EC1

Sweet! Accidentally stumbling onto fish is one of the best feelings while fishing!

Good Sharing guys! I think I might need to put spinnerbaits in my arsenal after I decided to completely not use them for a year. The infomercial is terrible! I did get a free one a while back, and I'm not exactly sure I got a model that was on the market because it came with like 20 different sized blades, in colorado, willow, indiana, in like 8 different sizes each.. I just used what was provided on it, and it's pretty good.. Flutters nicely when falling, and has the nice pulsating action in the skirt during the retrieve. Hooks are sharp. The spinnerbait also is not a tie direct...There's a snap that connects to the spinnerbait. I haven't seen any negative effects yet, I'll let you know a little later.

A week early would be nice, but can we follow some of those American rules, where it's C&R only until a certain date or something along those lines? I think that zone 17 bass is more than sustainable, but walleye on the other hand could probably use a bit more protection.

Senshi also happens to be cheaper too eh?

If you don't mind a blue mono, I recommend Seaguar senshi more. I switched from floroclear, and find senshi is thinner, seems better for abrasion and smoother after being on a spool for a while.

Nice! I'm looking to do some laker fishing softwater myself this year. When you say closer to 40 than 50F water.....Any recommendations of what water temp seems to be best at getting active shallow fish?

LOL. thanks for sharing!

Went through one of these dilemmas not too long ago.. Went to launch my canoe at a dam in the Kawarthas, and of course, you gotta walk all your rods and tackle to the water. Felt like I was doing wrong, and multiple cars stopped by in the distance to see what was going on but I knew I wasn't about to do anything wrong and continued with my day. As for walking a few of the fish I caught back to the car from the canoe.... I guess that was probably questionable, although I'd be really surprised if you could pull bunch of crappies out of a dam at this time of year

I was so happy to see a bunch of fish in the 10-12" range this weekend. But damn those things are slabs! And good idea to run to the main lake to take pictures lol. I took my pictures in another spot as well.

I'd take a look at custom rods with that money. But if you're set on a factory rod, my choice would be a dobyns dx of some sort. 350 or so. High end rods definitely can feel what te bottom is much better. There is no guessing when you're rolling through rocks, weeds, sand. Had my first experience like that not long ago and it blows my mind how much easier it was vs my other rods.

That's a very cool release shot you have there!

Congrats there buddy! No help from me in terms of lodging, but I'm sure you'll be having a great time. Cheers, Edwin

Love reading the reports of you and your kids. Grandad looks like he had a damn good time as well. Those are really wide angled shots! The one of Avery in the front is my fave. Even shows me your entire fishing spot!

Somehow I ended up finding it. Just something to think about and reflect I suppose. The Bite on My Favourite Lake

Just wondering, does anyone know the security of these fishing apps? When I track myself with these apps, does someone else have access to this data and my GPS spots without my permission? Especially when they're claiming that you can "share" your reports. It feels an awful lot like the story that you can be tracked just by taking pictures and posting them onto the internet. I do think that this app sounds very promising though. Would be great for me because my fishing diaries get recorded probably less than 50% of the time.

I read an article few weeks back...Really wish I had bookmarked it. (If someone else read it please PM me) It was an article about panfish (especially crappies) and their harvesting in general of North America. The jist of it was that on pressured lakes, up to 30-40% of an entire year class would be removed out of a lake and that there is no way in hell mother nature can reproduce what was taken. And with the imprinted idea of panfish being "the bigger the better to keep", larger fish are truly getting rarer and rarer. Really sucks to see when spots that used to produce really nice fish consistently are now nurseries for 4-5" crappies.

That would be Kushog Lake and Lake St. Nora. Went to the frost centre myself about 10 years ago, and found out it was closed (recently?) unfortunately. Had my very first experience with a hand auger there, and I remember I didn't even have the juice to drill through the 2 foot+ thick ice there! Stayed at a cottage that was between the 2 lakes last year, but never fished it. Was told back then there was good bass fishing to be had.

Thanks for sharing. Might be getting myself an edge tour sometime soon. The things that I see will be very interesting for these reels is that their weight should be good with balancing out flipping sticks a little bit better than your 5-6oz reel. I have handled the new edge line off the water, and can say that the lower end of the edge models feel like Shimano's (Extremely smooth, no geary feeling), while the top end models feel more like Daiwa's (Smooth, but you can feel the gears). Will be looking forward to using one real soon!

60 degrees give or take will be when you should start with the topwaters. Now you got me itching to throw them.

The thing is, all these panfish trips using minnows should equal to a pretty consistent catch of "incidental" Largies. And in places like Simcoe, I would think that the smallies would mix right in with the perch. I'm not sure I'm proving a point...I have no written proof and I've only caught a handful of largies while ice fishing. They definitely don't come every trip for me. As for targetting them, I can see myself with a lot of skunks before even getting into some..

It blows my mind how the bass through the ice seem pretty hard to find in Southern Ontario, but you guys in Northern Ontario and Quebec fish for bass through the ice as efficiently as you do softwater!

Probably the smartest thing you can do! Think about all the upgrade options you have out there! Just hope that your kids don't break the one that you pass down. If they break that one, then bust out the el cheapo replacements or another ugly stick. lol

Is this through the ice or softwater? Just wondering. Very nice fish though. I don't think ive caught one over 12" in a very long time

No it's not. I drove by those canoe portage camping lakes you're talking about the other day and saw lots of holes drilled with weeds under the ice. What are they going for there? Panfish? I was meaning to maybe fish that spot because of how scenic it looked, but I guess there's not really a point.

Damn, that stinks. Hope you find the thieves!