GbayGiant

The tongues usually no problem, if it's deeper in the throat it's a problem or in the gills is bad too, I usually only cut hooks if the fishes mouth is glued shut with a treble or if you can't pull it out with reasonable force or it's to deep in the throat to reach without ripping something. Not much more you can do other than trying to set the hook quicker but sometimes they just swallow it, and try to do the surgery before any pictures and in the water/net if possible, bout all you can do. If it's really bad to the point where you think it's going to die just eat it, I usually fish the same area for at least 20-30min after a big fish release to make sure it doesn't float up, if it does try to revive it again or worst case take it home. Oh, and nice fish.

What are you fishing for ? fish still haven't moved into the river not cold enough. And yes watch out for unmarked rocks all over the bay. Big smallies are hitting on shallow rock. Worms or minnows are working.

A 50"+ musky would and could easily eat a 7lbs piranha or any fish 7lbs and even bigger, lol, I've seen it happen first hand that's what makes them such an origional fish, they have been found dead on shore with big carp hanging out of their mouths (they can get a little greedy and choke on big fish), but I hear you. I seen a discovery channel show where they were using big piranha as bait on the Amazon also, forget the name of that giant fish they were going for but they looked like a giant bowfin and get over 200lbs. Piranha in a Ontario lake or any Canadian water period would never make it past ice up anyway and most likely die well before that, even if the tank at your house gets a couple degrees to cold in the winter they go belly up. Sorta the same reason I don't use shiners when the water gets to warm because they last about 2 minutes after a certain temp.

Nice fish Shawn, your getting lot's of big ones this year gotta love those big surprises. I already got us a 46" for Catch 22 put up a couple weeks ago and added a 19" smallie yesterday, we got a good average but really need a catfish and carp and non great lakes trout if anyone can go for them. If you go to the bottom of the page and click on Tourney Entries all our pics are in there, been updating whenever possible. My first musky ever was walleye fishing with a worm harness as well. I think if we made a monster worm harness with a #10 Colorado blade, size 7 hooks tipped with a big Gardner snake it could be deadly all year, lol.

I like 7.6-8 foot bass MH flipping rods, it's always a matter of just matching the rod to the lure weight you'll be using really, but the pike in my avatar was walleye fishing with a 6' medium light jigging rod and 8lbs test last September, so if you can hook them in the corner of the lip and have your drag set good anything can do, but if your tossing 2-3oz spoons you would have to match the rod to the lures. All around I think a MH is best for average pike lures.

Wow, she has some serious girth already, nice fish.

Easily worth that but he'll probably go down a bit if you barter, age doesn't really matter just look it over, the motor, for leaks, if electronics are working ect.. and how it runs, won't find one any cheaper and lunds are like Harley Davidson's they loose very little value as long as there maintained good. If you keep it the same as you get it or fix it up if need be, you could sell it in another 5 years for the same price you pay for it.

Nice fish Lew, looks like a good year.

Darren, anytime. Yeah, the big 56" on here the other day inspired my little trip. The water on the bay dropped from 76 to 72 the last couple nights so it might be the triggering fact, think it was a little to warm this summer even with all the rain you would think it would be cooler than usual but surprisingly not.

Well I couldn't sleep last night because I had my mind set that it was going to be a lucky day on Georgian Bay, I could just feel it. Finally headed out at around 3:30pm, looking for offshore humps with my new GPS was the goal. Within 30min seen a good 50" swipe at my lure and came to the boat for one figure 8 then messed off for the day, I continued to fish the area for another hour or so and seen nothing so decided to leave to a new spot. I pulled up to the next spot a hump that tops out at 10 feet in the middle of nowhere, that I would be surprised if a lure hit it all year. I fish this hump every year and never seen a fish but thought it was perfect structure and the GPS helped nicely to get me there without the regular 20 min search that it use to take just by looking in the water for the rock. First cast, #10 single blade, black bucktail that I made earlier in the year and smash , beautifull 46" into the new Stowmaster net after a nice fight, not the 50+" I was after but happy none the less and she put up a huge fight with a couple acrobatics. Set the timer, ran to the net, grabbed her and hoped for the best and got a nice pic as it turns out, off she went with a vengeance and splashed my face while she was at it. No way I could hold the OFC label for our team at the same time so took one in the bag to go with it.

Great story and monster fish, congrats Mike.

If monies no issue I like wood lures much better seem to have better action, but I have a selection of plastic and wood, lots of Jake's and believers too. I like Talonz deep threats and Legend Plows come September and don't forget your sucker quick strike rigs.

Nice job, great fish, have fun with the new toy.

No problem. Just turned 13 last week. And I'm sorry to hear about the one little girl story about cutting her foot, I'm sure it happens every once in a while but.... We have a dock that has at least 5000 lost hooks, jigs, spoons ect.. over the years with cousins, kids, neighbours and many swimmers without one incident of a hook in the body ? I think a simple rock has more potential of causing damage, just what I've seen, do we worry about rocks ? not to mention the washed up broken glass, that's why we wear sandals or water shoes in the water, rocks will do worse damage than anything. Usually when a hook gets snagged/lost it's because the point of the hook is embedded into something already. Anyway, I'm neutral because I can relate to both sides. Do you even fish ? Like I said I follow certain courtesy but I've seen to many so called asses up here that simply just don't want anyone on the water and it's not because they have kids swimming off the docks.

The problem is, docks are on the shore line, some small lakes have the entire shore line full of docks. Trolling the shore line is what a lot of guys do especially if you don't know the lake. And to be honest where I live there are more and more Americans and wealthy Canadians buying everything in site and they really don't like anyone on the water especially humble fisherman. If they had their way and could purchase water they would buy all the water and do everything possible to keep us off. I agree that there are certain courtesy rules to follow while fishing a dock, as said swimming sitting on your dock ect.. but if no ones in site it's fair game, if your irritated inside your house looking out the window that's your problem (people fish ours all the time) but honestly you sound like one of the asses that instigate the problems instead of just relaxing like you should be, or move to Alaska where you can guarantee complete privacy minus the Grizzly Bears that could potentially fish off your dock without your consent.

Yeah sure there good guys, but I just had a run around on a net too they originally packed it to ship to me than someone unpacked it and sold it after they told me it was on the way just in time for opener, they forgot another guy reserved it already and sold the last one to him. So 2 weeks go by when he gets a new shipment from the US and then they got the shafts but no netting, so another 2 weeks went by untill they got netting, took over a month before I got it, with a big mistake on their part. When I asked they Wouldn't even ship the other little gear I ordered with the net for free while I had to wait a month for the net, they wanted more shipping, I just gave up and said forget it, that's what really did it, the courtesy of sending my other gear at least would have been appreciated. I finally got the net and it's great, I just hope it doesn't break because I'm afraid of what the return time mite be.

Nice work, that's one fat 39".

It's not just the kawartha guys but they came to mind first, lol, cause I had one out 2 weeks ago that was telling me about the 54" he caught in the kawarthas and complaining how slow it was none stop all day on the bay. That's just the start though some guy tried to tell me yesterday he got a 34" smallie on the bay with a straight face. I didn't bother to question it, to ridiculous. All I said was what did you do with it ? "I ate it he said" I replied, "you realize you just ate the world record then rite ? " Some fisherman go overboard, and inch or two is normal, 10-20 is just silly. Nice fish by the way, Spinnerdoc.

Yes, I live on the bay and fish point au baril almost every other day, know all the structure in my area, fish many hours and boat hardly any muskies at all. It's tough, tones of hours on the water, lonely at times, and almost to the point where you want to give up all together, but once you get that first pig or close to it with a mammoth follow you'll understand why people do this. To this day I have no patterns or times that I know will have better odds of finding a fish other than late fall in the rivers or early spring near spawning grounds , basically all you can do is locate the best structure, present a good bait, and hope to baby Jesus you are lucky enough to be in the rite place at the rite time. I have took so many Kawartha fishing friends out that just whined the whole day that we didn't catch a fish, when I told them ahead of time how tough it can be, so annoying that they are not invited back, lol. Not too many shore spots that I know of, and I would recommend getting a guide for a day if you do come up.

I assume this is a one top hook only bait, just use floro or wire and tie a stinger off the top hook and insert one treble into the bottom to hold it wherever you want.

You can go to wasaga beach, meaford or thornbury all within 30 min drive or basically any trib/river along georgian bay for rainbow/salmon the river mouths are always a good start.

I got foxes all over the place up here, there was only one I ever worried about because he was drooling and his hair way all falling out ect... signs of rabies. The one in your pics looks really healthy to me. We had one at our store last year that would eat fallen bird feed almost everyday I seen him, he would be out in the middle of the day with customers watching him and was never even bothered by anyone, also never threatened anyone either. I would say it's not a threat but for your cat maybe and make sure the kids no enough not to hand feed it or try to pet it you should be fine and if you feed it it will keep coming back.

Yeah, I'm in the need for a new gps boat as well, and finally decided to go with the H20c Lowrance, the new lowrance XOG could potentially be better with the bigger screen and road maps but the battery life is only 2h so that's no good at all, this Garmin 500 is a little better on battery life but they still have work to do over at both companies, and the US Canada issue sorta stinks too when they all come with free US maps when you think it wouldn't be to difficult for them to stock Canadian retailers pre loaded with Canadian maps.

All I know is it gets pretty lonely trolling for muskies on Georgian Bay by yourself with one rod, don't see how two rods would harm anything. There should be exceptions to the one line rule.

Thanks for the detail guys, I guess the gold card is the way to go, sucks that the French isn't on it as I am very close and fish it too.