AKRISONER

thats a really cool picture. Water temps were crazy, the top layer got hot last week, water was up in the 70's and then the wind came friday and knocked that hot layer off and I woke up Saturday morning the water was 61! I was happy to see it colder, means the spring fishing is going to last longer. High of 11 and 13 tomorrow up there...keeping things nice and cool! Musky not open in zone 14 yet..so pike it was!

make sure to take pics...and regardless of what happens, as long as you get out fishing!

well, the number of willing snot rockets was just ridiculous this weekend. Caught more than i could count...I took my girlfriend out softwater fishing for the first time in her life on saturday. I taught her how to use a spinning reel and it came with a warning..."You are going to catch a big friggin fish today, i guarantee it...its your first time out...its just how its going to be. I will be here to guide you through the process, just be prepared" She proceeds to catch a pike on the third cast of her life and then... we found the queen and it ended up being the exact same fish as my buddy caught last spring. Shes grown up a little but looks to be in good health. 32 inches, id put her around 10lbs. I guess she didnt learn though, the A 5 of diamond spoon was her nemesis again. My girlfriend is a natural, her demeanor is such that she never gets overly excited about things even when she is very excited...she is calm and collected. She hooks into this pike and just says "scott i think ive got something big" she handled the thing like a pro. Hook perfectly in the corner of the mouth. Threw in the jaw spreaders, pupped the hook out and let her relax in the net aquarium. Couldnt find the damn fish glove so it was a bit much to ask her to hold her prize considering she had never held a fish in her life. I picked the girl up for a photo and off she went like a friggin bullet. Maybe we will meet up again next year.

the midges were definitely out this weekend, definitely no may flies annoying, but manageable. better than the mosquitoes and blackflies that were also swarming lol. Rule of thumb Ohio...its the same every year...the fish are up shallow and eating like absolute crazy until the mayfly hatch every year. Huge pike, walleye all found right up in 5 fow, then the mayfly hatch happens and everything moves out deep. The bass dont seem to mind though for whatever reason, they are still insane until august, then the fishing gets tougher.

those americans are going to enjoy the 25% tarrif we put on maple syrup and rye whiskey this is a great heads up...does anyone know if this includes boat parts and components? Im running an american made boat myself and am now concerned that any parts that i purchase would have this additional tarrif.

my problem with the improved clinch is that it has somehow managed to come undone on me wayyyy too many times. I dont know why but it just seems to fail occasionally on hard hook sets. I can tell that its come unraveled because the end of the line is "crimped" as in you can tell it was twisted up tightly. My father is unable to tie the improved clinch these days, its too difficult to pass the line back through the bottom twist and then back again for him.

my mom was up in Pointe Au Baril last weekend and said there was no blackflies...i said she was insane...but im starting to believe her now? Last year was insanity...I guess i will find out on saturday!

the trick if your hands are banged up like mine is give yourself a huge doubled loop to work with and a foot of tag end..you use a bit more leader material but its about as easy as tying an overhand not then. Only prob with palomar ive found is that it breaks lighter fluro or mono if you aren't super careful.

I might have to try this out...im very very intrigued

hopefully the fines are big and the bans are long. Friggin idiots keeping bass inside a fish sanctuary...wow

I dont think you would regret buying one at all. They cast a mile and damn do they ever catch fish.

Yup, When ice fishing i live with hand warmers in my gloves, without them i pretty much cant fish. I pretty much exclusively tied the uni and palomar for tying to lures for the past couple of years, but I noticed I was having a few issues with the uni breaking or coming undone...Its a great easy to tie knot but ive found it to be prone to failure. Im forever glad I learned the knot though because its awesome to tie a double uni for putting line together and even more so, if you can tie a uni knot you are basically 90% of the way to knowing how to snell!

Hey guys, ive been taking fishing seriously for a few years now and over this time I have forever been on the quest for the most simple reliable knots. The driver behind my quest is two fold. One I have self diagnosed Raynauds syndrome in my hands (someone may say theres no such thing as a minor case of it?) But basically any time im fishing in weather colder than 15 degrees celcius my hands get cold regardless of how warm I am. they turn white and sure enough i lose feeling in my fingers and if its approaching 0 I quite literally lose all dexterity in my fingers as they pretty much go into paralysis. What this means is that I have a hell of a time tying fishing knots. Quite literally, many times while ice fishing I have to get friends to tie knots for me, or I will literally stop fishing for 10 minutes and stick my hands under my armpits so that they can get warm enough for me to get enough movement and feeling in them to tie knots. If im ice fishing, even with gloves on, my hands pretty much go stiff to the point that i can hardly hold on to my rod anymore. The second driver, and i think many of us here can relate to this one, is my aging father. The man that taught me how to tie the standard improved cinch knot can no longer tie one himself. I am sure there is even a few of us on the board here that as we get older are beginning to struggle with the fine motor skills required to tie complex fishing knots. Most trips out fishing my dad relies on me to quickly retie as tying himself requires significant effort and a lot of time. It can be easier to just have me quickly throw a knot together rather than have him attempt to retie. There are even times now when my father goes fishing by himself that when he comes back he tells me "I was catching on one particular set up, but then i snagged and broke my line so I had to use a different set up due to my inability to retie what I had on" Over the course of the past 4 years I have done my absolute best to cover all bases. Unfortunately I cant find a simpler replacement for the canadian jam knot.. Each of these knots have indeed been tested in the field and the only one that has failed occasionally but still very rarely if you are careful enough is the Loop knot seen below. Please note that yes, i understand that your nail knot or perfection knot may be better...you may even have some knots that you have been tying so friggin long that they are "easy" for you to tie, or seem simple. I have attempted to take it further than that. I have taken these knots and shown them to my father and others and they have basically been able to tie them first try every single time. Heres my knots For tying line together, the lefty kreh knot For loop knots for fly fishing or cranbaits, quick strike rigs or wherever else you need a loop knot The Weibe Knot (i named this one lol) For tying braid to your hook when fishing slop/pads/wherever you want to tie braid directly to your hook, weight whatever (I never tie this knot to flurocarbon or mono unless its very heavy aka 30lbs+ because its known to burn your line and break. The Palomar Finally Last but of course not least...Tying Fluro or Mono to anything I literally learned this knot 2 weeks ago and have never looked back. prior to learning this knot I was using the uni knot but even it is more complicated than The Eugene Knot As an added bonus to those of us that like fishing drop shots...lots of people have a hard time figuring out how to make their hook stand up. My buddy realized the most simple solution aside from using "drop shot specific" hooks with swivels or standouts. Once you have tied you standard fishing knot to the hook, take your long excess tag and loop it back around and down through the eyelet again so that the tag end runs through the hook an extra time...attach your weight and voila, your hook will stand up perfectly as the weight tourques back on the hook sticking it out. Try it out! I hope someone here can find this useful...heck maybe everyone will think I am an idiot! I am simply trying to speak from a guy with useless hand's perspective that spends 300+ hours a year on the water. Thanks for reading guys! Please feel free to provide further input if you know of something and are willing to share with the rest of us! Remember, no matter what ALWAYS SPIT ON YOUR KNOTS!

with thicker width tape and 2 people...it wont take you very long at all...especially because it doesnt have to be precise at all.

You dont really need to cover the entire vehicle top to bottom do you? Even then, there is painters tape thats about 4 inches wide...it actually wouldnt take very long to do. I always did the front of the hood and then the bumper...it wasnt that bad.

thats a honker well done

consider reporting this to the MNR...they rely on folks like us to let them know what is going on. https://www.ontario.ca/page/report-rare-species-animals-and-plants

if only we lived in a province where they didnt throw brine and salt on the roads because people cant friggin drive.

a little slow, but incredible terrain...we caught found the fish in a transitioning pattern from their post spawn hunches to their summertime hangouts. the fish you do catch are hearty as all heck, but they were fewer and far between then we would have liked. We are going to definitely go back next year though but in April so that the fish are still up really shallow guarding beds...should be pretty fun!

Grimsby gave me a lot of flack back in the day for doubting the ability of bass boats in rough water...well it was baptism by fire the first time i took it out on lake Ontario, and sure enough we had some damn good south winds on lake marion last week, this video was taken when it was "calm" the next day it blew up even bigger, we were jumping that boat through the surf and barely got wet. I guess im kinda used to it running Georgian bay in a 14 foot tinner for the past 5 years, not much scares me until it starts pushing 8 foot lol. Those flat bottom fibreglasses, instead of trying to push and plow through waves just sort of surf and jump em...makes for some harsh landings but the water never seems to come over the front, you only get the odd splash from the side. You can see we hit one good one here that caused mike to lose control of the camera hahaha

cant wait to get out and try and find em!

damn it...i was hoping things may have changed up a bit now that the water temps have warmed. I havent been up since the opener but on opener they were literally no where to be found. I dont know when you were out last but ive always found that they tend to move back into the bays around may 2-4 when the water has finally started to get into their sweet spot. This year we are a couple weeks behind water temps wise...so i will let you know how i fare out. Usually early june before the mayfly hatch is somewhat of a magical time where everything is in off the main lake shallow and eating. youll catch anything and everything anywhere.

that is a honking walleye cant wait to get up to G bay this weekend and find them shallow.

lol...the loss on investment was being in a terrible relationship which resulted in me losing my house, car and furniture lmao. Hard to walk to Pointe Au Baril In a lot of ways, i feel like the weed blip was the universes way of making things straight with me. Now i own a truck, a home again, plus a boat!

for a cheap solution, id literally use painters tape...I used to painters tape my carbon fibre hood on my car when i was making trips up north...it worked really well! and it costs basically nothing. When done peel it off...it even holds up surprisingly well when it rains!