craigdritchie

The fact your engine runs fine when you bring it up to WOT gradually suggests there could be a hiccup in the fuel management system. Your engine has electronic fuel injection, which is regulated by a tiny micro-computer called the ECM 555 control module. If that little computer is wonky, the result can be very similar to a physical blockage in the fuel line. You hit the gas and the ignition timing goes out of whack, so the engine chokes. It’s not common, but it’s not unheard-of, either. As a matter of interest, your Mercury 40 four-stroke is built in China at Merc’s Suzhou plant, which is one of the newest outboard motor factories in the world. Merc has built all of its 40 hp to 60 hp four-strokes there since the plant opened in the fall of 2007 (although Mercury has manufactured engines at other plants in China since the mid-‘90s). For what it’s worth, Mercury has begun eliminating the model year designation on its engines, so your “2008” engine is the current model. It should have a three-year warranty from the date of purchase.

Like many others who have already replied, I wear one some of the time - it depends on the boat and the season. In a small boat or a canoe, it's always on. In a bass boat, I wear it when underway, and usually slip it off to fish. On a big-water boat trolling for salmon, I generally don't wear one at all. Regardless of the boat, I always wear a survival suit early and late in the season. Common sense, really. The inflatable models are really comfortable, and totally worth the additional cost.

PAM cooking spray also works. Spray it on a Q-Tip and wipe down the eyelet.

Couldn't have said it better - basically a non-issue.

The camera doesn't lie. The fish laying on the ground IS actual size. That's why fish are always photographed that way for scientific purposes.

Upstream of Lowville there are resident browns and brookies. Most are six to eight inches or so. It's mainly private property, so you'll need to knock on a few doors to get access. Between Lowville and the lake you'll find smallmouth bass (most are pretty small, but there are occasional monsters up to a pound or so lurking in deeper holes), some rock bass, plus various chubs, shiners, suckers and the occasional small carp. You may also find a few smolt steelhead that still haven't figured out which way the lake is. The marshy area just above the harbour has a handful of small pike, sheephead, largemouth, bullheads and crappies. Try casting small Mepps spinners and you'll catch some fish. In the summer months, Bronte Creek is not exactly a hotbed of fishing activity. The rainy summer has resulted in better water flow this year than normal, but it's still a shallow, warm ditch that's full of silt. It's perfect habitat for chubs, marginal for most other species. The lake is generally a better option. There are some nice smallmouth on either side of the rivermouth, as well as sheephead, large carp and channel cats. Get down there very early in the day and try casting Shad Raps or smoke-coloured grubs. Small tubes under a slip float are another option.

Charts are not a legal requirement. They're a good idea, and they do reveal a lot of great fishing spots if you spend the time combing over them. But no law enforcement agency could care less if you have them or not.

From a friend who works for Volkswagen Canada: "I wouldn't."

Too bad they can't also charge him with being an idiot. I don't know what it is with the go-fast crowd, but a lack of brain cells seems to be a common factor with all of these guys. If you ever want to re-think the concept of "intelligent life" go check out a poker run some time. Amazing what happens when you give a guy a high-powered boat and a belly full of beer. Seems like some things just never change!

The fishing's generally much better in winter, when the water cools down and only feels like soup.

Hmmm ... another old secret bites the dust. Mark Kulik and I were doing this 12, maybe 15 years ago. Hatchery trout are fed by machines that disperse small pellets. Don't laugh - one of the most common commercial fish foods is actually called Trout Chow, and yes, it's sold by Purina (in 100 pound bags, under their agricultural products division). Back then, we had a mutual friend who worked at a trout hatchery, and who told us all about the feeding procedure. Of course, we had to give it a try. Mark had so much fun with this that at one point he actually experimented with different varieties of pet foods to see if one worked better than the others. It was pretty funny - we would go fishing someplace and every pocket in Mark's fishing vest would be stuffed with different kinds of cat food. I'm really surprised he didn't get mauled by some animal. In the end, we agreed that Tender Vittles cat food worked the best. I think the food is all basically the same, but the Tender Vittles pellets were exactly the right size, and being moist to begin with, they sank at exactly the right speed as soon as they hit the water. Dried food floats like a cork, and the fish ignore it till it soaks up enough water to sink. I can remember a couple of trips with Mark when we would pitch in handfuls of Tender Vittles and watch the water surface literally boil with fish. Cast anything brown into that frenzy and you would have a an immediate hit. We gave it up after a few months because it had become ridiculous. We might as well have just used a net. So, there you have it. Pet food works best with fish that have only recently left the hatchery. The longer they're in the wild, the less effective it is.

All in the name of good fun, my friend. Fact is I didn't expect anyone to get it, but what was truly interesting was reading along as people went through the whole process of elimination. Maybe we didn't know what it was, but we sure knew what it wasn't, and that alone is pretty impressive to me. It's especially interesting since this cherry salmon does seem to share so many characteristics from the different salmon species we're more familiar with. There are parts that look chinook-like, and there are parts that really say chum, sockeye or coho. Overall, the closest thing on our shores would be a coho, and that seemed to be the most common answer. Pretty good job, I'd say. We can do local species too. It would be fun to try a couple of different minnows from the average bait bucket. I guarantee I would screw up most of those!

Last week Lowrance unveiled its new Structure Scan fishfinders at the ICAST fishing tackle trade show in Orlando, Florida. If the screen shots are even close to accurate, this looks pretty amazing. No word on when it will be here, or pricing, at this point. Here's the basic info on the Lowrance website: Lowrance Structure Scan And, here's a sample screen shot showing it in split-screen mode ... high res sonar on the left, GPS on the right. Wow! (click to enlarge)

By the way Henry, I notice Mariko Izumi is on the cover of the new Real Fishing magazine.

MJL ... YOU DA MAN!!! Folks, we have a winner - the fish is indeed a cherry salmon, also known as Oncorhynchus masou. They're only found in northern Japan, Korea and the extreme south-east part of Russia, where they occupy the same ecological niche as our North American coho. I said this was a tough one. Unless you've ever been lucky enough to fish in Japan or Korea, you've never seen one of these fish, so it doesn't come any tougher than that! As per everyone's different responses, cherry salmon do look a whole lot like a coho and a little bit like a chinook, but they have a completely unique spotting pattern. I'm told their spawning colours are stunning ..... black backs and cherry red sides (hence their name), but with dark vertical blotches all over (kind of like a spawning chum salmon). The males apparently get big hooked snouts like sockeyes, and have teeth like a Doberman. I've never even seen a cherry salmon, much less caught one, but I hope to change that when I go to Korea for a short business trip this fall. I'm told they're a lot like coho -- 6 to 10 pounds on average, crazy aggressive, jump when hooked and make long, powerful runs. Should be an absolute blast on a centerpin. That was fun everyone .... thanks for playing along. How about another? Anyone have an even tougher one?

The anti-reverse mechanism uses a small, Y-shaped cog to prevent the reel from reversing. It sounds like the cog has either slipped out of alignment or chipped its tooth. If you send the reel to Shimano, or take it to a repair shop like Aikman's (in Mississauga, off Dundas near Hurontario) they can replace the cog for a couple of bucks and you're back in business. As noted, the old Mitchell 300s also had this problem, as did some of the old Zebco and Shakespeare models when they first incorporated silent retrieves. I would not recommend using braided line on these reels - too much stress on small parts (which result from all of us wanting lighter weight and more compact reels).

Here's a couple of other pics that may help: Full body shot: Another view of the head, this time with the mouth closed: Finally, this one is a different individual fish, but the same species: Enjoy!

I really hope this program is successful. Coho are so much fun to catch they're totally worth the cost of raising them in the hatchery. Good guesses so far on the salmon ID. I will admit, this is a tough one.

I'll second that! Lets leave it till tomorrow, so more people can have a look and throw their votes into the ring. Starting to rain as I type this. Pretty much exactly this time last year, a small run of chinooks showed up in Erindale just after a good thunderstorm. I'm talking a very small number of fish, but in that warmer water, when you have them all to yourself, it sure was a lot of fun. Between those memories and the look of this pretty 'lil fishie, I'm definitely starting to feel the itch.

With all the talk about salmon lately, lets have a little fun - take a look at the three photos below and see if you can correctly identify the species. All three photos are of the same individual fish. Enjoy!

That might just be the best fishing report I've ever read online. Thanks for sharing it. Looks like the kids had an absolute blast, and I'll bet they remember the experience (and especially that sandpiper) for the rest of their lives.

Sounds like regular wear and tear to me too. Regardless, after using it for three or four years, you're on your own.

Most steelhead will swim back down to the lake with the first high water they see after spawning, passing right over the dams without even slowing down. On rivers like the Humber, they will pass a half-dozen dam structures on their way upstream, then pass over them again on their way back down, no problem whatsoever. Late-running fish occasionally get stuck far upstream once the water drops. Most of these poor things starve while waiting for rain to bring the water level back up enough they can get out of there. If it's a dry summer, they may die of malnutrition, since the majority of our little ditches just don't have anywhere near enough food to support fish of that size. But in the more productive streams a few might hang on through the summer, eating smolts and anything else they can catch. I've caught a couple of these over the years, and by this time of year they look like snakes with fins. You can't help but feel badly for them.

Body shape does suggest chinook rather than coho.

Oh - I almost forgot. Not having Hooters as a sponsor was another major complaint.