Fang

With the very unusual spring my usual tradition for trout opener was in serious jeopardy. Since 1988 I've spent each trout opener on a small " brookie" type stream that gets a run of steelhead. Some years the pickings are slim with low water and the run being over but this year was the worst. I was walking this stream back in Feb and saw tons of spawned out fish and earlier last week another walk in the forest showed the river extremely low and no sign of any trout hanging around. I was hoping that a few might have got caught in some pools as the water dropped but didn't look like there was anything. So a new plan was hatched this week and Saturday afternoon I headed down to Erie to hook up with a buddy and get out for some perch fishing. Nice having a dry comfy ride on the big lake now Powered out to 50 ft of water and saw a few other boats scattered around - no big cluster and lots of room between boats - nice. Took about 10 minutes of powering around to waypoint 2-3 nice looking schools. The wind was out of the west and was just a bout right to provide a controlled drift over the schools. Simple drop shot rig with live minnows and the fist first was in the boat in less than 2 minutes. Weeded through the tap-tap-tap bites and tried not to set the hook on any of the small hits. Ended up with a nice bunch of 12-13" to take home and have a feast, I guess a satisfying consolation instead of my trout opener tradition. A few 13's and the bottom one a fat 14 3/4" This morning's feast

I just checked on line and there's only a 20 minute wait to cross the border at the Peace bridge.

Good info being provided but I would not discount the spoon bite at this time of year. In the spring the typical presentation spread includes boards, flat line, riggers and dispeys. I start with a mix between body baits and spoons and always let the fish tell me what they want. One of my top go to spring baits is a Northern King C5 spoon. It's a replica of the discontinued Pirate 44 spoon which was a standard. Too me spoon colour and size is very much personal preference and you'll start to have confidence is a few spoons that will prove to produce. I've got a few lockers of spoons but usually start with a number of tested and proven ones. Dream weaver DW standards and Super slims are probably my top 2 producers. Some days they like the thin spoons (smelt and emeralds), some days it's an alewife bite. NK's, stingers and Silver streaks will all catch fish. For colours I tend to be biased to greens, blacks, silvers and chartreuses. Also make sure you mix up the spoon inside with painted whites , silvers and golds, don't forget the golds!!! I learned a ton about hot new colours and combos by following the charter reports on AT THE OAK and digging through their archives on popular spoons. Many new colours and spoons are first to hit the market with the charter guys on the south side. It was on this sight several years ago I first saw something called a spin doctor.

My cannons were new in 87. Still going strong and I'm on third set of those washers. Keep extras around and also part 75. The plastic pulleys last a while and I replace mine before there is a problem

I brought back an ikea bag full garbage today. Just frustrating that people think that Tim Horton cups are biodegradable. It was 90% of what I picked up

While I haven't used sucker when jigging for lakers, I do tip my jigs in the summer with 2" Berkley Gulp minnows and it works. Usually jigging with bad boy type lures, Never really had the need to tip any spoons. I have fished with some older gents on temagami who tip there spoons and jigs with the Uncle Josh ripple rinds, not sure if you can get those anymore but I saw lakers caught on that

been impressed with what I have been hearing about the benelli nova's and super nova's

saw the FX1750 at the spring fishing show and was highly impresses with the build, layout and design. The price was pretty awesome too at $23K boat, motor (115 HP) and custom trailer Only thing left to do would be a water test

Click the Region Map link at the top of the coastwatch page to see the different areas. Clicking Lake Ontario gives you a good look at kawarthas out to quinte

Vinnie, The walkers can be used on either side as the main arm should be dead centre in terms of the board height. The arm rides about at the water line so no worries except in real rough water. With springs up top you may not need the snubber at the board. I've been on boats before with different home made planer board masts. The springs used at the top can be touchy to get exactly the right tension. I made my first one and put several types of springs on the top trying to get the right tension. Then spent a good time on my buddies boat that had the Big Jon masts. I ended yanking the springs off and just hard wired the top pulleys. The snubber at the board works best in my opinion. Looking forward to getting out soon!

When RJ and JP made their first appearance I kept getting this deja vu feeling I'd seen him before He's a 4 time world champion arm wrestler and on an episode last year they had him in a bar for a match. Nipfisher, you caught that too!! It's starting to be a little to much like Survivor for me. Snipers, really bad editing where the gator they catch is not the gator in the fight scenes. I'm sure I saw the same clip of a gator coming off the bottom of the river at different points in the show Sure looks like Hollywood has taken over the show and it's loosing it's charm. I still like that most of them use guns that look like they came out of my grandad's barn

I got 2-3" on the bulbs in the garden already out of the ground. Last night was sitting in the backyard with the dog and counting the dew worms on the lawn. I could have picked a couple dozen

The only thing to do in St Jacobs on Sunday is shop at Home Hardware. You could tour the sugar bush on Saturday (not open on Sunday either) Natural Sports on Victoria St is only 15 minutes away and KW Surplus is kind of cool All depends on your wife's definition of romantic!

Aw you guys are killing me! Other than 4 days moose hunting in Oct11, it's been 19 months since I've been on that lake fishing

Eyes must be going. Thought it was 1850. Would have been a steal if a deal

Fishhawk 1750 owner since 2003 here and absolutely no complaints and I kick the **** out of mine. I was trying to hold out for an 1850 but none were around and I had cash burning a whole in my pocket. My only input would be the 90HP might be a little light. My 115 pushes the 1750 at 42mph. With a 19 pitch prop I could use a bit more power tubing with the kids.

Been standing in the driveway looking at my boat and thinking what day to start getting it ready,. Dropped an HB 1197 on it last fall and never got the chance to get it wet. Also looking at replacing my tired old Abu 7000's with something new and shiny Hopefully this warm weather has kept the feedback on trout and salmon and we'll continue to see the quality sized fish come the end of summer FWIW, was fishing last weekend and it sure looked like the odd alewife was in close on the breakwalls

Forgot to add one thing. In this version the trays are too spread out. The bottom tray gets a fair bit more heat and smoke and about every hour I switch top and bottom racks. A better design for this system would be to move the racks closer together at the top. Gonna try and get it going this weekend if I can get out Saturday

Half the fun in getting into smokers is checking out all the crazy contraptions other people come up with. I had a blast checking out the you tube videos and peoples web sites. You'll absorb a ton of information and stumble onto some good recipes. I put mine together on the cheap side. A $20 electric hotplate from CTC, A 12x12 ceramic tile goes underneath it. Three $5 grills from CTC and about $40 in cedar from home depot. Probably cost me more in beer sitting in the garage having a cold one while drawing up plans and putting it together. If you do build one try and make it as air tight as possible with a smaller air exchange hole and be extra cautious with any material that can give off fumes when heating. OBS plywood is not recommended!!! Mine works fine for what I do which is mainly trout. With the hot plate on medium I add a small extra cup to the chip tray with 2 lit charcoal bricks. Takes my smoker up to 170-190F mark. A $10 BBQ temp gauge sits on the door. In action Visit your local BBQ stores as their selection of chips and smoker accessories is growing. I have a BBQ Galore right behind me so easy to pick up my favourite Black Cherry wood chips

Looks like the reel trade in is March 9th-14th and then the rod trade in is the 16th to 20th - 2 trips Yikes! The Ontario store site is starting to post the sale details by day and programs but as yet has not released the actual flyer as far as I can see. Check out the Auburn store and that should be close if you want a sneak peak at the flyer

definitely look at the Eyecons. My bottom bouncer rod for the last several years has been a BPS Extreme Flipping stick 10-20lb MH action. Handles right up to 2 ounce easily. Based on other store flyers the BPS Spring sale looks like they might have the Extreme's on sale for $69. Look at the New York store flyer

and it comes in a tiller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.larsonboats.com/fx1750-tl.php

Must have missed those Dan or I would have snapped them up. Left the show well stock with ones with a logo on the pack

Did my annual wander around the Spring Fishing show and although the displays and deals seem to be few and far between I did come away this year with a few positives, Found a few deals this year. JB's Fishing Depot had most of their plastics on buy 3 or 4 and get 1 bag free. Now that's not a far out ridiculous deal but the selection of product was the best I'd ever run into. All the new baits, new colors and several of my secret favorites (look for cleaned out hooks at his booth - ha ha) In the rod clear out section at Natural Sports I found a couple of gems. A Shimano Alivio carp rod for $60 and Abu Vendetta rods for $50. Good selection of 1 piece spinning/bait casting. Picked up a 7'4" M spinning that'll be perfect for tubes and drop shot on erie. One big rant was the price for the pepperettes. I always buy a few to munch on while walking around the show. Size, selection and price was too high for me this year. On the plus, they did serve cold Mill Street at the bar Best at Show Award! For anyone considering a boat purchase this year, please do yourself a favor and search out the new Larson (yes I said LARSON) FX 1750. For a multi species boat I have not seen anything in all my years as impressively designed for deck, storage and fishable areas. The show special is almost too good to believe $22,995 comes with a 115HP merc Folding tongue matching trailer (and not a little undersized one) Minn Kota and Lowrance fish finder. By far the most impressive layout I've seen in a long time. 96" beam makes this boat a monster even for 17.5 foot. Just thought I'd pass this along and hopefully they'll be coming out with a 19-20 footer in this in a year or so.

Used an Abu 5500 for years hauling big baits, bucktails, trolling lake O for spring kings. Sold mine when I bumped into a cardiff pretty cheap. Should have not sold the Abu!!! My Cardiff got a little rough as it aged and the casting was never as good as the Abu for the lighter baits