craigdritchie

Kind of an old, forgotten way to do it, and that's too bad because there are days when hardware works quite well. Most know to try a small Flatfish, Kwikfish or Hot Shot now and then, because they work magic for steelhead that are completely turned off the standard roe/pink worm/fly stuff. Little CD3 countdown Rapalas (if you can find them) are also awesome for rainbows in streams. You can drop them back like a Flatfish, or cast and slowly retrieve across deep, slow pools. In bigger water (like off the pier, or wading along a beach) small bass crankbaits work really well at times. Personal favourite are Shad Raps (shallow and deep versions, depending on the day) but original Fat Raps, Bomber Model A, and Norman Little N crankbaits all work well. On days when fish are particularly active, small Rattle Traps can be pretty good. And small Husky Jerks are always worth a try along the lake shore, off the pier, or in the frog water. Sometimes, when nothing else works, they can produce a few fish. It gets boring drifting with a centrepin all the time, so some times it's fun to mix things up a bit.

It depends. How well do you want it to behave?

You can buy all the fish you like without regard to sport fishing limits or seasons (keep the receipts if you're worried about it). And yes, fish markets come up with all sorts of names to make the fish they sell sound more exotic or appealing. Many of the fish are mis-identified (intentionally or otherwise) so I wouldn't take anything at face value. The trick with buying fish is getting the guy behind the counter to lob it to you after you've made your purchase. Don't pick it up off the counter, but have him toss you a short pass. That way, you can truthfully tell people you caught it.

Eat fish from Hamilton harbour? I wouldn't even feed them to my cat.

Nice birds. The pup looks pretty good too!

Ice fishing? I'd rather have a barbed wire enema.

I keep thinking I should spend more time fishing for crappies. I often think about it, but for one reason of another never actually get around to it.

That's what it's all about, isn't it? Sounds like a great weekend. :-)

Ice fishing ...... yech!

My condolences, man. That's rough.

Dave, I (purposefully) never said what lake they flow into .... many of my spots have 12 month seasons for salmon and trout.

Pretty much every creek, stream and ditch flowing into the Great Lakes gets some trout and salmon run up it. In some cases, these can be substantial runs of fish. They can be either wild fish, or strays from other systems, or a combination of both. Despite what we like to think about trout and salmon returning to their stocking sites, a lot of fish do stray and wind up in other rivers. John may have more detailed info on numbers, but I have always understood it to be a pretty significant proportion of the number stocked/hatched. Like, up to half. Over the years I have spent a lot of time exploring places where I just thought fish should be, even though they were never stocked there. And today, some of those locations have become my main fishing spots. The biggest reason is that by not appearing on the stocking lists, these places fly under the radar, and most people never think to fish them. I have one place I've been fishing for about six years now, and I've never seen another person there. There aren't huge runs of fish either, but enough to keep me happy and I have them all to myself. It's awesome. I can show up at noon on a Saturday and know no one has touched them since my last visit. It sure beats lining up at the popular spots with 20,000 of your closest friends every Saturday morning. Clarence - good on you for finding a spot like that. Find some others and keep the info quiet. You'll have great fishing for years to come.

Butt first? So that's what I've been doing wrong ......

Agree. The simplest way to get gunk out of a centrepin is to give it a quick dip. Some amount of sand and grit will always find a way in there, no matter how careful one might be - especially when using reels with lots of porting.

This is news? And wow - that comment from "Jill1" .... me thinks she has some anger management issues! Boy trouble, perhaps?

It just depends how far you want to drive. Conditions were great in Vancouver when I was there earlier this week.

I wondered how long that would take!

A friend of mine had an interesting series of pics show up on his trail camera. Someone must have saw it in the tree and decided to have a little fun, because he wound up with about 30 pictures of someone's nekkid arse.

Okay, that got my blood moving. Really nice pics. Cheers!

Erindale!

25 years for me, and I'm still getting the hang of it.

I miss the good old days with my ancient VW Rabbit. The parking brake was a piece of cinder block I used to chock the wheel. Auto technology has definitely improved!

You have to look at the bigger picture. That 2011 Chevy most likely has a lot more bells and whistles in it than the 2000 Honda does. Pretty much everyone expects air conditioning as a standard feature today, and that was not the case with a 2000 Honda Civic (it was a $1,300 option). We all expect bells and whistles like power windows and locks, remote keyless entry, a nice stereo, etc etc etc. We all want the new safety features, like multiple air bags and I-beams in the doors and ABS brakes and all kinds of other stuff that helps keep us alive in a collision - none of that stuff was found in the 2000 Honda Civic. I know because my ex drove one. End result - I would bet the 2011 Chevy probably weighs a bit more than the 2000 Honda, which is why even with more engine power, it's still delivering about the same fuel economy. Oh - and let's not forget, here we are 11 years later and in spite of continually rising costs, the retail price of a car hasn't changed all that much. In 2000 a decent economy car cost about $20k, and it still does today - in spite of having all that extra stuff in it. Look at the big picture and I think auto technology is moving forward quite nicely.