JohnF

Seriously, I'm way out of touch with racing but back in the day there were guys running trick fuels in their sleds. I remember a guy came to me bragging about the great deal he got on a still in the box Motoski factory race sled. It was a nifty unit but he couldn't get it to run right. The carbs were jetted all wrong for regular gas. Do any of you other oldtimers remember the smell of Klotz and the snapping of your eardrums when you stood near to a full on race sled? JF

Good point. You beat me to it. Also, can you act quick enuf to take advanatge of the renovation grant? JF

I dunno. I fiddled around with so many different lures and presentations that I think I shot myself in the foot catch-wise. I'm always looking for single hook solutions as I have a kind of aversion to tossing a whole batch of trebles at creek bass. They always seem to end up with more hooks stuck in their hide than in their mouths so I'm kinda partial to plastics or single treble lures. And most of my trebles have the barbs bent down. JF

The best way was for two of us to work - one pitching and reeling while the other walked along at poolside. I would sometimes hold the tip down at the water with about 4-5' of line out and walk along the edge. It probably affected the action though with the short line. JF

GOOD STUFF. jf

I'd sure be looking at the jets. The air can cause differences and major cold and humidity levels might be compensating for the weird jetting. When we were racing 2 strokes we'd always be playing with the jets, particularly on the Mikunis. I had a board drilled that I carried all the time at the races. It had a full range of jets. I would usually only change 10 increments at a time. Are you sure your sled hadn't been running on Nitromethane? JF

I have to admit that when I was doing the pool testing I didn't have a lot of baseline exerience to rely on. That being said I certainly noticed a difference in the movement between using a tied loop and a split ring or a tight knot for the Rapalas and the AC Shiners. I can't remember actually trying a leader in the pool. At one point I had put split rings on all my floating minnows and realized (in the pool) that it did affect their action, tied loops were best. With other manufacturers floating minnows (mostly cheap ones) there was such a disparity between supposedly identical units that I spent all my time just playing with the tuning and didn't get to comparing the action with split rings vs a loop. I did play a bit with putting a dressed tail hook on Original Rapalas and thought the action was off. As well even putting a size larger hook on the tail or removing the front hook made the lure a tail dragger and changed the action. Not sure how much that helps, and for that matter I'm not sure how much I'd rely on my less than scientific methodology and limited experience. But it was all fun. JF Now that the question has been asked I can't imagine why I didn't spend more time observing these differences. I guess I was so busy just learning how the different lures worked that I wasn't too much into playing with hook sizes and nose attachments.

Thanks Lew. Now I wanna keep it for myself. JF

And thanks for the feedback and suggestions, y'all. I kinda knew this was the way to go from earlier threads but a last check never hurts. JF

Thanks. I'll do that on my own as soon as I get it back. I figgered getting Matt one for Christmas was the only sure way of getting mine back. JF

Just picked up a Garmin Nuvi 265W for $165 @ Circuit City (Radio Shack). Special price this weekend apparently. It seems like a nice unit with an easy to use menu. JF

I think that's the new Wilson/Burke game plan. Encourage a sense of false confidence by doing nothing to dispel the delusions of the fans, then be really sneaky by getting a couple of soft goals down. After that it appears to be fairly easy to beat a lot of the teams. Boston remains an enigma but there's lotsa season left for the grand plan to work. JF

I thought Skeeter just meant it as a harmless joke. But Cliff, as for yer offer, any chance we could build something permanent on stilts that I could use as a summer place? JF

Sit in the boathouse and cast to the hole???? JF

The Leafs could win the Cup and for Ottawa and Montreal fans it would be because all the other teams musta had mono or some other life sucking illness. JF

Just for driving. I kinda figgered the Garmin was still the goto unit for most folks. I want one with voice insructions, colour, and a decent screen size. JF

I just looked it up and you'll probably be diving with Tortuga Divers (now owned by Red Sail). Are you staying at Morritt's? Nice beach there. Bit of advice. Take the pool course on Tuesday so that in case you like it you can do other dives with them later. If you're flying home on a Saturday it's wise to avoid diving on Friday. 24 hours is safe to be out of the water so all the nitrogen in your body gets time to offgas. You probably won't do enough diving or go deep enough to be in much real danger but better safe than sorry. It would seriously suck to find yourself bent in the airplane flying home. JF

Never dived with them but in all likelihood you'll find yourself with Canadian instructors and dive masters. Lots of 'em there. The nice thing about GC is that no matter how rough the wind has made the water on two sides of the island there'll always be nice diving somewhere. I rode with the captain of our dive boat out of the yacht club in North Sound around to West Beach one day. We were sliding down the face of huge waves (15-20' troughs). At one point I just barely caught my gear sliding out the back end of the dive deck. It was a fun ride, not necessarily one for seasick prone folks though. Anyway we slipped and slid around to West Beach, picked up the crew and the other divers and had a pair of beautiful dives in smooth water. $150 is a little heavy for a resort course but all diving is exensive on GC. On the other hand we paid something like $90 15 years ago in Cancun for it so $150 may not be too bad. You'll probably get one boat dive with the course but then you can do as many dives as you want at regular rates (probably up to about $85-90 for two dives). Most of the dives are in 40-60' on gorgeous reefs. If you like the water, you'll love the dives. And the fish you see will blow you away. Watch for sharks. You're bound to see a few. And lots of different rays. Tons of big grouper and huge turtles. Watch in cuts in the reef structure and you may be able to swim with 3-4' Barracuda & Tarpon hanging together. It's all good. JF

SSSHHHH!!!!! The game's not over yet. JF

There's some great snorkeling in behind the cemetery east of Georgetown. You have to walk thru the cemetery to get to the beach. If you take your snorkeling gear out to the dive shop by the Turtle Farm climb in at the ladder and then follow the ditch all the way out to the miniwall. The top of the wall is sandy and quite shallow. You'll probably pass some tech divers decompressing in the ditch. When you get to the first wall follow it to the left and look down into the cuts. In one of them we always saw a school of huge tarpon, I mean big fat 40" plus boys and if you watch out on the deeper sand you'll probably see some Eagle Rays and perhaps a few sharks. We saw a Hammerhead there one day. Lots of Grouper and stuff too. It's pretty amazing. If the wind's up and the big water is too rough check out the trip to Stingray City. It's sheltered (North Sound) and you go out on a huge pontoon boat. The water's only about 3' deep and there are 100's of stingrays there swimming all around and over you (sometimes). My wife didn't last too long with them rubbing all around her legs and headed for the boat pretty quick. It was interesting to get so up close and personal. If anyone in your party are certified divers don't pass up the diving. It's some of the easiest and nicest you'll ever do. If you're ever going to dive on a Resort Course deal that's the place to do. Generally I'm not an advocate of quicky dive courses but the conditions are so easy there that for someone who's comfortable in the water it's worth trying the diving. You probably won't go deeper than 35-45' and the visibility is so good you don't feel even that deep. It's like a swimming pool. On the other hand if you're carded and have the right dive operator take you out you can go way down the rock wall without lights. I've been down 150' and it was still clear as day. I could see all the way up to the boat as clear as gin. JF

I know we've had lots of discussions but with the ever changing world of technology I wondered what the smart buy (for about $200) in portable gps was at the moment. I need to buy one for a gift, hence the $200 limit. I have a Lowrance ZOG that's been great but they don't seem to be available now. There's a Garmin 265? for just under $200. Any better ideas? I've gotta do a run into the Big Smoke before Christmas so I could pick one up there if I knew where to go. Thanks JF JF

Watch for divers there. There's a bunch of 'em. From what I remember that end of the island gets the surf. Your best bet for bonefish (i.e.calm flats) may be in North Sound but I don't know that for sure. The island's not that big (22 m x 7 m) so it's not far to anywhere. Otherwise the calmest waters are likely the southwest corner of the island. We went out diving from a couple of nice looking spots. If memory serves the name was Red Bay. Further east the shore seemed mostly volcanic rock and blowholes. JF

Solid H2O, like in ice? That means scotch - on the rocks. Great winter drink. Great summer drink for that matter. JF

I guess I've reached that age where I'm reasonably satisfied with my lot in life. Once upon a time I dreamed a younger man's dreams of wealth and independence but then I learned that wealth doesn't give independence. That sucked. So somewhere along the way I forgot those dreams of a windfall. If I did however come into an unexpected extra million I might then be able to talk my wife into that Kawarthas cottage I'd like, a modest one, and a nice boat. Of course I'm not that old and staid that I wouldn't do my best to have the fastest boat on the lake. She doesn't need to know that though. We're pretty much set for whatever else we want. My car will haul the boat nicely. I guess with what's left over I'd make sure my son had enough seed money to run the business we started. The rest would just go into the retirement fund I suppose. Not a very exciting plan, is it? Well, except for the killer boat. JF

Sounds like a good class action in the offing. How many people are affected by this? Find a lawyer and see if there's a chance of getting it certified. JF