MJL

2 possibilities come to mind 1. Doc Salvelinus or 2. Nemo (From Finding Nemo )

I wonder if there are any tournament restrictions like mounting a set of electro-shockers on your boat and going to town with a few nets like these http://www.leslies-luton.co.uk/store/product/2194208/CATFISH-PRO-CATFISH-LANDING-NET-60in/ I might not be a redneck, but I definitely have a few tactics to use out there…Any benefactors willing to sponsor me with a boat and some $? Properly working live wells not necessary Rotenone suppliers are very welcome as sponsors

I caught this last spring while fishing for brookies Last spring I caught a PB condom. My roe bag found its way right into its lip. When I was a kid, I caught a pair of jeans (amongst a few other items of clothing) with $40 in the pocket

Hawgs to the nth degree Well done!

You probably don’t need to chum an area. I do (or at least try to). Some guys catch them by accident while float fishing for other species. Probably. I know there’s gobies in there as some people catch them down there. I use harder baits like boilies and soft plastic corn which they can't pick off. Depends where I’m fishing and what bait I’m using. For the most part, my lead sinker is right on bottom. Usually 6oz but depending on which spot I fish, I can sometimes go down to 4 or 5oz. At times 6oz barely holds bottom in the current. Taking a look back at all my trips down there, no 2 trips were ever the same. I've always had to adapt to specific situations and develop new tactics for each new swim I fish down there. The things I've learned down there I've also applied while fishing other rivers as well as in my carp fishing tournaments.

Polarized lenses make a huge difference when it comes to cutting glare and seeing cruising fish. Totally relieved eye strain and headaches at the end of the day for me too…You’ll never go back to regular lenses even for everyday use. If you’re wondering if your Oakleys are polarized or not, there’s a simple test you can do. Take 1 lens from a pair of sunglasses you know are polarized and stack it over 1 on your Oakleys…If you have them going in the same direction, you’ll see right through. Rotate 1 lens (doesn’t matter which set of lens you do) so it goes upright…If both sets of lenses are polarized, you will not be able to see through where they overlap I’m a huge fan of the wrap around pairs…Been using my Ray Bans since 2002…I think they were $150 at the time. They saved my eyes too from tree branches and lures.

Fantastic report Mike Does this mean they'll be getting a Riverkeeper or an AngSpec when they start hitting up the rivers?

Great web-site...Thanks for sharing. I've always been interested in foreign monster fish. 2 other globetrotting guys who I've been following over the years via magazines, films and articles are: Henry Gilbey (if you're a photography nut, you'll enjoy his work) http://www.henry-gilbey.com/photo_essays.html and Tony Davies Patrick (aka Globetrotter)- He used to have a better web-site with a gallery. http://www.wilderness-photo.co.uk/

John Madden would be proud...Can you say footballs? Awesome!

I’ve caught smallies using canned corn. I’ve also caught a number of pike with corn as well. For the most part, it’s pretty rare in my experience. I generally don’t try fishing for other fish while I’m carp fishing so I wouldn’t know if I’d get similar results as you. I won’t say that “chumming” is an art. It’s more of a science based on the time of year, the time of day (sometimes it really does make a difference), the water temperature, the estimated stock of fish, the size of fish, the natural food supply, the current (if any), bottom/substrate composition and more… I must disagree partly with DSN (as much as I do enjoy fishing with him ). I generally fish areas that rarely (if ever) see another angler fishing for carp. For the most part, I fish for carp where they’ve been relatively untouched and where people haven’t been baiting up. I prefer to follow the natural seasonal patterns that carp use and fish where the fish are VS trying to attract them from great distances. I know a few places where you can chum the heck out of it for weeks and not get a fish – The only time of year they use those spots is to spawn. The corn you’re throwing into the water is far less nutritious than that of their natural food supply…They don’t grow big by just eating corn. Carp movements are predictable. While anglers might catch carp in shallow bays in spring, they don’t always hang out there throughout the rest of the season. Considering it’s summer right now, look for deeper areas like channels or drop-offs, rivers with a bit of pace to them (water temperature and oxygen levels play a big role in where fish and their food live). Some of my favourite summer-time carping spots involve fishing anywhere from 15-50ft deep. For small rivers and creeks, it may involve searching for the deepest pools you can find. How do you go about chumming? (AKA loose-feeding, ground-baiting, mass-baiting, carpet-baiting) All it really requires is you tossing a handful of bait into the water. The key with it is to toss in little by little at regular intervals (usually). How much and how frequently depends on: the size of the fish, the season, how frequently you’re getting into fish. When I fish the St. Lawrence river, I may go through 80lbs of cow corn in 2 days. When I fish around Toronto, a can of corn or two usually is enough. You have to remember that you can put bait into the water but you can’t take it out. You want to promote a competitive feeding environment for the fish where they become aggressive amongst each other for the food. They'll spend less time looking around and inspecting your rig. I've seen it many times when I'm stalking carp in the shallows where the fish just eat all the chummed bits of food and leave the hookbait - It's amazing and frustrating at the same time Perhaps the most important thing you can do is to look for jumping, cruising or feeding carp (mudding, fizzing, bubbling, tailing in shallow water) – polarized glasses are possibly one of the most important pieces of tackle I use for my carp fishing. I enjoy fishing in wind. Carp seem more at ease when it's windy and are more comfortable coming shallow to feed. When I stalk carp in the shallows, they get fooled more often when it's windy than when the surface is dead calm. As for knowing when you’ve got a carp at the end of the line, trust me, you’ll know.LOL As for setting the hook, for the most part, I don’t…Gradually and smoothly lifting the rod while the fish is running away does it for me. I usually use heavy lead sinkers which sets the hook for me. Hope this helps

Next time we need to bring chairs... ...And someone else to carry all the gear down for us

Maize (aka: cow corn, feed corn, field corn), boilies, maple peas, chick peas (buy the dried ones and soak + boil for 10-15min), black eyed peas, jumbo corn (I buy commercially available ones but you can get them from various super markets dried). Some people have luck using the cheap no-name brands of canned sweetcorn which apparently are more durable and stay on the hook better...I mostly just stick to the baits mentioned above. I usually try to stay away from canned corn, bread and dough-baits when the gobies are thick.

After a month of not wetting a line, I needed to get out to scratch the itch. Decided to hit up the whirlpool with my dad for some carping fun on Sunday to get my fix. Also of great importance (to me anyway) was to field test various baits I prepared in the off-season and tactics to use in an upcoming carp tournament. For the 3rd year (hopefully for the 3rd straight team victory), I’ll be a part of Team Canada at the CanAm Carp Cup in Waddington NY in Sept. With only 2 carping trips under my belt this season, I definitely need all the practice I can get. I couldn’t think of a more technically and physically challenging place to fish for carp within an hour and a half from home. 6am, I shove 54lbs of fishing tackle, bait and camera equipment into my hiking path. I also brought along 3 of my heavier carp rods, 7lbs worth of additional bait and my landing mat. My dad brought the lunches and paid for gas. 10:30 we make our way down the path and finally reach bottom. Every angler we saw on the way down (coming back up) skunked…Not very promising. Anglers already down there had taken all the other spots which were easier (and more comfortable) to fish…We got stuck fishing the fast water. I spent 30mins setting up all the gear while my dad sat in the shade. The set-up 11am I got my first run…The hard work is only beginning First Niagara carp of the year A mint common carp One surprise catch was this sheepshead…It’s the first one I’ve ever caught while carp fishing. He took mussel flavoured corn on a hair rig of all things. One carp anomaly…In carping circles, it’s called a ‘muddler’ where the scales are irregular compared to ‘normal’ common carp. In this case it's 1/2 common & 1/2 muddler Dad leaning into a nice fish…No hero shots with him…He hates touching carp. These river fish have big tails Ended up only fishing from 10:30 till 4pm…Fatigue got to the both of us (especially with the heat and the fish lifting). Nothing over 20lbs was landed but we got into great numbers of hard fighting fish – I just stopped counting after the 2nd hour. Fish came to various baits like flavoured corn, boilies and to some degree, pretty much everything I tried throwing at them. I will definitely be making my way down there again for some more “training” & “professional development” before the tournament . Cheers and all smiles

Awesome report Ryan...Nicely done You are one of the few guys I know of who actually uses corn straight from the cob...That's hardcore!

A protective cup might also come in handy as well These are the big leagues!

Maybe it’s time to go hog-wild with the rotenone and antimycin Are there anymore locks between Lake Calumet and Lake Michigan? Looking at Google Maps, it appears to be clear swimming for the carp to the Great Lakes

Nicely done Ryan

Depending which headwater streams you plan on fishing, a 6-7ft UL might be on the long side for what might be practical. In all but 1 or 2 streams I fish, anything longer than 5’-5’6” is too long to effectively pitch baits and lures to spots without smacking trees and bushes around you. A shorter rod may also pitch lures and baits more accurately in narrow, tree-lined rivers. Just something to consider. If you’re thinking of building rods and getting parts from Canadian suppliers, Angling Specialties has parts. You can also get them from here (from B.C): http://www.rodbuildersupplies.com/ or here in Caledonia http://www.jccustomtackle.com/ Hope this helps

Welcome back Cliff...Great pics Sydney should've kissed the frog...It could've been a prince

Surely you can’t be serious trusting the Weather Network (or any weather forecast for that matter)…They can’t even predict the correct forecast for the next 4hrs not to mention the next 4 days. When they give you a P.O.P figure other than 0% or 100%, it really means, "you're guess is as good as ours" Good luck on opener

Beautiful fish Luc. I'd love to try getting one by skating a dry fly on top with the fly rod one day. If that's a small eater size, what's a big one for the rapids? I'll also admit I would have a hard time NOT sticking that thing in the oven . wrapped in foil with a bit of roasted garlic, sliced lemons, salt and pepper... Well done!

Hey Chris...I don't think very many Torontonians fully know what impact the G20 will have on their schedules. I feel for you bud. The Globe & Mail has a few details on their site...The interactive map section has a few clues on where to avoid http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/police-detail-g20-security-zone/article1584293/

Hey Joseph I too am concerned about the state of our wild naturalized steelhead for the rivers on the Lake O north shore (seeing as how I've fished them most of my life). The rainbows which have evolved from the Ganaraska are a hardy strain well adept at surviving all over the great lakes (Michigan stocks the Ganaraska strain into some of their rivers too). With that said, one study in particular, Exploitation of Wild Rainbow Trout Populations in Wilmot Creek and the Ganaraska River (Bowlby & Stanfield, 2000) indicates that while the boat fishery is much larger and harvested more fish out in Lake O, they impacted the wild populations of those rivers far less than shore bound anglers…How is this so? New York stocks a naturalized Chambers Creek Strain of rainbow trout into their rivers (Both Lake Ontario and Erie). Nowadays it has become known as the Salmon River strain. Having fished for those fish this spring down in New York, I can’t remember ever seeing fin-clips, tags or maxillary clips which often denote stocked fish. In reality from what I’ve been told, New York only clips ¼ to 1/3 of the fish they stock. Steelhead don’t abide by international border lines…They swim pretty much anywhere they want to and boats fishing out of Port Hope and Port Darlington are getting into them too. To quote the study, “Although the boat fisheries were much larger and harvested more fish in total than shore based fisheries (Table 1), with less than 10% exploitation, the boat fisheries had less impact on Wilmot Creek and Ganaraska River rainbow trout than the shore based fisheries.” The exploitation at the time and possibly up until the regulation change last year was 48-50% from land based angling in the rivers with those fish, for the most part being wild. This study took place when the estimated ratio of wild to stocked fish in Lake O was 30% Wild to 70% stocked. The limits in Ontario were also 5/2 (sport/conservation) in the rivers – I don’t believe we can fully understand (or have seen) the impacts yet with the 2/1 limit which was only just recently implemented (within the last 1-2yrs). After all a good number of ‘hardcore’ steelheaders on these rivers still take their usual 2 fish for roe per trip anyway…The estimated ratio thrown around today for Lake Ontario seems to be 40% wild with 60% stocked. From the numbers I could find, NY stocked 701,940 rainbows into their Lake O streams in 1998 VS 564,550 stocked in 2006 (from what I could find, approximately 550,000 rainbows seems to be the average stocked each year). There also appears to be 25% natural reproduction on some NY rivers which I personally find pretty interesting – could we possibly see wild Skamania in Lake O rivers in the future? At this point, we can use the help of charter boats to support the fishery – As counter-intuitive as it may seem (even for me), crowded rivers and the people using and enjoying the resource (including those harvesting the odd wild rainbows) are ‘investors’ and ‘stakeholders’ to how our government perceives the importance of our natural resources – I was also told this by one of the board members who made the final decision to lower steelhead limits for our Lake O rivers (His name is Ed and can he sometimes be found steelheading the rivers with 2 of his black lab retrievers – Both love water as the steelhead at the end of my line noticed ). Perhaps one of the greatest threats to steelhead now (beyond angling), is the urban development taking place alongside many of the rivers…I don’t know if you’ve noticed but many of the rivers out east are silt choked ditches (they were before…Just way more so now) which may not exactly be the greatest habitat for steelhead to spawn in regardless of how many of them swim up. Sorry to bore you all to tears with all of this – I can’t imagine many of you finding any of this the least bit interesting…I’ve always been interested (and enthusiastic) about studying the biology (as well as the genetics) of the species I fish for in the hopes that it will make me a better (and more informed) angler.

Say it aint so Laz Getting into fly fishing is almost like getting into float fishing but it’s much worse… Why? - 1 fly rod doesn’t do it all…You’ll NEED fly rods in all different lengths and actions - You’ll never look at a rabbit at the pet shop the same way again…No need to mention road kill - You’ll shove various fly magazines underneath your mattress (maybe that was just me) - You’ll pretend your lawn is a trout stream and your neighbours (along with the mail man) will think you’re weird Looking forward to seeing the journey

For guys with waders, I’d stick worms and maggots into the inner chest pocket (unzipped) before my friends put them on...They’d eventually crawl out to explore. Also works well with spiders, millipedes that you can catch. The fuzzy caterpillars you find climbing trees work the best. Drop a few skein or gooey roe bags into your buddy’s waders before he puts them on. Remove the chapstick from the tube, replace with a mix of cork grease and chili pepper. On one camping/fishing trip, one friend pranked a bunch of us and filmed it with the movie mode on his camera. On the way home, one guy had his laptop in the car, removed the vids and uploaded some questionable material onto the SD card…It made for an interesting slide show when he sat down with his family to view it all on his big screen TV. Epoxy the cap of one bottle of beer in place (you can drink it first and fill it with something else) and give it to the guy you like the least that day. When my friends were sleeping in their tent, I'd throw some peanuts (for squirrels & chipmunks into the tent, wait for the cavalry to arrive and zip the tent shut. Wait for the screams . Also works really well throwing corn if ducks, geese and swans are around.