Cookslav

I've been following this in the news, as well as the papers, and it makes me sick....

I'd like to see the whole dam system changed.

Licences, and manditory steralization should be required for pets or pay for a breeders licence

Illegal mills should be shut down and prosecuted severly.

You want to change this scenario...

There are 2 ways to do it.

Increase funds which we don't have, or change the laws to make the responsibilty of ownership the law, and punishment severe.

Deja vous....

Boreing series for me unfortunatly...don't particularily like either team, and have been unimpressed thus far by either team which is Weird considering this is the cream of the crop

Maybe I'm biased or something?

My 2 cents...

Detroits to deep to be beat by Pittsburgh IMO, but I'd like to see it just to build some rivalry.

suck or not, can't catch a fish from the couch.

This is true...

Now if only I could somehow get away from this thing called work, and convince my wife to watch my 3 children under the age of 5 every weekend I'd be golden!

But I suppose on the positive side this crap weather will save me some dough on sunscreen as well

Actualy isn't it 3 pages in 2 months?

Congrats Justin,

I always enjoy your posts as well as your articles.

Cheers,

I don't know May sucked and the 14 day outlook for June sucks....

Goverment stake in Big business eh?....sounds a bit communist to me

Wow what a great read!

I needed to unwind, after work and unwind I did

Thanks for sharing that.

Those sea run brookies, and sturgeon look like they were a Blast.

I'n Jealous...very jealous LOL!

Cheers,

I had the amazing opportunity to learn from him in private training years ago.

He was a good friend of my Aunt whom was a reporter for the Toronto Sun at the time, and Peter had some

Interest in meeting one of Toronto's elite 2n'd page features(I know they are no longer on the 2nd page, but they used to be)

She struck a deal,

And my 4 brothers & I were given first hand insight into his Face-off arts at the Gardens, and learned a lot about the game from Peter.

Some of the coolest things I learned were actually not about Hockey at all but rather the rivalry between players in the league.

Fact,

Peters least favourite player to face off against...Gary Roberts

Why?

Because Gary would always bury his head really low in the circle blocking his opponents view, and giving him access to fall on the puck if a scrum in sued.

Peters solution to this issue...

Let him win the first 5 face offs in the first period...but elbow him or butt end him in the head EVERY SINGLE TIME in an "attempt" at getting the puck.

Peter said Gary would usually get so frustrated he'd be taking penalties by the 10min mark, and would definitely not be sticking his head in there by the 2nd so Peter would clean house after that LOL!

(And for the record Peter fought Gary, more then any other opponent in his career 4x more then anyone else)

Another thing that made him a special guy, was his determined Spirit.

Peter Made the cut for the Toronto Marles at a walk on try out....he had never played contact hockey before.

He started playing non contact House league hockey at age 12 which is an incredibly late start, but he was determined to transfer his skills

as a seasoned Soccer player into the tough game of Hockey.

Its safe to say that he made the transition nicely,

If you study his face off technique you'll notice his ability to stick tie up his opponents stick....where he then kicks the puck to his line mates.

Never forgot his roots I suppose!

The info I learned from Peter on the Face off was amazing...

My Time spent with him increased my Face-off stats 100%

But what’s more is he was truly a genuine nice Guy.

He spent time with us, and spent time just talking after the lessons with My Dad, and Uncle shooting the breeze about life.

He was constantly and actively involved in Charitable, and local community events while in Toronto.

A true ambassador of the game, and a role model for kids.

I can proudly say the secrets learned from him not only made me a better player, but In my years as a coach I have passed his lessons on to the kids I've taught and I think he'd be proud to see his lessons living on today in the youth of his favourite game.

I tried walking the river, but that usually spooks up the fish when I'm 40' away. These fish are certainly a challenge.

Yup...its a challenging river for sure.

Wading the river is always tough to be quiet with that rocky bottom LOL!

I use more of a "run and gun" approach....in other words I'd hike it in on shore, then cut in to the holes, and slowly work the area, and keep my "in water treks" breif, then move along to the next hole on shore away from the banks.

But yes your 100% correct that river changes year to year....those heavy spring flood waters move a lot of the gravel, silt, shoreline, and fallen wood pretty effectively.

You'll never get board of that river though,

So many opportunitys in the stretch...that river holds a lot of fond memorys for me.

I haven't fished it in 2 years now, but its on the list this year

OK I changed my Mind LOL!....just now took forever to change pages, and refreshing, re-loading, closeing down and strarting over didn't help at all.

I checked a few other sites and there was no issue, so its definatly just this site?

But of course now....its fine again only 5 minutes later.

Hope that helps?

Seemed fine this morning...but just took a whack of time to load

Ditto,

I noticed it takes a while to load compared to other sites I surfed earlier.

Seemed ok the second time around though?...wierd

Yup,

There are some good stretches all along there but its hit and miss.

I used to fish the geener alot with my dad when I was young, and I had a trailer in the Durham Conservation area years ago so I've fished that stretch from Durham to Hanover many times....heck I've fished that river all the way to Chantry Island LOL!

Anyway,

To say they are easily spooked is an understatement LOL!

I've caught my fair share in that area before, and to be honest its text book spec fishing.

Most of them are smaller, but I've seen them in the 17-18" range before.

Any Eddies behind the big rocks, or fallen logs is prime, but be sure not to attack the structure like you would with bass though....cast away from it, and swing it across the eddies, and you'll do well. Small panther martins, and blue Fox Vibratos were always my favorite in strait silver, or blue and silver, unless you dawn the fly gear...but thats a whole nuther ball game.

Also,

Learn the local holes...

That stretch is pretty shallow most of the way down, so focus your efforts on water that holds fish when the weather warms up.

And definately make sure you hit the mouths of any feeder creeks and try walking them a bit as well if they have a good flow....

(the biggest specks I've seen on the geen were in the creeks behind beaver dams That were not visible from the main river)

Cheers,

Ah yes....the summer is upon us, and getting out to the camp is just what the dr. ordered!

Nice job on the Pike thats a beauty for sure.

To bad about the Brookies, but something tells me you'll get back there again with the canoe, and slay 'em later.

Cheers,

Dang

I to have been following this case...it hits close to home.

I hope they do indeed finf the body, and put this to rest quickly for the Family.

And I hope no plea's are bargined

Wow Great Report!

Nothing better then cold drinks, good freinds and a couple(or dozen) great fish in the mix of an Algonquin Opener.

Thanks for taking the time to share that.

By the way What were you catching on?

I saw the one pic with the Spinner, was that your magic Bait?

By the way,

Good job on the Solo report.

Tough sledding by yourself, let alone documenting, and shareing it!

Thanks for that

I know we don't really like to talk about our fears (lol) but when you go in the back country by yourself in Algonquin, doesn't the thought of bears or moose freak you out? I think my first solo trip would be very intimidating.

Compared to the sleepless nights, and cranky missus a new born sometimes brings for weeks....months..........I'll take my chances

Quite simply put...Crosby

Ovechkin is a great, and very skilled player no doubt, but Crosby does something Ovy doesn't

Crosby make the guys around him better.

He's a playmaker who uses his entire line, and he makes the other his other team mates on the ice better.

Ovechkin will do it all himself, but he's still only one man, and albeit a close call that showed in the Cap/Pens series.

Heck I'd take either one, but Crosby has more leadership quality, more humility, and in my oppinion that kind of play will

boost a team, more consitently (unless its Jersey sales we're talking about)

oh...and as a former Defensman, and Coach I find one of Crosby's habbits very indicitive of a rounded player....he back checks!

Hey wow?

I just passed 2000 posts

Bout time LOL!

Thanks again for all the kind words guys,

Nothing like cracking a cold one and having a nice meal of specks.

Ya Nemo Its a once a year treat for me, so I was in heaven

We had 2 first timers out there this year who could not beleive how much better fish is fresh outta of the water.

I Cautioned them that Speck trout are by far the best tasting fish to begin with(IMO of course) but also the fresh clean water of

Algonquin makes for "ultra" tasty fish.....after tasting the buttter poached batch the newbies had a hard time understanding why I limited the fish kept count for our camp and why we didn't gorge and pack some out.

Its about conservation, and enjoying this with our kids in a few years, and maybe our grand kids too...I think they came away with a good appreciation for the parks resources

Hope the bear didn't cause any damage while he was sniffing around... them things are so unpredictable.

You certainly weren't kidding when you said that you weren't a light traveler....

Truth be told Leechman...

We never did "see" the bear as we were all in the tents, and it was dark, but I'm 90% sure given the sounds its about all it could have been.

I was awoke by the sniffing, and grunting but it was all of 3-4 seconds later that guys started yelling LOL!

He shot outta camp like a bat outta hell, and luckily there was no damage or mess to clean....The guys "actually" hung there packs for a change thank God.

As for the weight factor,

No matter how hard my portage in is...I prefer to get in and set up for comfort, so the beer and gear is a must

I've done the ultralite trips and week long loops, its fun but I personally prefer a "work my butt off for one day then relax and enjoy the benefits" kind of trip

They boys are feeling a bit adventurous though, and there was a lot of talk about a longer, and tougher trip for next year to switch it up...so we'll see

What a great report and trip. But, Latex gloves in the bush? Which one of you had to carry the bidet?

Radnine you owe me a coffee, and potentially a key board...

I've been packing in the gloves for years now, and you'd be surprised how handy they are.

When your cleaning the fish they simply kick butt, because with out them....cleaning your hands in that 40-50 degree water sucks.

And if your breading your fish the gloves keep that sticky mess of your hands as well.

For the 2oz of weight I'll bring 'em every time.

As long as you ain't made of sugar I'd say get out there

Thanks for all the kind words folks

I'm a little surprised at how colorful some of the fish are at this time of year. Rapalas? I've caught more than my share of Brookies on Countdowns.

Ya Dan I noticed the spawning colours on a few of the fish as well?

Not sure why either...no eggs so

Yup the Rapalas took the lions share of fish on the trip, more out of situational nesesity LOL....they float, so they didn't get hung up in the event the wind blew us around and I had to stop to correct the troll direction.

Ive avoided going for a long time because its got to be such a zoo. You may have convinced me to start doing it again

M&S,

Truth be told we didn't see much traffic other then a small group camped on a near by lake....they came on to our lake to try the fishing, and we checked theres out as well, but that was the only traffic we saw, but then again that portage keeps a lot of the zoo at bay

Lots of Interior to explore yet give her a whirl!

In those lakes do you tend to catch all the fish of similar size or are there a chance of bigger fish

Troutologist,

Nope there are "a lot" of smaller dinks, and some bigguns as well....

Last year we caught a ton of 12-14" fish but also one of the guys lost a beauty boat side around 20-22" we figure, and this year was the same, my brother had a biggun on but was shook before we got a real good look at her so I'd hate to speculate on the size.

They are in there...

Its been a long and cold winter and now that the ice has subsided and finally gave way to explore the Algonquin interior once again I jumped at the opportunity!

Truth be told I have been anticipating this trip since the day I left the shade of her pines last year, and it once again left me both satisfied and of course wanting more….

Our journey began in Kitchener at 4am…an awful hour to be up, but it’s a necessity to be on the road this early in order to make it to our destination with enough light to make camp. With 6.5 hours drive time and and 7 hours paddle/portaging to go we had to hustle to make camp if we wanted time to set up, and collect wood before dark.

The trip started great as we had an easy cruise along the roads until about 7am when we came across an accident…and older couple had hit a large bull Moose. We stopped to make sure they were ok, and they were, but their car was a wreck. Surprisingly in the fashion of urban….or is it “rural” legend the Moose walked away!!! There was no blood on the scene and the Bull apparently fell over onto the car as it stopped crushing the windshield, hood, and part of the roof and got up a might bit angry as it then proceeded to ram and kick another car who stopped to see the spectacle before taking off into the woods.

The accident happened out of cell phone range, so we gladly drove ahead and called the police before continuing on our way….I hoped the good Karma would come around later on the trip.

We set sail on time into a beautiful sunny, and blissfully calm morning…not a ripple on the water.

We roared through the first few lakes, and portages with a head full of steam, but quickly lost speed once we hit the big portage….We’ve been there before, and it’s a monster so we knew what we were in for.

Its not the longest I’ve ran, but it is by far the toughest I’ve encountered to date. It starts with a good 90’ climb over uneven rocks, and loose gravel, with no real definition to lead you in any one clear direction so all you can do it continue along checking for cut branches to lead you on for next kilometre as you rise 190’ from end to end.

The trail is just a nasty series of hills that kicks you in the teeth pretty good…but its fun I suppose. Now in fairness I’m not a light traveler…we like our beer, so we were definitely carrying a lot more weight then most would dare, so I suppose the portage could have been a bit easier.

Every portage was grid locked when we hit the end

But as far as I was concerned the pain would be worth having cold brews later and the thought of some celebratory beers complimented with fresh trout kept us trudging ahead.

Surprisingly we made camp 1.5 hours earlier then expected!

This year My Cousin and his young son were sadly unable to make the trip so it seemed not having a youngster needing a few breaks here and there, and the perfect weather sped us up considerably.

We quickly got to work taking advantage of our early arrival, and set up camp.

Tents were popped up, wood was collected by the cord it seemed.

We set up a 30’x 30’ tarp with a center pole(big top style), and pumped our selves a 5 gallons of fresh water from the Katadyn filter, and made some dinner all before dark!!!

Several small annoyances came to light at that point.

Last year on this same site we had erected a camp table with logs, stones and the top of an old Thunder box we had found….it was no longer there?

It appears some lazy folk thought it would be easy fire wood I suppose…..It was probably the same lazy buggers who left a Garbage bag of tin cans, and other crap tossed in the bushes!

I was pretty pissed off by this display of idiocy but as luck would have it, one of our party found yet Another 2 Thunder box lids while searching for fire wood…it seemed Karma had come back around.

So we “re-erected” a new table and this one would be even better then the old one!

We also made a cleaning table for the fish we hoped would come later out of the second lid.

So I suppose we came out ahead after all…and of course we burnt the left over garbage and packed out the tin cans left behind by the pigs who stayed there opening weekend.

(I hoped the good Karma would come back around to us yet again)

The night came fast, the beers flowed cold, and sleep came very easy under our tarp now complete with a lantern hanger

Day 2 was another beauty!

The morning was calm and clear and we hit the water around 8am.

I was running a very small silver blue fox vibrato, and my Partner was running a silver and black original Floating Rapala…it didn’t take long to find a groove.

Right off the bat My brother nailed a healthy 17.5” speck, only to be followed up with another 15 minutes later and then it went Quiet….very quiet.

The wind picked up a bit, and got the tree’s moving a bit which was fine, but it just wouldn’t stay consistent. I don’t know how you all feel about it, but variable winds in a canoe is the equivalent of nails on a chalk board to me….its nearly impossible to set up a drift, so the constant correcting was driving me nuts!!!

So we packed it in for the afternoon and decided to wait for it to calm down a bit, and maybe enjoy a few malt beverages. Back at camp the other guys began to check in one by one, and as it turns out they had caught a few fish as well in the 16-17” range as well, but as fate would have it all were caught right off the bat shortly after sunrise, then the Bite went cold on them as well…It seems the early birds were catching and the late comers were left fishless.

After dinner we headed out again, and managed another 2 fish for our canoe, and a few more were caught by the boys as well…only 4 were kept while another 6 were released to swim.

Here are some of the fish that day,

So now of course I got to work and earned my place in camp.

I cleaned the fish up on our cleaning board, and fired up the Coleman for our first official trout fry…mmmmm

what beautiful red flesh!

That night we swapped info around the fire, and this is what we discovered.

All fish caught were no less then 15” and no more then 17.5”

All fish were caught on silver coloured spinners or Black and silver Rapala.

All fish were caught between 8-9am and 8pm all fish came off shoals or boulders in 10-12’ of water

Not one fish was pulled out of the wood. Water temps were 51 at the surface, and the fish were loaded with dragan fly nymph, & leeches….this was polar opposite of last year?

If any of you recall last year most of our fish were pulled from the wood, and chalked full of stone flies?

But then again water temps were warmer, and the fish were way less active this year it seemed…

Day 3 was a carbon copy weather wise but the winds were much stronger….

We trolled a lot, and our fish count was down…they were not active on the shoals, and casting the shore structure was tough while being blown down the lake. The wind was seriously strong at times….I can recall a few times paddle trolling when the wind not only stopped us dead, but also pushed us backwards!

After a fishless morning we decided to hike to a nearby lake for some recon.

The lake I was looking for was about 2.5km from camp, but had no portages so I decided to just check it out for future reference and leave the gear behind.

A couple of the boys joined me, and we headed on our merry way.

We traversed a few large hills like this,

and at one point found myself standing on the ridge of a 40’ cliff, with a view to die for….unfortunately my Batteries died(never by no name batteries for your camera…they suck)

But some of the boys took pictures and forwarded them to me luckily

When we finally made it to the lake I was a bit disappointed….I could not find any minnows, leeches or crawfish. My guess is this lake does not contain any fish….there was significant depth, and a lot of bugs, but the absence of bait fish has me sceptical. Either way the walk was fun, and it was a pretty little lake.

These May fly’s(Hendrickson I think?)

Were beginning to Emerge….very cool thing to watch them molt!!!

It literally only takes 30 second to a minute to watch them transform and fly away.

We also found countless deer, moose and wolf tracks, and found some bones left from a kill.

More then likely a Moose calf, as it was to small for a full grown adult and way to large to be deer bones.

One neat find was a couple of fresh bear tracks and droppings as well.

(little did we know how significant that would be later.)

Also the old growth was just awesome, Some of these trees were just HUGE!!!

We made our way back and fished a bit more that night despite the fact it never did calm down.

As our luck would have it we ended up catching another 3 fish that evening on the Rapalas during a troll.

This last one I caught was the laugh of the trip…we called it the football LOL!

It was only 14” long but had an 11.25” girth!

This fish had a serious weight problem so I prepared him the way he would have wanted to go…

in a rich onion infused butter poach mmmmm…..LOL!

We only kept 2 that night as they were both wounded pretty bad…the fat bugger literally took the entire Rapala in, and was bleeding like the pig he was….he had a zero change of survival.

That night we settled in, and played some cards under the tarp as the rain had finally caught up to us.

So we drank our heavy yet delicious beer and talked until midnight or so and retired for the night….

Only to be woke a few hours later by some strange grunting, and sniffing!

It took me a minute to know what was happening…We had a bear in camp!!!!

Luckily he only grazed though sniffing the tents(filled with people smelling of fish) and took off once some of the boys began to panic and yelled out a bunch or expletives that went a little like

“oh my God….what the hell is that out side my tent!!!!”

Guess we should have maybe washed down the fish cleaning board

Day 4 was windy…again

But the skies also threatened rain today so we dawned the rain gear and headed out.

Some of crew was still fishless so we made the decision to try a 3rd nearby lake.

It was a bit larger, and deeper which we hoped would be cooler, and potentially have some more active fish.

It certainly was cooler and actually still had a bit of ice in the shady areas around shore.

This lake proved to be on fire…

Spinners, jigs, Rapalas, pretty much anything you could cast and retrieve was pulling in fish.

The lake produced an additional 16 fish that day all 15-17”

Surface temps were 48 degrees in this lake and fish came predominantly of sharp cliff walls, and boulders in particular….and they hit like freight trains!

What a change between these 2 lakes?

We literally more then doubled our fish count in a matter of 5 hours.

I’m not 100% sure if the fish were on because of the cooler temps, or if the passing warm front had anything to do with it but later on when cleaning the 5 fish kept there stomach contents revealed nothing…

These fish had no more then 2 or 3 stone flies, or a passing dragon fly nymph in their bellies?

Not sure why they were not eating, or why they turned on so suddenly, but I’m glad they did so I won’t question it!!!

That’s about it….

We headed out early the next morning, and once again….battled the wind.

The last big lake was a bit treacherous in the wind as the white caps washed over the sides of the canoe a few times, but over all the blue skies made for an uneventful exit to my favourite place on earth!

Now I’m relaxed, sunburnt, sore, well fed, and back to work…boo!!!!

Cheers,

Wicked Report Bud!

Glad to see you had a good time, and got into a few fish as well....nothing like Specks fresh in the pan eh?

As you know I was in the area, and boy you ain't kidding about the waves Sunday LOL!

No Motor for us we paddled her out, and I got drenched!

My canoes only 14' and rides low so I took 3 solid caps over the side...truth be told it was a bit refreshing after the paddling LOL!

Sad...

I think at this point the outcome was going to be bad, but as its been said, atleast the family will have some closure.

I'd like to know about the boat as well?