JohnF

Isn't it funny how much pleasure we can get from perusing a nice thick shiny fishing tackle catalogue? I'm not even a big BPS shopper. Why bother when you have good local shops? But that doesn't mean I won't get hours of pleasure from looking at all the pretty pictures and checking out the latest gear offerings. Happy reading y'all JF

I think I am seldom disappointed by the food and service I get at franchise places because I have very low expectations going in and generally go with the least destructible menu items like burgers and toasted westerns. For fine dining I'll go elsewhere other than a few local franchise spots I'm familiar with but even then I tend to go to independently operated places. One of the best breakfasts we've had in the last few years was in a tiny little hole-in-the-wall (the town and the restaurant)clinging to the side of a mountain in Arizona near Sedona. It was just a lucky choice for us but it reminded me that independent restaurants are most often the way to go when you are willing to sacrifice glitter and chrome for decent food. Yeah, there's still a risk, but what the hey? In defence of the staff and food at many shiny franchise type restaurants there is not enough attention given to training and food preparation. The staff turns over often, are not well trained as a rule, and are pushing to get as many turns at their stations as possible during a shift. The food is delivered to the restaurant frozen which is why it tends to be consistent from Florida to Sudbury although it's interesting to see the regional influences in some franchises. (Biscuits and gravy at McDonalds down south?) BTW. I spent a year of my life managing a pub style restaurant in our theatre town and if I learned nothing else, I now know that the restaurant business is a bugger to succeed in and that's a hard and expensive lesson to learn. We probably did better than we deserved based on our training and experience but we made up for it with hard work and business common sense. I have tons of respect for folks who succeed in the restaurant business from servers to chefs/cooks and managers. It ain't easy. But that does not excuse bad food and lousy service - ever. JF

Speed is good, but it's best when it scares the crap out of you. All my life folks have been more than a little surprised at how I love going fast. In all other things I'm actually kinda timid. But I hate going fast in things like roller coasters cuz I'm not in control. Go figger. Guess that explains my love of bassboats. So far I haven't gone fast enough to want control though. Looking forward to the chance to pilot one of them at 75/80 mph. Then I think I'd wanna be the driver. Of course the owner may have an opinion on that. It's only been about 50 years since we were playing with hot rod boats on the river at home and they weren't exactly blindingly fast but they still did some silly feeling things on the water and we had to be attuned to the shakes and rattles. What was Guy Lombardo's connection to Miss Supertest? Seems to me he owned it or something like that. Way back in the mid-50's my folks would take us north every summer to fish for a week. One time we stayed just outside Algonquin on a lake called Oxbow or something like that, near a Blue Goose Inn(?). Every morning there would be an insane howling noise and a race boat would come ripping down the lake. We were told it was Hayward practising to race the Miss Supertest boat(s). I think we were told someone in his family had some rental cottages up there. I'm pretty sure the boat was not the actual race boat, just a practise thing but it sure ran fast. Anybody else remember anything about that? JF

Is that three wheeler rear end his own fabrication or an aftermarket setup. Nice and clean looking. The hard tail makes my tailbone hurt just looking at it. The closest I got to having one of those was when some of us went thru a silly season by putting short struts on our Triumphs to eliminate the shocks. Very stupid idea altogether. The Triton is classic. The cafe racer style is still my all time favourite but hardly dignified for an older gentleman like me. not that I wouldn't like to climb aboard one for a bit of fun. Dunno if the hips would go along though. Even when I rode the Ninja years ago in my 40's I spent a lot of time standing on the pegs to stretch the tendons out. Nice stuff he has there. Shame to have his fun spoiled by a stupid body failure. Glad to see he can still have some fun though. Be a shame to waste all that skill he has. JF

Drill it ..... carefully. Make a little pointed hook tool for it. A bit Rube Goldberg but cheap and easy. JF

I recognized the Isetta after I posted. This guy in London had a few of them stuck up on a shelf (literally) overlooking his racing shop. He was big into Formula 4 racing when it was popular. Little bitty bike engines in steroided gocarts. JF

Sorry. I caught some of that talk but must have missed the real point. Is there a connection between age and giving away the catch though? I remember meeting an interesting feller working at a Dick's Store in Cleveland who admitted that he was a meat fisherman thru and thru and not for fun. He had a trail of ex-wives and young families (a story in itself) that he was helping support and free fish was a huge part of the extended family diet. In his case though by the time he's retired his extended families will be self-sufficent. At least I hope they will be for his sake. And given the difficult financial circumstances some oldsters find themselves in post-retirement I'm not sure I could be too critical of fishermen who try to help them out with some fresh free meat. As long as the resources are being treated responsibly I like to see folks living off the land, or water as it were. JF

Are those Messerschmidts or Isettas? Have I even got the names right. I used to know a guy in London who had some. I think they were the Messerschmidts that I believe are pictured here. JF

I know what you're saying Mike but the fact is that we're off the water right now and I think most of us aren't that interested in hearing the same old same old rehashed ad nauseum unless it's a truly incredible story. There doesn't seem to be as much hard water talk as last year but I'm not interested in that so probably am missing the good stuff that's posted. My take on the posts we're getting right now is that it's nice to see there are members who want to maintain a connection to the site and the other members by finding other material to discuss even if it's not fishing related. I like a lot of the people I've met here and look forward to meeting many more, and reading about our other interests etc is a great way of getting to know the rest of you. Many similar forums (not necessarily fishing related) are exactly the same. The keeners want pure fishing, or diving, or golf (others I've been active in) but the truth is that after a few years as a serious reader/contributor to an active board you get tired of answering and/or reading the same posts from newbies and new members over and over again and though it often sounds rude to keep sending them to the search function cuz it's been done to death already it's what's gonna happen. I say just enjoy the posting activity and if it bores you then either find some fresh fishing content to offer in hopes of stirring fun or informative responses, or just take a break till the fishing talk heats up again. There's only so much new gear stuff the guys like 2RR's can offer up and it's great when he and the others can. Newer fisherpersons like you and me don't have as much to offer in terms of experience and gear knowledge. We're still learning and not ready to teach yet although at the rate you're going you'll be on the giving end of the technical stories soon enough. I've been exactly where you are when I first got into scuba diving and was itching to learn everything I could online and hear as many great stories as i could there. But the day came when I was on the old hand side of the forum able to talk the tech talk with the best of 'em and was as guilty as anyone of wandering OT and talking other stuff out of boredom. Hang in there. The warm water's coming, bud. Respectfully JF

Is there really a problem here? I for one just turned 65 and will be license free this year but I have no intention of changing my "keep" practises just because I'm not paying. I doubt for the puny difference in what we pay for the choice of licenses (and keep) we'd have gone the cheap route simply for the money saved. I seldom take fish home. In fact the only fish I keep are the injured ones and they get used, either by me or by friends. They're never wasted. I'll admit I'm not a meat hunter although if the opportunity arose I'd like to try a feed of fresh caught walleye. I've never caught one to be honest, unless it was as a kid with my Dad. I don't plan to change my fishing travel habits just to decimate the walleye population though. So I guess I'm saying this discussion is probably moot. Those who kept meat before will continue and those who didn't probably won't start. As for the no fee deal I guess that's open to debate but tradition dictates that us old farts get a few breaks. I don't feel guilty though. I've paid lots of taxes and gov't fees throughout my life. Maybe I've earned a break and a little encouragement to enjoy my so-far-not-happening-thru-personal-choice retirement. I'm not hard up but a lot of folks my vintage just weren't able to set aside much of a retirement fund, often thru no fault of their own uless you're being a real hardass with them, and they will have to forego a lot of the pleasures life has to offer due to the cost of having fun. Perhaps we shouldn't begrudge them this one simple natural pleasure. Respectfully JF

I really appreciate the offer but the last time I did that I went home with a big Ninja. My wife would kill me if I ever did that again. The first time I brought a bike home unannounced she decided that instead of removing any of my male appendages she would do something even more punishing - get her bike license and make me share my Yamaha DT1b. Fortunately she refused to ride the Ninja. Just a tad too fast and top heavy feeling around town for her. But the next time I'm passing thru your area (provided I'm on the ground) I may just take you up on the offer, not so much to enjoy the toys but just to meet you. You sound like an good guy. JF

Do some research on water temps. My buddy has been keeping local fish for a few years and often uses frozen plastic water bottles to keep temps in line. He keeps an assortment of critters including crayfish, cats (which I actually first found for him in a squirming baby fishball being herded by a few adults) and panfish along with a few minnow species. It's pretty interesting sometimes. He spends hours observing them but then he's an artist and we all know they're a different breed, right? I used to worry about him transporting them in my vehicle but I've gotten used to it. He's very careful about keeping the fish trapped in one location all together in one tank and so on. No mix and match of locations. Keeps down the risk of disease and dseems to work very well for him. He has a very high survival rate, better than I ever had with tropicals. JF

Great choice. Probably what I'd be doing if I went back to the van style. JF

I hate these threads. I don't have a garage any more, just a condo basement parking area. And the toys are all gone except the stupid bicycles. Bleah!!!! You guys all suck. JF

Our juniors remind me in a way of the Maple Leafs. You never know what team is going to appear. Of course they aren't as extreme in their ups & downs as the leafs. The team that beat the US sure wasn't the same team that lost to Sweden. My wife made an interesting observation the other night. "How many NHL teams have 18 first rounders on their current roster?" I hadn't though of it in those terms but it really is an impressive stat. JF

Tried that last night. Sometimes I think my iPad has a personality - a mean one. JF

I have been trying to find it in the apps store on my iPad with no luck. Can you give me the actual name under which you found it? Thanks JF

Russia goes to gold. Hopefully we get to play them. JF

I expect the meal plan limits your choice of restaurants to in-house. It seems to me that part of the fun of staying in the Disney World area is the variety of places to eat at. If you are spending any time at Disney World then take advantage of some of the restaurants there. We had a nice buffet in the big traingular shaped building the monorail runs thru. I forget the name but it's one of the original buildings. Each of the different resorts has restaurants if you can figure out how to get to them free on the park rail and boat system. Lake Buena Vista has a few restaurants that might be fun for you. At one of them Mickey and or Minney will probably come to your table. I'm not suggesting you'll save any money but it's part of the fun. I've never gone to Universal but I expect it has lots of restaurants as well. If you go to Epcot there are lots of restaurants representing lots of countries' cuisine. It's all fun. Otherwise that area is loaded with restaurants in all price ranges. Some are in hotels but others are independent. Sorry I can't give you any specifics but it's been years since we were there but for a number of years we made lots of visits to that area with and without our kids. Don't be embarrassed about going to an over-sized kiddy park. It's great fun for us grownups too. JF

Yeah! I want all the money back that I've piddled away on cars. I'd be rich. It's not my fault that I'm a sucker. JF

It all started with cars and clothing. My grandpa had one good suit and one work suit. He removed the vest and jacket when he got home at night and put on a cardigan over the shirt and tie. Once the work suit wore out the good suit became everyday and a new one was purchased for Sundays. They were always grey. I was told that was why old houses didn't have huge closets - no clothes to fill them. Today my wife and I each have a huge closet full of clothes for dressup, work, play and laying around the house. It's crazy. And why do we need to change cars every 3 or 4 years? JF

Great post. With some of my other hobbies (diving, golf, etc) gear piggery was a major problem. There were always some nifty new pieces of "must have" gear and I was a sucker for all of it. I couldn't go diving without the back of my van being loaded with boxes and tanks and suits. Typically I'd have enough gear to put 3 people in the water well-equipped. That's ridiculous ........ but fun, dammit. Naturally I've gone at fishing the same way since I rediscovered it a few years ago. I was just down in the storage cage the other day sorting out rods and reels. I have more than 18 setups of which I really only use 4 or 5 for different situations. Ironically when I head out to the river which is my most frequent fishing happening I'll be wading so of course I need to strip down to the essentials. I carry one rod and everything else goes in a small canvas bag over my shoulder. The hemostats and clippers are on a light bungee around my neck. The license and cam are in the bib pocket of my waders. I'm the poster boy for minimalism as long as no one sees my storage room. Instead of having threads talking about species specific rods, reels, lines and lures let's all try to identify the gear that is most generically successful in it's application. FIGHT BACK!!!!!!!! JF

Here's to a great 2011 for all, to recovery and relief for those who are troubled in any way and to no new announcements of friends and family with major problems. I know it's a lot to ask for but I'm just kinda selfish that way. All the best, y'all. JF

Mark Bell appeared to be skating faster than he ever did in the NHL. JF