James77

My fishing buddy got a great deal on a boat. I got a good deal on a rod. We found some cool fishing camps. Life is good!

http://ontariofishingcommunity.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=77243 Post up here.

The Leafs are like the Titanic, looked really good until they hit the ice.

My girlfriend enjoys suntanning while I fish

I guess my photo didn't attach properly sorry fellas. I got 5 brand new lures sent to me! No tshirt or hat though... Lol Better than 5 broken lures in my tackle box though.

I've been buying Rapala lures almost exclusively for many years, this is the first time I've ever had an issue. I had quite a few lips break off my Flat Rap 10 lures, I contacted Rapala, mailed them the lures and this arrived at my work today! Couldn't be happier, glad to see they stand behind their products. James

If you're doing that, 3dcart.com is a cheap easy way to get started!

Take this as you will but I think hockey is a very similar industry and I've been in the retail end for years. People looking for cheap prices will 100% shop online. Have you looked into the mark up on the things you are thinking of selling? At our store if we did everything at 35% off we would break even but lose on our expenses. I'm not sure if fishing is the same but the amount of expenses that are involved is immense. You never really want to start small. If someone walks in looking for something and you don't have it, the odds of them ever making another trip is gone. You need to analyze where the money can be made, and you need to specialize in certain areas. You 100% can not cover every aspect of fishing without a store 2000 sqft+. You'd be looking at $2000 as a minimum rent and your profit has to be able to support it. For hockey, there are $30 sticks and there are $300 sticks, we specialize in the $150-300 range. The reason being is that every Canadian Tire and Sport Chek has the lower end stuff at great prices, so why compete with them? For fishing if people are looking for cheap stuff they will go online, or they will head to Canadian Tire. You need to figure out your specialty, service your customers well, and provide them with knowledge they wouldn't find at Canadian Tire or Bass Pro. I've been thinking of opening a shop in the Kawartha area for a while now but I don't have the expertise needed to accurately sell everything. James

Well folks, I've had a couple outings on these General Altimax Arctics and they get a big thumbs up! Excellent so far, makes it almost impossible to spin the tires. Great traction.

Anyone get to use their new winter tires yet? We only got about 1cm so I couldn't. I have to go back to Canadian Tire to get the tires rebalanced.

Goodyear Duratrac was absolutely amazing on my 4runner. Amazing in snow and ice and great in mud.

Hey Steve, The bay is about 2 feet deep on the outer rim and about 8 feet at the deepest. Most fish were caught throwing a Flat Rap in the current and using an extremely slow retrieve bringing it in. (I have to venture into the river on some rocks.) I was also able to entice a couple by using a twitch and pause with it. It was amazing the moon was out like crazy and you could see the eyes glowing when they were cruising around. There were a couple I could see but could not convince to take a lure, which is a first for me. I tried switching to a smaller rap (normally use the 10cm) and that didn't work either. I didn't have any live bait. They seemed like they just weren't hungry for my yummy flat rap. Just be careful, in Buckhorn (zone 17) the Walleye season ends this weekend. I had no idea, I thought it was until Ice but I checked out of caution and next weekend is the end. James

Well everything is installed. I got the General Altimax Arctic from Crappy tire for a good deal. Bit of a nightmare getting everything installed. Waited about 3 and a half hours yesterday. Drove it away and noticed a lot of vibration. Drove it on the highway and it felt like the whole car was shaking. Brought it back in this morning and they rebalanced the tires in about a half hour. Im not too sure how but the guy said that all four tires were off a bit. Im curious if because the rims had some weights on them already they didn't bother. Anyways driving super smooth now, hopefully I'll get to use them sometime soon I was lucky enough to get a bunch of snow at the cottage on the weekend so I could try the car without snow tires, now I'll have a good baseline to see what they're like. I was really leaning towards blizzaks but the wear just isn't there for the marginal better ice performance. I guess we will see how they hold up! Thanks for all the advice guys, this community really put me off of Blizzaks lol.

Check out Canadian Tire's website. They have all the sale pricing online. I paid $120 a tire and that is for 215/65/16. Canadian Tire beat all the US pricing once shipped, and any independents I had asked. James

Never bring Bananas! We got skunked as well on the musky action. I tried a lot of the advice. One of my fishing buddies thought he had a pretty good hit on a red bucktail but we can not confirm that it happened. The cottage just so happens to sit on a prime bay for night time Walleye fishing. Friday night I tried my luck at 3:30 am and locked into an absolute monster. Icy dock made him hard to land and he got off before I got him into shore. Saturday night we had 8 Walleye landed within a 2 hour span. The biggest being 28" the smallest being 21" (No keepers ) and the average being about 25-26". These were some fat fish. It's strange they come in so shallow but only in spring and fall. I've only ever managed a couple small ones on summer nights. So in other words wasn't a waste of a weekend lol.

Update: Well I've had a bit of an issue. Whenever I found a good deal, by the time I would get to arranging pickup there was someone else driving out there to get it and I was too late. I ended up buying new General Altimax Arctics from Crappy Tire. They have a great sale on them right now and a $35 rebate. They're the highest rated tire on tirerack.com and in Canadian Tires testing they were top 3 performers. I'm excited to get these on, just tracking down a set of rims. James

Hey Guys, Heading up to Lower Buckhorn this weekend, going to try Musky for the last time this year. I'm very new to targeting them, what is the go to bait size as the water gets cold? It seems the weather is really going to dip this weekend. I'm assuming with slower presentation? Where do you look for them in the cold fronts? Thanks for any advice, you guys have been a great help and I've successfully landed and released 4 muskies this fall. Still looking for that 40" er though Thanks.

I found a really good deal on Blizzaks on rims for $450 basically brand new. Going to snag those for this year and give them a shot. If I don't like I'll order something else and sell these for what I paid anyways. Thanks for all the input guys. I mostly drive in the GTA but cottage trips and montreal trips happen frequently so it's nice to be confident. I really appreciate all the feedback! James

How did you find the performance to be between the Blizzak and Winterforce? I drive a fair amount less in the winter and will only use them for the winter season. People suggest the Winterforce does poorly on icy roads but there is so much siping and biting edges I find it hard to believe. Thanks for your input on them!

That's good news! How was the tread wear? Thanks

Thought I should add pics of the new ride as well

Hey guys. So earlier this year I upgraded from my 1996 4Runner with a 4" lift and 34" tires to my 2014 Subaru Crosstrek. I've never bought winter tires before so I'm looking for some feedback from you outdoorsy people who get on the un-plowed roads and drive in the terrible conditions. I'm looking mostly at the Firestone Winterforce and the Blizzak WS70 winter tires. Anyone have any experience with these? I'm not expecting to be able to plow through 3' snow drifts like I could with my truck. (I miss her so much. ) but i'd like to be able to drive in some deep stuff and not be worried about getting stuck! Thanks

Two other cabins on the lake, one is apparently a trappers cabin which is used in fall/winter. The other is on the same lake about a 3 minute boat ride to the left of their cabin. Really nice place, he's got a big screen TV with satellite, Something a little bit discouraging about seeing someone in their living room watching TV as you're at a REMOTE fly in camp LOL. You live and you learn, we're definitely thinking Hearst for next years trip.

Hey there, We were in a very similar situation and ended up doing a Fly in trip this July. We did Mikwam Lake through Air Cochrane. We spent most of our time on Brailey lake which is attached to Mikwam. This lake produced much better for us. Mikwam was very dissapointing, 6-8 ft deep. No structure. The general consensus among us is if we did it again next year we would spend a bit more. The fishing wasn't what we thought it would be, cabin was horrific for the money. Wasn't sealed from bugs. Firewood wasn't provided. We were charged for an extra plane which we knew would happen. We were told it was unsafe to take us and our gear in just a single beaver so we paid for a separate flight for our gear. On the flight out we get picked up in a single beaver plane for all our gear. Either the Beaver holds more than they say it does, or they didn't care about our safety and threw us all in the plane anyways. I'm personally nervous about flying and that really bothered me. Felt like I was on an episode of Mayday. The other thing is at the fishing show I asked if they've ever had any plane accidents. The guy lied to me and said no. When I got home to research the first thing that comes up after Air Cochrane is plane crash. The other disappointment was the other cabin on our lake. There is another Cabin on Mikwam owned by a nice fellow who informed us that he drives up, takes a short argo ride into his cabin. It's a bit frustrating to go to a remote lake to only find out someone else is on the same lake as you. Quite upsetting. Our biggest walleye was about 24" our biggest pike was a 34-35". We fished everyday every possible moment tried every technique we could. When asked if we would do it again the answer would be no. We are thinking about doing another trip next year, going further up north. The people at Cochrane Air were great to us. Their customer service was exceptional. Unfortunately the cons outweigh the pros and we will overlook them next year while planning our trip.

The lone guy had a 14' with a smaller merc. I just got a weird vibe.