SlowPoke

Sorry to hear about the job but on the bright side, this is the best time of year to unencumbered by work! Give UncleBuck a shout, he's in the Stoney Creek area. If he doesn't have an opening, he can probably have an ear out for you. Hopfully you don't find work tooo soon! -Brian

Congrats to both of you!! Those look like great wire bending and bucktail tying hands!!! -Brian

Good job! You've found yourself a nice spot to go 3/4 in an hour. -Brian

Well done folks! I was looking forward to the pictures. -Brian

LOL Mike, some things will never change. Carole still has Cliff in the salmon department... she landed a 36"er from my boat in June http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r307/Sl...te/DSC00940.jpg Having said that, catching a Chinny from shore is like nothing else... darkness, obsticles, lighter equipment... from panic to euphoria in oh, about 20 minutes LOL!!! Congrats Cliff, keep at it - probably another 2-3 weeks before the inbound herds thin out. -Brian

Overmixing with oil is as bad as undermixing... stick with the manufacturers recomendations. Overmixing is not likely to foul your filter but could slime up the small jets on your carbs. Again, I don't think that is your issue. I still maintain a gas line leak sucking air and losing fuel pressure. Keep us updated. -Brian

Thanks Zed. It took a long time to find and work out a deal on this one. It needs floor work but the hull is tight. The downside of this boat is too much weight in the back and not enough room in the back. I intend to solve both problems by relocating the gas cans to a permanent tank either located under the helm seat or by extending my casting deck rearward to allow for a permanent tank. I'm thinking 18-24 gallon capacity. My attraction to CC's was two-fold. Balance and accessablilty. I still like the balance aspect but the access issue could be a safety issue. My thought was having the ability to fight a fish from either side of the boat and walking around it if needed. With all the commotion of fighting a fish the thought of bumping the throttle scares the bejesus outta me so I block the throttle side off with my upright cooler bag. When/if I get a kicker motor for trolling it'll allow me to open up that side but for now paranoya gets the best of me. As luck would have it, Chris just took this shot yesterday...

That's a great boat Zed. I'm partial to center consoles myself. It looks like you've done a nice job restoring it. Those leaning posts aren't cheap! I was considering one for mine when I refurb it. -Brian 18' Starcraft MR180 - 75 Mariner

Thanks for taking a moment to comment folks! Cliff, the meteor just missed us - I only got a little wet! -Brian

It's not likely the braid but good job getting it out. If you are priming it's definitly fuel related. For about $40 you can replace the filter, fuel line and primer bulb and likely solve your problem. Less likely but possible is a weak fuel pump or plugged gas tank vent. -Brian

I had been looking forward to this trip for a few weeks because Mike the Pike was going to come down from La Belle Provence. I figured it would be good odds to get a salmon for Team 4 but unfortunaltely Mike succumb to fear... not sure if he was more afraid of the ferocious Lake O fish or being around BITE ME and Percher. LOL! Either way I was going to Lake O. The entire fate of Team 4's salmon entry rests on my shoulders. The pressure was enormous but I was up to the task. The day didn't start off so well, my wife forgot to set the alarm for 4AM. Fortunately I woke up at 4:20 on my own and began getting my gear together but I didn't have time to hook up the boat before meeting Chris (Muskiestud) at his place for 5:00. I figured since he was just a few blocks away I'd pick him up and come back for the boat. I got to Chris' at 5:00, over to Horton's for our regular coffee & bagal, back to Chris' for shoes, back to my place for the boat and headed over to get gas. We were finally underway about 40 minutes behind schedule. Had we not been running late I would have Chris smoke his stinky cigar outside the truck only because he constantly rags on me for smoking cigerettes. We arrived in Oakville to pick up my Wife's uncle, Claude. My original plan was to fish Bronte but Claude lives in the east end about 5 minutes from Oakville harbour so we decided to launch there. Very nice ramp (Navy St. side) but I didn't know where to park. I ended up parking at the library and bought a couple parking passes. We trolled out of the harbour marking a few fish but no takers. It was a gorgeous morning on the water with a light breeze, 70* and a 6" chop. Having not seen any recent Oakville harbour reports and absolutely no boats in sight I wasn't sure where to start but decided on trolling with the wind parallel to the 80' contour. We weren't long getting into fish when the first one went airborn off the rigger down 55' over 85' running a Lyman Rainbow. This one was a real jumper... you always lose count in all the action but probably 5-6 jumps and maybe 6-7 line peels. I thought it must have been a salmon by the struggle it put up because I've never had a Rainbow with that kind of power. It was indeed a Rainbow and my personal best at 34". Very clean fish, not a mark on it - a real beauty! About 30 minutes later the ten colour leadcore goes for a rip ??' over 110' running a Flintstone Green Watermelon. Ten colour core usua;;y runs 50' deep but this fish hit after a fairly tight inside turn and probably took it on the flutter down. This guy started out awfully fiesty but was tamed rather quickly by the leadcore. Another clean fish smiles for the camara! We had to be patient for our third fish, almost two hours. We made some depth adjustments and tracked back over the area the big bow came from and it paid off. It wasn't the big fish of the day or the best fighter but in my opinion it was the best fish of the day. It came at 65' over 85' on the Lyman Rainbow and it was Claud's biggest fish ever! Claude has spared no expense in search of big fish... a beautiful boat, riggers, Alaskan charters and just hasn't been very lucky. I think the smile says it all posing with this chunky 30"er. The last fish, a little shaker, came on a Wonderbread dipsy and NK28 Watermelon when we were pulling the lines up for the day. It didn't release but I don't think we were draging too long because it was still alive and released. Claude wanted to see some lakefront property before heading in. He has a cottage on Simcoe and is looking for renovation ideas. We stumbled across this cozy little gem to which I commented "is this what you were thinking of for the cottage?" And another nice place... more along the lines of what Claude is considering. Still a dream home by any standard! After wiping the drual from my chin we headed back to the harbour... right in the middle of rush hour! Some horn honking and fingers were exchanged but they cleared out when we started casting muskie lures at them. Just kidding. After loading up, Claude treated us to a nice lunch and beverage and we headed home. We didn't get into the motherload of fish but it was probably the best trip of the year for me thus far. -Brian

Typically that sounds like a bad fuel line. The most obvious spots would be connections or a split primer bulb. You could also try running without a fuel cap in the case of a plugged vent. -Brian

Great report Cliff, it sure beats a stinkin' catfish eh? LOL -Brian

LOL, good luck with that Aaron! -Brian

Most of us inspect our hulls and are reminded of our stupidity. When you inspect your hull it should remind you of your bravery. Wear it like a badge of honour. -Brian

Well done, a fine speciman indeed! Pier fishing can be a blast when your properly equipped for it... lawn chair, ottoman, shoulder pads, timbits and a BFN. -Brian

LOL Terry, you should have given Cliff a big toothy smile as well! Cliff, fishing must be tough lately if you're posting that thing! I can't wait for your real posts! -Brian

$388.74 to fix the Tahoe... it's going in the lake too. It's the humane thing to do, right? I'm surprised this thread hasn't elicited some Michael Vick comments. -Brian

The Tahoe is under the knife as we speak... it should pull through. I don't know what happened to the fox. If it was rabid, it was too weak to be agressive. It did appear to be riddled with infection around it's hind quarters. Open wounds... nasty stuff. We put the fox in a garbage bag and kept in the pumphouse in case Animal Control wanted to inspect it. I don't know if they called back, came by or what happened after I left. I might be fishing Lake O with Claude this weekend and I'll get an update. -Brian

Great read Glen!!! Nice striper & cat too! -Brian

I've been waiting for this report Emil. Worth the wait!! -Brian

After working day shift all week and waking up at 2AM (day shift?), I was looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday... 5AM. Muskiestud (Chris) and I decided to head over to Long Point Bay, or as I like to call it, The Bermuda Triangle. While downstairs getting my tackle ready, Chris rings the doorbell 20 minutes early at 5:40AM and my WIFE answers the door! I ran upstairs as quick as I could hoping to save Chris' life. Fortunately my wife was already awake and let him live. Chris and I headed to Port Rowan to find that it was Bayfest weekend and the town was partially closed off. We made our way to the launch but decided to leave in case we got trapped in town by the crowds. We made our way to Akers Marina/Trailer Park and launched there. Great launch, $10 and put us right on the area we intended to fish. We were in seach of weed pockets for bass and pike using the 15-20K East winds to drift. It wasn't a bad outing for one of us! I could only manage a single pike with an eating disorder. Chris did pretty well for the day. We were on limited time and had to leave before my fishing action really heated up On the way home we could smell oil/grease burning on my Tahoe. Turned out to be a leaking differential spraying back on the exhaust. Yay! Tahoe goes in for surgury on Thursday. Thanks again Burmuda Triangle. We got home and I jumped into the van and left for Lake Simcoe. Another damn lake that has my number. We arrived at my Claude's cottage around 7 for dinner. We were thinking of heading out for an evening fish but the wind was gusty and beer was cold. Sunday morning I was able to sleep in again, 6:15ish. We got onto the water shortly after and began the long pound down to Cooks Bay. We spotted a few prime spots for pike and setup for a drift in the stong winds across some isolated weed beds. As we approached the first bed I could see a change in depth from the bow and mentioned to Claude that we should be able to get something here. Bam! White spinner bait does it again. This pike put up a real struggle, under the boat, back out, deep into the weeds, back under the boat... I chased it to the back of the boat, wrestled it some more, it took another run and finally came in kicking and screaming. While netting it, I could hardly see the pike for the weeds on the line! It was quite a stuggle and I was expecting a 36"er but I doubt it was anywhere past 30". We got a picture on Claude's camara phone but it didn't turn out. After looking at the picture I joked with Claude "what do you use to clean the lens, Coke?" he replied, "Clean the lens?" LOL Claude caught a couple impressive rock bass on subsequent drifts and then we headed over to Crates for some gas. The winds were pretty stong so we headed over to Snake island for some cover. Found some neat spots but they didn't produce. Went around to fox island where there were about 25 sailboats over some prime fishing spots... d'oh! We decided to head in for the day. Claude was taking the sailboat out and I went down to Bass Pro to redeem some gift cards. Sunday I woke up around 6:15 and my father in law (Phil) was already enjoying the sunrise from atop the boathouse, Claude was still asleap. I worked in my new PP line for 20-30 minutes to avoid the prime-time bird nests on the water. Claude made it down to dock and we headed out. Started doing a little trolling in front of the cotttage where I saw some fish jumping that were out of casting range and we picked up a few baby smallmouth. Strong winds again today, trolling sucked! Headed over to Fox shoal. I had found the co-ords on my Lowrance and wrote them down then manually entered them into Claudes hand-held Garmin. He was pretty impressed that it put us right on the mark. He's still learning his Garmin and is now seeing it's value. On our first or second speed drift Phil picked up a nice 3lb smallie on of all things, a hook and worm and my daughters spinning rod. Claude and I didn't catch anything on subsequent drifts but seeing Phil nab one was the pay off. It was nice to pick a spot on a map, find it and have it produce something. The wind was really picking up and we decided to head in closer to a shoal about 2 miles from the cottage. It looked like a nice spot but we couldn't stay on it. We marked it for future exploration and headed in for the day. When we arrived at the cottage Claude's phone rang as we were bringing the boat in on the marine railway. His wife told us there was a fox somewhere down on the breakwall where we were and that it looked rabid or at the very least, mange. We spotted the fox sitting by the pumphouse within a few feet of the stairs up to the cottage. The only other way up was to climb the cliff on the other side of the boathouse. Phil and Claude climbed up and I armed myself with Claude's fishing net (2yrs old and still in mint condition LOL). Claude went to call Animal Control and could only leave a message. We wanted to keep track of this fox in case it was rabid. It eventually got up and moved to the edge of the breakwall perhaps to take a drink but could not reach the water. I statred to walk to the stairs and it turned around and retreated to it's spot by the pumphouse cutting me off from accessing the stairs. After about an hour with no reply from Animal Control we decided to look after this thing ourselves. I was able to net the fox and we held it underwater for a moment in the lake. It was a quick death and probably a relief from the visible anguish this fox was suffering from. A bit of a sad ending to our otherwise great weekend. -Brian

Hi Goran, I sold my GPSMap 76 to jjcanoe. I didn't sell it because I didn't like, just never used it after getting the sonar/gps Lowrance. It worked very well and the base map was better than Lowrance software at Lakair. Nice big screen, easy on 2 AA batteries. I got mine on sale at Canadian Tire for $170. Keep an eye out there or maybe Terry can sell his used 76? I wouldn't hesitate to buy it again if I needed a hand-held gps. -Brian

Hey Paul, I was considering a hand held as well and was talked into a fixed mount. Glad I did. A little extra effort for installation is a small price to pay for the reception and clarity. I can also vouch for the Lowrance unit ($85US from boatfix.com). The Lowrance unit can be wired into a NMEA 0183 or 2000 Lowrance GPS to provide DSC calling. This allows you to transmit your location digitally just by keying up. You can also DSC call your buddies (if equipped) and they see your location on thier GPS. Handy for tracking down a buddy if he's onto the fish. Really nice radio for the money. Add an antenna and you're still around the same price as a hand held. -Brian

I was talking to jjcanoe yesterday and he said he caught one last week. I don't know if he has a picture or not but he was going to make some inquiries about it. He may chime in here with some info. "Hey boys, the jellyfish are hittin!" -Brian