johnnyb

Very cool stuff JWL...your excitement comes through very clearly in the report Keep up the good work!

beauty perch!

Awesome stuff, man!! Love the play-by-play on the video clip of the sonar I use small-ish red hooks for stingers...never fish without'em. Looks like you're out of the woods...keep it rolling

Amazing really...I can't get over how well balanced those are...c'est magnifique!

Awesome stuff! So can I order these through the mail, or what?

Hey Waterwolf -- I'll be out there Friday...good luck

she's a beaut!! After landing that one, I just don't know if I could go back to perch

I sell cars at a great Chrysler dealership in Oakville...coming up on 6 years...the store makes all the difference...our January sales were actually up over last year...despite a Canadian market that went down by 25%

Nicely done!! Nothin' like a little lunch time quickie

Yeah...make sure you have waterproof foot and leg wear...gonna be sloppy! But the ice itself will be fine...hopefully it will make all the snow/slush disappear and then freeze back up nice and slippery-like

Well hot dang...thanks for the info, folks I love this community

bill -- good to know! Hey Doc...just from the screenshots I'm seeing of TopoCanada vs. canadianmaps and Quebec GPS, there seems to be a lot more detail. With TopoCanada, I get the whole country, but with the other guys, for the same price I get most of where I think I'll actually use with what seems to be more detail. No, I don't currently use torrent. What's that all about?

Skunky-pants indeed I'll shake it off...soon...I hope! Good luck today, limey! The unconscious mind doesn't know the difference between thinking about getting stuck, and thinking about NOT getting stuck....so think about the fish, not the truck!! LOL

So far, so good...I have a GPSmaps76csx by the way. I've also found www.canadianmaps.ca which sells software based right off of the Ontario Topo Maps series, at a scale of 1:10,000...I'm thinking this is all right. they seem to pretty much be the same as the quebecGPS link Dan posted (thanks!). The dividing line seems to be right around the Sudbury-North Bay area...I just want to make sure I get all the detail up there...not half of Temagami or something, then have to buy the Northern series -- most of which I probably won't use -- just to fill in the blanks because I'm exploring in and around their dividing line. Anybody use ibycus? They appear to be free...but I'm wary of stuff like that...don't want to be contracting a virus, or having my unit zapped because of unauthorized downloading.

I'm officially ready to get a chip, or some sort of software for my Garmin...don't really know where to begin, so I thought I'd plumb the depths of the OFC knowledge base. I see that there is a Canada Topo CD-rom I can pick up for about $100 or so...and this is a 1:125,000 scale or 1:250,000...depending on where I am. The scale sounds pretty large...I don't know if it would be worth buying. I hear a lot about "chips"...are there better options? I should mention that I'm really looking for topography first, as opposed to lake detail. I want to find the back lakes, and know where I am...unless there is something that will give me lake and land contours. Any help is welcome....thanks

Now that you got your system dialed in, they don't stand a chance

As the result of my lovely wife having to work last minute on Sunday, I ended up on my own for some ice-fishing yesterday. I figured it was a good opportunity to try out a back lake that I’ve been eying for some time, along with a few hours on Bernard lake in Sundridge, where I’ve never been. I had everything planned out….I left the house nice and early (4:00am)…and I was brimming with confidence. While it wasn’t a terribly bad trip…I bagged more “lessons learnt” than fish. Lesson #1: Don’t put your faith in Google Maps. Okay, I know this one sounds obvious, but the satellite imagery made it look like the lake I wanted had a road going right up to it. Thank goodness for the guys having their coffee in the Trout Creek general store at 7:00am…they at least pointed me down a road that wasn’t private…unlike Google. Drove a few more kms than required, but at least got to a lake….followed some sled tracks onto it, and set up where some people had been fishing off a likely looking point. Not too long in, my set line started screaming…I ran over and promptly lost something rather spunky. Then it happened again about 20 minutes later! Lesson #2: Set the hook! The slush where I was set up was pretty nasty, but, on my walk off the lake, I found some nice hard ice and though I’d pop a couple holes off another point. Popped through the ice and into something hard. Log? Rock? I dunno…hard enough to blunt the blade on my auger. *sigh* Decided it was a good time to head for Sundridge…and hoped that the outfitters had Fin-bore blades in stock. Got to Lake Bernard by noon, and have to say that the bait shop is great…also for sale, FYI. They had blades…installed them for me, and directed me to where I could drive onto the lake. I have to say, driving out on the lake is always cool…and yes Wayne, I had my seatbelt off and window down  Got out to about 80 FOW, just past a drop from 45, with a good sized group of other anglers. The guy beside me had a couple whitefish, and the guy beside him had a laker on the hood of his truck, so I figured things were looking up. Tried some spoons, then tubes, then lost another fish! At least I had this one on for about 5 seconds…felt pretty good, but, the smell of skunk was getting stronger. Got bored…tried to get the self-timer to work on the camera…this could be my new favourite portable hut... By the time it was getting dark, I got to learn another valuable lesson: don’t wait ‘till the end of the day to try something different! Since I had thrown the tackle box down the hole, I figured I’d go with the ugliest, barest jig head in my collection, with a lone minnow stuck on it. Hanging over 80 feet, I found it odd that my line stopped only 5 feet down. Started reeling and hey! I’ve got a fish!!! Wait…no…I’ve LOST another fish. Time to go home. And of course..lesson # 4: Don’t go fishing without Laker Jessy. Or so she tells me….

At least you got some perch...next time you could try walking out from Big Bay or Bear Point...much shorter walk to deep water there....

Hmm..sounds like it was a slow weekend all over...at least you got a couple, efka Good job!

By 4:00 am I was driving yesterday morning...made it to Trout Creek by 7:00...had quite an adventure...only us fisherpeople indeed

Sounds like a normal laker to me...they do vary in colour quite a bit. Most of the ones I get from Muskoka have more orange-y meat...some are darker than others. I was also on Bernard on Sunday for a few hours...managed to hook two and lose them both Not a bad lake, and I agree about the outfitters...those folks are great!

beauty fish! Is the white tube your new jig?

Love the old bait shop ad I called it just for fun...obviously not them anymore

Way too hard to tell from the pic...but that's no small fish!!!! WTG

heh heh...I have no knowledge of what you are implying I'm just trying to be a good employee