Fang

Just back from a week on Temagami. Trolling speeds varied from 1.1 up to 2.0 but 1.8 was sweet spot. Small gang trolls from lucky strike in front of Michigan stinger spoons with 5 ft leads. UV’s chartreuse and glow greens took majority of fish. Also ran clean Sutton spoons and small meat rigs side by side and gang troll/spoon still won. Nothing big but good numbers up to 5 lbs. That lake has huge numbers still and ran into very few other boats trolling. Most were jigging and that worked too for a few.

Great thread gents as I've convinced myself that it time for an upgrade, Very similar set up as original post Crestliner FH 1750 with newer HB's on deck and console and currently running and older 70lb Maxxum 24V that has been with me through all kinds of nonsense over the years and never let me down. Honestly some of the stuff that that motor did was medal worthy hahaha. In my older age I'm torn to give up the foot pedal as half of me is still in my 20's running weed lines and crashing through slop with a foot pedal but my older ego wants to sit Bill Dance like on the casting platform and press a button on a remote. After all the reviews above I'm leaning now that a Terrova 80 lb 60" with IPILOT, foot pedal and remote (just in case) is in the plans so any recent stock availability or deals seen out there would be appreciated. DM if preferred and yes I will post old faithful here in the want ads for an OFC special price as I know there's so much more life left in that unit.

I buy a cat toy at Dollarama for $2 that is the same as that multi color hair. Snip out the binding thread and you get a good piece like that to tie streamers and tails. I don't think mine has blue/purple though. Take a look in the hair section in there too. The sell packs of small hair elastics in a bunch of different sizes widths and colors - most packs are nicely mixed. These make great body winding for those ice bugs, caddis flies too

might be a bit expensive now for 4" white PVC with screw on end caps. I made myself a long case from home depot for some air travel trips where I had 7 and 7.5 ft rods. To cushion the rods I glued in a cheap yoga mat from dollar store roughly 1 foot at each ends. Also you could see if there is still summer stuff out and grab the small 4ft cheap pool noodles. Split one side with and x-acto knife and slip the rod into the center space from tip to handle. You'll need to buy 2 to do the long rods and then these can be stored in 8' sections of that central vacuum tubes/pipes. These are cheaper than the white PVC Travel secured in truck bed and take them in at night

As a family we vacationed in Temagami last week in July and my daughter did her license on line on the Thursday night before leaving and was able to print a copy at the end right after paying. That paper sat in my boat all week and I think it’s still there

My last issue with Minn Kota was a long time ago (finger crossed) but the electronic and mechanical parts were fixed by Aikmans in Mississauga I think they still are listed on minn kota web site for service outlet

Ahhhh hahaha good one chumbawumba loved that album all those lures designed by that famous Finnish lure maker Lipra Yadsloof

So only 5 lures to take to a smallmouth lake you've never been on before 1. Bucktail jig 2. Ned rig/3-4" dark senko 3. 3" XRap 4. Any #4 Gold spinner 5. my new fav topwater Whopper Plopper (boy that's the worst lure name ever) runner up only if it's a deeper lake would be a slab jigging spoon

I forgot to add, YES like most tackle junkies on here I bought a couple of the new ones, just not the Canadian Flag The are plastic and have a scale pattern/gill ridge molded into the body. I was impressed with the action and they did sweep way out right and left like the old ones do, but never really ran them for any length of time so no fish on them so far. I keep looking at those kits and will have to do that this year. I love my little 2" for lakers up north

I saw some of the NEW Lymans at Canadian Tire in Burlington not too long ago. Just a surprise to see a few pegs there as that location has a bigger fishing section than normal. Can't recall the $ and all I can remember is they had the Canadian flag color The Lyman site also has a cool 6 blank hardware kit for those wanting to do their own color schemes. I think it was $59.99 and you get all the bodies and hardware to put together. Not sure if that was USD or CAD but seemed interesting based on what people are asking for the old ones

Best $ I found last summer was Amazon under "Downrigger Weight" I grabbed 2 8lb from Extreme Max for around $45 each and with Amazon Prime it was next day delivery and free shipping

Been a long time customer, I still miss hand picking things in a fly shop though. There's always that perfect package of fur or feathers. Calf tail is the worst for range of quality One lad at SAIL looked at me funny the other day when I asked for the entire hook to be pulled down for dark brown bucktail, found 1 real good one and a bunch of low grades

All good, Took the unit back to the store with my bill and in 5 mins price was adjusted to the non Nav + unit. Now all I need is to figure out what mapping card to buy now.

It does have the Humminbird basemap loaded which is all US lakes but no card in box or loaded in the slot. When I check lakes like Simcoe and Rice no depth charts on the helix 7 just blank screen where contour lines should be. Looks like a trip back to the store for a price adjustment or hopefully they have a 7 with the proper navionics labels on the box. All I have done so far is remove the head unit from the plastic and power it up dryland without transducer hooked up Their store price tag on the box says Helix 7 +nav