Dave Bailey

With all the talk about flourocarbon leaders I thought that maybe someone would be manufacturing them, but I haven't seen any in stores or on-line. Are they something that I'll have to put together myself? Not that I'm unable, just thought it might be easier to get them ready-made.

Thanks guys. I got a PM from Phil, you may have seen his post about his new on-line store. He's got a package that I might pick up for myself, and I'll see about the other under $40 stuff for the family. Right now I'm using very light stuff, picked it up as a combo at a store in Huntsville after having nothing for about 15 years. It's served me well for about 16 or 17 years but now that I'm hoping to get into this more seriously I'll probably need to upgrade. My rod is a 6'6" Shimano FX-2652A, with a Shimano FX-2000 reel. It does have a trigger but it's never given me any trouble, nor has the rest of the reel. I've never taken care of it, no oil or any maintenance at all. It's fared better than the Shimano gears on my bike, but then, my reel doesn't have to haul my fat carcass around!

I'm not the sort of person who buys gear all the time, so I don't get into all the technical stuff and comparisons of different brands. What I'm looking for is something serviceable for the family, nothing too fancy or expensive since they only get out a couple of times a year. We are heading up to Grundy Lake PP next week and I would like to get them something better than the 'no name' sort of stuff they have now. I was looking at the combos at Canadian Tire, listed here, Bass Pro here, and Gagnon Sports, here. There are some recognisable brand names, Shimano, Mitchell, Rapala, etc., for $30 t0 $40 that I'm thinking of, just looking for some opinions. Thanks!

Stayed there in '08, had fun. Joe and Nancy are nice people. How's Nancy doing by the way? She had that 'liberation therapy' for her MS last year. I'm skeptical of it myself, but it would be interesting to see if she shows any change.

That semi-permanent grin on your son's face says it all! At times like this I wish I believed in a Hell, so that I could damn them to it.

Nice pics! A sunrise beats a sunset for beauty any day.

Sounds like you've got some great times ahead, make the most of them. And I know how that feels. When my ex and I separated she did everything she could to keep us apart, in fact I hadn't seen him since he was 13. But the day before his 19th birthday, knowing she couldn't control him anymore after that, he called up my parents and said he would like to come over and see them the next day, and could I be there too? We met up and we've been best friends ever since.

Didn't read the title correctly, thought you meant these:

Productive day! And that sunfish picture is a hoot!

Or how about...

And where the crime rate has been in steady decline and has dropped to the lowest in decades. Let's not panic.

It's a monster, a monster I tells ya!

Yep, although not all teams brought back 5.

From all I've heard he's a really nice guy, so someone really should tell him that there are people called 'administrators' and 'moderators'. The board on his site has more spam than a Monty Python sketch, to the point where it's unusable. It's always been full of that crap but at least some people used to post there, now it's just a spam wasteland.

Gals ‘n’ Pals 2011-07-28 Nothing unusual happened this year. The weather was great, nobody got injured, Haliburton was left intact, and the usual suspects were making things competitive. There was some discussion over whether the cool spring was going to have any effect on results, but as we tell people every year, it only takes one fish to win a tournament! In all 17 teams took to the waters of Head Lake, and 7 hours later the following results were tallied: 5th place went to Allison and Dan McMullen, with weight of 8.85lbs. 4th was grabbed by Jackie and John Sedgwick, who also had the most colourful boat of the day, with 9.25lbs. 3rd place went to locals Cheryl and Pat Kennedy, who boated 9.75lbs. 2nd was taken by Jenn and Barry McCrackin, who broke into double digits with 11.60lbs. And once again, the team of Judy and Terry Ruttle showed that they seem to know this lake pretty well, because they managed to take 1st place with 15.80lbs, and had the biggest fish, a smallmouth of 4.25lbs. Three teams didn’t weigh in, so here are the full results of the fourteen who did. 1 Ruttle, Judy & Terry – 15.80 2 McCrackin, Jenn & Barry – 11.60 3 Kennedy, Cheryl & Pat – 9.75 4 Sedgwick, Jackie & John – 9.25 5 McMullen, Allison & Dan – 8.85 6 Gardiner, Nicole, & Lanegger – 8.60 7 Woodcock, Amber & Ken – 8.60 8 McMaster, Jan & Mark – 7.80 9 Hatton, Linda & Steve – 6.70 10 Wetzel, Kristy & Chris – 6.15 11 Toth, Chantal & Stephen – 5.05 12 Ritza, Tammy & Kevin – 3.30 13 Toth, Serena & Dan – 1.7 14 McLean, Shelley & Todd, 1.35 Next year’s date is probably July 21, presuming that the highland games are being held on July 14, but if they are the week earlier we will take the 14th.

Some species of fish can change sex in response to various types of environmental pressures, but I don't think it happens in largemouth or smallmouth. And like has already been said, tell him to mind his own business.

I've 'ad worse! Come on back you coward, I'll bite yer legs off!

Now there's a man I could drink with! Looks like you had a great day.

Nice stuff, and that sunset picture is a keeper too! Funny you should mention that. I have some friends that operated a souvenir shop at the north end of that bridge back in the 70s and 80s, and their kids would go there every couple of days and snorkel around picking up all the snags they could find. They had a little side business selling it as used tackle, made a few bucks to supplement their allowance. I was in there once when a guy came in and saw what he claimed was one of his lures, and he told them that he shouldn't need to pay to buy it back. "You're not paying for the lure" they told him, "You're paying us to get it for you." That shut him up!

Looks as if the ideal word to describe that outing would be 'successful'!

Choosing to stop or keep going is a decision that can only be made at the time. A few years ago I arrived at the scene of the Air France crash at Pearson minutes after it occurred, and people were still evacuating. Having worked there for years with airfield maintenance I was quite familiar with what would be transpiring, and when I saw the emergency vehicles rushing into the area I knew that the last thing they needed was one more person getting in the way, so I took off out of there. And a few years ago just after a tournament on Canal Lake Gary Ballard and I came upon a motorcycle crash just a few minutes after drunk in a pickup had hit it. There were already half a dozen cars stopped and many people on the scene, and first aid was being administered. Again, we got out of there instead of standing around gawking, no point having yet another car there clogging up the shoulder while the as-yet-to-arrive ambulance was trying to find a place to stop close to the action. It isn't a decision that you make lightly, but it must be made, and sometimes it's just sensible to get the heck out of the way.

Elwy Yost has died, here's the CBC report. I grew up watching Passport to Adventure after school during the sixties, he would play an old movie in five parts during the week, and talk about what we had seen after each show. He was like a friendly uncle, and he will be missed.

Yeah, hadn't thought of suggesting camping. Most Provincial Parks will be full already, but there are a number of cottages that also have campsites for those who don't wish to rent a cottage. That might be the way to go if that suits your friends.

What, they have an expiry date?

I've got a sentence for anyone caught do such stuff; tell them that a family of raccoons will be given free reign of their residence for a day, with the refrigerator propped open. You soil their environment, they soil yours. Sound like a plan?