craigdritchie

Probably walleye. I world become bored if I were stuck to just one fishing scenario for the rest of my days, and that's why walleye would be my choice. For starters, I can fish for them year-round -- you don't have to drive too far to find good walleye fishing 12 months a year. And there's no end to how you can fish for them. I can jig the shallows in spring as post-spawn fish settle into emergent weeds, or cast twitchbaits along shoreline points, or work spinners over offshore saddles and reefs. Or bottom-bounce fast currents in rivers, if I want to break out my waders. I can huck suspending minnowbaits off a pier, or even fish sunken timber with weedless jigs or a little Senko, just for something different. In summer I can troll big open water with 'riggers or boards, or Lindy Rig mid-lake flats with leeches or crawlers, or throw out a drift sock and toss slip floats or drop-shot rigs. In early summer I can even catch them on topwaters. Rip-jigging the heavy veggies is always fun, or I can wet wade a big river and sneak a few out of the shallows in evenings by casting floating Rapalas. I can drive farther north and fish remote back lakes where walleyes have never seen Shad Raps or Rattle Traps. Or pull spinner rigs over sand flats, in the Kawarthas or on the Great Lakes. Heck, I can even catch them on flies if I really get bored. Come fall I can target the big girls as they hit up neck-downs and deep weedlines with crankbaits and huge minnowbaits. Or I can tip prop-jigs with shiners and finesse tough fish off of main basin points. Or hit the dams and lake narrows for some night action with swim baits. Or break out those waders again and hit the marsh at night for giants in only inches of water. I look at ice fishing the same way I look at clogged toilets, letters from Revenue Canada and objects on the bottom of my shoe that I can't identify, but if push came to shove I could even bring myself to once again fish for walleyes through the hard stuff -- again using a huge variety of baits and techniques. I can catch walleye on pretty much every rod and reel I own -- spinning rods, baitcasters, centrepin rigs, fly outfits, ultra-lights, rigger sticks, even straight graphite crappie poles (don't knock it till you try it!!). None of my tackle would gather dust. I admit that most walleye fight like a plastic bag, and are about as smart as a bag of rocks, but if nothing else, they're adaptable. So if I was stuck to only fishing for one species for the rest of my days, I'd probably fish for walleye. There's no shortage of different ways to catch them, and nothing else tastes as good when it's fried up in Fish Crisp.

6 for 6? Good grief - nice job! Congrats ... some really nice looking fish too. Of course now you realize you're ruined for life. You're going to catch yourself checking the weather forecasts several times a day, your freezer will fill up with little Ziplock bags of roe and all sorts of other odd things, and the whole concept of standing knee-deep in ice water will become insanely appealing to you. You'll come to enjoy tying complex knots with wiry line at 10 below in a 40 km wind, using your mouth as a substitute for your index finger because it's too cold to bend any more. You'll look at dew worms washed out on the sidewalk after a rain in a whole new light, and you'll definitely look differently at those live crickets they sell at pet stores as feed for lizards. You'll collect all kinds of gobs of brightly coloured yarn, and you'll learn a whole new vocabulary filled with strange words like "trotting" and "shotting" and "checking" -- oh my!! You'll travel to exotic locations like the 'Ganny and the Willy and the 'Catt and the 'Geen. Your life will be turned upside down, and you have MJL to blame. Ain't it grand? Nice job on the fishies. Congrats! Another one lured to the Dark Side!

I dunno, man. If I had been looking for a boat since September, I would need more than three or four pictures of a tarp before I made up my mind.

You're killing me, man.

If it were me, I'd buy the red one in the classifieds. Boats last a long time, especially around here where they go into hibernation for a couple of months every winter. It's not like buying a car you drive every day. 14 grand is a huge price difference. Plus you get a kicker motor to boot. No-brainer, to me.

G3 is a solid boat. I drove the 2010 175 and 185 models on Lake Couchiching recently, and they're very sweet rides. I'd buy one. 2009 was a very bad year in the boat business, and at this point, more than 50 percent of the North American boat industry is now unemployed. Yet in the midst of all that, G3 had record sales last year. That says a lot.

TV fishing shows have always been infomercials. Fact is, Red Fisher never made much money from his TV show - his main income came from being a sales rep for Mercury Marine. Mercury paid a big chunk of Red's production expenses in exchange for guarantees that Mercury outboards would appear somewhere on the screen for a total of X-number of minutes each year. That's why most of Red's programs include scenic shots of him riding in the boat, or loading up his gear, or the guide running the motor. It was a contractual obligation, just as it is today for other TV hosts. Cortland was another big sponsor of Red's TV program. Why do you think he had Ted Williams as a guest so often? Ted worked for Cortland, and used his appearances on the show to generate interest in fly fishing. It was all bought and paid for. Just like today. Now I agree that's all pretty tame compared to what we see now (I love it when the one guy lands a fish and credits it to his dependable xx-brand oil filter). But the fact is TV fishing hosts have always been bought and paid for by one company or another. If it gets to be overkill, just change the channel or turn the dumb thing off.

You want to know the totally ghetto way to do it? Buy stocking foot waders then go to Wal-Mart or Zellers or some other cheap store, and pick up two pairs of huge, oversized cheap hiking boots. I wear a size 10-1/2 shoe ..... so I buy size 12 hiking boots to allow for the extra volume of the waders. These cheapies should cost you no more than $40 a pair, or two pair for about $80. Use one pair as-is with the normal rubber lug sole. That's what you use most of the time. Take the second pair and glue strips of cheap indoor-outdoor carpeting to the soles with a good waterproof glue like Barge Cement (get it at Rona or Home Depot). Then use a drill to drive a few hex-head sheet metal screws in to make sure those carpet strips won't come off. Obviously, use short screws .... like 3/8 inch. The end result looks like crap, and you'll still wipe out on mud or clay, but they stick to wet rocks like velcro. Yep - even better than felt. Depending where you fish, you wear the boots that are most appropriate. And, you still didn't spend as much as you would buying one pair of crappy wading boots at a fishing store. (quick edit - prices adjusted for inflation!)

Felt soles are just about useless. Yes, they provide a decent grip on wet rock. But that's about it. Most rivers in southern Ontario have some amount of mud or clay along the banks, so they're really not the best choice for this area. If you think they're slippery now, just wait till it gets colder, and the wet felt starts to freeze. Fun times all the way!

That seems familiar. Did Wal-Mart not shut down another store when the employees wanted to unionize? I seem to think that was last year or maybe the year before, and also in Quebec.

Shimano is a wonderful company to deal with, and they have been gracious enough to replace several rods for me over the years. That includes a couple of rods that I broke, and that they were under absolutely no obligation to exchange. In my mind, the company's customer service is first-rate. That said, sometimes things happen. The guy in the warehouse accidentally picks up a medium rod instead of a medium-heavy - that's an honest mistake. Or, at the time they're out of the MH model, and someone - meaning well - made a judgement call and tried to get you the closest replacement as quickly as possible. Maybe that particular rod was discontinued and the medium action is all they have on hand at the moment. As others have suggested, I'd make a polite phone call to Shimano in Peterborough, explain your situation, and ask if they can swap the medium rod they gave you for a medium-heavy model instead. Providing there are no stock issues, it should be no problem.

Surest way to take something you love and turn it into absolute drudgery. That said, I'd sign up for pay-per-view!

Fish heads Fish heads Rolly polly fish heads Fish heads Fish heads Eat them up Yum!!!

Said it before, will say it again. You're killing me, man.

Being completely insane where roe is concerned, I even go one better. Go to Shoppers and buy some Playtex baby bottle liner bags - the four ounce ones hold just the right amount. Load the bag with roe, suck the air out, and tie it closed with coarse thread just as you would tie a roe bag. Then, wrap this bag of spawn in a piece of aluminum foil, and shove it in a freezer-strength Ziplock. You can fit about a half-dozen foil balls in a large Ziplock. Suck all the air out of that too, then close it up and freeze. I have kept roe frozen this way for years. In fact, I recently found some loose brown roe in the bottom or my freezer .... from 1999. Thawed it overnight in the fridge and it looked like it came straight from the fish. The following weekend, about 30 rainbows thought so too

I travel to Ottawa several times each year. The Business Inn is pretty basic, but it's clean and as cheap as it gets at $99 a night. They're on MacLaren, pretty much at Elgin, so the location is very convenient to restaurants and pretty much everything else. If that's not your taste, the Holiday Inn, on Cooper, is also good but a bit pricier. It's pretty tough to find any accommodation downtown for under $120 - $130 a night these days. www.thebusinessinn.com

Gman: They had a couple of Rangers there, in addition to the Skeeters and a 20-foot Bass Cat that I (regrettably) did not have time to take out. The 300 was mounted on a 612 Fisherman, while they also had a Commanche with a V MAX on it. Think it may have been a 520 but I would have to check my notes at the office. I know a few people might say that wasn't a fair comparison because the 300 hp Ranger has a windshield, but 300 hp is still 300 hp. And believe me, that boat was still flying fast enough to pull back the skin on your face if you peeked above the windshield. Louis: Funny you should say that, because Yamaha used the exact same "game changer" line in their press briefing. I believe the official advertising slogan will be This Changes Everything. * * * I don't want to sound like a shill for Yamaha (I'm not on the payroll - honest) but this truly does change the landscape. For the first time, we have four-strokes that will not only beat two-strokes in both hole shot and top-end speed, but weigh the same - or less! Add in the fuel savings and the fact you don't have to keep buying oil all the time, and it's basically game over for two-stroke outboards when this technology trickles down through the rest of the product line. I know a lot of the filtered try again please-chat has been on the big V6s, but that new 70 hp is an absolute work of art. We will see a lot of these on the water. FYI, here's a link to the local press coverage. Louis - note the "game changer" references: http://chattanoogan.com/articles/article_163281.asp

Hotrod: Not really sure on the top speed, since I didn't have a GPS with me and wouldn't have been comfortable looking down to check it in any case. Dash gauge read in the mid-70s, and that's probably accurate. With the right prop and a jackplate, I would expect the Skeeter / 250 SHO is perhaps an 80 mph rig. That's absolutely smokin' - especially for a four-stroke. There are faster boats out there, of course, and I have no doubt a Pantera or a Bullet with a hand-made racing outboard drinking high-octane fuel would beat it in a straight-up drag race. But the Skeeter /SHO combo doesn't sacrifice fishability for speed, and that's the trick. It's still a nice stable casting platform that will run all day on regular pump gas, while giving you some major thrills along the way. Gotta love it. ecmilley: I know I have a tough job, but someone has to do it!

I was thinking the same thing about the irony in that. You have to hear these things when you fire them up. They're not loud, but they definitely sound angry. Real beefy, low-pitch rumble that only comes from a big block.

Just returned from a few days test-driving some brand-new outboards at Yamaha's top-secret engine test facility in Alabama, and I still can't wipe the smile from my face. The biggest news is three new high performance four-strokes made specifically for bass boats and walleye rigs .... new V MAX SHO 200, 225 and 250. These are built on an all-new 4.2L block, and all three come in 20-inch shafts with mechanical controls so you can use a foot throttle. Hole shot is awesome, and mid-range acceleration is just mind-boggling - you're cruising along at 60 mhp, then you hit the gas and it just about blows you out the back of the boat. It's absolutely unreal. Best of all, these engines are four-strokes, so they're great on gas, you don't need to keep buying oil, and you don't have an oil tank chewing up space in the back of the boat. They're also lighter in weight than many two-strokes, and not just the old clunkers. The new Yammy 250 SHO is actually lighter in weight than a 250 E-TEC. Yamaha also has a new 70 hp that is absolutely stellar. I got it to troll down to 600 rpm without any trouble, and it's so quiet all you hear is the water coming out the side. It's fast and compact and more than 100 pounds lighter than the current Yamaha F75 (yes, that's 100 pounds lighter - not a typo). It has the electronic push-button control, so you can adjust trolling speed by pushing a button to go up or down between 600 and 1,000 rpm in 50 rpm increments, plus CDI ignition and a new anti-theft feature. You guys who were holding off buying a four-stroke because they're too heavy need to take a serious look at this one. There's also new 4 hp and 6 hp portables, new props, new digital gauges, new anti-theft features .... all kinds of stuff. It will all be at the Toronto Boat Show in January. Also had a chance to drive the brand-new Skeeter FX20 and FX21 bass boats, which were developed with the new SHO high performance four-strokes in mind. These are awesome boats in every sense of the word, and just scary fast. I had the 20 out at one point, with an SHO 250 on it, and just blew by a Ranger with a 300. The whole time the boat felt as steady as a car on the 401. I want one bad! The highlight was getting to spend some time with Alton Jones, the 2008 Bassmaster Classic winner. But that's for another day.

You should be a happy guy then. Yamaha manufactured Merc's four-stroke powerheads for many years.

So this means ..... she's letting you buy a new boat?

Biggest problem with Bronte is that there's just no water left in it. All those new subdivisions in Waterdown and the north end of Burlington have dropped the water level significantly. The only time Bronte flows high enough to attract fish is right after a huge rain. But by the time the water starts to clear, it has dropped to such a low level that legitimate fishing is very difficult. With even modest crowds, it becomes nearly impossible. Like TonyB, I live within walking distance of Bronte, but gave up fishing it many years ago. Time to fish has become a precious thing for me, so I don't waste it fighting crowds for one or two terrified fish that have been dodging three-prongs since they arrived from the lake. There are just too many other places that are far more rewarding.

E-Tec is a two-stroke motor, just like a Merc Optimax.

She may sound like a cat in a blender, but I hope I can still move like that (and look that healthy) at *cough* 76 years old.