the amount of different pockets. The pack is nice because its easier on you physically. Ive seen chest packs that might as well be vest though. Nice thing about the vest is it has a nice place to carry snacks and a drink. I dont know what to tell ya. Fishing a long day of stream wading for steelies I prefer the vest. Flyfishing and everything else I like the pack.

Yes that thessalon has always looked mighty steelheady when Ive driven by it on my way up to Superior. One of these days Ill have to stop and fish it. I cant remember does the Boland flow into it?

OMG !!! I just cant stand people on the internet its very frustrating. Read all of my post and the original post. Then we'll talk. Do you know what the OMB is ?? Ive been fighting the battle for urban brook trout since '92 on behalf of you and your children. Its a thankless battle and Ive lost every single fight. Ive watched three beautiful little creeks with self sustaining brook trout populations wiped into extinction by the OMB because brook trout arent "endangered" or "threatened". Yet I defy anyone to find one in city limits anymore? I know of two more that are about to become "in' city limits and Ill give each one about five years till they are gone. Ive worked with a Dr Plank who had this great idea for saving urban trout streams with groundwater recharge ponds built to specific limits to ensure a constant cold water recharge only it didnt work in the winter and all the trout moved out and would have eventually died of thermal stress the next summer. Ive sat on government approval boards who only concern when it all boils down to it is do we increase our tax base. I had a developer in my pocket to develop an entire subdivision with its main selling point being a trout stream flowing through the middle of it. It would have been a ground breaking enviromental planning coup. The developer was going to foot the entire bill and let me tell you it wasn't cheap. And NIMBY's fought against it and saved their scrub bush that everyone dumps their garbage into so they can enjoy the wilderness and the milkcrates and junk food wrappers until eventually a developer comes along and they dont care anymore and the developer doesnt care anymore and wham bam thank you mam there goes another speck creek.Now you've got me started I gotta go cool down. The habitat destuction is the main issue but of coarse thats not what the OP was about now was it.

The prime spawners is in quotes because they make up the majority of spawners but in no way are they the prime spawners. The real prime spawners have actually been harvested to the point of virtual extinction. We are pretty close to actually making the same argument just using different numbers. The southern ontario problem is so different from the problems that you have in the north. To sum up you are trying to protect the prime spawning life cycle while still allowing a trophy fishery. Down here we need to create a prime spawning population by 1-protecting those fish whose genes we want to become the base for better genetic diversity 2-removing an overabundance of weak genetic stock 3 still trying to satisfy an insatiabal angling appetite that exist in southern Ontario. All of it is problably moot though Ive fought my battles and the OMB wins every one. The urban brook trout is on its way to extinction. Id like to add the OMB to this list of causes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

Dr Cook put the Nip on the map. People have been traveling to fish the Nipigon since long before Rob was born and will continue to fish it long after he is gone but he has left an important legacy. I still have one of the Save a Brook Trout Turn out the Lights T shirts somewhere in my closet.

Heres a good read for you "The truth is that large brook trout vanished from our big freestone streams when northcentral Pennsylvania became readily accessible to anglers. With the opening of roads and the coming of the automobile, fishing pressure was intense, and the brook trout population was quickly decimated. It only took about 20 years. The limit was 40 a day around the turn-of-the-century; it was reduced to 30 a day shortly thereafter and to 25 a day before 1920. Catching a limit was not difficult, and there was little thought given to limiting the catch. The resource was believed to be limitless. By 1940 it was all over. In sterile freestone waters like those in Pennsylvania, brook trout grow at best at an average rate of about 2 inches per year. They have the potential to live about 7 years, and can live as long as 10 years. This corresponds very nicely with sizes documented in turn-of-the-century angling literature. But they need time and space, and this is what they no longer have. Brook trout are extremely sensitive to angling pressure and in heavily fished waters like ours seldom survive more than three years, the age at which they generally reach harvestable size. It's not very complicated: This is why native brook trout now average six inches in length and a ten inch fish is a trophy in waters that once teemed with 9- to 12-inch brookies. Since about 1940, the large freestone streams of Pennsylvania have been primarily managed as put-and-take fisheries. Instead of limiting angler harvest, wild fish populations were supplemented with hatchery trout. This seemed logical at the time. Nature was thought to be inefficient and wasteful, and with hatcheries man could easily and cheaply replace wild fish with domesticated versions. It would no longer be necessary to wait years for trout to mature. They could be put in the stream one day and caught the next. We still have thousands of miles of freestone streams with sufficient natural reproduction to support an extensive wild trout fishery. The best are located in the northcentral section, centered around Potter County. But now, just as the water is beginning to warm in the early spring sun, millions of hatchery fish are dumped into these streams. Recent biological studies have shown that the stocking of hatchery trout into streams with wild trout populations is a disaster for the wild trout. Hatchery fish are bigger and much more aggressive than wild fish and utter chaos results. The whole orderly system established by the resident fish collapses. Imagine what would happen if your neighborhood was suddenly occupied by a horde of big, ill-mannered, aggressive strangers who had nothing to eat except your food and nowhere to stay but your house. When streams containing wild trout are stocked, the number and size of the wild fish plummets. Conversely, when stocking is halted in streams with naturally reproducing trout, wild trout numbers and size increase dramatically. And, worst of all, stocking draws an army of anglers, many of whom are there to "limit out." The toll is enormous. The streams are quickly stripped of both wild and stocked trout. Repeat stockings are required every few weeks, just to meet the demand. The disaster that occurred earlier in this century is replayed every year now, starting on the opening day of each trout season. Treating streams which are perfectly capable of supporting viable wild trout fisheries as though they are nothing more than counters from which to dispense expensive, domesticated hatchery trout is an incredible waste of increasingly rare and valuable resources. And imagine what is being done to the irreplaceable genetic diversity of our native brook trout populations. It took literally millions of years for these fish to evolve. Now those fish genetically coded to mature early in life while small in size, spawn and die, are heavily favored. There is no longer any survival advantage to long life and large size. As anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of natural selection knows, the species will adapt to fit the environment. Extinction is the only alternative. Make no mistake about it, these fish are highly adaptable and will survive, but their ability to live long lives and reach large size will be lost forever if we continue on the present course. " Source http://www.patrout.org/brook.htm You have an astounding ability to not absorb what your reading,the size of "prime spawners" is six inches in southern ontario, to the point that their genes overwelm any fish that might be later maturing. Once a fish hits sexual maturity its growth becomes limited. A six inch fish that is mature will only be six -eight inches long at the time of its death. A ten inch fish which might not even be sexually mature has a much greater chance of being harvested as an eater size fish because of the angling pressure berfore it ever has a chance to pass on its superior genes. The regs I suggest are very similar to what exist on the Nip they are just different sizes. The regs almost exist right now on the Credit River where only 1 fish may be kept over 18 " The reason I said keep four under 8" was to encourage the culling of genetically inferior fish and allow ample angling opportunity. Believe me it wouldnt be many years and everyone would be complaining that 8" is way to small and they never catch them small enough to keep anymore. Ask the guys who fish Parry Sound for Lakers. Again your a layperson so I dont expect you to totally get it. But its Darwinism at work as quicky as regs could make it while still appealing to those who like to have brook trout for the dinner table. Would the regs stay that way forever, who can say? Its all about angler education. People on the Nipigon and Superior systems have come to accept a one brook trout limit. My dream is to have people in southern ontario accept it as well.

Nice report Joey. Our core body temp is something that we should all be aware of. I spent a day in my floattube with just shorts in the heat of August with water temps in the low 80's. It still gave me a pretty serious case of hypothermia. If the shore guys were kicking butt I wish I would've went down.