4thgen

I always liked Leo and Steve, who I used to play "trophy hunter" with after the Sportsman's show was closed for the day. Leo and Ron though.. I don't watch. I don't like the way they hold fish that they plan to release. I mean release them before you do your segment, don't just hold them in the background for a minute while you talk. The Boga grip thing is also stupid. They might be a sponser but I love the episode with the big silver pike where they try to get it with the Boga for like 30 seconds before the Boga gets tangled in the line, almost breaks it and they just grab the pike properly by the gill cover in all of two seconds...

It takes a few beers to get to .05. I had two last summer and got stopped at a RIDE program. After claiming to smell marijuana in my car (there wasn't any), they wanted a breathalizer test. I blew a .009 and they never mentioned marijuana again? It was the first time that I actually knew my blood alcohol content and it was surprisingly low. I think that anyone between .05-.08 shouldn't be driving anyway. If you want to drink a 6 pack, plan a ride home. There has always been a 12 hour suspension if you're between .05 and .08 so to those who are crying about the new law -- it doesn't concern a single beer and it is just a variant of an existing law anyway, which I guess you didn't know about?

Glancing at a data set and deciding whether or not there is a trend? Not exactly scientific. The more appropriate term is "climate change", which implies that the climate is changing, not necessarily warming everywhere. The effects are far more pronounced in the arctic where warming has been well documented for quite awhile. I'm not a subsciber to the whole Al Gore thing because alot of what he has to say is blown out of proportion, but to deny that the climate is changing is just plain stupid.

This question gets asked on a daily basis. If you use the search function on the upper right corner of the page you can find all the answers you need. Use quotations to narrow the results: ex. "Toronto islands" good luck.

A blatent attempt to "stir the pot"?

The fish you saw were likely migratory rainbow trout known as "steelhead". They mostly spawn in the spring.

Loons eat them as gizzard stones. A loon's stomach is a bit more acidic than fresh water.

I've caught enough small pike to recognize that as one. It just looks pale due to the water clarity. I suspect that limeyangler has caught enough pike to be a pretty good judge as well.

Although they may have had an impact otherwise, the overfishing certainly magnified them. There is new data suggesting that they entered Lake Ontario after the last glaciation. --check this out: http://www.sgnis.org/publicat/waldgrun.htm Mitochondrial DNA Analysis Indicates Sea Lampreys Are Indigenous to Lake Ontario -- it's just an abstract but you get the idea.

So you killed a native species because it feeds on introduced species? Although there is still some debate, sea lampreys are probably native to Lake Ontario (St. Lawrence), but made it into the other great lakes via the Welland canal after improvements were made around 1920, causing some impact on the fisheries. The only reason that they had an impact was because the numbers of lake trout were so depressed from commercial fishing. Oh, and killing one would do nothing to help the problem anyway, it's just killing for the sake of killing.

Always nice to see them. They have been nesting for a few years close to Lakefield.

Urban legend. I tried some kangaroo sausage in Aus and found it to be almost exactly like any other lean sausages.

Those pictures are of a 40lb pike from Holland, the third is unrelated and of a smaller pike. They've been circulating for a few years now.

I don't understand your reasoning. Regardless of whether the bail closes mechanically or manually, I don't see how it can twist your line. I find Power Pro to be a very good line. I used to use Fireline alot of the time but after losing two decent musky to breakoffs in half an hour, I switched and have been happy since.

I solely fish P-Line and Maxima --- both are great in my opinion. I also used to fish XT but I agree that it wears out quickly. As for your older fishing line, I find it will last longer at home on a spool than on a reel (no UV etc.), so if it's only a year old and you haven't used it, it should be fine. It can't hurt to do the old "see how easily it breaks when you pull it between your hands" test.

It's good to hear that you had a good time, but you'll have to try another operator up there before you come to any conclusions. When you rent a hut, you should be expecting to catch fish out of it. The last time I was up at Nippissing, we rented from a place pretty close to North Bay -- I forget the name now. We caught 4 walleye, a pike, 4 herring and something like 40 perch throughout the day -- the action never stopped. From what I heard, it was a fairly typical day.

I went out once when it was -35*C and -47*C with the wind, without a hut. It wasn't something that I will do again. You could literally sit at the hole and keep scooping out the ice without getting anywhere. The 3lb herring I caught that day froze solid in about two minutes. None of my reels worked right either.

Exactly what I was thinking. The two species would also be hard to confuse with each other, as they are pretty different looking. I've also seen carp in the Toronto harbour that had to be 50lbs+ (and having caught them to 40"x36", I have an idea of what a big carp looks like). It just seems seems alot more likely that it was a big common than an Asian.

According to the weather network your low this morning was -32*C without the wind, -36*C with it. Up here it is -43*C with the wind and -31*C without. They are still predicting the worst to be tonight though!

It would keep you afloat but it wouldn't offer the protection from hypothermia that a floater suit does. In having tight ankles and wrists etc. the floater suit will act like a wetsuit, limiting the amount of water exchange from inside the suit and outside of it. This allows your body to heat up the water inside the suit, keeping you warmer than you otherwise would be. With that said, I'm sure a life jacket would be better than nothing and offer some pretty good insulation outside of the water as well.

I found the Eastman 2-man hut to be well priced and excellent in terms of both durability and ease/quickness of setup. It is light, will fit in the trunk of a car and pops open so there is no assemble. I found the ice screws to be tough to get into black ice so I just throw a cordless drill on the sled for pilot holes. It faced 30km winds and inside, you couldn't tell. It was great for the ~20 trips last season, hopefully it will work well for this season as well.

Nice pictures! I think that's an American tree sparrow though -- the field sparrows should be well south of here by now. Keep an eye out for the dark spot in the center of the breast that most tree sparrows have.

That is alot of snow! We only have about 6" up here. Nice pictures, looks like a nice walk. Oh, and I think that is probably a rough-legged hawk.

Still 89.9 here as of yesterday, it would be awesome if I didn't know how cheap it is in the south!

Just remember not to do laundry when the bleach level is still high... Oops.