lhousesoccer

Dave - did you really head straight to the lake and fish with him? Where'd you go? What'd you catch? Or was it more of a "here's how to drive this bad boy" lesson?

That was awesome. Dario's a lucky guy. I wonder if he's got a truck to pull that big rig!

Dr. Salvelinus is right. The easiest way to access them is from underneath. Here's a series of pictures I took to train my summer fisheries technicians to extract otoliths from walleye for aging. In this case, we started with just the head, as the bodies had already been removed for contaminant and pathogen biopsies. The first step is to take a pair of dissecting scissors and cut through the isthmus (the fleshy part underneath the fish's jaws between the gill covers). Cut down behind the gill arches and separate where the gill arches connect to the upper palate of the fish. You can leave the gill arches connected to the fish towards the front of the head, or cut there as well and completely remove the gills. Once the gill arches are removed, you'll see a "V" formation, where the cartilage surrounding the spinal column joins with the upper palate of the inside of the the fish's mouth. This spot gets snipped with a small pair of wire cutters. You don't want to snip too deep, because the otoliths are directly underneath this. You only want to open up the cartilage area to reveal the spinal column where it attaches to the brain stem. The otoliths are in small sacs of fluid at this juncture. Can you see them inside the spinal column in this picture? If not, these arrows point out the otoliths inside. The next step is to take a pair of fine dissecting scissors and make a small snip in the cartilage. Then grasp the fish head with your thumb and index finger of your left hand just ahead of the snipped spot, and just behind it the same way with your right. Bend the fish in half, with the flex point being where you made the snip, as if you were breaking a stick. After this step, you should be staring directly at the otoliths. Here they are:

Perfect! I had no idea about the SLR Parks Commission. I just figured Ontario Parks would run all provincial park type parks. Ivy Lea looks like the type of park I'm looking for. Thanks for the info!

Next summer, I want to hook up with my brother and his family at an eastern Ontario provincial park. He has a 26-foot camper trailer, and I have my fishing boat. So camper facilities is a must (hydro, water, sewer), and it needs to be on a great lake for fishing and boating. We both have small children (4 to 10), so beaches for the kids would be a plus. At first, I thought we'd check out the St. Lawrence River. But guess what? No provincial parks on the SLR. I thought that was strange. There are a couple on eastern Lake Ontario, but we don't know anything about them. My brother always camps north (Sudbury, Sault, Superior etc.). But I live out of province to the east, and we want to meet somewhere halfway. Any suggestions? Thanks!

10.45 pounds.

Absolutely correct. Going the Cornwall route is out of the way. You have to go quite a ways north, then back south as you head west to Toronto. I currently live in Vermont, but travel to London Ontario to see my family all the time. My wife's family lives in Boston. From Boston to Toronto, the best way is to take I-90 west out of Boston straight across Massachusetts, into New York, and all the way across NY State to the end of the toll boths. It'll cost you about $20 in tolls, but it's the most direct, and fastest route. You should hit Toronto in under 10 hours. A couple tips I've learned from doing this drive to London, Ontario 3 to 4 times a year for the last 12 years: After you pass through the toll gates on I-90 just outside Buffalo, immediately get into the right lane and exit right a few hundred yards past the toll booth onto I-290 WEST toward Niagara Falls. Stay on I-290 until you hit Grand Island. You'll go over a bridge ($1.00 toll) and now you're on I-190 WEST. You'll traverse the island in about 10-15 minutes, and climb another big bridge on I-190. At the bottom of that bridge, take the first exit to the right and curl around onto the Robert Moses Parkway. Follow the RMP along the Niagara River to downtown Niagara Falls, NY. Cross at the Rainbow Bridge into downtown Niagara Falls, Ontario. After you go through the Canada Customs booths, stay straight on Highway 420 to the QEW Follow the QEW to Toronto. I used to take the I-190 to the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge and cross over there, meeting up with the 405 to the QEW. DON'T TAKE THAT ROUTE, unless you love being stuck in traffic, potentially for several hours depending on the time of day you're crossing. All the commercial truck traffic goes that way, since they are not allowed downtown Niagara Falls. When crossing over the Rainbow Bridge from downtown Niagara Falls, NY to Niagara Falls, Ontario, you're literally on regular city streets. They have to keep the traffic flowing or it snarls the downtown areas. It moves very quickly, and you'll save a ton of time.

How? Can we do the same thing?

Yawn. Wake me up when they get rid of Burke and Wilson. That will be good news. 5 Reasons Why Wilson should be fired (can all apply to Burke too)

Ebola Monkeyman website isn't coming up. I'd love to see how he messes with these guys.

Cool Randy ! Thanks. I'm gonna make me one 'o dem!

If you don't mind posting, what are the dimensions of different things? Mainly: - Height of the legs - Length of the 3 cross rails (broom handles) - Distance between each rail - Length of rope between each golf ball Nice job! I want to build one!

I'm sure there are alot of people that would disagree, but from what I saw, those fish were done once they were in the boat, and I'm not the kind of person that will let a fish die and go to waste ...

Some of it will be given away, no doubt. Some will be smoked. The rest frozen. That's the thing with trolling like that - live release is tough. You might think you're live releasing, but you're not. We saw that clearly with the two fish my brother accidentally dropped back into the lake while trying to put them in the cooler. They stayed on the surface long enough to turn a 27-foot boat around with planer boards, downriggers and dipsy divers all in the water, and net it. Those fish are played out to exhaustion even after a short fight, when they come from that deep and are played at 3 mph. They're going to die anyways, so you might as well keep them and use them.

I made a trip back home to Ontario last week. We grew up on Lake Erie (and the rest of my family still lives there) and have always fished it, but aren't really set up for trolling on the big lake. So this year my two brothers and I got our Dad a charter for steelhead for his 65th birthday, since he doesn't do much of that type of fishing. We went out of Erieau on the Trophy Taker, with Jeremy Brooks, who also happens to be a good friend of one of my brothers. http://www.trophytakerfishing.com/ We had a great time, and Jeremy had no trouble putting us on fish. We left port just after 7am and had the first fish in the box before 7:30. Wrapped up at 1pm and brought 19 home. Probably lost more than a dozen. Those steelies are insane! We had multiple double-headers and even a triple-header at one point, and we landed all three fish. Funny story - one of my brothers dropped two fish at two different times overboard, trying to get them in the box. We circled around each time and were able to net both of them and get them back in the boat! We ran two downriggers down between 25 and 35 feet, and only 18-inches back! We had one 10-pounder that tripped the rigger and before any of us could grab the rod, the steelie was 10-feet in the air right at the transom, coming from 35' down! We had only 2 fish I think off planer boards running lead core. Most of the fish were off the downriggers and a good number on dipsy's set 30', 60', and 90' back. No consistency there - all fired all day. I'm not trying to do any unsolicited advertising here, but I just want to say the Jeremy does an awesome job and is a real pleasure to fish with. I'd recommend a trip on the Trophy Taker to anyone wishing to fish western Lake Erie. Here are some pics: The Trophy Taker at port in Erieau Heading out All set up and ready to go Waiting for the rods to go off, enjoying the morning sun! First fish in the boat! Dad gets one on Double-header! Dad with an 8-lber My one brother always seemed to be standing by whatever rod went off - rod hog! I seemed to be the sheepshead king that day. Fighting the triple-header All 3 fish landed from the triple header! A couple nice ones Heading back after a great day. Back at port with our catch. Back at home. Now the work starts.

It does seem crazy that you have to buy an aftermarket container FROM Berkley to keep Berkley Gulp Alive from leaking. It's probably all a ploy, but I guess I'm going to cave and give it a try since others here seem to think they work well. And as someone else pointed out, they fit the profile of all my Plano 3700 series boxes, which the Plano aftermarket boxes don't (go figure). Thanks to all for the responses!

I tried the Kraft peanut butter jar, without the cereal box cutouts and they leaked worse than the Gulp containers. Maybe I should try the cutouts.

I'm tired of my Berkley Gulp Alive leaking all over my boat and inside my tackle bags. Has anyone used some of the containers made by Berkley or Plano specially for storing Gulp Alive liquids and baits? What's your opinion on their usefulness? Plano Gulp Containers Berkley Storage system

It's been mentioned a couple times already but I'll say it again. If you want one of the warmest sounding acoustics out there, get a Canadian-made Seagull. I have a Performer Cut-Away in Maple with Rosewood neck. Just awesome. Seagull Guitars

Despite being a Leafs fan my whole life, I'm not delusional. The Leafs will never follow the Hawks path or example. At least, not until they get rid of short-sighted front office staff, and GM Brain Burke. The Leafs should have done what the Hawks did 5 years ago, and KEEP your bloody draft picks and rebuild. But no, they're too dumb and stupid and would rather try to get the big name stars (like Kessel, like that worked well) and make it happen now, instead of being patient and rebuilding.

No problem. I'm kinda in to fish biology There are certainly alot of local colloquial names for alot of different fish species. Burbot for example, can be called ling, or ling-cod, or cusk, depending on where you are. I've heard bowfin called dogfish. Where I live now (Vermont), people call brook trout simply "natives" and if you say brookie to them, they don't know what you mean! They also call lake trout "togue". It's different everywhere you go! But the point I often try to make to people when I give presentations on fisheries biology is that when you have two fish that look similar with similar shapes and features, it doesn't always mean they are the same or even related, outside of just being fish! I hear you on the native versus invasive though. One man's garbage ... as the saying goes. Look at rainbows, steelhead and brown trout. All non-natives to eastern North America, and all of North America in the case of brown trout. But we all love to fish for them. Smallies were spread by train car in the early 1900's right across northern Ontario. Who's to say what's right and wrong any more. Man has spread everything pretty much everywhere. There are some I don't think I want in my waters any time soon though, and that includes snakehead and Asian carp!

Art - I'm not sure where you're getting your taxonomic classification information on snakehead and bowfin, but you're way off. All organisms on earth can be classified into the following breakdown: Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species Genus and species are what most anglers with a basic understanding of fish biology would be familiar with. For example, the Genus and Species of some of the fish we go for would be: Largemouth bass - Genus: Micropterus, Species: salmoides Smallmouth bass - Genus: Micropterus, Species: dolomieu Yellow Perch - Genus: Perca, Species: flavescens Northern pike - Genus: Esox, Species: Lucius Muskellunge - Genus: Esox, Species: masquinongy Brook trout - Genus: Salvelinus, Species: fontinalis Lake trout - Genus: Salvelinus, Species: namaycush The K-P-C-O-F-G-S classification breakdown is how scientists describe the relatedness of species. Clearly, largemouth and smallmouth bass are related Species since they share the same Genus. Same as northern pike and muskie, and brook and lake trout. However, you have to go back a step further to see other relations, like yellow perch, and largemouth and smallmouth bass. All 3 species are in the CENTRARCHIDAE Family, which is the sunfish family. Now look at bowfin and snakehead. Northern Snakehead: Kingdom - Animalia Phylum - Chordata Class - Actinopterygii Order - Perciformes Family - Channidae Genus - Channa Species - Argus Bowfin: Kingdom - Animalia Phylum - Chordata Class - Actinopterygii Order - Amiiformes Family - Amiidae Genus - Amia Species - Calva Now look at some bass and trout: Largemouth Bass: Kingdom - Animalia Phylum - Chordata Class - Actinopterygii Order - Perciformes Family - Centrarchidae Genus - Micropterus Species - salmoides Brook Trout: Kingdom - Animalia Phylum - Chordata Class - Actinopterygii Order - Salmoniformes Family - Salmonidae Genus - Salvelinus Species - Fontinalis For interest sake, here's tarpon: Tarpon: Kingdom - Animalia Phylum - Chordata Class - Actinopterygii Order - Elopiformes Family - Megalopidae Genus - Megalops Species - atlanticus As you can see, just about all known fish species fall into the Class Actinopterygii. That's as much relatedness bowfin and snakehead share, because they diverge significantly after that. Yellow perch and largemouth bass are more related than bownfin and snakehead are.

That's not entirely true. It's a cumulative thing. One adult northern snakehead with produce 13,000 to 15,000 eggs per spawn at a frequency of 1-5 spawns per year. One dead snakehead relates to ALOT failed reproductive potential. One angler killing one snakehead - maybe no big deal. But if EVERY angler killed every snakehead they caught, cumulatively, it can add up. Several US states with established snakehead populations have imposed fishing regulations that PROHIBT the live release of snakehead, if caught. It's only the right thing to do with such an invasive species.

I was just reading this book to my 4 year old in bed the other night (ah the glory days of the Leafs), and I happened to notice something about the cover. Check it out - look at the two jerseys the two kids on the right of the cover are wearing!

Coaches Corner is my favourite part of HNIC. I think Cherry's great. He's the rarity in this politically correct world of censored and sterilized news and entertainment we get spoon fed on a daily basis. I think it's refreshing to have someone who's willing to say what he thinks without worrying about what people are going to think or say, and isn't afraid to show frustration and exasperation, and basically get visibly ticked off on live TV when he gets shepherded along a pre-ordained script by McLean and then cut short.