DRIFTER_016

Seems there is a rule in the forum setup that renames the acronym for "People Eating Tasty Animals" to P3TA.

what next!!??? Lakebunnies?....lol....that wont work ...we shooot bunnies up here.

And Kittens died Black work great trolled for Muskies!!!!!!

Hey, has anyone seen this yet? This is just out of control!

Save the Sea Kittens

This is a notice to all you Parents, Teachers, Coaches etc. who fish and love the outdoors to teach your kids about fishing and the outdoors before they are brain washed into being an ANTI!!!!!!!

! am a new sledder myself. Last year I purchased my first sled. When researching my purchase I had different criteria than you. One of the most important things I wanted in a sled was dependability and good gas mileage thus I was looking at 4 stroke machines. Where I live gas is down to $1.224 which is cheaper than when I bought it last year. Another important criteria was comfort and that is why I bought a long track. I can ride 100 miles and not even feel stiff. In Ontario you will find mostly short track machines as most sledding is done on groomed trails (non of those here ) or lakes. Long track machines float better in deep snow so if you plan on getting off the beaten path a long track would be a better choice.

As for engine size 500 or 600 cc's would be a good place to start. Me..........I went all out and bought a 1000cc model!!!

Bigger isn't always better though. The smaller sleds are lighter and easier to man handle when you get stuck. Notice I didn't say if. It will happen and when it does you will be happier with a lighter machine.

This year I bought a winch for mine (I travel alone a lot and being able to get out of a jam is important when you're 100 miles from the nearest town)

Don't forget to look into a trailer as well to get your sled to where ever you want to use it.

Plenty of places closer than St. Kitts.

Bronte in Oakville, The Credit in Mississauga, Duffins in your neck of the woods, Oshawa Cr.

Grab yourself a map and a copy of the regs for finding areas with extended seasons.

Pretty much any trib from Niagara Falls to Port Hope and beyond has fishable #'s of trout and salmon running them.

Don't think of it as SNOW think of it as RUBE REPELLANT!!!!!! Snow and Cold get rid of all the Lugans on our precious steelie streams!!!!

Snowing in Yellowknife.

It's really easy to get them during their spawning run, but I'm not sure how ethical it is.

Single egg recipe:

1 tablespoon of crystal Drano to 1 litre of water. Add food

colouring [optional]. Usually takes about 10 minutes for roe to cure, but

continually check with the point of a hook until desired consistency is

reached. Immediately rinse with water. Keeps in fridge for about 2 to 3

weeks, seemingly forever when vacuum-packed in the freezer.

Stonefly Nymphs and Hellgarmites can be had by turning over rocks in the stream and catching them.

Watch out for the pinchers on Hellgramites though.

when I used to fish Wilmot and had super clear cons. I would downsize my float, use a single egg and super light leaders (think 3/4 to 2 pound test)

I hooked a ton but didn't land too many. :wallbash:

I used to catch a lot of muskyies in Little Bald trolling tandam blade 1/2 oz spinnerbaits in blue and yellow right through the weed beds. The channel between Big and Little Bald has produced a lot of fish casting spinnerbaits to the shore and retrieving to the channel and letting it fall down the face of the weeds.

There are a lot more dangerous things than fishing alone. Just driving the 401 you are risking your life every time you are out!!!!!!

I do most of my fishing and hunting alone. I camp alone in Grizzly country and the waters I fish will cause hypothermia in a heartbeat. If you use common sense and are prepared you get to live.

In the winter I will take my snowmobile 100 miles from civilization to hit some Laker hotspots, if you are prepared for any problem that might come up it is not nearly as risky as it may sound.

When I'm just out for the day I make sure I have everything I need to survive if something should happen

Dude, it's time to ask Santa for a WINCH for Christmas!!!!!

Thanks for the quick responses, im assuming i can buy aquaseal at BPS or crappy tire?

LeBarons or BPS will have it.

No need for a patch unless it's quite big. Just use a piece of tape on the inside to temporarily hold the cut together and use Aqua Seal to repair the tear.

Apply the Aqua Seal so it gets into the cut and 1/4" or so around the cut on the outside. Wet your finger and smooth out the glue. When cured (overnight) remove the tape and seal the inside with Aqua Seal.

It will be stronger than the original. Don't go overboard with the Aqua Seal you only want enough to do the job and strenghten the immediate area.

Definately sad news. I also saw them a bunch of times. They were always a hit at the Sheridan College dances in the early 80's as well as Sharkey's.

I was playing their stuff on my drive to and from Alaska last month, Great Driving Music.

Rest in peace Frankie you will be missed.

The funny thing is that's not an exaggeration LOL!

 

But c'mon buddy don't lie, you miss it.

Are you telling me that if you could teleport yourself to the ghetto from your igloo in the north pole when you're jonesing for chrome you wouldn't do it?

If i could teleport myself any where it would be places like The Vedder, Bulkley and Situk to name a few. The Ghetto or Dirt would not be on my list!!!!

I couldn't stand that traffic any more so I got the heck outta dodge!!!!!!

I now have a 10 minute commute during rush hour...............er minute!!

I even head home for lunch something I haven't done since the early 80's.

Life is good again.

Since I moved here I no longer have stress..........I think I even have a new hair or two growing in!!!!!!

I work not far from the "dirt" and a buddy of mine and I went down on lunch to see the circus. It didnt disappoint. This pic is from about an hour ago. It wasnt too bad down there as far as crowds, in comparison to a saturday morning. Take this pic and add two guys in between each one you see, thats a saturday morning on a sllow day. I didnt get the east shore just to the left in teh photo, but it was lined up double what you see on the opposite shore. And yes, the guys on the shore not shown....... lob right out to the feet of the guys you see wading in the middle lol. It gets pretty insane. Its normally 2 bucks to park but i told the lady i had no gear and was just going for a walk and she let me in free of charge. This lot is the only access besides , as solo said, throwing a canoe in at the harbour and paddling up in the slack water, as that is all you will find until you get to the tressle at Burt. Pond water. Not bad pike water in the summer.

 

In short, theres many other places to spend your time down here this time of year, but if you dont want to hunt around,.....stick to some of these more popular areas, just wait till december when all the fair weather anglers are keeping warm inside.

 

I remember that zoo!!!

Not to mention the ghetto in Rochester!!! Nothing like having to negotiate the Crack HO's to get from the parking lot to the river!!!!

I don't miss it at all.

well there was plans to build a 2.5 mile oval at mosport but it got shot down by council involving noise issues

Talladega North!!! That would have been sweet!!!

Mike, do you have any more pics dood? I keep surfing this post but would love to see new photos of this trip. Do you have a link to any pics that Joe took?

 

Thanks

p.-

Ask and ye shall recieve!!

Here's a bunch more from Mike's camera.

A sweet dolly

Fish On!!!

Pinkie on the fly.

More generic Alaskan scenery.

Mid river bow.

A couple of fat HO's and fish too!!!

Action shot.

And a link to a few of Joes PICs.

http://www.questoutdoors.net/phpBB2/viewto...f=18&t=3881

Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what the peperoni pizza bill would be after 4 years!

Not to mention the Twinkie costs!!!!!!!!!

Amazing fishing report/trip !! those rivers look soooo,niceeee.. .and so much wildlife too,glad to hear about everyone getting to know center pin fishing as well,thanks for sharing,man all that scenery,im not sure i would ever want to come back home !!! do the big salmon run those rivers as well,where you were fishing?? cheers

The river is the Kenai and yes it does get a ton of salmon.

The salmon season starts in May when the first run of Kings come in. Next In June the Sockeye salmon start to return. Followed by the second run of Kings in July and the second run of sockeye in August. In even years like this year the river sees a large run of Pink salmon. Finally in late August the Silver salmon start to return. The world record King (97#) came from this river. The second run Sockeye and Silvers are larger than the first run fish.

This trip we caught Silvers to about 17 pounds all other salmon are pretty much done by September and not worth fishing for, unless you like boots.

I orginally posted this as an addition to Solopaddlers Alaskan post but Mike said it needed to be posted on it's own. So here we go.

This years trip started out like the previous five trips. Leave Yellowknife at dawn and start the 3000km trip to South Central Alaska. My route heads south to the McKenzie HWY where I turn west onto the Laird HWY which is 700km of dirt!!!

Pulling into Fort Liard to gas up and had to deal with rush hour traffic!!

On the ALCAN in Northern BC heading into the Northern Rockies.

Once I'm on the Kenai Peninsula this is home

As Mike said the Sockeye returns were down 1/2 million fish so there was a lot less food in the water for the Upper Kenai bows and dollies. This is one of those fish that was malnourished.

Here's Eric (Alaska's Simms & Sage rep) with another skinny trout.

This day with Eric turned out to be one of my most exciting and memorable days ever. We had walked into this hole from the Highway. Not a long journey but a portion is through some bear infested bush. As we were heading out, just about step up onto the bank about 10 yards away a brown bear was coming our way just stepping over a downed tree. By the time she noticed us and stopped she was about 5 yards away!!!

So there we were 15 feet from the biggest bear I have ever seen!!! I had my fishing rod in my right hand and my left on the bear spray in it's holster. Luckily she was not agressive and I never even removed it from it's holster. It was very cool to be that close to a bear that was estimated at 10 feet and 100 pounds (by some of the local guides, I guessed it at 800 or so pounds but I didn't bring my scale )

I wish I was able to get a photo when she was standing in front of the log but didn't have a free hand at the time.

In 2003 I met alot of people who had never seen center pin gear and spent alot of time explaining it's use and extolling it's virtues for fishing rivers. One of the first I explained the gear to my a fellow named Paul. I met him on the Anchor River while steelhead fishing. He was fishing the top of a run and I asked if he minded if I dropped in below him. He said go ahead. I made a couple of drifts and he asked about my setup. I showed him how I could fish water that he couldn't using his fly gear. I flipped my float under some over hanging willows protecting the undercut bank across from me, the float moved down stream a bout 15 feet before dissapearing beneath the surface!!! Minutes later I had a 34" buck steelie at my feet. Little did I know what I had done to this poor fellow!!! I met him again the following year and he had a center pin!!!! This was the beginning of the corruption of the Alaskan fly fisher. I call Paul patient zero. LOL

Now 5 years later there are CP fishermen starting to show up here and there. Paul was a fly fishing guide and instructor and had fly fished for more than 30 years. He has now sold all his fly rods and replaced them with 13 and 15 foot float rods.

My first day of fishing on the Kenai in 2003 was with a guide named Guy Quinten. We went out a couple of times after that initial guided trip as he wanted to see this strange gear I told him I would use after our fly fishing trip. He was amazed at the super long drag free drifts. We reunited this year and I spent some time teaching him how to cast and handle the outfit. Hehehe.............another fly fisherman converted!!!!

Thankfully not all the upper river fish were as anorexic as those first couple.

Another of my Alaskan friends, this is Mike and his Golden Retriever Buddy.

While sitting in our pontoons taking a break we heard come branches snap behind us..........BEAR.....nah Moose.

Next day in the same spot

A little while later a family of otters came out of the same spot.

Another friend Tony spends the summers fly in guiding in south central and winters guiding heli skiers in Valdez.........rough life huh?

Tony and I had our own bear encounter. We were fishing on an island and this 500-600 pounder repeatedly tried to come and see us, but he finally got tired of us yelling at him and left.

Here's a couple of new friends Chuck from Anchorage who I had been in contact with on another board prior to this years trip.

And Ricky, a friend of Chuck's who has completed the Iditarod dog sled race 4 times. Both he and Chuck are transplanted Western Newyorkers. Go figure.....