craigdritchie

Sweet looking broon. But six inches of ice already? Gaaaaaaa! This is why I don't live in Manitoba! Spring won't get here soon enough.

Hard to say since the cost of the new tile and fixtures can vary quite a bit. Toilets alone range from $100 to $3,000+. A simple faucet for the bathroom sink can go from $39 to $400+. Tile prices are all over the place. How fancy do you want to go? Gerritt's breakdown gives you a good outline of the scope of work, but that's also going to be contingent on there being no mold issues, and everything being up to code. If it's from the 50s, chances are that nothing (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) meets present building code standards, so that will add to the expense. And being a bathroom, there's probably some amount of mold to deal with too. Wife and I are presently renovating an older house. Haven't seen your bathroom so it's hard to say, but $6,500 do do a gut job doesn't seem terribly out of line.

Back in the '70s I took a tour of the Garcia fishing rod factory. Back then, they made four different series of rods. There was the entry-level Blue series, and the more expensive Green series. The Brown series rods were a notch even above that, and provided you had lots of money, you could go all-out and buy the top-of-the-line Black series. They were pretty sexy rods, I must admit. People swore up and down that the Brown rods and Black rods were worth the considerable extra cost. They had better feel, better balance, and all sorts of other intangible benefits. But after the factory tour, I learned that in reality, they were all the same. The only thing that was different was the colour of dye used on the blank. Handles, hardware, resin and glass cloth were all otherwise absolutely identical. On a trip to South Korea two years ago, I did a couple of other factory tours. I can tell you that not much has changed. I always buy good quality equipment, but I am very careful to not get caught up in the marketing hype. You usually get what you pay for - but not always.

I agree, anyone who thinks they need a $30,000 bass boat is fooling themselves. These days, a good bass boat starts at $65,000.

I have a Laney D20 that's plenty loud enough for the house. The clean channel is crisp and clear, or if you want a little fun it also has a bunch of digital effects built in ... reverb, chorus, flanger, delay. Has a headphone jack. You can find them new for around $225, or on Kijiji fr about $150.

I don't mean to give you a hard time, but if you weren't sure if the season is open, why were you fishing there to begin with? Shouldn't you find out if it's even open first?

Hate to break it to you, but Red Fisher's day job was tackle salesperson. He worked for a company that distributed fishing tackle, including Eppinger (the ol' five of diamonds!) and Mitchell reels. He also became associated with Mercury outboards - his job was to sell them to fishing camps. Red's TV show was created specifically to provide a way of showing the product in use to a wide audience. Red was soft-sell, not like today's guys. He simply showed the product being used and left it that, he didn't wear logo clothing or push things too much. But make no mistake, his show was all about selling product. Red told me that personally. Uh, yeah, sure, whatever. But follow the money and you'll never be wrong.

That's about the most accurate and truthful thing that's ever been written on this board.

Uh huh. Hunting shows do not draw large enough audiences to interest major advertisers. TV time costs a lot of money, and Global does not exist to operate at a loss. From a business perspective, I wouldn't air the programs either.

These threads always crack me up. "My truck's better than yours!" "Oh yeah? Well your is a piece of crap!" "Oh yeah?" "Yeah!" Does anyone truly believe that vehicle manufacturers still make every single part in their vehicles? Amazing, if so, because it hasn't been that way for at least 25 years. With only a handful of very expensive exceptions (Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, etc) the vast majority of car manufacturers outsource a large number of parts. Toyota didn't build the faulty gas pedals that sent their vehicles crashing into walls, they were sourced from a gas pedal manufacturer in Streetsville, Ontario. That company also sold gas pedals to other manufacturers besides Toyota. All sorts of parts, like computer control modules, oxygen sensors, brakes, exhaust systems, rads, throttle assemblies, starters, you name it, are outsourced. It's the only way they can keep car prices down. If Toyota had to build every single part by themselves, a Corolla would cost more than $60,000 and no one would ever buy it. My truck might be better than yours, but not by as much as you might like to think.

Here's a hoot - go to Wikipedia and search "Somebody That I Used To Know" Or just click here :-) Scroll down to the section titled "Cover versions and media appearances" ..... and read the last paragraph. These guys are going places, I tell you! LMAO!!

Just for fun take a gander at Munroe Lake, on the Manitoba - Nunavut border. The main business is a lodge operation on Munroe Lake itself, but they also have an outpost camp on Brownstone Lake, a short distance away. I have never fished Brownstone. I did fish Munroe in 1997, and still feel it was far and away the most enjoyable fishing I've ever had in my life - better than Great Bear, Tree River, Bolton Lake, Wollaston Lake, La Ronge, Great Slave, Cree River and Mistassini. It's pike, lakers and grayling. On the main lake we caught stupid numbers of pike every day, including numerous fish over 40 inches, mainly on buzzbaits and Slug-Gos. There's an esker that runs through the lake, and when the wind blows across it, the pike line up and destroy basically anything that moves. I spent most of my time fishing for grayling however, and pretty much exclusively on dry flies, using a six-foot three weight Loomis I had built just for that trip. Caught several dozen fish in the 17- to 19-inch inch range each day, and lost several more to aggressive pike and lake trout. It was unreal. Two different rivers feed the lake in the north end, and it is drained at the south end by a large river. I spent most of my time on that south-end river mouth. We were there six days and apart from making a few shoreline casts to catch a few fish for shore lunch each day, we didn't otherwise fish for lakers intentionally. Never got around to it. I don't think many people do, so they're probably a bit of an open book. Caveat - I haven't been there since 1997. That said, it's only open for a few weeks each summer, and was closed altogether for a couple of years following my visit due to an ownership change. As with most other northern destinations I've been to, the majority of the guests were well off, but didn't have a clue how to fish. If a person knows what to do, the sky's the limit. Again, I have no idea what the outpost is like, but if it's anything at all like the main lake, I would give it legitimate consideration. If you do go to Kazan (which sounds awesome), see if you can find the article on it that appeared in an Ontario Out Of Doors magazine from approx 1980 - 1982. I think it was a spring issue, because I remember it being fairly thick. Story was about a trip that the writer did there with then-current Toronto Maple Leafs players Darryl Sittler and Claire Alexander. It had some interesting info, including some stuff about accidentally catching large lakers on dry flies while grayling fishing. The info will be way out of date, but an interesting read regardless, especially if that's where you're headed. Cheers

That's excellent news. I just love these guys - they're truly fearless, and about the only ones out there doing anything creative or different. I look forward to seeing their show, since the vast majority of TV fishing shows on air now are just plain awful.

So much for my Monday-Tuesday business trip to the States. Flights all along the east coast are being cancelled.

Agree with Bill. On big water, using big floats and fishing big current, long baitcasting rigs they work great. But in small streams or light currents, they're not so good. The small spool on a baitcaster doesn't turn over anywhere near as easily as the large spool on a centrepin. Fish slow runs and the difference is night and day.

Totally agree - based on that criteria, go to Disney.

You would be best to try and narrow down what kind of fishing experience you want to have. It's fine to say "I want to catch bass" but there are a zillion ways to do that and some of them may not appeal to you. For example, there are a couple of lakes in western Arizona coughing up largemouth bass in the mid-teens right now - HUGE fish, for sure - but you may fish for a week to get one bite. It's still fishing on bottom with dead bait, by the way. Is that what you want? Or do you want to catch numbers of four-pound buckets on topwaters? They're totally different experiences. You will also need to figure out what kind of budget you're looking at, since some of these places will cost a few bucks, and others will cost couple of grand a week - per person. How much are you willing to spend on this? Do you want to stay in a larger town with lots of high-end restaurant choices? Or do you want to rough it and eat out of a can? That makes a huge difference in where you will go. Maybe narrowing things down a little would help you find what you really want. Otherwise you'll keep getting all sorts of different ideas thrown at you, and no real sense of what will work and what won't.

In fact, I do believe my life is better with a cell phone. Prior to having one, I spent a great deal of time each week hunting down pay phones that actually worked, and making sure I always had a bunch of quarters to feed them with. I no longer need to do that. Having a cell phone makes my life easier and more convenient. And yes, my work lifestyle does require me to stay in fairly continuous contact. Note I emphasize "work" lifestyle. That's why I have a cell phone, for the most part. I do not feel the need to re-examine my life choices, given that I am lucky enough to have a job that many people would give their eye teeth for. To each their own. But understand that not everyone who uses a cell phone is ignorant, nor are they owned by it. It does have an on/off button. Whether people choose to use that is up to them.

Well said. I wouldn't be able to work without my Blackberry, and simply can't understand why anyone would go out of their way to not take advantage of such a useful item. Then again, I'm also a big fan of electricity and indoor plumbing. Go figure.

MNR might have a problem with you chasing the geese with your boat (kidding!) but otherwise, so long as you have the right licenses it's all good. You wouldn't be the first to spend a morning harvesting surf n' turf.

Many parts of Bronte aren't even 15 feet wide.

I can see this one getting locked up pretty quickly.

Sounds like fun, but I have a ton of work travel between now and the end of November. December is wide open, but I'm pretty much pooched till then.

Aw come on Chris, why stop at the base and the guides? Wrap the whole rod from end to end!

White perch are very common in Lake Ontario. They belong to the same family of fish as white bass and striped bass (they have no relationship with smallmouth/largemouth, sunfish, or yellow perch whatsoever). Average size is 10 - 12 inches. They usually travel in large schools, so when you find one, you've found a bunch. They're pretty good eating fish but, as others have said, I would be cautious about eating much from Lake O.