MJL

I've caught a few steelhead with jointed rapalas (about 4-5 inches long I think - not sure the exact model) and various other crank baits in the past in the rivers. There's one guy I run into on a couple of my local rivers who only uses minnow baits and spinners all season and catches lots of fish. There's one guy named Henry who fishes the Ganny a lot and makes his own beautiful wooden minnow baits and catches tons of fish with those (I lost the only one he gave me to a big chinny ). I'm still learning more about how to effectively fish hard minnow baits (I'm more of a spinner guy when it comes to lure fishing) but I think the key is finding the right lure for the depth you are fishing. A lot of the time I'm casting upstream (often almost straight upstream) and retrieving with the current to get the lure down to depth. Bring lots of lure with you as most will end up in log jams and snags. You don't need roe to catch steelhead Hope this helps.

Beauty buck Jim. I was out today for a couple hours this morning and it seemed pink was definitely the colour of choice. Pink roe bags, pink worms, pink marabou jigs…Got a few hits on a purple & black jig but everything else was ignored (including my magic spinners ). Mike

PS Shouldn't you be in class?

Beauty fish Will Well done On the opener Victor caught the same fish twice within half an hour on the same pink worm

That's awesome!!! Nicely done Mariko is a better looking teacher though - I find it helps me concentrate better

I've fished the Don a couple times with my friend a few years ago. Caught a sucker and some chubs near one of the bike paths in late spring. I'm tempted to try fishing it again as I've seen dead chinnies below the subway tracks (I got stuck there for an hour). Not sure when I can make it out to the Don but I'll give you a shout the next time I check it out. I'm really tempted to scout out the headwaters to see if I can get a few browns or brookies when the season opens up again.

Awesome report Dave. Amazing photos and amazing fish Great talking to you on the chat last night.

Same here. I've also never been fond of leaving things in my car in plain sight for thieves to see (like a long rod tube). I would be cautious though with float rods using the PacBay high-frame guides when doing this. I've broken a number of these guides just trying to break down my rods while it's still rigged.

Well done Dan! I'm starting to play around with HDR myself. Truly an inspirational photo for me.

I was sick a couple weeks ago with a pretty severe cold. I ended up taking some Cold FX I found in the medicine cabinet and went fishing...No kidding it cured me right up

Those brownies are simply stunning! The colouration on those things is awesome. Well done to the both of you

Beauty piece of steel Jim. I never get used to how they annihilate spinners - No signs of subtlety there.LOL Great chatting with you on the river yesterday. They sell live 'trout worms' at one of my local tackle shops (I think they're also called red worms - they don't look red.LOL). They look like smaller, thinner versions of the cobra sized dewies. Great bait...Unfortunately chubs and suckers love them too.

Well done Mike...Good stuff for getting out there What Kemper is referring to is the fact that Atlantics have been stocked into Lake O creeks since the 80’s without any noticeable returns. Probable causes to the lack of returns and a self sustaining population of Atlantics in Lake O include: Thiamine deficiencies due to the smelt and alewife they eat out in Lake O (it screws up their ability to reproduce). Competition from juvenile rainbow trout while they’re still in streams is another factor. There’s some thinking that the redds spawning Atlantics dig to lay their eggs are sensitive to sediment and silt (Ironically they were stocked in rivers known as ‘dirty Duffins’) and the success of the eggs surviving is low.

That's awesome. I hear there's a pair of Peregrine falcons which use the top of the Bell building (Ashtonbee and Pharmacy I think) as a seasonal home. I was fortunate enough to watch a peregrine falcon dive bomb a pigeon at the old Lakeview generating station before it was demolished.

I've been told this as well. Apparently it takes 30-40 years for a tree to produce the cork from the time of planting to harvest...Lots of things can go bad in that time. I bought a bunch of premium cork rings for $1.10 each when I first started building rods...Now it's around $2.25 per ring depending on where you order them.

Update: I've been seeing a good number of hawks in my neighbourhood this fall as well as at my local tribs when I'm fishing for steelhead and browns. Managed to snap this pic today while I was out fishing one of the rivers. I took it at my camera's full 18X zoom and cropped it a little...Would this be another cooper's hawk? Original picture This fall I've been lucky enough to see at least 1 or 2 hawks fly by each time I fish the river. They're really beautiful birds.

Ditto on what Craig said. However if you tie your own flies, you can try tying your own polar fiber minnows (I tie mine at 3 inches). I've had great success fishing these in the lower Niagara for the steelhead. I've tied them with colour combinations such as blue + white (seen below), black + purple + white, green + olive + white and pure white. I'm really tempted to try tying them as tube flies for future trips so I can switch up the hook when it dulls from hitting rocks and other snags. I coat the eyes and head with rod building epoxy (30 min probably works best if you can get it) and use crystal flash (Usually red) for the gills. I sometimes tie in a few strands of different coloured Mylar, crystal flash or flashabou along the side of the fly for some added flash. Woolly buggers work great for steelhead and browns as well as 3-4 inch deceivers and clouser minnows if you're beach casting somewhere at the mouth of a river. Hope this helps

Maybe too many loogans showed up and raped and pillaged the run of shrimps in his kitchen. Tons of garbage like empty beer bottles and cans were also left behind. He then put a No Trespassing sign up and closed off access to everyone.

Those are amazing pics Dave. Photographs like those were the ones to really inspire me to get into photography. I've been googling up waterproof hard cases for DSLRs and the setup that your buddy Sam has looks like it's going to cost me as much as a new car All the salmon/steelhead fishing packages I've looked into for the Northern BC and Alaska all recommended I bring a waterproof camera...Might as well go big for a trip of a lifetime Is that a bead I see in the bottom pic?

With bullets like those and scenery like that, I'm dying to get up there. Anybody up for a spur-the-moment road trip?

Welcome to the wonderful world of pinning in the rain For me, I’ve got both hands working the palming rim. When I’m using my Islander I’ve got my right hand pinky and ring fingers + left hand palm & thumb working as a break. With my Angspec, I use the same set-up but always have the option flicking the drag on if I’m really desperate (rarely ever needed to use though – I occasionally just use it for carp or salmon off the pier). When I’m fighting fish be it in the rain or in dry conditions, a lot of the time I have my rod angled down to the side, lock the spool handles in place with my left thumb and index finger and play the fish on the rod. Pretty amazing at how little line you need to give when you get used to it. You can also sacrifice your knuckles to the reel handles in the name of slowing down a big mamma jamma

Thanks a lot guys. Really appreciate the replies. I'll probably go with Doc's idea of a dry bag. I found a few small dry-bag waist packs online which look like they might fit the bill just right. Thanks a ton Sean. I was really looking for some sample pictures from the Aquapac. I would probably have a camera dedicated just for underwater pictures and use my other camera for the other pictures if I went the Aquapac route. At this point in time, I will probably save up for a waterproof camera. Really liked some of the underwater sample pictures I found online from the Canon D10. Thanks guys

Simply too amazing to describe Keep the reports coming...I've enjoyed every single one of them. On another note: You're buddy Phil looks vaguely familiar...Does he regularly fish for carp on the St. Lawrence?

I usually pick up a few when I hit up the Columbia outlet store in Michigan For my 22 birthday, my friends got me a shirt they made with an airbrush that said: "The best head is steelhead" I forgot to take it home and left it behind at All-Star Wings

Recently got into photography and digital imagining the last year or so. I guess it stemmed from my last job as a technical writer for Whirlpool (The Whirlpool/Maytag/Kenmore company). I used to be a writer, hand model, photographer and photo enhancing dude for the DIY manuals on how to assemble and disassemble the washing machines + dryers. Well Anyway, I purchased my own camera earlier this year hoping to get more into nature/fishing photography just for my own viewing pleasure (A used Panasonic FZ18 – a more advanced P&S without the heft of a full blown DSLR…Still big nonetheless and doesn’t fit in a pocket very well). I find I suck at multi-tasking and a lot of times when I’m fishing rivers for steelhead and trout and I’m wading or its raining, I take far less pictures than I would really like…Currently have it in a weather resistant camera bag + plastic bag without holes, but usually that’s tucked away in my backpack on shore. Just wondering if there are any waterproof waist packs or chest packs to shove it in while I’m fishing (even ones not designed for fishing per se) that I should take a look at. Ideally I want something I can strap to myself. It’s no doubt going to be submerged underwater a few times over the years. I already dunked the camera once this year on a brookie hunting mission (It died…Literally). I lucked out when Panasonic actually replaced the damaged parts and sent it back for free within a week and a half. One other question I have is, anyone ever use the plastic camera housings designed for underwater use? If so, how are they. They look like glorified zip-lock bags with a hard lens (At least the ones for the small cameras do) and they’re relatively inexpensive (Compared to buying a whole new waterproof camera). None of the camera shops around my area carry them and none of them really know anything about them. I’d like to try taking pics of fish underwater while snorkeling (in summer) or creeping up behind them in the river and taking pics of them in their natural environment. Any help or tips you can give me is much appreciated. Thanks Here’s the only picture I’ve taken of my fish so far this fall. I played around with it in an HDR program and ran it through Noiseware and like the results. Mike