AKRISONER

Funny story about those pants, had an old roomate/tennant that left my place in a hurry and left a bunch of crap behind. My buddy wanted to go ice fishing and all of my gear was up north. I found those teal snowboard pants in the storage room. They were wayyyyy too big for me but I made them work for the day. I specifically remember my feet being so damn cold that day because I only had a crappy pair of Walmart bush boots that I borrowed from my other roomate lol

I can assure everyone here, that having high quality electronics and knowing how to use them well, will 100% catch you more fish. Livescope making this even more eye opening because there are fish I catch that I would have never caught without it, It makes sense, but there is 100% a group of fish “type” that won’t eat if your boat is anywhere near them. That goes for all species. once again with lakers, for whatever reason they were not fond of vertical presentation but would eat jigs ripped by them. If I put the boat near them they won’t eat. bass, fish suspending way way up high in the water column most likely on bait. You can’t put a boat on it, but I’ve thrown top water out over those fish in 25 feet of water and they eat. It’s incredible

cliff, youd be blown away if you saw whats its like to fish livescope in open water for laketrout. Out of all of the different types of fishing I do, that application trumps all. The coolest things ive seen yet though was a smallmouth suspended 12 feet off of bottom in 25 feet of water eat a crankbait off of a ledge in real time, 25 feet off of the nose of the boat. They do have their application, its a matter of what extent you need to go with it/want to. If I am being honest, my favourite style of fishing is still flipping and skipping into wood for largemouth which involves precisely 0 electronics aside from a trolling motor. People also spend thousands a year on weed, cigs and liquor and drive $100,000 vehicles too, so to each their own if you got it, spend it!

This was in 2016 (Wow i cannot believe it has been that long yeeeesh) but we caught if I remember, 4 this size on island lake that day. Theres a million snot rockets too, plus a pile of perch. Any time we dead sticked a minnow head on a small jig on bottom we would catch perch.

owning the electronics, and knowing how to use them to catch fish are two entirely different things. Even fishing with a livescope, its not going to catch the fish for you if you dont know what to do when you see a fish.

yup...this thread aint going nowhere but into locked mode

Maybe I’m crazy? But if I’m keeping it 100% I’ve always done best on brighter days. if a storm is coming in it can be really good just like softwater. but I’ve found more consistent bites when it’s blue bird softwater, cloudy calm warm days are the juice

Go to island lake, there’s a billion pike in there

So with that particular unit, in order to autochart you will need a Humminbird zero lines card in order to record. Also a worthwhile investment specifically for fishing species that you like to target vertically. i really liked the little chart I made of one of my favourite crappie basins keep an eye on the bass boat central forums, the canada chart cards come up somewhat frequently (not as much recently with Americans not travelling) but lots of those guys have taken trips north and bought cards and then dump them

3500lbs? You trying to be the only guy towing a 22 foot bass boat with a minivan?

Unfortunately there is no such thing as Navionics "regions" in canada. You either buy the whole country or you dont. Speaking from personal experience, Lakemaster Canada is literally completely garbage and a waste of money. In fact its outright dangerous to attempt to navigate with. I was actually in shock with how bad it is. I personally would recommend looking at purchasing a used chip. Theres no need to neccesarily have the latest and greatest navionics chip, the ones that are 5+ years old are still super accurate for the majority of major bodies of water. Ive been using a chip thats close to 10 years old now for navigating without issue for years now.

have to laugh, the elites down there practicing have been complaining that its darn cold. Even local canadian boy Cooper Gallant was wearing a parka and touque while fishing!

+1 that a 6 incher is enough. The only time ive ever really needed the 8 incher is landing laketrout and thats moreso because they obviously are big and really dont like to give up when you get them to the hole. Landing whities, perch, walleyes etc through a 6 incher will be no issue. If you want to give yourself an excuse to buy a fancy new 20v drill, do that and get yourself a fancy drill adaptor auger. I personally say just hand drill though, I was punching 6 inch holes with a swede bore through a foot of thick black ice this weekend and it was nothing as long as your blades are sharp. Careful to never smack your blades on the ice and always travel with a cover to keep them razer sharp.

Ya simcoe is a bit of a giant beast for a newbie to take on. i really find with ice fishing, the initial overhead is pretty steep but then after then there isn’t much cost at all unless you are trying to keep a snowmobile running. it’s definitely a hell of a lot cheaper than running a boat, electronics and gear. for the most part ice rods are ice rods. You’re always fishing them the same way. Vertical. Pick your species and assign your rod power accordingly. hand augers are cheap, and sharp blades in Ontario where the ice never gets too too thick are usually good enough. Maybe a little different if you need big holes for big lakers but that’s really starting to go beyond beginner status. it doesn’t take much to go catch a few walleye, pike or Perch through the ice. No need to over complicate it.

Not to hijack the thread, but since it is being brought up…you should see the insanity around going 24v now for guys running livescope/mega live etc etc. im personally a big time believer in over gauging, looming and really clean dedicated runs to avoid line loss for your electrical installation. Garmin even shows you by displaying the unit’s voltage plain as day what kind of line loss you experiencing but I’m not a believer in the whole 24v Bull. by the way, If you wire your marine electronics into your boat’s bus fuse block, you’ve just waisted all of that money. My father is the “function” over “form” type being an old farmer…sure as turd, he’s running the exact same electronics set up as me and his looks like absolute garbage and there’s a disaster of interference all over his livescope and 2d sonar. I offered to rewire it all for him because I enjoy dc wiring and use his boat regularly, but as far as he is concerned, he did a great job because the thing turns on! Can’t ever tell your old man nothing lol

Theres math involved and Im sure a graph somewhere that will show you running a more powerful 24 system will outperform a 12v system with more AH and reserve capacity. This is the main thing here, if you are carrying two group 31's in the boat anyways you should be running them for 24v.

There’s just such better lakes to fish that typically don’t require you to pay at least nearly as much to park and deal with crowds etc etc. i guess the perch fishing is pretty damn good but I’d rather fish crappie elsewhere if that’s what I’m looking for. Otherwise, ya I’m going somewhere else to fish

this is why I will probably never fish Simcoe again TBH That and the $30 something dollar a day parking.

time to buy a sled 😁 Im headed out Friday for the first time this year! cant wait! By Sunday ill be cursing ice fishing and be ready to fish from the boat again

money is tight right now bud, but if you somehow dont manage to move these by spring we will have a chat!

park on the ice, its free! and then you can come back at the end of the day to find your car underwater like all of the other bozos that do this every single year I saw an instagram story from OMGitsDangs last week, a guy had parked his van on 4 inches of ice and went through lmao Cliff Im glad to see you are getting a chance to head out fishing! take pics!

These laws have been in place all over the united states and canada for years...its actually somewhat shocking its taken this long to be implemented in Ontario.

best online store is peterborough pro tackle But they are high end only, so if you are looking for canadian tire quality, head elsewhere.

No matter what if you decide to go used, complete a compression test on the motor before buying! very easy to do, relatively cheap and a perfect way to verify the condition of your motor.

severely underpowered with a 115, you wouldnt get that thing on plane no matter how much propping and crap you did. Stay away. Tracker got the nick name "cracker" for a reason. They are cheaper for a reason. There's a chance that Johnny Mo and the bass pro folks have figured out how to make a boat not leak...I mean ive seen some pretty decent stuff recently with the Nitro Bass boats, but man oh man were there a pile of issues with them as recently as 6 years ago and prior to that. Literally there is a reason that when you go to a bass tournament there's plenty of 20+ year old tritons, champions, rangers and stratos' kicking around, but hardly any nitros. (just my observation) Word of advice, heavily consider taking a trip over the border to look at boats, dollar goes much much further and the process of importing is fairly straight forward if you make sure that your documentation is all printed and in order before you leave. I imported a boat in November so let me know if you need any additional advice.