setomonkey

Yup, it's a good finesse technique for multiple species, I don't use it much because I like moving around and casting too much, but I've caught fish with it when nothing else was working... Mike

Nice, congrats on the outing... Mike

I use Seaguar for my fluoro leaders. I wouldn't recommend spooling fluoro as your main line, I did that once and found the line was stiff and had a lot of memory coming off the spinning reel. Mike

Congrats to you, quitting smoking is a real achievement! Mike

I hope they don't, they do allow motors on Opeongo, maybe a few other entry-point lakes, but not in the backcountry lakes. Mike

Hmmm, I'm sure somebody else will point out that's an interesting topic for a first post... So I'll just welcome you to the board. Mike

I don't do it, but my brother-in-law has gotten into it. I had no idea there are something like a dozen, maybe more, caches just in High Park in Toronto. We take our dog to High Park for walks most weekends, and he's (the b-i-l, not the dog) has already shown us two of them. Mike

Hmmm, the 1st... I wonder what the CO will be able to say about that monster goby... Mike

Amazing, another great report from the North... Mike

Happy birthday Monique! TJ: It was great having you around. Mike

Hey, happy birthday Dave! We didn't make it out on the ice this winter, maybe we'll get out on the open water once the ice is fully out and the seasons start opening. Mike

Nice trout, congrats on the 1st for 2007... Mike

Sounds like a fantastic vacation, my wife and I were in Cozumel last September for a friend's wedding, and spent about five days in total. Didn't do any fishing, so at least you got to do some surf-casting. I also remember the big difference between the east side of the island, which is almost entirely undeveloped, and the west side, which is lined with resorts & villas. Saw lots of locals enjoying the beach the day we rented a car and headed to the east side. Mike

Big perch, alright... I read the article too, interesting to learn a little about the techniques they use in the UK. Mike

Oh yeah, add Labrador for giant brookies to my list! It would also be cool to fish for exotic (to me) species all over the world, so that would include fishing in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia. I remember browsing an Asian fishing forum once and reading threads about freshwater & saltwater fishing in Thailand. Mike

There are lots of dream trips that I won't be able to afford unless I get lucky: 1. Peacock bass and other species on the Amazon. 2. Largemouth in Cuba or Mexico. 3. Spring pike in northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario. 4. Lakers & grayling in the Northwest Territories. 5. Bonefishing in Belize. Mike

Happy birthday Wayne! Mike

Somebody mentioned in another thread that the Islands were still frozen, but that's third-hand at best, and it's been warm the last few days. Ask snog, he's been catching some nice pike from Lake O. Maybe he'll tell you. Mike

Nice trout pics, congrats on a successful outing... Mike

The armed forces' Mars-bar brigade Kind contributions by Canadian soldiers TIMOTHY J. DUNNE Occasionally, an event happens that appears to be almost trivial, with not much to set it apart from the environment in which it happens, but it ends up being profound. In September, 1995, I arrived in Zagreb, Croatia, as the senior public affairs officer of the Canadian contingent to the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Balkans. When I recovered from jet lag and completed the military's arrival procedures, I arranged to visit the other Canadian public affairs officers assigned to our two battle groups. Within two weeks, I accompanied a Canadian military convoy from our logistics battalion in Primosten, on the Adriatic Coast, to Visoko, Bosnia-Herzegovina. My colleague (the public affairs officer assigned to the Canadian battle group) and I spent a week together and travelled throughout the Canadian area of responsibility. One morning, we went to a forward operating base at Kiseljak, and joined several other Canadians from the Cinquième Régiment d'artillerie légère du Canada, from Valcartier, Que. The officer in charge, Captain François Giroux, took me to the small tuck shop at the Canadian outpost where he and other members of his team bought all the Mars bars that were available. The person serving at the tuck shop told me quietly that it does a phenomenal business in candy bars. We drove through a checkpoint. The soldier looked at our identification cards and waved us through with a smile. Within a few minutes, we arrived at Drin to visit the local infirmary for some 400 mentally challenged people of all ages. The young captain quietly said: "Be prepared to cry a little." The hospital was the focus of some brief Canadian television coverage in the early 1990s, when the Bosnian battle line passed through the area, forcing the staff to flee and leaving the patients to fend for themselves. The Canadian troops at Visoko discovered their plight during a patrol. Our troops buried 25 of the children who were killed before they could be rescued. They were given individual graves behind the hospital, each one marked with an anonymous metal peg since no one knew their names. These children went to their God without anyone knowing who they were. We visited the directrice of the infirmary who served us thick Bosnian coffee and spoke to us through an interpreter. She spoke of the Canadian rescue, of the bravery of the soldiers, and how they stayed until the staff returned to resume their responsibilities. The Canadians cut firewood, swept floors, cooked, and changed diapers until they were relieved. The directrice spoke of the battle group's continuing relationship with the children of the infirmary. Canadian troops who were deployed to the Balkans worked seven-day weeks, and were given several "72-hour passes," or long weekends, during their six-month tour. Many of the troops spent their rare long weekends at the infirmary, cutting wood, cooking and doing laundry for these same patients, and often simply playing soccer with the kids, and keeping them company. When she spoke of these kind-hearted soldiers, she fixed me with her gaze and called them, in English, "My Canadians." As we walked through the facility, we were constantly swarmed by children demanding candy. It took no time to be depleted of our supply of Mars bars. These children who were so badly abused by others in military uniforms were able to recognize the uniform and the Canadian flag that each soldier wears on his or her left shoulder as different, and non-threatening. The tour continued: There was a four-month-old son of two patients. No one knew if the boy were also mentally handicapped; he was too young to assess. I picked him up and carried him with me for the rest of the visit. His smile and good nature hinted that he would have no difficulty when assessed. We turned into another ward with about 30 children with various levels of disabilities. As soon as Capt. Giroux spoke, I heard squeals coming from one of the beds to the right. A girl, about 6 or 7, was making a lot of noise; when the nurses and their assistants saw the captain, they smiled. He went right to the young girl and started to speak with her. She was completely paralyzed, her body was straight and her head was locked to the right. He stroked her hair and rubbed her cheeks, and said to me, "This is my girlfriend, my sweetie." His voice soothed her and she loved the attention, despite the incredible language gap between his English and her Serbo-Croatian. This was how he spent so many of his brief, but frequent, visits to the infirmary. The staff was too small and too busy to give her this level of attention. He had his family send bed linen featuring Sesame Street characters for his young friend, and he passed some of his time pointing at Big Bird or Cookie Monster and telling her their English names. Other times, he would just sit and talk to her, stroke her hair, touch her cheeks, and hold her hand. We left the infirmary that day and I continued the rest of my familiarization visit to the Canadian battle group. A short visit to a hospital for mentally challenged people isn't normally a significant event, and this isn't the first time that I saw Canadian soldiers assisting in this way. There is a lot of discussion about military forces working to gain the hearts and minds of people in areas where they are deployed, but for these Canadians, there was no effort to win hearts and minds. Theirs were quiet, personal contributions, not by the Canadian military contingents in support of civil-military affairs, but by individual Canadian soldiers in support of a deeper, more personal imperative. Now retired, Timothy Dunne lives in Dartmouth, N.S.

Hmm, I thought that sounded familiar, Wayne. jk, it's hard to stay away from OFC for long... Mike

I've read different threads on OFC about this, and the musky guys seem to be consistent in identifying Georgian Bay, Nipissing, Lake O, or the St. Lawrence. Can't imagine it would be in the Kawarthas, Weeds, the general opinion is that you can get numbers but not size there. But what do I know, I've only hooked two muskies (so far)... Mike

white, pearl, & smoke. Mike

I like to fish for bass but not too much overlap with the Best list. I like using spinnerbaits, topwaters, plastic worms, Senkos, and flipping jigs. Haven't used tubes much, I keep meaning to use them more. Mike

wallacio reminded me that the chlorine dioxide solution doesn't have any taste, in fact it's the same kind of chemical that many water treatment systems use (according to the advertising). Mike