ckewley

I bought a Nikon Cool Pix a little while ago & think its a awesome piece of machinery. Truth told I was looking for the Fuji XP but couldn't find one in the time slot needed. The Nikon has a ton of features & are all great just not sure I'd use them all, IE it's waterproof to 30m & I'm not a diver. I think there was a huge thread in the Extra Resources area that Bill M started or at least contributed allot of info to that is a great start.

Man what a amazing trip, adding another thing to the bucket list!

Man I don't know what to say other than that sucks & hope the person is dumb enough to use it where you can see 'em

It was a rather late plan but Sleepsjigging (Bain) contacted a family friend who runs a boat to see if he was getting any salmon action lately. He had been doing OK the last little while so the plan started to form. A few people were asked but couldn't make it so Bain thought it would be cool to get his wife & two kids out for the day. Another workmate Valeri who we fish with quite a bit would also be making this trip, & he's bringing his son. So Saturday rolls around & we're off to St Catharines. Plan was to try & agitate the stagger's into biting whatever we threw at them......didn't work out to well. Marked a ton but no takers so after trolling around for a bit Captain Ralph decided to run us out deep. It wasn't long into the blue zone when we had a first hook up, a respectable rainbow took the skunk off & Valeri's kid got his first taste of big water fishing It was a little while before we got into another fish, long stretches of nothing but Blue. A buddy of mine was out in the zone last weekend & couldn't keep the bows off his lines not the case this weekend but we did manage a few. Bain's youngest was next to bat Took the kid quite awhile to reel him in, the bow took it & ran something like 100 yards or so. Bain got the last fish of the day a nice bow almost 12lbs We headed back in & even tried to get the lakers to bite, they weren't having any of that so the day came to a earlier than expected close. All worth it to see the kids landing their fish, perma smiles the rest of the day. Now on Sunday I was invited to fish a derby out of Bronte harbor. The fishing association there has held derby's in the past but they were private, this marked the first in what will hopefully be a annual event for the public. There were some issues brought up by fisherman like they late blast off (7am) but I thought it was a nice little derby with friendly folks & it can only get better. We launched out of fishermans pier & made our way to Bronte to register. It was a biggest fish wins & it could be either Salmon or Rainbow. I heard there was close to 20 boats entered & at 7am it felt like there was a 100 boats. The blast off wasn't the craziest one I've seen but pretty darn close. We rocket out to our starting grounds, drop lines & troll. About 1/2 hour in a dipsy starts screaming, hell yes the mood in the boat was rocking. The chinny takes a good 3 runs & finally gets netted, not bad guestimates were around 17-18lbs. We're pretty fired up now, drop the line and begin the long LONG day of nothing, absolutely NOTHING but trolling. The next 4.5 hours crawled by, we marked an entire count of 4 fish all day......beer is needed for days like today but that would have to wait. One of the guy's in the boat fished a derby out of Whitby yesterday & said they were stacked up out Bowmanville way, didn't make it any easier catching them though. Weigh in was at 12:30, a whopping total of 10 boats caught fish, big fish on the day was just over 20lbs, ours clocked in at just shy of 16lbs good enough for 4th (no prize money) Our fish on the scale 1st place (stupid branch) 2nd place 3rd place To close the day there was a raffle with quite a few prizes & some BBQ'd dead things to eat which is always welcome...oh & BEER. It's been a long couple of days with not much sleep & too much sun I'm beat

Saw a big one cruising Jordon Harbour a few weeks back, thought it was a beer can in the weeds at first.

Gorgeous place he's got there, looks like a great time!

Fantastic stuff man, that spot is incredible!

Awesome stuff man! When's the Charter starting...

Leading into this past long weekend I had a few thing go awry so I was hoping my day on Gull Lake would go off without a hitch. 4 am the alarm fires & out the door by 4:30, off to Chris Brock's place I go but what is this wet stuff falling from the sky? Damn it...OK as long as it stays a drizzle we're OK. Booking my way up 35 I hit a Ride Program/Safety Stop just outside Lindsay.....at 5:30ish??? Waste 10-15 minutes there (10 or so cars ahead of me) back on my way when just outside of Coboconk the sky's decide to dump down. That lasted a few Km's then seemed to turn back to drizzle. Finally get to Chris's place around 7ish & wasting no time head down to start loading his boat. Now, I own a inflatable Pontoon boat but now I want one of these things, awesome stuff!! The drizzle stayed with us for a little bit when the clouds from Coby flew overhead & pelted us with some rain. Pretty soaked by our first stop, drop our lines looking for Lakers to play with. Marked a few on the sonar but no takers. Move around to a few spots, Chris had a decent strike but it was gone. The sun threatened to peak out from behind the clouds, & when it did break through, we were dry within minutes. Chris's sonar took a dump which left us blind, even though Chris knew it wasn't battery related he tried another battery...NOPE!!! He knows the lake like the back of his hand so no worries, jet off to a few more spots & a couple of strikes later.... This would be the only fish out of Gull for us this day, fortunately Chris had bigger plans in store for this day. You see Chris has a long list of lakes that go by the "Chris Lake:" moniker & I was lucky enough to be named Chris so I was invited to a nice little lake to try my hand at Muskie. I've never caught one let alone targeted them so...what the hell. We load his tinny & off we trek to this far flung lake. Launch the boat & Chris gives me to lay down on how to catch these fish. It wasn't long when I had a strike but no take, but it had my adrenaline pumping, Chris had a near take not long after. I hook up for what seemed like a few minutes, really only 30 seconds or so when it spat the hook, which flew in Chris's direction. Now I may have looked calm on the outside but man I was shaking on the inside....never get tired of that feeling. We continue cruising around the lake when I throw out a hair ball, my spinner was all twisted up, I did not know this until I got it in close enough to tell but what the hell was this thing following my bait. Had a decent size Muskie follow it to the boat which I didn't see until it darted off. Our second trip around the lake & Chris pipes up "I can feel the tension man, we're going to hook up soon" we pass by a few folks enjoying a leisure day off when Chris says " it be cool to put on a show for these people" no sooner said when bang I'm on to a decent fish & after a good couple of minutes of bulldogging, aerial spins, tail walking I had my first Muskie in the boat Sorry team 2 I didn't have a OFC sign nor a tape measure not that I cared at that moment. We continued around the lake & Chris had a nice follow to the boat, tried the figure 8 thing but no go, ended up catching a few Bass to finish the day. I really couldn't have asked nor planned a better day, it was awesome from start to finish & I can't wait for the next "Chris's Lake"

Great video, definitely some cherries in there man!!!

You're probably right Bill, we did run into a few bait balls out there. I was just reporting what the more seasoned folks were saying

From what I was hearing around the derby, the salmon are very hard to figure out this season. "They should be hear/there, but aren't" nobody knows where the numbers are, but good luck to you Freshtrax, hope you have a banner day!!

It's not everyday that you get invited to fish in a salmon derby so when it happens you tend to jump at the opportunity. Big problem usually for me is a work schedule conflict (& short notice with the invite), especially this time of year as my work is in a GMP maintenance shutdown so I was stoked when I got to have a day off to go fishing, HELL YES I'm going to this derby!!! I'm not going to say this was a small derby but more so local. Put on by Grimsby Tackle & I believe Straight Line Anglers (correct me if I'm wrong) out of Jordon Harbor, it was to be the best/biggest 2 fish with a bonus of a largest/smallest fish prize. Alarm fires off at 3:20am & out the door by 3:30ish, off to Burlington to meet up with team Roughneck by 4:30am then trek to Jordon & launch. Blast off was 6:30am & we were met with this.... FOG!! Man was it thick, rolled in out of nowhere & stuck around for a few hours, needless to say the "Blast Off" wasn't as crazy as it would have been!!! Humidity was incredibly stupid as well. We jet off to our starting point, somewhere off of St Catharines a few KM's out but who the hell could tell the fog was so bad. Apparently these are major shipping lanes (sarcasm) .......was waiting for a tanker to magically appear. It wasn't long getting our lines out & trolling around when a Dipsy SCREAMS!! It was a HUGE fish, peeled line like no other, then a screech followed by a huge jerk & the rod goes limp. Apparently the 5 colour line or the spool seized up, not really sure what happened but that rod almost found itself sleeping with the fishes, lost a Spindoctor & fly. It wasn't 5 minutes later when a rigger fires, set the hook & the fight is on... only it seemed to be a Laker, a fairly big one judging by the fight but as with our luck so far it became unbuttoned about half way to the boat. A few hours pass with not much action, marking very few fish when the other rigger fires, I leap for it, start to reel up, feel the tension build, set the hook & NOTHING!!! This trend would continue... The plainer starts to walk, grab it fight whatever for 2 seconds then GONE!!! Rigger fires again, have a small salmon on, gets to the surface & becomes unbuttoned!!!! Another rigger fires, fight whatever for abit but becomes unhinged. So we fire up the BBQ have some sausages & spend the next 4 hours cruising around Lake O just trying to mark fish. One of the team mates decides to have a snooze......NOPE! We finally decide to pull the plug around 1:20pm, weight in was at 2:30 so we thought we'd make it back before the rush. The guy's start to reel in the rods one by one, the last 3 rods (2 being reeled in & 1 still trolling) when it looked like something hit the rigger...."ah no that was me reeling in, think I hit it", pull that rod & start to reel..." hey man I think there's a fish on it" & so the fight starts Get it topside & it was a small Laker, perfect way to end the day And as luck would have it, we started making allot of fish!!! We head in & stick around to see how other folks made out, pretty dire. The top 3 boxes were decent, all having at least one fish past the 20lbs mark. The top box had 2 fish just shy of 26lbs each & they walked away with $1500.00 cash. Biggest fish on the day was a 28 pounder $600.00, smallest fish on the day was just over 5oz they won a rod & reel combo. There was 28 boats entered in this derby, they barely had 10 boxes to weight, last place was something close to 6 lbs, fishing was hard this day. I think the top 3 teams ran to Toronto but most lips were tightly sealed. It was a great little derby with some great people & great food, sucks we didn't land a target fish but hell I could have been at work.........dammit I'm there tomorrow!

Man yet another completely mind melting adventure, another place to add to the bucket list!!

Awesome stuff man, wish I could have been out with you (instead of working, damn GMP) looks like a great day!

Very cool, I'm by no means a young guy anymore(not old either) but I find the old timers really enjoy talking to younger folks when we are courteous, met a few codgers too (I'll fall into this group when I reach their age)!

Great report, really dig the rainbows!

I'm sure both species are there but have never seen one caught, more carp, small mouth & pike. The old marina is a good place, drift in a boat or if you look hard enough there are ways to get in there but by land you would/could be trespassing , however saying that I haven't seen a person get booted out of there in years. I heard arguments from locals saying it's not private property anymore but if you do enter know there is a chance it could be.

Looks like I'm invited back for the next one (Aug 1) so I'll ask around for you guy's that would like to volunteer. There are a bunch of rules, but the main ones are where guy's would be tempted, fishing start & stop, you're allowed to put out your boards but must wait till 7:30am before you can drop lines & lines must be out of the water by 2:30pm (any fish caught after is disqualified, if it hooked before 2:30 it is still legal ). Not allowed to use the radio or cell phones, like myself some guy's are on call 24-7 so it is up to you to let him answer his phone or not but if another boat see's him they "may" tell the officials & the boat might get disqualified.

Thanks for reminding me Brian, before this I knew 2 things about big lake salmon fishing, Jack & Crap. These guy's were a wealth of knowledge, teaching tactics, colour combo's, times of day/year.... the more you observed & asked questions the more they got into it, awesome stuff!!! Ya Chris it was extremely cool!

It started around 4:30 pm on Thursday when I received a call from buddy of mine. I don't get calls from him too oftain, texts & PM's through Facebook sure but calls....so I knew this was important. A friend of his was entered in a big salmon derby (King of Kings) for this coming Saturday & their team had a major setback, their observer had cancelled on them. The observers "job" is to sit on a competing teams boat & make sure they are not cheating & inorder to fish in the derby each team must have one.To understand fully whats at stake, this derby packs in teams from all around Ontario & bordering U.S. states, Quebec as well, a maximum of 60 boats can enter with a ticket price of $1000.00, never mind fuel, dock charges & all other stuff & is done months in advance.....so last minute cancellations can be bitter. I was lucky to be able to jump at this opportunity. After reassuring Matt a few times that I would be there without fail, I met the team on Friday for the Captains Dinner (largely of the beer variety) & a few other teams. This is a fairly tight knit community & even if there is politics between teams, it's not bought out in the open (at least that I saw). I met the captain of the boat I was to be on, Gary. The next morning I was to show up around 5:30 but as with all this kind of thing I couldn't sleep all that much. So 4:30 rolls around & I'm out the door blasting my way towards Bluffers Marina, text Matt when I get there & he's 20min away. Start to talk to a few guy's, all are friendly but don't dare ask what or where they will be fishing, government agencies could learn a few things about secretes from these gents. Meet up with Matt & his team (Boxy or Foxy never could get it straight & Matts Dad, good bunch) only to be dropped off at Gary's boat & his team (the Bronte Buoys, Gary, Mike, John). After they completed their check list it was off to the staging area. Now I snapped a lot of pics but very few turned out because at 6:30am it was blast off.....dang, me was that insane, 47 boats rocketing top speed in all directions, we were air time more than once!!!! Somebody had video that shows Gary's boat all of 2ft out of the water...lol. There's not an inch of Lake O that these fisherman don't know so it's more of a guessing game as to where they(the fish) might be that day. The days leading into the derby teams are allowed to pre-fish but fishing proved to be hard for most, thanks largely due to the East winds that blew through. Most boating small kings if that & on derby day nothing had changed. Constant chop & 2-3ft rollers all day made fishing....fun. Gary chose a tried & true area off Toronto Islands & within the first 20min we had one on then lost & another bump but no take then ,,,,nothing. 2 hours rolled by & although very few fish were marked allot of schools of bait fish were, so it was a matter of time. The rigger fires & John is fighting a decent fish, it runs a few times & boat side we see it's a decent but by no means big fish, around 12 lbs. With new found excitement the team start changing everything on their lines, by the end I don't think a single spoon/lure/meat/colour combo wasn't tried. If the lack of fish & harder elements weren't enough you had to see the hundreds of sail boats that poured out of every marina, don't know if there was a race for those guy's going on but man o man, saw a few of the smaller racing boats flip....Anyway cut off time was 2:30 meaning lines out of the water but you had till 3:30 to make it back to the marina & make weigh in. Rather disheartened the team didn't want to weigh in their fish when they heard other teams had 2 or more fish but truth told they would have been top 15 as many teams including last years winner boated worse to no fish. I took a pic of the tally board but my camera sucks, 1st place team walked away with 18,000 total weigh in of 72lbs 2nd place had something in the area of 43lbs not sure on the pay out. Big fish on the day was 22lbs. This year is a year of firsts for me, I had a charity ice fishing tourny that Chris Brock invited Bain & me to, then a cancellation put me in my buddies boat for a real tourny a few weeks back inwhich the boat caught the fish but I was lucky enough to reel in the only King for the boat that day, took 5th place overall, & yet another cancellation put me in a "pro" tourny, not off to a bad start. I walk away with meeting a bunch of great down to earth guy's who's passion for fishing has taken them to the next level, I'm sure it won't be the last time I see them! Sorry in advance for lack of photo's/fish porn my camera sucks & hope to rectify that soon. About 2 seconds before blast off John with the only hook up for the day Back at the weigh in The Captains Dinner, allot of great prizes were raffled off, rods/reels/riggers, I won a Scotty rod holder, won't fit my boat though..... Didn't know we had things like this in the GTA, I want one!!!

I'm sure I'm not doing anything you haven't tried but just in case, I contact the ministry & get a hold of stocking lists. Then I e-mail the local office & hope to get someone knowledgeable (I'm 9 for 10 in that department so far which has been awesome) with access points, trail maps, depth charts...etc, most I've been in contact with are avid outdoors men & tell you what's what. They (local guy's) have no control over that site but will tell if the info is correct or not, providing they've fished it. I also contact the local government parks & rec department which also provides a wealth of information, again most of the folks are outdoors people. Of course I also PM members here & elsewhere.

Unreal, the story telling has a natural flow that puts "you" the reader smack dab in the middle, almost being there. Incredible stuff man!

I'll second BITEME on Clearwater, they hold a monopoly on the airport & portside lobsters but their quality is good. Now if you were traveling out there I could point you in a few directions!

Awesome video