JohnF

Some restaurants take this whole grooming and appearance thing pretty seriously. We have at least one upscale restaurant here in town which requires their waitstaff, right down to the busboys, to have their hair cut once a month by a hairdresser the company brings in. JF

There's something else I envy - anyone who's multilingual. I've had students who would apologize for their problems with English. When I asked one girl how many languages she spoke she started rattling 'em off. She could read and write four. She said she knew others but only to converse. I can order a beer (or two or three) in French, Spanish and German and that's it for my linguistic ability. JF

So you have like a little tin can with a hole punched in the end slid over yer line? And I gotta ask - Do the fish whisper when they answer? JF

So ya think I should develop a little fish mantra to whisper as I stand in the stream? I should become a real fish whisperer. Do fish have little ears somewhere on their bodies? I'd hate to waste a lot of time whispering sweet nothings to the wrong orifice. JF

I figured the header would get someone's attention. It hadn't occurred to me they might not read enough to know I was kidding. So now there are at least 100 more people who think I'm a real dickhead for targeting OOS bass. JF

Credit where credit is due. There are a number of great story tellers here in the group, each with their own style. The rest of you are fortunate in either being quality fisherpersons or adventuresome folk or both. Either way, you have something to tell. Me, I just wade the rivers and creeks, imagining what it would be like to hook into some of those trophies the rest of you actually catch. But imagining isn't the worst thing in the world, especially when it's inspired by excellent posts from Drew, 007, Solopaddler, Cliff & Bly, the Sweetener Team and so many others too numerous to list. It's just fun and I'm glad I could add a little fun to it. I admit I was a tad alarmed when no one responded from the first 100 or so reads. I was trying to think of what I might have written to offend everyone, or had you just all decided that I was totally off the tracks. JF

I figgered I could use that on my wife but I can't get our son interested in any of my hobbies except golf, and since he's the pro I get to plasy with his toys, not vice versa. Now, if I were to decide to become a serious musician he'd be right there helping me pick out guitars, amps etc. It's sad when the son does only uncool things like renovating houses, playing golf, and making music. He has no interest in my motorcycles, snowmobiles, scuba diving, or fishing. He's really not much fun at all. JF

Me too, but you read what happened when I tried to catch a carp - nothing. Fish just don't respect me. I'm the Rodney Dangerfield of the fish world. JF

I go fishing. I just never catch anything but little bitty bass and sunfish. Fish hate me. They conspire to humiliate me. They mock me by spitting out my well-honed lures at my feet. Have you ever heard a fish laugh? They're nasty spiteful mean-spirited creatures at times. That's why I go fishing alone so often - to avoid humiliation in front of my peers. The only entertaining fish stories I can recount are fictional ones, my dreams about what it might be like to really catch something. Perhaps I'll document my actual bass opener experiences and share them with y'all so you can understand the contempt fish have for me. I might even try to record their nasty snarky little bass laughter. The only consolation I get is that rare occasion when a laughing bass inhales some weedy water and chokes in mid-laugh. Then I get the last laugh on him. People worry about me then, cackling like a madman, up to my knees in dirty river water, holding my state of the art rod/reel combo, watching the nasty little beggar choke and gasp, reeling around in the stream, headbutting rocks and trees and with any kinda luck (for me) driving his little bald head smack into a concrete bridge abutment. That, sir, is the kind of satisfaction, and the only reward, I often get from fishing. It hardly seems fair. I bend down my barbs, I practice safe C&R, I'm careful with the type of bait I use when other fish are in spawning mode - why do the durned fish hate me? I'm a lovable kinda guy. My Mom says so to everyone. I just don't get it. JF

Interesting. Here in Stratford it got dark and rained a bit with some thunder. The ground is already drying and the sky is clearing. JF

Maggots!!!! At least we can snack on the boilies here. JF

Don't put on the sunscreen just yet. It's very dark here in Stratford. The rain's a-fallin' and the thunder's a-rumblin'. You should get it in a bit. JF

Fathers aren't allowed to have cool things. Straighten him out. JF

Very early on Sunday June 8/08 So there I was, up at the crack of dawn, actually dawn hadn't quite cracked yet, so I was up at - what do the marines call it?? ... oh dark thirty. Everything was neatly stowed in my well slimed khaki shoulder bag, inherited from an old family friend, a fly fisherman. My favourite rod & reel were loaded and ready to rip - I'd start the day with the tried and true Rapala minnow, guaranteed to always get fish. Naturally the hooks were well-honed. It's hard to spend as many hours as I do fondling my gear without actually accomplishing something, like sharpening the hooks. I'd pulled on my waders and laced up my boots, slung my slimey bag, clutched my Quantum and stepped into the creek. It's a bit of a walk (wade?) from the entry point to the beginning of the best pool but with the sun just peeking over the trees it was better than pastorale. I'd have loved to shoot some pics but of course I had no camera. A big turtle flopped in the reeds beside me and skulled away into the deeper water. A Blue Heron's yawking shortened my life by a year at least when it rose from behind the weeds and gracefully swung out over the water, and me, heading downstream. I stayed back from the edge of the pool when I got close, partly to enjoy the rising sun and partly to avoid disturbing the bass that I knew were hanging there. After a few moments I side-armed my rod, sending the Rapala well out over the pool, almost to the other side before it settled with a gentle plunk, shattering the mirror surface. I let it rest for a second before giving it the first twitch. Sometimes a nearby bass will nail it on the landing, but not today. I started an easy retrieve, doing my best to make it look like a sleepy minnow still groggy from the long night, a perfect breakfast for a big ole monster bass. Sure enough the bass was there, shaking off the previous evening's hangover I suppose, like me, and he hit my sleepy little plastic minnow a ton (or a tonne), so hard he and the minnow flew out of the water, crashing back in a shower of sun-sparkled waterdrops. Then he ran. I gave him all the line he wanted for a few seconds just because it felt good. Finally though I tightened up and started to turn him. I only had four pound line on so I couldn't horse him in case he was a big'un, and he looked huge in the air, possibly even a personal best. I was in a state of near rapture letting him run and then giving him a little tug to let him know I was still there, standing in water up to my waist at the edge of his pool. If only fishing could always be like this - set the hook, let him run, turn down the drag a bit, let him run, then have him leave the water for a split second in a rainbow of diamond studded drops. That kind of experience should last forever. Sadly, I knew I couldn't make it last, no matter how beautiful it was, so I went to work and brought him close, close enough to lip him gently and remove the hook so he could swim to fight another day. He got close and ..... he really was beautiful, bronze and gold and dark markings. He was twenty-four inches at least and well over four pounds, maybe five, the biggest smallmouth ever for me. He was almost docile as he let himself be reeled in close, and obligingly opened his mouth wide so I could grab his lower lip when he was near enough. I stuck my thumb in his mouth and was just about to grip down when .... WHAMMMM!!!!! the sunovabeach exploded with the biggest headshake yet, one he'd obviously learned from some battle-scarred veteran of the salmon river wars. He impaled me - the treble caught me deep in the thumb pad - one of the points on the same treble that had him hooked - and he did the headshake again, the sumbeach. I momentarily lost all affection for this critter. This little situation was about to be resolved...... perhaps drastically, but very very quickly. Okay ... picture this ... a record, for me, smallmouth hanging by the lower lip from my left hand. My right thumb conjoined via a Rapala treble with said Bass's lip, and me bleeding and stomping around, slipping on rocks and cussing a blue streak, my recently-acquired Quantum (no discounts!!!) tucked tenuously up under my right armpit. So I'm out of hands here, and my thumb hurts .... bigtime, and the bass isn't exactly having fun either. So what would you have done in my shoes ... uh ... waders? Here's my solution .... it's the best I could come up with. I could ... what? I couldn't drop him to get my knife out. Even if I could, what would I do with it? I suppose I could cut off my thumb, not! It sure seemed a shame to harm that beautiful bass after all that went into getting the two of us to that point in our lives, and I hated to do it, whatever "it" was because none of the options looked good for the bass, or me. Seems we had a standoff. He's running out of breath, (do fish run out of breath?) and I'm running out of blood. There was even a fleeting vision of me trying to drive my car to some help with a five pound bass attached to my thumb. My friend Rob, the artist, actually did that, with the hook, not the bass, just a few weeks ago. I knew I had options ... all bad, but I frankly wasn't exactly sure what they were. I really didn't want to hurt the bass, no matter how pee-ohed I was at him. The hook was obviously up past the barb and well stuck into my thumb, at least from what I could see through the blood. I was doing my best not to do what I always want to do at the sight of my own blood in larger quantities than a mosquito can extract - puke, or faint, neither very manly options, not that anyome was there to see it. I know it seems like this tale has gone on forever, and the bass must surely have gasped his last gasp by then, or I had bled out, but in fact what really happened was, I woke up. You have no idea what a relief that was. The first waking thought that came to me was .. bass are out of season, dickhead. So does that give you any idea of how much I'm looking forward to the bass opener. I'm gonna be out there at first light, primed and ready .... to shove a musky sized treble up that little bass butt so far he'll ..... never mind. I didn't mean that. I'll be good. I promise. Wish I'd got some pics, but you know how it goes with dreams, eh? JF

Sho'nuff, but asphalt down in them sothren climes must be dang near hot enuf fer all roadkill to be well done. JF

Have you been checked for mildew lately? JF

Good job. No, great job. Nothing beats yer reports here, no offense to all the other contributors, but he's got the terrain to his advantage, and besides, he's got a pretty good way with words. Keep 'em comin'. JF

It's okay. Bass season is almost upon us. Hockey will soon be just a distant memory. JF

Thats what a lot of folks like about Ontario, the changing seasons. Or look at it this way - you could live down in GCD's part of the world and be too hot or hotter. He still needs to chill his beer if he leaves it outside in January. In summer he just drops his teabag in a cup of tapwater, sets it out on the deck and waits 10 or 15 minutes to drink it. Of course then he, being a sothren boy, adds ice and sugar. His filets go straight from the cleaning board to the plate, done perfectly. Or go up there to Moosebunk's country, as beautiful as it is, and be too cold, or colder. He keeps his beer in a cooler so it doesn't freeze. They don't drink red wine because it needs to be enjoyed at room temperature (ours). He doesn't even have to put his filets on ice when he cleans 'em. On the other hand us southern Canucks have got it all - air conditioning and high efficiency furnaces. Who needs more than that? JF

Why not get your co-worker to show you how he starts it. Maybe you're just missing something in the operation or maybe he knows some little trick that makes it work. JF

Still waiting for my pool to cough up something edible. I'm not likely to get many trophy bass here, but the fridge is close and my den is air conditioned. The real bonus is I don't have to clean the rapalas I catch. JF

Can I do that from inside the car? My southern friends have got it figgered out. They spearfish, the Hawaiian Sling kind, not the frog sticker kind. It's nice and cool at 60 or 80 FSW. JF

I guess I shoulda patented that idea before I shared it. JF

Carp dammit. JF

I have it on good authority that the MNR isn't even checking swimming pools for poachers so you can target all the bass you want this weekend, with or without marshmallows. Post pics. JF