MJL

Very nice Chris Flies work awesome when the fishing is tough. Ironically, some of my hottest fly patterns for super clear, super pressured conditions happen to be BIG (tied on size 4-1/0 hooks...Sometimes articulated).

Like Dave mentioned, Size A will work for just about every freshwater application. Over 95% of the rods I've built was with Gudebrod size A thread in various colours.

Thanks again guys for the incredible support you’ve given me - I truly can't express my gratitude towards the whole OFC community. I spent the last couple hours replying to all the PM’s I could and will continue to do so for as long as they come – I’ve even been informed that one angling crush of mine (and many) has read this thread I sneaked a few quick looks at the ultrasound pics but as someone who hadn’t taken biology beyond the twelfth grade, one fuzzy blob looked exactly like the next fuzzy blob. I’ll have to continue my wait for a diagnosis It involves the careful and deliberate attempt to manipulate rod angles (while fighting strong, powerful, or out of control fish) so that hooked fish will mysteriously (and magically) swim right to the rod tip...So that you can pounce on them...Especially if it’s a fish worthy of a hero shot

Beautifully written poems in this thread from writers beyond their age. Simply powerful

From the bottom of my heart, I truly appreciate all of your kind words posted on this forum as well as through PM. There isn’t much I can eloquently write without getting somewhat teary eyed. The good Lord blessed me with a pretty sick and terrible sense of humor and that seems to be getting me and my family through things. As I've told a few others, I first logged into OFC back in 2005 and can't think of another community I'd rather be a part of - I came for the tips but stayed for the people. I'll let you guys know how it goes Walleye have always been my arch nemesis...If you catch one, can I touch it? Thanks Carole Being the gentleman that I am, it would only be proper after the first or second date (j/k) Thanks Wayne for the kind words and thoughts and hope all goes well with Jen. Absolutely...No question about it Thanks again guys. I really appreciate all the support that you've given me. Cheers & Smiles Mike

I haven’t been fishing much this fall – Probably only 7 or so trips from the beginning of October. Despite the lower than normal water conditions, the fishing for the most part has been great with some nice fish coming out. Been fishing a fair bit with Frozen Fire...He lives down the street from me and fishes daily anyway After a year of pretty intensive research, and a lifetime of reading about it in books, I finally made the pilgrimage on the weekend to one special steelhead river I still had yet to fish – Frozen Fire would be my partner in crime for our maiden voyage. Large in both length and width (compared to most other rivers I regularly fish), I was pretty jazzed and blown away by the scenery. We treated it like a scouting trip and trekked through as much territory as we could humanly possible and drove the backroads, highways and concessions we could find to safely reach the river. Didn’t start out so good though. The first hour was spent playing fetch with a lost German Shorthair Pointer who adopted us as playmates and followed us around – By fetch, she tried to retrieve our drifting floats as they went down river. High energy is an understatement. She just wouldn’t quit! With so much prime looking water, it certainly was a little tougher river to read but insanely fun to fish – I can’t remember the last time I was as excited to go fishing. We didn’t get into any large fish but we did manage to pull out some hard fighting, wild, chrome fish from the various pools and logjams. They were still a bit of a handful even with the down & dirty technique I have to give many special thanks to Buckster, Solopaddler, and Wallacio for their wonderful words of wisdom they gave me prior to the trip . They certainly boosted our confidence and we both managed to land some fish. ~ The below text may not be as easy for some to read compared to the above - Especially for my closer partners in crime on the water to whom I consider as much a part of my family...On a personal note, it wasn't as easy for me to write compared to the poetry and DIY washing machine manuals I've written in the past. I may be hanging up the steelhead kit for the next little while. From the looks of it, I may be battling another adversary shortly where my knowledge of rivers, drifting floats, tossing spinners, steelhead, and the down & dirty technique may not come in as handy. After visiting a couple of doctors/specialists the last few days, and being poked & prodded a number of times in some uncomfortable places, there’s a more than probable chance that I will be battling testicular cancer (Not 100% sure yet). How aggressive or whether it has already spread in some way, shape or form, I don’t know yet either but it's pretty nerve racking thinking about it. The doctors seem to be quite concerned about the case. I go for an ultrasound tomorrow. I promised a few people on the board that I’d hook up with them this fall for steelhead (to big, distant rivers as well as to a few smaller local ditches...possibly with the prospect of a burger afterwards) but that may have to wait for a bit depending on the results of the ultrasound tomorrow. I'm currently finding solace in my loving family, close friends, listening to my Mozart MP3s and spinning a couple of my centrepin reels around in front of the computer while surfing OFC. I'm not usually one to ask for anything that I couldn't find or get myself first, but if you can spare a bit of Luck and Karma and send it my way, I’d greatly appreciate it. Many thanks in advance Mike

Sweet pictures as always Mark

Nicely done guys...WTG!

Thoughts are definitely with Jack. Hope for the best.

Great catch Chris!

I'm definitely no hunter but don't hunters spray themselves with deer pee to cover up their scent?

Very nice Laz. Some incredibly mint fish there

A lot of Asian grocery stores have Largies for sale. At one store down the street from me, I remember seeing them being unpacked a couple times from boxes that came from Florida. In the past I've also seen bullheads, striped bass, black crappies, eels, carp, bowfin and rainbow trout. I don't know about you but the majority of fish in those tanks are covered with fungus (and rot) which totally puts me off from thinking about eating them.LOL

Thoughts are prayers are with your daughter Wayne. Believe

Initially when I saw the title of the thread, I thought Dave Mercer ate 19,381 subway sandwiches.LOL

Love the series. It’s been out for quite some time. My friends in the UK sent me a copy of it about a year ago. Great footage and good narrative by Jeremy Wade. If you’re a fan of the River Monster series and are a fishing bum or adventure junky, try to find Jeremy Wade’s DVD titled “Jungle Hooks”. He goes into the Amazon for Arapaima (Like in River Monsters), and goes to India for golden mahseer and Goonch catfish in another – I liked those a little more than River Monsters (Especially the India one). There’s some brilliant fishing programs in the UK that put a lot of what we watch here in North America to shame.

If you’re going the aquapac route, I’m definitely interested in seeing the results. Especially for the price. Currently thinking of getting a waterproof bag/case from EWA Marine - Vistek sells them in Canada but for way more than B&H in the states (I'm hoping UPS doesn't ship it). Pricey things but the results seem quite impressive for a ‘ziplock’ bag. I usually dunk 1-2 cameras per season...Even destroyed an Olympus waterproof/shockproof one

For the world class carp fishing

Us Canon and Nikon owners point and laugh in the faces of Olympus DSLR owners HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

Hard to say...I guess it would vary from camera to camera. With my Panasonic FZ18, I haven’t been able to take any continuous action shots indoors worth keeping (of moving subjects that is and without a tripod). I ended up buying a new DSLR along with a new external flash unit to cope with indoor action shots at relatively high speeds (might not be 6fps but it sounds pretty close). What you can possibly look into is a P&S camera with a hotshoe for an external flash. The combo will be pricey though and the cost may not justify what you get VS a basic DSLR. Easiest solution would be to forget about the continuous burst mode and saturate the memory card with as many pics as you can under normal mode. You might only get 1 fps or less but the results would definitely be better than trying to take a bunch of photos with poor image quality.

Oh...Burst mode (AKA continuous mode)...Generally 2.5-3 frames per second is standard with most mid to high end P&S cameras. Indoor continuous shooting will be problematic though. On most models, you can’t operate the continuous shooting with the flash (so indoor shots will essentially be super dark and blurry). Problem is the camera won’t be able to take the next shot till the flash recharges/recycles. But with that said, for outdoors pictures, continuous mode is what I use quite often during my fishing trips to get action pics Like this of my buddy Norm during a carp tournament:

Hey Geoff Here's a review on the P100 http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q110superzoomgroup/page7.asp Here's how the P100 stacks up against similar cameras http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q110superzoomgroup/page19.asp I spent 3yrs in the world of bridge superzoom cameras. I owned 2 Panasonic FZ18 superzooms as my last cameras before getting a DSLR of my own and can say they are great all round cameras. I've also test drove Canon and Fuji's superzoom version for a couple weeks. With that said, while they look similar, super zooms are NOT DSLR cameras. For the most part they are designed with a much smaller sensor and as such aren't that great in low light conditions (night, dawn, dusk, indoors) - Image quality isn't all that different from your average P&S camera (Technically speaking, they are still a P&S camera). They don't offer you the ability to switch lenses (some are able to work with a teleconverter of some sort though for additional telephoto range). If you're a pixel peeper, you'll notice the noise (graininess) a lot more than even a basic DSLR. They do however offer similar manual controls as seen on DSLR cameras. On top of that, depending on the camera, you get more features not otherwise seen (if any) on high end DSLR cameras (Face recognition, a slough of scene modes, etc). Do you know exactly what your wife wants to do with the camera beyond just taking pictures? Mike

I’d consider the brain injury to be a life sentence for that unfortunate individual. Perhaps just as disturbing as the crime is the mild sentence handed to the scumbag http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/764837--anger-over-light-sentence-for-racist-attack

Technically speaking Mark, your 14-42mm is a wide angle lens (albeit a zoom lens). Definitely wishing I had the 10-20mm though for my own baby. I could make my fish look twice as big in hero shots Really digging the early morning/evening shots. I’m hoping to shoot some star/sunrise time lapse vids in the future when I pick up a new digital timer

Beautifully coloured fish Doc...Nicely done