maybe

They seem to come up on ebay fairly regularly. You can set it up for ebay to email you anytime something matching one of your "favourite searches" comes up. Google wasn't terribly fruitful, but it did yield 3 possible sources... FishingCanada.ws, LakeSuperiorStore.com, and WholesaleSports.com. Good luck!!

Yup, there's more detail on the maps if you're paying. Complete list of perks starts halfway down this page.

I'd think twice about taking a touch-screen model bushwhacking. My rugged little handheld (Garmin eTrex Vista Cx) gets its share of abuse, despite me being the very careful & gentle type. Cheaper to buy a little offroader right off the bat, instead of have to replace the damaged Nuvi and then still need something for outdoors. Start off with some "traditional" caches marked as difficulty 1 out of 5. They're pretty much "when you get to ground zero, you'll be standing on obvious tupperware." Good way to get your feet wet. Keep the terrain ratings low, too - no sense hiking 2km uphill before you're sure you'll be able to find the cache. "Multi-stage" caches are for after you've got a few easy traditionals under your belt, and you're pretty comfy with the GPS. The coordinates you get send you to step 1, and then you break out the instructions and maybe a notepad to cipher like Jethro. Check the difficulty rating before you attempt them...they can range from simple to downright evil. When you're looking at a cache's web page, deciding if you want to try it or not, be sure to read the logs from people who have already found it. They can be a gold mine. The $3/month premium membership will let you see cache locations plotted out on a Google map. Seeing the information organized that way is extremely helpful. My favorite cache so far wasn't long on scenery, but I loved how it made me stop and really learn to use my GPS. After travelling to the given coordinates, you had to find 2 other locations that were miles apart. In each of those locations, you stopped and projected another waypoint at a given bearing. Once you had these 4 points, you connected the dots, and the cache was located where those lines intersected. No paper, maps, or other tools required - once you know how it works. Don't try this your first time out.

!?!?!?! These things can...and do...jump? My god. And I thought it was bad enough playing tiptoe through the dead carp last year. The quote that really caught my attention from that article: "Rays jump to escape a predator, give birth and shake off parasites," said Lynn Gear... I wonder if this is their version of screaming "I want an epidural!!" or if there's an actual benefit that makes them do this. Anybody know?

Mornin, gang! Slept waaay in, and was just thinking about doing some holiday geocaching when my leash rang. Just flying through for my morning OFC fix before that service call. Sick kid = catfish bait = happy daydreaming? Gotta love a hobby that makes that dirty job more pleasant. Hope the fish are biting, tjsa!

Geocaching in general is a great thing to do with kids. I wouldn't take a big bunch of kids to a normal cache (there's only so many little trinkets inside one), but you can hide your own just-for-you one-day container and have the kids search for it the same way. Each cache's page on geocaching.com has a description that'll tell you if the terrain is difficult, or the container is too small to contain the normal toy rewards, or even if there's poison ivy in the area. Reading logs posted by recent finders is a gold mine. Costs $3 a month for a premium membership, but most caches are available to free members. The biggest advantage of paying is you can see where caches are on a google map, instead of just a text list. Having a Garmin brand unit makes geocaching life a lot simpler - they've got a browser plugin that lets you upload the coordinates to your GPS by clicking a button on the cache's web page. I use an eTrex Vista Cx, but its also my boat and car unit - you can get away with a lot less toys for geocaching. I recommend the guys at Radioworld - conveniently located on the way to Bass Pro. Great prices, and their knowledge base and customer service is downright spectacular. Depending on where you are, you might want to check out the Central Ontario Geocachers. Their Spring Fling IV is coming up in May, and I understand that newbies can get matched up with old pros for a hands-on master class experience. Highly recommended by Garmin's trade show crew. Any questions while you're getting up and running, don't be shy about shooting me a PM.

Loved Redneck Rampage, but hadn't heard of the deer thing til I just went googling. Did you mean Deer Avenger? Bambo the widow goes to teach a lesson to those nasty hunters who offed his girlfriend?

I'm happy to help out, if you could use another hand.

If the girls are still really excited about chasing rocks when summer rolls around, you could make a weekend of it and take them to the Bancroft Rockhound Gemboree. This year'll be the 45th annual, if I remember correctly. Always the first weekend in August. Book accommodations well in advance, because town gets absolutely overrun. I've seen traffic backed up 2 solid miles on hwy 62, trying to get through the stop sign at hwy 28. The Gemboree is held at the arena (and in the parking lot surrounding it). Exhibitors from all over, and you can buy anything from books and specimens to home decor and fine jewelry. Rockhounding bus tours run during the event, and they'll take you around to choice locations with permission. For more information, get hold of the Bancroft & District Chamber of Commerce. Please note, any web pages giving their address as Station St, or "the old station" are out of date. Town council managed to get the historic station condemned last year, so that they could toss the Chamber and art gallery out on their ears. The Chamber landed at 17 Snow St, just northeast of McDonalds, and I don't know if the Mineral Museum (a Chamber offshoot) exists anymore. Current contact details for the Chamber are here. If your nieces are interested in hunting for treasures outdoors, have you tried them on geocaching?

Don't blame you for being nervous, Anton. Getting near a thrashing toothy thing with hooks hanging off it isn't exactly a day at the spa. Good luck!! While we're on the subject of newbies and pike, I've been wondering - are those cradle nets like Lucky Strike makes actually useful? Or are they one of those "sounds good on paper, but they actually get in the road" things? Anyone have any experience either way?

The Coleman Fishpen. Can anybody look at this thing with a straight face?

Sometimes item prices have a short-n-curlies premium - people pay extra for what they know/want/believe in. New items are sometimes introduced at a much lower price than the similar time-honored model, to attract frugal users and gain a market share. Once it's established, the price is brought up in line with the traditional model.

Geez...grade school must've been some fun for you, eh? My last name is pronounced "shoot." You can imagine the roll call when I took hunter's ed & the gun course. I know a physiotherapist named Payne. My nomination for the awards roster: Dick Hyman, the organist. (official site & wikipedia) Ancestry.com recently put together a book of the worst names they encountered while digitizing records. There's a bit of a sample backgrounder, and a blog by the author. Gotta love JJ Walker's 5 sons in the 1860 census: Bud, Little Bud, Buddy, Little Buddy, and Least Buddy.

Normal GPSes only receive signals. There are some combination type toys where you get GPS and PDA (palm pilot) with some sort of cellular connection for email etc. One of those could be located (while turned on), but I'm doubting this is one of those units. You don't tend to see these combinations left in cars - they get carried around like a Blackberry. If you're asking because of what I wrote about the GPS telling people where it's been, that's a unit internal memory thing, not an external bread crumb trail.

That's GREAT that they found your car!! Glad to hear it's still in one piece. Hope they nail the little to the wall. Your GPS will tell these kids where you live. Depending on model, and when you have it turned on, it may also tell them where your boat, storage unit, etc etc are - even if they're not saved as waypoints. Mine knows the last umpteen tracks it took, whether or not there were waypoints involved, and it'll spill its guts at the drop of a USB cable. Hope you had a computer backup of your waypoints. Did you have one of those Esso Speedpass type deals on your keychain? How about markings on keys (post office? storage unit?) saying what address and door/box number they open? If it were my car, I'd immediately book her into the dealership for new locks & ignition cylinder. Would also be getting whatever electronic procedure to make her reject the stolen remote control & key chip. I'm with tjsa...keeping your keys clipped where you can see them is a good idea. I have a metal bolt snap on my keyring. It's about the size of my larger keys, so it doesn't stick out or get in the way. Nice to have your keys be able to grab onto something when you need a hand free. I keep my wedding rings on the clip when I'm working inside a system on location. No worries about dropping keys in the lake - they're clipped inside my boat bag when I'm walking on docks.

Jeff and I were at BPS this afternoon too, and didn't manage to notice any OFC gear. Thank god we don't find fish by sight. Time to order shirts - at least you eagle eye types could find us, even if we're oblivious. I enjoyed Lonnie King's walleye & Jeff Gustafson's multi-species seminars. They had a few pieces of gear I hadn't seen before, and happily added to the shopping list. Jeff took in Paul Powiss's filleting work, and Simon Frost's Humminbird seminar. Looking forward to seeing what he learned. We picked up ~$125 worth of little dribs and drabs here and there, but wound up with at least half the shopping list marked "find elsewhere." Lots of stuff sold out, or not carried at all. Lots more with price tags that made me wish we'd done BPS first, sportsmens show second - instead of the other way around. Oh well, live and learn for next year! Example: one 7'2" MH Shimano Cumara spinning rod. Prices as tagged. $220 at Natural Sports show booth $230 at JB's show booth $240 MSRP according to Ontario Out of Doors $250 at Fishing World show booth $280 at Bass Pro store ($226cdn + shipping at basspro.com)

I can't believe I never saw an OFC shirt/hat in 2 days at the show + this afternoon at Bass Pro! Cory, try a weekday next year. I was there on Wed aft by myself, and again on Sat to show Hubby around...absolute night and day. Wed was beautiful - tons of room, everyone fresh and rested, nice clean water in the tank. Parking spots galore, got a great spot in the underground on my first pass - and nobody even near me. Enjoyed myself, left the event relaxed and smiling. Satuday was the complete opposite. Everybody seemed tired and frazzled. The tank looked like it was full of yellow vaseline. We spent a solid 1/2 hour in just ONE traffic jam. By the time we got outta there, Jeff looked about as happy and relaxed as a wet soapy cat. Weekdays. You may not get the "we'd rather sell it than pack it" deals, but you won't need therapy after, either.

Is there a server & channel name that would make the chat work in a standard IRC program? Avoiding java saves me a lot of headaches, if it's possible.

I understand that standard naturism etiquette is "when in rome." If you're going to insert yourself into their activity, (un)dress accordingly or leave. Sporting a towel rack in public is also considered bad form. Not trying to be mean here, but on a really basic level, it seems awfully selfish to upset other people just for one's own amusement. Interfering with someone's activities, or creating an intimidating/hostile/offensive environment, by means of sexual attention that you know is unwanted...is called sexual harassment. Given the heated thread a while back about swearing in front of children being bad, I'm confused as to why harassing people is being endorsed. I think if a couple of strange men spent the afternoon in front of your house taking pictures of your daughter/wife/mother, you'd be pretty upset. Would you really want them to say "you don't own the sidewalk - we'll be back with our friends and more cameras next week"? Would you want other men trading pictures of your daughter's "assets" as porn? If it were me, I'd be glad to give these people as much space as they need to feel comfortable. Same common courtesy I try to extend to anybody else, on or off the water.

A few rolls of duct tape, and she'll be good as new. Glad you're ok, Cliff!

"Noodling" is the term I've heard applied to it. Here's the wikipedia entry. They had that poor Mike Rowe guy doing it on the pilot of Dirty Jobs. Fun to watch, but I wouldn't want my family trying it.

Satellite of Bathurst & King isn't showing much parking even in good weather...and get a load of all the one-way streets. Eek. I could use a fainting hillbilly smiley right about now.

For reference, here's the floor plan. The concessions aren't labelled. The only bar I noticed was in the extreme southwest corner of the main hall. Little doorway in the south wall with a white sign that said "Bar." Looked more like a storage room than refreshments, but there were some people sitting around on awkward furnishings. Not a relaxing place to get acquainted. There are little bits and pieces of food concessions spaced out along the south wall of the main hall, but nothing with seating to speak of. The hallway east of the WFN stage (marked as booth # 5101) has Pizza Pizza and I think maybe fish and chips. Wasn't paying much attention to menu as I hoofed through. Just remember it being crowded, noisy, and not heavy on the seating. IIRC, Pickles Deli is the thick rectangle with the southwest corner cut off, directly northeast of the WFN stage. Prominent color signs at the entrances on either side. Wasn't there during this show, but used it as a hallway once or twice during the boat show. Really crowded. Smelled nice, but I wouldn't stop there just for myself. There's another teeny little cafe type deal scabbed onto the east end of the women's washrooms west of the WFN stage, but it's not big enough for anything. One thing that struck me about this show was the lack of seating. No place for old folks to take a breather, or wait for someone. Odd. I'm no use for suggesting an offsite g2g venue, since I stick to the freeways as much as possible to get there/back. If the group can't figure out a 2pm venue, Jeff & I would be up for grabbing dinner somewhere offsite later in the evening. We definitely won't be leaving the show until after Italo Labignan's 6pm seminar, could stick around til closing if that's helpful.

Murphy happened, and I didn't make it to the show until 10 to 3 yesterday. Sprinted over to the Fish TV seminar area just in time for trolling motors. 15 minutes of information, followed by coupons for a pet store and "now everybody go watch the Raptors cheerleaders bounce." Sure boys, I'll get right on that. The trolling seminar presenter, Grant Mills (from Boat Tech in Ajax), is an approachable guy. He gave me some great pointers about what's involved in shoehorning a motor onto our i/o bowrider. Really glad to have talked to him. Harrison Sillen had some good tips on some brands/models of soft baits I hadn't tried yet, and an interesting technique. After 20 minutes, they were herding the crowd off to watch the cheerleaders again. BTW, on the way to the cheerleaders, the Toyota girls will give you a Toyota/FishTV lanyard as a prize for sitting through the seminar. They're actually very nice lanyards - soft, and there's a plastic clasp to easily detach your keys without taking it off your neck. Another smaller plastic clasp has a thread loop for attaching to camera/GPS/cell phone. Danny Dunn's bass seminar at 5pm stole the show. FUNNY, and stuck in fast forward. Loved his analogy about dropoffs being like the hallway between his TV and fridge. "I may go to the garage sometime, or wander into the living room occasionally, but 4x a day I'm gonna go up and down that hallway." Since the cheerleaders had left for the day, Dunn got a few more minutes onstage, which was great. Call me a nerd, but I go into events like this with my game plan down on paper. Shopping list, spreadsheet detailing exhibitor name/location/description divided into 6-8 categories, and a color-coded floor plan to go with it. I've got the memory of a goldfish, and this lets me make sure that I hit everything I'm interested in without wasting a lot of time in areas that are irrelevant. When the first seminar ended, I started my wandering in the hunting hall...and realized just how utterly screwed the website's published exhibitor list & floor plan are. Ugh. My paperwork matched the final (March 8th) website update, and it was seriously inaccurate. By the 2nd row of the little hunting area, I completely gave up on it, and just ran a grid pattern. I stayed til 8pm closing, which gave me a total of 3.5 hours to wander around shopping and talking to manufacturers. Didn't spend much time on the shopping, since I'll be back on Saturday with Hubby. This was more of a scouting trip and some "just for me" buys. Anything we'd both use, or only Jeff would want, I didn't bother with this trip. To really do the show in one day, I'd say allow yourself more than 4 hours - or sprint. A couple interesting things I ran into as I wandered: If you'd like to try out a Segway scooter, you can on the south end of the west wall. Just 2 booths over from the yurt. A booth at the south end of Adventure Mountain has those remote control boats that drag lures, like on America's Funniest Videos. The booth immediately south of them, Hand Crafted Canoes has a canoe with a floor featuring a beautiful inlaid wood pattern. 3 rows east of Adventure Mountain, the Ontario Travel folks have some kind of a fishing sim set up. You watch a TV and fight the virtual fish courtesy of a motorized box under the TV, reeling your line in/out. Northeast a row or so of there, Mackinnon Tackle have an interesting booth full of their hand blown glass (!!) lures. Big bucktails with huge blades, a 1lb squid jig head, on down to some downright diminuitive little flies tied for them by a club in Toronto. Dunno how they do it, but you can whip this glass at bare concrete, and the jig bounces back 4' in the air - unharmed. Surprisingly low prices. I bought a couple really unusual little ones, excited to see how they do. About midway across the north wall of the main hall, Advanced Taxidermy has a drop dead gorgeous display of replica fish. The booth itself is beautifully finished wood, and features a glass-topped coffee table with fish inside. A definite must see. Halfway between the WFN stage and Confederation's log house build project, there are several live large birds of prey on display. Watch out for people trying to figure out fly casting. A little boy carrying a stack of papers approached me as I was walking from booth to booth. He handed me what turned out to be a mockup cover for the Spring 2008 Bass Man Magazine. Cover shot is a teenage girl in a bikini, with a big white headline "How To Get Her In Your Boat." Strange choice of message to have your 9 year old kid passing around. Heading north through the easternmost archway (toward the All Star Dog Show), there's a large fine art booth on your right. Definitely worth seeing. Beautiful images, very nicely framed. Watch out for a herd of Girl Guides flogging chocolate-mint cookies. If anyone's curious about those Carrot Stix rods made out of carrot cellulose, they've got them on display at the Fishing World booth. I walked right past them, assuming that anything that color must be kid's toys. Luckily, I overheard the staff telling someone else about them as I went to pay for some bait. Strange rods. For the last year, I've been looking high and low for something that doesn't exist - a "pool cue" spinning rod with nice smooth foam around the reel seat. Cork and I don't get along. Higher end foam handles always seem to have rough hardware stuck in the middle. The guys at Shimano whacked a reel onto their 7'2" MH Cumara for me to test, and I think I found my new rod. It may not be all foam, but it's smooth, it's not cork, and it's STIFF. Yay! This time around, I decided to try the underground parking. It was really nice to walk to/from the show in a t-shirt, and get into a warm car at closing time. Same price as above ground spots, and you don't have to wander around looking for the ticket machine - just shove your Visa into the post on the way into the garage. I'll likely go this route from here on out. I'm sure there were a ton of OFNers running around while I was there, but I didn't manage to recognize anybody. Watching the other thread in hopes some sort of time/place gets organized for Saturday. Looking forward to showing Hubby around, now that I know where everything is.

The alka seltzer tablets are usually called bobbins. Couldn't find a nice write-up on Stearns' website, but this Mustang product is close enough for a rough illustration. When you get dunked, the water dissolves these things, and that sets the CO2 cartridge off. I've got no experience with inflatable PFDs, other than their being included in a seminar I took at the boat show this year. The instructor said that these bobbins degrade over time...humidity in the air, I guess. This can make them auto-inflate at random. He recommended changing out bobbins once a year under normal conditions. I'm sure the guys here will know if spending a lot of time out in a rain suit means you need to replace more often. They set off one of the Mustang units as part of the seminar. I was surprised at how gently it inflated. Dunno why I was expecting something more like an air bag.