AKRISONER

as we get older, our list has expanded to include some very important items -barbecue -marinated pork loins - naan -home made tzaziki -greek salad

caught just as many fish, because the lakes were teaming with fish and were unpressured.

who trolls these days though? yaaaawwwnnnn Old man fishing I call it 😄 look on the bright side, you may never feel a fish bite, but it comes with a seniors discount

2002 Mazda protege got into working on cars for a time, as an adult I’ve now traded little quick cars for a bass boat…same hobby really! Put it on coilovers, turbo, stage 2 race clutch and lightweight flywheel used to burn out shifting into third gear. Obviously not as fast off of the line as a big muscle car but the tiny thing only weighed about 2500lbs and had 180 horsepower so she zipped around. main thing was just that the car felt like driving a little Porsche with how nimble and stiff it was. sold it for $2,000 and regret it to this day. Even dreamed about driving it a couple of months ago. would absolutely kill to have it parked in my garage to just boot around in and pump the big stereo.

Number one rule of fishing, dont "overthink" it. If youre attempting to ice fish laketrout without electronics...good luck If youre hiring a permanent hut from an operator at the end of the season? Good luck you say you are deadsticking minnows...but what does your presentation look like, do you have all sorts of "cheater" mechanisms all over your line, like snap swivels, too big of jigs, big hooks etc? good luck. To me at least in my experience, the devil is 100% in the details, but overthinking about fishing on this day or the next or not is a load of whatever as far as I am concerned. In my observation, the moon has impact on two things, 1 in the spring for bass, the first full moon when the water reaches 60 degrees, youre going to see a huge wave of a spawning. 2. if its perfectly clear and calm during a full moon, ive observed that the fishing can be tougher as I personally believe the fish have fed a bit more through the night than normal. as far as the moon having any impact on fish that are below ice that cant see the sky, or observe any water level change on a small lake thats not tide impacted...ehhhh the presentation of your bait, the line your using, the knot, the hook is far more important. Permanent huts are the equivalent of going and fishing in your boat on the same shoal every single day all day...Seems crazy to think that the fishing is going to be excellent all of the time for the whole year doing that no? staying mobile, adjusting depths all matters, at the end of the day though, ice fishing is a giant unproductive PITA. As far as im concerned its something to do during the winter, but the really "banner" days are few and far between no matter how hard you grind at it. Laketrout specifically, its hard to get around them, once you are, then its hard to get them to bite, then if you do, its hard to land them. Thats the name of the game, youre either in or your out. The payoff can be pretty sweet, nothing in ice fishing beats catching lakers through the ice, but holy heck id much rather target them from a boat! Ill add, im totally aware that this is a lot of complaining...but your talking to a guy that has the snowmobiles, the livescope, the huts, heaters blah blah blah and spent 12(ish) full 8 hour days out there this winter chasing lakers, caught some, skunked some, literally didnt have any "great" days all winter this year, still did it!

if you want to fish with 3 people regularly, im going to suggest buying the biggest boat that you can afford. speaking from experience, 16 footers are pretty tight. 17 with two people on the back and one on the casting deck in the front is good, 18 you wont even think about the fact that theres 3 people in the boat. 19+ youre starting to think more about the water you like to fish. If you want to fish walleye and bass on georgian bay or lake O in the fall its 19 foot or bigger to be comfy. Kickers are a nice to have, but as mentioned above can be created using a drift sock. You most certainly want a bow mount trolling motor, full stop. Avoid minkotta powerdrives, look for a terrova. This all being said, i caught a heck of a lot of fish in gale winds on georgian bay out of my 14 foot tinner with a 15, handmade casting deck (a sheet of 3/4 plywood) and a terrova bowmount...Got wet, had people fall in the lake, but were alive lol

good luck getting any value out of your gear. The economy is in the tank and ice fishing specifically is a dying game. Every year the season gets shorter and ever year the price of gear gets higher. I along with many friends whom I would call "hardcore" ice guys are basically done investing in it, the ROI just isnt there anymore,

We don’t know what they will look like, the idea will most likely be to specifically target some American products where we can buy them elsewhere…like China…

Hey Lew, Hopefully I can clear this up for you. I wont provide my opinion in order to keep this thread open lol. But to put it in plain language Trump imposes 25% tarrif on Canadian lumber entering the united states, the American purchaser of the lumber pays a 25% tarrif on the lumber. The money is collected by the US government. Canada imposes a retalitory tarrif on american goods a boat for example, the purchaser (your local boat dealer) pays a 25% tarrif on the boat here in canada that is collected by the canadian government. That cost would be passed down by the boat dealer to you or me when we go to buy a shiny new boat. So contrary to your understanding, canada does not pay both ways. In fact trump has been somewhat succesful in confusing americans into believing that by imposing these tarrifs, countries like canada and china will pay for them. This is not the case at all. The entire concept of a tarrif is to promote manufacturing within your own country by penalizing anyone that purchases products from a foreign manufacturer or supplier. The most recent tariff on canadian steel is an easy one...by imposing a 25% tarrif on canadian steel the US government is incentivizing any american that needs to purchase steel, to purchase it from american sources. This should boost the economy in a place like Pennsylvania that have massive steel manufacturing. Part of me even questions if Trump understood what he was doing when he initially brought up the concept, hence the continued pushing back of the imposing date. You may ask yourself then, why is everyone making such a stink about the tariffs here in Canada if its the americans that are going to pay them. The answer is that the Canadian Economy relies heavily on selling its products such as oil, lumber, potash, uranium, etc etc to the united states. If canadian resources and products are hit with a 25% tarif Americans will immediately turn to purchasing these products from other markets where tarifs are not imposed, and thus this will severely damage the canadian economy. One blatant oversight by the Trump administration was the idea of tarffing canadian oil. What they failed to realize is that Canada currently discounts oil by upwards of $17 a barrel to the united states. By imposing a tarrif on canadian oil, Canadian oil companies would essentially be forced to begin marketing their oil elsewhere while americans would be stuck going to the open market. For areas of the United States that are heavily reliant on Canadian oil due to their distance from the american coast line such as the american midwest, transportation costs to move oil from foreign sources would skyrocket the price. These areas of the states are heavily reliant on oil produced in canada and moved down via pipeline saving significant transportation costs. If the American midwest was forced to pay a 25% tarrif, they are then looking at 1. paying 25% more immediately, plus most likely needing to go and purchase oil on the open market which they would then need to transport to the middle of the continent. I dont think theres much appetite for americans to pay what 40? 50%? more for their oil. This is the real catch in all of this. Trump can threaten tariffs etc all he wants, but at the end of the day the USA does not have/has not enough resources to sustain itself. It doesnt have the oil reserves, lumber, potash, uranium, etc etc to provide itself. It will always be reliant on countries like canada to provide those resources to it. Thats what makes this all a little nerve wracking too while Trump keeps bringing up making canada its 51st state...we just saw what Russia decided to do when it needed some resources...could USA do the same? Youd hope not.

2 things 1. i owned one of those premiere ice rods and hooked into a big trout and the lack of butt end nearly broke my arm after fighting it through multiple runs. I said "never again" and literally bought a new laketrout ice rod on the drive home. 2. Trout are the worst for deciding to but their heads against the ice. Its almost like they know they can knock the lure out of their face. I keep my drag stupidly loose when i get them up top. The buggers can be a handful to land. Heck last weekend I had one roll itself up in my line to the point that I could no longer land it head up, so i tail grabbed the thing to bring it up backwards, once i got it up on the ice I began to try unwind the frigging knot it had tied itself into and sure enough the thing went nuts and somehow managed to find the hole and take off again before it was unhooked. I got two fights out of one fish 😄

how did it go out there today?!

with the price of lithium batteries finally hitting the floor, lead acid just don’t make sense anymore! especially in boating where weight savings are everything!

May as well share a couple flicks from my weekend as well…the pork gyros with garlic naan, homemade Greek salad and tzatziki were the best part of the day!

Those memories of riding the snowmobiles out to the ice, running around chasing bells ringing and eating lunch on the ice are truthfully core to the reason i fish this very day. Important stuff to instill in kids, its not about fishing, its about being out there, a fish or two is a bonus. Heck, getting a little older and mature now, we are even toning back how "serious" we are especially when ice fishing. Lunch and a hot meal on the ice are a much larger priority it seems these days. The barbecue is one of the key packing items for any ice trip for us now.