MJL

Fantastic report Mike. Especially love reading about a good father/son trip. Thanks for sharing. Super gorgeous brownie On another note: Have you ever used the wigglers they sell down there? My friends used to smuggle them back by the dozens over the border...Deadly baits!

Taking guides off is easy...Taking the epoxy residue left over on the blank - Not so easy. Most people take a lighter and lightly flame the guide wrap to soften up the finish. I personally use a heat gun and go back and forth over the guide wrap to avoid cooking the blank in one spot. Take a sharp razor blade and cut into the thread ON TOP OF THE GUIDE FOOT (Very important you do this on top of the guide feet or you may risk cutting into the blank) You can plane across the guide foot with the razor however my preferred method is to cut into the wrap a little, grab a loose thread and unwind - It should unravel the whole wrap. The guide should just fall out or just pull the sticking guide off the blank. To clean up the epoxy residue, I usually take the heat gun to soften it up and take a fingernail to scrap it off. Denatured alcohol (Methyl Hydrate) can used to speed things up a bit...The epoxy solvent that Angling Specialties sells works even better than the alcohol. You'll be good to tie on the guides. Taking guides off unpainted, unfinished blanks is the easiest...Gloss painted blanks are also fairly easy...Matt finished, painted blanks - Not so easy as you often remove or discolour the paint in the process of scraping off the epoxy residue. I normally retie the guides on with a slightly longer guide wrap to cover over the blemishes.

Well done to the lad...Totally awesome You must be 1 proud dad. WTG

Nicely done man...BC I'm guessing stands for Baitcaster That fish is as chrome as can be...If I'm heading down your way, I'll give you a shout for some big water steel.

Your daughter is super cool to the max Ryan...That vid was crazy awesome. Also had a dewie picking session last night myself...Ended up with 90 or so snakes to add on to the other 40 I got from last weekend which didn't get gobbled up by steelhead yet. The secret is to creep up to them like a ninja, jump on them like a tiger and then use the Jedi mind power trick to convince them to slide out of their hole Hey Mike, we're right on schedule...Started the midnight worm snatching about 3 weeks ago...Usually this is the best time of the year for worm picking...Don't have to mow the grass before you start. Lawns with grub problems are best - No grass at all

Orvis offers nice waders. I've been using my ProGuide II waders since 2004. They really took a beating over the years and came out laughing. Last fall they finally imploded and started leaking after each trip. I think I paid $200-$250 for them (Can't remember) - They were on sale though. I'm still currently using them...From the knees down is mostly aquaseal

That's some nice chrome violation there Well done guys

Excited about opener? You bet…It’s been a long standing tradition for my dad and me. We go to the same river each year and leave the house waaaay earlier than any other trip during the year. Crowds are usually pretty insane (but they fluctuate from year to year). The opener for us is our chance to revisit a few beautiful stretches of river we haven’t seen for a long time – Kinda like meeting an old friend for the first time every year. I also get to see a few people I only see once a year now…Some of whom played a huge role in helping me along in my own steelheading career. Fun times if you have the right frame of mind.

Great pic Doc...Almost looks like a water colour painting. Well done! Awesome fish too TDunn!

Congrats! You are now on your way towards, living, breathing and dreaming steelhead for the rest of your life. There's no cure for it. You'll be looking at weather and river forecasts on an hourly basis in fall, winter and spring. You'll fondle dozens of centrepin reels and 13ft float rods in tackle shops convincing yourself that owning 1 just isn't enough and off the shelf factory rods just don't cut it. You'll never look at rabbits in the pet shop the same way again. Every bead, sponge, piece of yarn and wine cork you see in your daily life becomes more than the inanimate objects that they are. You get over stimulated when you see rain and anything emerald green in colour. You just screwed yourself for life

Nicely done Stonefly

No worries TJ...The article should be on its way in the coming week 700 words was definitely not enough ...I got a little bit excited when I wrote it

Fantabulous report Mike...Congrats on the new PB too Bill. Eagerly awaiting your Michigan adventure report.

Great catch Dan! A beauty of a specimen. I can count on a single hand the number of fully scaled carp I've caught over 20+yrs of fishing for them. Well done. A fully scaled mirror carp has large irregular shaped scales - at least by normal common carp standards - covering its whole body. It’s a rarity in terms of North American carp. You have a standard common carp which has regular scale patterns over its body. You have a mirror carp (which has irregular shaped scales. Leather carp have no scales whatsoever. Linear mirror carp have a single row of scales along their lateral lines. These are regular mirror carp I normally get 1 mirror carp for every 200 common carp I get. Some places have better concentrations than others. Definitely can't go wrong with carp

I was referring more to your statement to JP about anything north of the 407 being a Sanctuary. It could mislead others to think that this is the case right now...It isn't...Anything north of Eglinton is a Sanctuary till the Last Saturday of April. If you're new to fishing the Humber you'll be surprised how many people don't realize that fishing 25m below a dam is illegal throughout the year...Or they just plain ignore the fact.

Take care when reading through the regulations. Read them thoroughly. The year round section for the Humber is: - Eglinton Ave down to Lake Ontario The extended season stretch for the Humber allows anglers to fish between the 407 down to the Lake between the last Saturday in April to December 31 Anything north of the 407 is open between the last Saturday in April and Sept 30 (General trout season) You are not allowed to fish 25 downstream of any dam or weir on the Humber at any time. There's about 5-6 of them in the lower Humber below Eglinton Ave I recommend that everyone read the regs themselves and re-read them again. I'd never rely solely on someone else's ability to interpret them for me.

I've wrapped small chunks of frozen ones to my Kwikfish with moderate success - Works better with medium sized or bigger lures. Saw guys on a TV show wrapping sardines around one and thought I'd try it with shrimp we were going to have for dinner instead. Don't leave them in your wading jacket for a week unrefrigerated like I did...It wasn't pretty

Let me get my electric eel ready (...runs out to the Amazon to catch one)

As Jacques mentioned, your frog can also eat tubifex or frozen bloodworms. Frogs will eat just about anything. I hope it will last longer than the 7 inch pleco I thought was big enough. His name was Jaws

They did in the Kawarthas up until they changed the regs last year. No fishing for anything until the panfish opener in April. I've tried fishing for them in the Kawarthas in early May a number of times without luck...Generally the water needs to heat up a bit till the action gets good. Always worth a shot though if you've got a local spot close to home...I'm pretty interested in seeing how you do up there (geographically speaking from someone who's from Scarborough). The carp in my local swims generally don't start going until late April/Early may when we've had a warm spring. I look for shallow flats (2-4ft) or marshes adjacent to deeper water or channels (10-15ft is normal). Usually you can find carp cruising or sunning themselves during the day in the flats. When they get warm enough, they start to feed. If they're not in the shallows, they're nearby in the deeper channels or drop-offs. Corn, bread, worms, boilies, doughballs work...They're coming out of a long winter of not eating...Any food on or close to bottom will be eaten...They're eating machines in spring!

Picked a few worms from the garden in my backyard a week and a bit ago during the rain we had. Only could find them right next to the house - probably due to the warmth. This time of year is my favourite time to pick worms...Don't have to mow the grass first Your frog is saying "feed me" from his butt I've got a great home for your frog if you get bored of it - can't promise you'd ever see it again

No worries...Everybody has their own opinions and views. I've met anglers who despise even the fish friendliest of nets one can possibly buy and would rather tail or beach their fish instead. Others feel boga grips are the way to go (which I don't entirely agree with). It may surprise you to hear that using nets is mandatory by law in the UK for their carp fishing as well as many parts in Europe (like France). Many waters there require you to have a minimum net size of at least 36 inches wide and on the majority of waters with specimen carp, it’s 42 inches. These nets are soft with fine mesh. It’s also law to have soft, padded, unhooking mats (like a small sleeping mattress for carp) to place your catch on the bank while you take pics and unhook them etc. They really do love their carp though. For the majority of anglers in the UK, they consider our fish handling skills here in NA to be barbaric. Post pics on a UK based carp forum of a carp, pike or catfish lifted over short grass or rocks without a mat or inside a non-fish-friendly net and you’ll be flamed more than a BK whopper . They have soft-meshed nets for just about every species of course and game fish they have – sticklebacks included.LOL Do I see rubber or soft meshed nets becoming law in Canada? Not likely.

Or when Danbo went through that David Hasselhoff phase for a couple months The ads do get pretty annoying though...Some of them I can't even tell what they're for.LOL Adblock filters out the rest and leaves a blank post.

Tailing gloves are great especially when they’re super fresh and super chrome from the lake. Those fish tend to be the most slippery I find. The rest of the time, they don’t seem too bad to hold onto. Some styles of glove I’ve seen used on the rivers: - Standard cotton wool gloves (a staple out west) - Michigan mesh gloves – Made out of PVC mesh I believe. - Rapala fillet gloves - Seal Skinz waterproof gloves with polymer gripper dots and a plastic coating on the palm and fingers (I use these sometimes when I remember to bring them). Some criticisms I’ve heard about for using a glove: - The sanitary conditions after you’ve handled a number of fish. Bacteria can grow on the surfaces and spread to each fish you catch. - Removal of fish slime. As Bill mentioned, if you can grab them while they’re still in the water (and quickly), it sure beats dragging them up onto dry, rocky, sandy or muddy banks to subdue them when they’ve fought to total exhaustion. I would imagine fighting a fish to total exhaustion in order to properly subdue it would pose a greater risk to the health of a fish than the use of a tailing glove. For a lot of my fishing trips the last 2-3yrs, I’ve been toting along my heavy rubber meshed net as a means to land them quicker and in deeper water. If you’re really worried about causing further damage to a landed fish, you can grab the leader, pull the fish close and pop the hook with a pair of pliers while standing knee to waist deep in water...You do risk breaking the line though.

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