kemper

There was an on-farm operation that was starting up in Thunder Bay about a year back that I did some consulting work with (you can't avoid farming when you go to U of Guelph...) To be honest I'm not sure where they are now, but they did have big plans to distribute province wide.

Completely normal - although there always seems to be more jacks up in your neck of the woods. I think they're a blast. Gobble roe bags and put on a much better fight than the 20 pounders in smaller water.

Day was far from ruined, lots of fish still made their way to the bank! I'm a finance guy - my skill with words doesn't always put forth the tone that I intend. There was some sarcasm and feigned exasperation hidden in there - in all honesty I was mostly in awe of the situation and how fast this addiction has spread. No worries Gbay, I do bass fish but they don't seem to co-operate with me the way that trout do...

I know it is full of fish, but MAN is it painful to watch a float move that slowly...

You could try swinging a spey rod around? I've noticed that nobody comes near my when the big stick is chucking intruders...of course I'm probably in grave danger the entire time.

I think you can blame Mike for that term, around here anyway. Flexible term, means that some goof decides he wants to fish exactly where you are and proceeds to do exactly that.

Agreed - 100% Hey guys, we made it to 20 posts on a thread about bows and no punches have been thrown yet

Sometimes it will, others not. I've already notched 2 trips this year that tipped the 750km mark - unfortunately can't make that happen every weekend. Once we get some rain I can go back to wandering into the bush until I'm alone

Indeed. Are you still off galavanting the globe for salmon sized brookies? Its been a sad scene all over so far, I crossed the Saugeen last weekend and didn't even get my knees wet...

Hey Mike - out East I just put my combat gear on and get to it, but I've never dealt with shenanigans this bad up north before. Seems like everyone with a tuna rod migrated...

Believe me, I'd love to be out on the lake too but on a student budget that just isn't in the cards. When you can find a piece of water that doesn't look like the circus came to town the river bank is hands-down my favourite way to fish. Once it gets cold the idiots go into hibernation and the rest of us can get some real work done.

Unfortunately Lew, that's about right. Seems like it's been getting worse too. I don't get into it on the river, if someone wants to grease me out I just move on to another place. I have been known to stir the old pot online from time to time thought...

Seems some people could use it... A large number of people can fish a stream as long as we all co-operate. It's pretty simple, everyone drifts in unison and we all get along. I was greased out today three times, by three different people who all knew better. 1) Casting UPSTREAM far enough that you cross the line of the guy who is two places above you is excessive. Stop doing that. 2) Yes, I did just hook a fish in that slot. No, I would prefer if you didn't cross me up twice while standing in my back pocket so you can get a drift too. 3) Hey buddy across the river, I realize that I'm all of 30 feet from you and I'm hard to see (?). Please, for the love of roe bags don't bounce your float off my knees again - the water is two feet deep. I see the bottom. No salmons there. I can put up with people standing all over me as long as they stay off my line. I'm used to this crap from fishing out East, but I would have preferred to be at the Ganny during the salmon run instead of the Northern river I drove a long way to today. On another note - has anyone noticed a marked increase in the number of fish going on the rope recently? Of the 20 or so bows that made it to shore today the ONLY ones that went back in the drink were mine. I get it, they are tasty and I'll never say anything to people keeping a legal limit - this is more of a general concern. Why do so many fish need to be released into the hot oil bath? /rant

Length is surprising - my old man pulled a 23.5" smallie from Buckhorn a few years back and it didn't even break 6lbs. Was a bit of a snake, and its best days were probably behind it... might have been record material at one point in her life.

My mother drives a new impreza with CVT, I can't stand it. Always feels like its working too hard, runs really high RPMs when its cold (for up to 10 minutes of driving sometimes), and doesn't seem to help acceleration any. I drive it in the "paddle shift" mode - which is amusing, since it doesn't have true gears but preset ratios. I seem to be able to get lower fuel consumption than the CVT can when responsible for itself. "Shifting" is slow though, and again feels really strange. Of course, I've never met any type of automatic transmission that I liked. Drives me nuts to not be able to select the gear I want, when I want it. Give me a proper 6 speed any day over any type of transmission. Sequential gearboxes are neat though...but that's the gearhead in me talking.

Go and find out then DON'T let all of us know....

What about putting spikes into the bottom of your hiking boots? Simms makes some excellent ones, if you can ignore that they are outrageously overpriced.

Apologies for the iPhone spelling/grammar errors...

No doubt, our side gets it just as bad. I remember being warned about the rubes on the US side, but to be honest I find them to be much nice than the idiots we have to deal with. Seems like the snaggers on that side don't really realize what they are doing is wrong. Had a few conversations last year with the fly snaggers, they wanted to know why I was "running such a short lead". I saw the lightbulb go on when I explained that running a 12 foot lead in a 5 foot whole was flossing....

Flossing, lining, etc - basically means exactly what it sounds like. The line slides through the open mouth of the fish and when you set the hook it seems like a legit hookup. Normally the hook will be on the OUTSIDE of the mouth. Plunking - not sure where I got that term from, but I doubt that I came up with it myself. I've always used it to refer to exactly what those guys are doing. Heavy weights and big hooks continuously "plunked" into a run with a bunch of fish until one ends up with a hook in it. Often those guys don't even have any bait on the hooks.

Plunking. Happens on all the US tribs, much of the time with flyrods...

On Lake Ontario at least, I really don't think its an issue. There seems to be more and more chinooks in the lake each year - probably has something to do with the millions of fish that get dumped in on the US side. In all honesty with the insane numbers that have been showing up in the rivers the last couple years it might be the other side of things we need to worry about - a forage collapse due to over population (because humans like to tinker with nature, and we think throwing millions of huge fish into a lake won't change anything...). Disclaimer: I have absolutely ZERO training in biology, geography, fishography, stockography, or Lake Ontario-ography. I'm just a guy that has noticed there is a silly number of very large fish in the lake.

Picked up a pair of Simms free stones and jacked them up with cleats. Had absolutely no problem wading some of the biggest water in the province last weekend. Much more confidence than I ever had with my cheap boots and no spikes.

Good call Mike. Batson also makes a variety of Spey blanks that can be had for an excellent price...

I haven't met a fish yet that couldn't be tamed with mine, just make sure you throw away every strand of lead you own and go buy something in the 8-10lb range. That pool cue blows up leads and snaps hooks like no tomorrow until you figure out which ones can take the abuse.