porkpie

It was an interesting night to work last night, and an even nicer drive home this morning. Last night we could barely see the road in front of us. This morning wasn’t much better. I stopped 4 times for cars and trucks in the ditch on the way home and still saw people driving way faster than they could ever react for the conditions. And they wonder why they’re in the ditch.

I to grew up pickerel fishing. That’s what my grandpa called them. I don’t think I knew what a walleye was until I started reading Ontario Fisherman. I still fish for pickerel and I still hunt partridge from time to time. That’s not about to change because of some biologist!

That was awesome!! We just played it in the hut LOL, good for a morning laugh!

I’m only doing the smaller tackle swaps now. I’m done with the sportsman and the fishing shows. Too much money and not a whole lot going on!

Maybe I have a bum unit, but like crappieperchhunter, I haven’t been too impressed with my foodsaver.

This is the most important consideration of all. Will your work situation change in the next couple of years, and should it would it be crippling to you.

BFG’s are a little bit noisy, I’ll give you that, but I’ve done a lot of highway miles and you tune it out. They are winter rated and have the snowflake on the sidewall, they are also pretty darn good when the road is rough. Wear factor is pretty good and my wife has driven them into just about every curb imaginable and the sidewalls are still holding up!

Sometimes I move, depend on how bad the weather is. If it’s reasonable wearer I might move a lot to find active fish. I’ve used sonar of some sort ice fishing for about 20 years now. Started with old greyscale units and then went to a flasher and now using a helix. The sonar is a must in my opinion. It shows you fish and their reaction to baits. If finally got a camera this year. The camera has kind of blown my mind. I’ve literally watched perch hit a bait and not even move a spring bobber. You wouldn’t have any idea it happened unless you saw it on camera. It’s also kind of opened my eyes a bit to fish behaviours. It will never replace sonar for me, and If I only had one choice it’s sonar every day. Point is when they are negative they may actually hit your baits but you might not even know it. I had believed this in the past, but now I know it for sure. It’s also cool to watch fish go from negative and belly in the dirt, to active, and then almost frenzied as the day progresses and feeding windows start. If you can swing a sonar in the budget, you’ll eliminate a lot of dead water.

I have about 85k on BFG all terrains on my F150. Still have quite a bit of meat on them and they’ve been great tires. I ran them on my old Chevy before also. Never had a problem. I have to say that 123k on your stockers is pretty darn good!

I’m off Rayners right now. Little to no water on top by now. Wind is gusting to 40k and things have stiffened up a bit. There are a couple of wet cracks to cross but they’re pretty safe with a few open holes. Wear cleats. Ice will be great on Thursday.

Get yourself a long piece of bungee cord from TSC, and tie it to one side of that tent. Whenever your setting up put an anchor in the ice first and then hook the cord to it. It will let you secure the hut from the wind while still having lots of flexibility to set up. Nice hut, I have a woods portable shack also and it’s probably as good a quality as any of the others!

Thats a nice lookin shack, and a nice fish too!

I don't have a mount for mine, and I drive some heavy water on a regular basis.. I do slide the height adjustment collar all the way to the bottom and tighten it down when running in rough seas. At least that way if I did have an accidental deployment hopefully I'll be able to slow down without the motor hitting the water.

I agree with the others. Just before I sold my old 16 foot boat I was considering upgrading to an 80lb terrova because of all the trolling I do. I measured the difference on the boat and storage wouldn’t have been a problem and it would make no difference to me if there where 6 inches extra sticking up. I wouldn’t cut it.

You could try Aikmans in Mississauga and Rocky’s in Orillia. I believe Rocky’s in Orillia is an authorized service centre. I’m not sure if aikmans still is.

Sent you a pm

It’s all relative to what you can afford and how involved in your chosen sport. Fishing is my main hobby, and I spend as much time on the water as I can. At this point I buy the best I can afford because I know it’s going to get hard use. There is a cost versus gain point though. Some gear is very expensive with no noticeable increase in performance. A cheap baitcaster doesn’t cast very well, is prone to birdsnesting, will have cheaper gears and overall performance will be noticeably less than a higher end item. A good entry level baitcaster that will last a long time is a Shimano Citica. But you’ll do just fine with an abu Garcia silver max until you eventually upgrade. The curado line from Shimano was mentioned and it’s probably a reel you could buy now and fish with for 20 years without upgrading. But it’ll cost you more too. If I only had $100 to spend I’d probably buy an abu silver max. If I had $200 to spend I’d get a Shimano citica. It goes up from there. Also, if you haven’t run a baitcaster a whole lot I’d learn with mono as it’s cheaper, but perhaps you’ve been using one for a while?

Havent used spiderwire in a long time. Power pro just works so I stick with it. On a lot of spinning reels and some casting I put mono backing. On trolling reels I only put enough mono to prevent spool slip. Also, tough line like Limey mentioned is really good stuff. It used to be easy to fine at Lebaron way back but then disappeared from shelves here. I still have on casting rig with a spool of tough line that has been reversed once, had a few feet cut off here and there but still going strong probably 12 years later. I use fluorocarbon lead.

Get yourself some original power pro and live happily ever after!

Sweet motor, enjoy!

Your going to have to order a replacement tent from Clam, unless you stumble across someone selling one on Kijiji. I’ve never seen a retailer carrying replacement tents. I suppose your local tackle shop could order one in, but at that point you may as well order direct.

Yeah side scan is pretty amazing. We used it last summer to mark suspended fish on Erie, drop a waypoint on them, turn the boat over them and whammo. It was pretty cool. Very nice to be able to find rockpiles and structure off the side as well!

Very nice build!

Holy schmoly. Thats uuuuuggggeeee

Couple things, I have a very deep 18.5 foot boat. I run my kicker with 80lb terrova for steering all the time. The autopilot is by far the best feature of the minn kota for a troller. I don’t even have a bow sonar because at least 70% of my time is spent trolling. I might put my helix up front at some point but I just haven’t got around to it. The only time I really miss it is when vertical jigging. Unless it’s very windy, then the 80lb terrova is fine. Really I just bump the throttle on the kicker if I need more. If I was planning to just troll on the minn kota then it might be a problem on windier days with the 80. Absolutely spend the money on the Minn kota. It’s the best cash a troller in a tin boat can spend. I use spotlock, but only when fishing vertical for perch or jigging. It doesn’t factor in as much as I thought it wouldn’t but definitely useful!