Big Cliff

Two things: First; last year in the spring my son came for a visit and we decided to go see if we could catch a rainbow (my son has never caught one before and I was hoping to give him that thrill). We headed down to the ganny thinking that we could get some roe from the local bait shop only to find it was closed, I tried every where I could think of, even asking many of the guys already fishing if I could beg/borrow/buy even one or two roe sacks but not one person was willing to help me out. So, this year I figured I would ask early and see if any of you might have a bit of roe that I could beg/borrow/swap/...... I don't need much, just enough to tie a few row sacks and then let the fishing gods do their will. please! Second; two years ago my son and I did a fly in for walleye and we had a blast, (100 fish was a slow day) he is going to be tied up with work all this summer but I was thinking I would like to do another fly-in/drive-in walleye trip this summer. I was just wondering if anyone was interested in putting something together for a week this spring/summer? If so, let me know what you are thinking. About the only thing I am fussy about is smoking in doors or confined spaces, smoke really chokes me up. other than that I just like to eat, fish, and relax! Big Cliff

Hey guys, Thanks for checking up on me! Been trying to keep myself busy; rented a small apartment up in Noelville for a couple of months and spent a lot of time with the kids. That, spending time with my brother, and life in general has kept me pretty well occupied for the last several months. ?

Welcome back old friend

Ice fishing is the perfect opportunity to learn how to use your fish finder, nice stable platform to work from! As for your transducer unless it's a dual frequency then set your unit to whatever the transducer frequency is (there should be a little tag on the cable that tells you what it is (probably 200 khz) Start off with something larger like a pop can filled with water and tied to a line so you have a good solid target to work with then play with your settings, I like a very high scroll speed because the screen refreshes quickly. Then play with your sensitivity settings and gain settings, when you can see the pop can at whatever depth try something smaller and adjust for that but only adjust one setting at a time until you figure out what works best for each setting then what combination. I would leave the zoom until the very last, I don't use mine a lot because I find it limits the detail on the rest of the water column (although there are times when it is really helpful). Learning how to interpret what you are seeing will really help too, I can't tell you how many guys I have watched trying to understand what they are seeing on the screen. Best thing though is fish with someone that has a unit and knows how to use it properly and will spend the time to help you, it makes the learning curve much shorter!

From what I have been reading there is still lots to do on the South rim even this time of the year, I was sort of thinking of heading that way about the end of Feb. early March, do you think I'd be better of delaying it to April/May?

Fly over would also be one of the things I'd like to do but I have heard that these overnight mule trips can be a lot of fun, anyone on here ever done it> As for "a little off the top" I'd have to do that on the last day because I'd probably be inn jail right after that, you stick one of those things that close to my face and you know I'm going to revert right back to when I was a baby (crying and trying to suck on it )

Totally understand my friend, standing on a pier reeling in fish for a couple of days would probably be more than that shoulder could take anyway! I am actually thinking of doing a road trip to Arizona in a couple of weeks, I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon and take one of the mule tours right down into the canyon, that sort of thing. I may be delaying the Myrtle Beach trip for a few days, they are calling for a storm coming in tonight and into tomorrow. since it looks like I'm going solo this trip it really doesn't matter when I leave anyway.

This trip is therapy

I'm tired of winter and thinking a road trip to Myrtle Beach for some pier fishing (Apache Pier) might be a nice way to spend a bit of time. Daytime temperatures are running between 10 and 17° C so it would be a lot better than here. I was thinking of leaving Lindsay around Monday the 5th and being back home around the 12th (I'm flexible). I'll provide transportation (2018 Corolla) and pay for fuel, you pay for your own food and out of pocket expenses we can share accommodations. (A nice clean room with hot breakfast off the beach is typically about $50.00/ night + tax. If you are interested let me know.

I haven't used any operator but Tim's for years now so I can't make a comparison. I had tried other operators many years ago then found Tim's and wouldn't even consider taking a chance with anyone else. I like the people at Tim's, good safe parking, he moves his huts around on a regular basis and I think his prices are fair. To top it all off, I always catch fish

I remember a few years back when several guys were crying because they had lost a lot of money in the markets. I was one of the fortunate ones and got out before the down turn. Now because of my age I have moved my investments into things like TSFAs and GICs. they don't make a lot but what they do make is enough to supplement my other income and keep me comfortable.

My buddy Jim called me Wed. afternoon, he had Thursday off and wanted to know if I wanted to go out for some perch. My visit with my brother had been cut short so It didn't take any arm twisting to get me to go. Jim booked the hut with Tim Hales and we were good to go. Fishing was pretty much non stop, I can't believe the number of herring we are catching, they seem to be everywhere and their favorite food for some reason seems to be split shot. It was amazing to watch them come shooting in, totally ignore the bait, and nail the split shot. It was actually fun trying to figure out what would work to catch them. Since they would come right up into about 10 or 15' of water you could actually sight fish them which made for a few hours of entertainment. The perch were pretty small for the most part, I have no idea how many we caught but it was plenty, we only kept 15 perch and 4 herring but they were all decent size fish. Watch out for that pressure crack if you are heading out of Beaverton, it extends all the way from the South tip of the island right back to within abut 50 yards of shore well South of Beaverton harbour. We did see one pickup truck out there on the perch grounds but I wouldn't suggest that is a safe option. Oh and I forgot to mention last week when my son and I were out we had a visit from a CO, really nice guy, did the usual checks, a brief chat and he was on his way but it was really nice to see them out there checking. Once again thanks to Tim and the crew for another wonderful day of fishing!

A) Bruce, fantastic product, excellent prices, and a really nice guy! A 3/8 oz jig (white, pink, or orange are my favorite) tipped with a 3" white twister tail is one of my favorite "go to" baits for walleye and pike. There are a million other combinations but I bet I have more jigs in my tackle box than I do all other lures combined.

Working on it Dan and looking forward to it!

I do enjoy fishing solo but I am very fortunate to have a few friends that I really enjoy spending time fishing with and I love sharing the experience with. I also remember a couple of years ago and I was out ice fishing, I slipped and fell, hit my head and knocked myself out cold. I was sure glad I had a buddy with me that day because when I came too I had no idea where I was or what had happened. it took me a couple of hours to shake it off. I could have been in serious trouble had I been alone out there.

Well, we don't get to do it often enough but when we do it's always wonderful. My son came down on Wed. and we booked a hut with Tim Hale for both Thursday and Friday. As always the service was exceptional, the fishing wasn't bad either! Thursday we lost count of the number of fish we caught, the bite was pretty steady with a bit of a lull in the afternoon, there were a lot of smaller fish < 10" but we did catch a nice mess of jumbos as well. We talked to a few of the other guys that were out and they all did reasonably well too. Friday was a whole new experience; it was more of a kids fishing day, the bite was non stop all day with double header after double header but almost all of the fish were small. At one point I was reeling up a small perch and we saw something follow it and attack my sinker. I stopped my retrieve and we watched as 4 or 5 fish came into view and attacked my sinker. I figured they were herring so we tried just suspending a minnow in the area but they wouldn't touch the minnows. Quick change; I had some of the Finess Minnows in my bag so I cut one of them into small chunks and put a piece on the hook. Unfortunately by then the herring had disappeared so I just dropped my line back down to bottom. Within seconds I had another hit, another small perch and as I was reeling it up the herring came back into view (it seemed the struggling perch was attracting them) this time however one of the herring attacked my hook with the small piece of Finess minnow on it. That's when things got really interesting, the action seemed to attract more herring and within minutes we had 4 nice size herring in the pail and a huge school had come into view. The action only lasted for a few minutes and the school moved off again but it sure was fun while it lasted. We did manage to finish off the day with enough fish to satisfy us and provide for a couple of really nice fish frys. We did see one really nice white fish caught from the hut next to us and at one point there was a nice size lake trout swimming around just below the ice but it wouldn't hit. We even had a smelt come right up into the hole and swim around for a quick visit. All in all two wonderful days of fishing and hanging out with my son. Thanks Tim, Kim, Chris and the rest of the gang at Hales for making this another wonderful experience. As a famous politician once said "I'll be back!" :-)

Just saw on Facebook that Tim Hales now has huts out on the perch grounds

Compression checks can be hard to do especially on a unit with a built in decompression valve (which most of them have) I prefer to do a leak down test, that will not only show you IF there is a problem but where the problem is. You can buy a basic leak down tester on line for about $50.00, you'll need access to a compressor and a little basic knowledge (which is easily available on YouTube)

Well I ran Polaris for for 17 years and never had an issue with them, in fact I hauled a lot of other makes out of the bush during that time. I worked my machines hard hauling logs out of the bush and things like that but I didn't abuse them, when I sold them I was quite comfortable selling them to friends. As some others have said "it isn't the miles that are on it that matters, it's how they got there". Know the machine and the person you are buying it from or spend a few extra bucks getting it checked out by someone that does know their stuff.

We did the same thing at Snug Harbour Lew, started with a wood fire place, went to an air tight then after a few years switched that to propane. I actually found that the propane ended up costing less than the wood in the long run especially if you figured your labour into the mix. Good choice!

Ice fishing on Ruby lake up in French River years ago. A pike hits the tip up and I land it. We were just about ready to head for home but I decided to gut it right away. As I do I see movement in it's stomach so I open it up, It's a small perch still alive so I put it back in the water, took a couple of minutes but it seemed fine and eventually swam away. You have to think: what are the odds, that I would be fishing in that spot on that day at that time, that the pike would swallow that perch then would hit my bait right away, that I would elect to gut the pike right away, that I would see the movement, and release that perch.....Moral of the story, no matter how bad things seem don't ever give up hope! Ice fishing Simco many years ago, I had an old Bronco II. My nephew and I were out fishing from Lefroy. Time to head for home we decided to cut across the ice to Big Bay Point where he lived. The ice wasn't very thick so we had the windows down and we were probably doing something around 90. As we are getting closer to shore we see a big sign, we couldn't read what it said so we headed over toward it until we realized it said "THIN ICE". There was a big pressure ridge and as we moved farther down the lake trying to get to shore we finally spotted an opening in the pressure ridge and it looked to be frozen over so we made a b-line for it. Turns out that 2" of ice isn't enough to support a Bronco II but if you are going fast enough by the time the ice does let go you've covered about 15 or 20'. Our front wheels made it to safe ice and thanks to speed and a skid plate so did our back wheels. Poor nephew never did go ice fishing again LOL. Elliott Lake, 6 of us head out on our snow machines, now back in those days a 12 hp was a good sled, they were big, they were slow, and they were heavy, Well, it's -30 or so and the wind is blowing like stink, we're probably 5 or 6 miles from town and we hit slush, I mean really bad slush, over your boots kind of slush. We finally managed to get three of the sleds out but by now we were all soaked and exhausted, By the time we got back to town our boots were so caked with ice we had a really hard time even getting them off. Took a couple of good shots of brandy and a long hot shower just to get our body temperature back up but we all survived. Could have been very different if we hadn't managed to get those three sleds out.

Tim Hales without a doubt! Excellent service, nice huts, and he keeps them on the fish! I also like the safety covers he has for the kids (and unsteady old men )

That's wonderful news, knowing how to fix it yourself is so much better than having someone do it for you ?

Fuel pump???? I don't like to rule anything out until I've seen it with my own eyes but. I don't know how good you are at cleaning carbs but it isn't as easy as " take it apart, dump any dirt out" and you're good to go. It sounds to me like it could be either of two things (or a combination of both) Either your low speed jet is plugged or your carbs are out of adjustment. Also on a multi carb system the carbs need to be properly balanced, have you done that? I don't suspect fuel filter at this point or as has already been suggested you'd be having problems with your high speed too. Can you get the carbs to me, if so I would be happy to go over them for you, make sure they are properly cleaned and balanced and basic settings are correct. You might still have to fine tune them in the spring but it should run pretty close to spec when I get them back to you. Cover any parts and transportation, I'll provide the labor.+

Or you could just get a lot at a park like Riverwood, where you don't have to worry about much of anything. A pool, beach, docking, fishing, boat storage...... Septic, water, community center......