Fang

Well it's been almost a week since pulling back in the driveway from a vacation on the lake. It's an annual trek for my family as many of the OFC crowd may know part of my wifes family have been running a fishing/hunting lodge for over 40 years. The lodge is 3rd generation of the family and is in the hands of my neice and nephew who are the same age as my wife and I. For the last 28 years I've been able to be that imposing relative who visits in the summer to fish and swim and then leaves. To be honest they work so hard all summer with guests 24/7 they look forward to relatives to visit and help out. Our week is usually filled with wonderful manual labor tasks like hauling firewood, repairing docks, doing garbage runs, guiding, cleaning fish for guests,... It's tough work but I love every minute of it. This year was very different for us. The brand new cottage that we started the footings on last October moose hunt was ready to go and was not booked the week we came up. The no vacancy sign was hung and we were the third family to be in it. Still had that new cottage smell! Didn't take me long to unwind after the long drive up on Saturday. A quick hottub and off to the Duck Unlimited dinner in town On Sunday we woke to high winds and 3 footers crashing into the bay. I wish I had more of a fishing report but we only had a few hours of calm water to enjoy. When it wasn't windy, it was pouring rain. Overnight my boat sunk almost 4 inches. Took almost 30 minutes to bilge it out. Time to buy an auto bilge. My son making the best of the rainy weather When the weather did break we caught a few fish 28.5 Laker that hit a small 4" anchovy Yes there are fish in Temagami. We saw this every deep water ledge we trolled for lakers. It was awesome the marks were nonstop. With the cold front weather though the bite was off. Was able to pull up a few small ones too. Sutton 44's have been the go to lure for them this year. I got mine on the small anchovy rigs behind a 3ft cowbell and a couple on dreamweaver spoons - chartruese and silvers. Took some time and did a litlle BBQ'ing - Elk and Striploins Hiking at the old copper mine on Temgami island yeilded some neat rocks for the rock garden Lots of guitar playing around the campfire at night. Thought we had a video of all us us singing Daughtry's version of Poker Face but maybe we deleted it View from the deck/hottub and one for Wayne. Sorry Wayne saw your plane when we were in town but were under the gun to get to the DU dinner and no time to stop in and say Hi. I would have brought beer with me just so you know. 8 more weeks till moose hunting!

It's 7 am and the boat and truck are packed. A quick breakfast and we're on the road to spend the week on the lake. This year we've got our own cottage rented. Guitar and fishing a plenty this week. See ya folks in a week

I've had this explained to me very clearly on Simcoe by a CO who was checking licenses. He had just written up a few guys that were fishing close by and I asked him what went on as the guy getting the ticket was very loud in his displeasure. Seems the CO sat and watched 1 angler land a number of whities in a short span of time and this angler kept his 2 and them kept keeping them but placing the landed fish at his buddies whole. NOT ALLOWED!! One angler can catch and keep only the number of fish on the personal daily limit. They can not catch and keep more than the limit even if his buddy doesn't have his count. CO's don't care who owns what lines or who was watching which tip up. It's the physical act of landing the fish that indicates whos fish it is. The CO gave us a simple solution . If you have you're count put the fish back down the whole. If a buddy needs a fish let him/her land it.

annual trip same location every year didn't know it was a 2 fish limit ?????? And FWIW once YOU catch 2 trout YOUR limit is done and you can not keep any other fish even if you're buddy hasn't filled his limit. It's not a shared limit per boat. You have to land the fish yourself to be legal for your limit

Defintiely a fan as well. Like SP I was always a sassy shad fan and then jumped on the Berkely Power bait kick from Infishermen with the saltwater pogy. After a just few trips using the "new" ones I do agree. It's very eye opening at how slow you really should fish these baits. I'm still a plastic first fan and like to run them with the largest keel weighted worm hook possible. Occasionally I will rig them like a texas rigged worm and run them over shallow grass. The worm weight is at least 1/2 ounce and in these shallow (less than 3 ft) weedy areas it's the only time when I will speed up the retrieve. I've picked up a few of the Storm hard and soft swim baits and will be giving them a big work out in temagami next week. Hopefully they haven't gone off these from last year. Another bait that I've turned onto that is similar to the swim bait is the wake shad. Picked up a few fat crankbait style Manns zero's and have been very impressed with the catch ratio. The strikes of course are awesome too - all visual and much more aggressive than most other topwaters. With wake style it's slow and then slow down even more just like the swim baits. Bought 2 $15 spros last week at Fishing world and some like wire leaders just in case the pike take a liking to them.

Looking to convince my fishin buddies of a trip there next year. My boss has me tied to the whipping post through to the 11th of Sept as we have a 3 day Canadian trade show starting on Saturday. Maybe easy to go but I'd have to look for a new job when coming back. I'm hoping to book for next summer if my guys will committ

Yup on the cowbird, We have them overrunning our feeder this summer and the juvenilles show up with the adults.

No way around it. your gonna have problems. Jack plates are for fine adjustments up and down but are mainly designed for motors with steering cables and not tillers. When used with tillers its mainly for trolling and not running full out and having the need to still steer by hand. From the pictures it does not look like you'll be able to drop the lower unit down below the transom and still have clearance on the throttle arm get what price you can for your short shaft and put it towards a long shaft. Do not cut the transom out. That boat is designed by weight and size to have that distance above the water line. Cutting below that will get you inot trouble with back wash or in reverse and take on water.

Call the mississauga store Photoz. I was in there a week or so ago and saw a 5000D baitrunner. Don't quote me but I think it was $158 or something close. It stuck with as I paid $175 at BPS for my 4000D this year - I couldn't find one anywhere else.

In 100 ft we find a 6 oz or more a better weight. On our flyin it took 180 ft of line at 1.6 mph to get down 100 ft. I used my 7'6" flippin stick and it worked out just right. 12 lb test to a small lucky strike gang troll and we trolled frozen 3 ft behind in a meat rig. Simple rig and worked out real well

21 is kind of a magic number for smallies. I've got a couple 23's from lakes and my pb of a 23.5 maitland river fish. Long and skinny but one of the most acrobatic fights of my fishing catches

Will be on the lake from the 14th to 20th just around the hub. Been a while since I was up there in August. Sounds like the waters warm for swimming and the lake is still low. I target smallies and lakers. Never had too much success on the big lake for walleyes. Not for trying though just never found a reliable spot. One here one there.

Saw this article today. Do yourself a big favor and change the swivels on store bought bouncers to good ball bearing swivels. Also use the quick change clevices if you tie your own. Golden rule is 1 oz weight for every ten fow. Make sure you have a few 1, 2 and even 2.5 or 3 oz bouncers. I tend to get more bites on reds and oranges. Pink, green an chartruese close seconds. I pull mostly Colorado blades . Also put in the odd floater on your harness

Brown sugar, soya and Thai hot sauce rainbows from last summer. I haven't been oput as yet to start this season's batches

I have (never get to use it as my son has confiscated it for his hut) a black cat and it keeps a 2 man hut toasty enough to fish without a jacket when it's all zipped up.

Quick stop in at Liquidation World in Oakville today. They had a whole aisle of Coleman heaters and camping stuff. Blackcat, Sportscat heaters for under $40. Coleman plug in electric cooler, $45. 45,000 BTU heater head for a 20lb tank $29. A Procat 3000 BTU heater for $30. It was a bigger floor stand one than the Blackcat and it took 2 D cell batteries for a built in fan. Also had coleman lanterns and one of those pronae berner coffee makers. All really low prices.

Reports are they are excellent table fare and I read somewhere they will start being farmed from the wild. I think there is a name contest to get away from the carp and you'll start seeing them in restaurants as silverfin. From latest infishermen I think

and at last check they might even have some stock in store!!

Thats just not fair for one angler to get to do all that. Wow! wonder if he needs a friend?

All it needs is a big stove pipe out the roof and you got a walk in smoker!!

I use to do lots of "quick smokes" on the bbq. It still will take about 1-2 hours to get enough flavor though to make it worth while Here' what I did Cook your meat to about rare or just about rare and no further. Shut down the heat on one side and low on the other. This is where is gets a bit dangerous. Take the grill out from the "low" side (watch out it's HOT) and place your chip box of foil pouch with chips in it right on your bricks above that burner. I like to have the meat up higher on the bun warming rack to get the full exposure to the smoke. Close the lid and let it go for about an hour. For the first few times you will want to watch just so it doesn't go crazy. The idea is to get a nice slow burn in the chips. If you've got tons of smoke coming out it's too hot and you might have to rig up some adjustments. I use an old steal pie plate and just pour my chips in that. Now I cook on the bbq and finish in my smoker.

on the less expensive side I bought a BPS cranking stick 7' telescopic baitcasting rod when they were clearing them out a while back. Think I paid $40US + shipping. I figured it was for a one time application. I still use that as my crankbait rod. Has great balance and fast action for 8-17 lb test. Have boated a lot of bass and walleye on it and it stood up fine to big gators in northern manitoba. I had picked up various 6'6" and didn't care for the feel of the shorter rods. With the 7' I was very pleasantly surprised!

I'm doing a controlled rolling demo of my basement, taking down the old drywall from 2 rooms so we can reframe and put up proper insulation. So far so good but when we pulled the drywall off the next section I had a real good laugh. The original builder got their dimensions messed up and had to put 2 sheets on top of each other in order to but up even to the door jams. Double the mess pulling the old stuff down but I get a full view of the stud wall underneath. I honestly can't see a start or finish to this or how they put it up. There's not one full piece in the studs or the top or bottom plate. What a mix of 2x3's and 3x5's(?) THANK GOODNESS THIS IS NOT LOAD BEARING!!!. In 4 ft of wall there is 31 seperate pieces of wood and I have not even started to count the nails used.

Use to be you only had a few types to choose from but now lots of different wood flavours. I too am not a big fan on the hickory. I find it very overpowering now that I have tried other woods. I used up my last bag of the Weber hickory chips on some boneless chops the other night. Cook them 1/2 way through on the BBQ smother them in honey bbq sauce and then inot the smoker on low for 2 hours. dripping like candy bars whent hey came out I buy my chips from Barbeque Galore. Picked up 2 bags of Whiskey chips today, a bag of apple and a bag of my fav to date black cherry. I did several batches of rainbow trout last year and the black cherry is absolutely made for fish.

46.38 with the new harmonized tax equals 52.41 lbs we win!!!