craigdritchie

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.

Tournaments are one thing - pros who shoot TV shows and/or travel for sponsor functions and magazine shoots have a whole other level of stuff to grumble over. 1. The cost of vehicles. If you're a pro angler, you are going to put a LOT of miles on your truck. If you're a guy like Bob Izumi or Al Lindner, you're talking 100k a year. You can fantasize about some sponsor giving you a free truck, but that isn't the way it works in the real world, and plenty of big-name pros still have to buy their own vehicles just like you and me. Unfortunately, you're buying a new truck every two or three years. And you still have to pay for the gas, which really adds up when you put those kind of k's on a Suburban with a boat behind it. Let's not forget maintenance costs. With all that mileage, you're looking at a major oil change every two weeks. Plus your insurance is very high, again due to all the mileage. And just imagine the wear and tear on your boat trailer! You're doing the bearings every other month. Let's not even get into the cost of boats, outboards, boat gas and insurance. It's easier to get sponsored here, but you're still not talking freebees - most often it's a price discount and maybe 10 months before you have to pay up. Believe me man, nothing's free. 2. Excess baggage charges. Every time a guy like Bob does a fly-in trip to some remote lodge, he can count on spending several hundred dollars each way in excess baggage charges for all the rods, camera equipment, tripods, batteries, extra tackle, outboards (sometimes the lodge doesn't use the sponsor's brand of motor, and you need to bring your own), gas tanks ... you name it. Go to the far north and you're looking at chartering another float plane just for your gear. Today, with the airlines being so sticky about fuel costs and how many bags you have, it's even worse. 3. Getting ripped off. I've met a lot of top pro anglers, both here and in the US, and every single one of them has had stuff stolen from them at one time or another. Not just gear like rods and tackle bags, but big-ticket items like bass boats and ATVs. If you're a pro, you're a target. 4. Putting up with really stupid people. I know one TV show host who was in the washroom taking a whiz prior to doing a seminar at a major fishing show. That's when some guy came up and asked him for an autograph. I mean, the man's standing at a urinal with his weenie in his hand. Maybe not the best time to ask? Of course the pro has to be gracious, but seriously. Some people have no consideration at all. 5. Time away from family. To be a top pro angler, you had better have an understanding family. Marriage breakups are not exactly unheard-of in that industry. At the end of the day, being a pro angler is a job, and every job has its good and bad. Having seen what some of the big names go through on a daily basis, I've come to learn it's one job I would never want.

If you ever intend to upgrade to another boat, bear in mind the four-stroke will have better resale value down the road.

Every year or two some cub reporter at one of the newspapers writes a sensational article about how Great Lakes fish are contaminated with various chemicals, and are thus unfit for human consumption. This isn't news to anyone, except perhaps the newbie reporter. Ironically, there are hundreds of pristine, wilderness lakes in northern Canada full of fish which are also unfit for human consumption due to high levels of naturally occurring mercury. I mean really remote spots you can only reach by float plane. Contaminants are everywhere. Back in the 80s I remember reading about some grad students at one of the US universities (think it might have been Michigan State) who tested various species of Great Lakes fish for different chemical contaminants. Then they went to a supermarket, bought some meat and vegetables, and subjected their groceries to the same tests. Guess what? Toxins galore. Same thing for a couple of restaurant meals they also tested. The scariest part came when they tested themselves. The students found their own human tissue also exceeded federal guidelines for mercury, PCBs and dioxin. There are contaminants in everything, including us. You should obviously use common sense, follow government guidelines and try to minimize your risk. But the truth is, whether you like it or not, you're exposed to all sorts of chemicals every time you open your mouth. Unless you're prepared to give up eating or breathing, there's no point in worrying about it.

I'mHooked - Could be, I don't write that much any more and haven't done newspaper work in a long time, but some of the stuff I do publish seems to wind up all over the place. I just gave up trying to keep track.

They definitely have the best fishfinders in the world. To put it in perspective, at one point we tracked a pod of shrimp that were more than six kilometres away! We also picked up killer whales and gazillions of salmon. One of the sonar technicians guessed they were "probably pinks" based on size, location, and the way they were swimming. HMCS Regina caused a major stink last year during some war games off Hawaii, when it located and "sank" one of the US Navy's newest nuclear submarines. The new Ohio-class sub is super stealthy .... absolutely silent in the water, and covered in sound-absorbing tiles so its invisible to sonar. Problem was, it was so quiet it actually stood out. The Regina crew became aware of this "quiet spot" where they couldn't hear the fish or squid any more, and started probing around. They discovered the sub, pinned it down and forced it to surface and surrender. Awesome job by the Regina crew, but the Americans went nuts since these $2 billion subs are supposed to be undetectable. Back to the drawing board!

I was aboard the Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Regina a few weeks ago off Vancouver Island, when a couple of air force CF-18s from Comox swung by to pay us a visit. It is unbelievable how loud these jets are up close. The jet passes by, then a second later you hear the sound. This photo was taken using a fairly wide angle lens ... the jet is VERY close to the ship. Shot from the top of the bridge, standing among various radio antennas. Jet is doing about 400 mph.