Jonny

A big Roger on that. I just chuckle at all the poor, clueless saps sitting in a 20 car line-up while I motor on by with my travel mug that I filled up at home with my much-better coffee, and maybe a thermos besides. On the rare occasion when I want a store-bought coffee, and Tim`s is the only thing handy, I`ll ALWAYS go inside rather than wait at the drive-thru. I`m in and out and gone while others are still waiting in line. -- Same where I live --- especially if I go to Sturgeon Falls (8 minutes away) rather than North Bay (15 minutes away). Sturgeon has grocery stores, Can. Tire, Beer Store, LCBO, bait shops, 3 building supply stores, a couple of good discount stores, and free parking. Usually no waits for anything. On the other hand, the Tim Horton`s is ALWAYS congested, but since I avoid it like the plague I`m good to go.

C&R is a good thing, but the place to start might be to educate re:, and enforce, limits, seasons, sanctuaries, etc. The mentality (in any quarter or in any group) that the regulations are things to be ignored in the quest for eating fish has to be discouraged and penalized. Once that attitude has been established, and the deterrent is in place for those who are resistant, then C&R might have a better chance of being accepted.

Sure, there's an unfair stereotype obout cops and coffee shops. I have nothing against the boys (and girls) in blue having a coffee --- they need a break just like the rest of us. But if you want a funny picture, Kingston would be the place. The city police station and a Tim Horton's are right side-by-side. In Sturgeon Falls, the town changed one of the intersections to "No Left Turn" specifically because the long line-ups to get into the Tim Horton's drive-thru line-up from the main drag often block the intersection. Now the Timmie's addicts are free to wait in even longer lines unmolested. I don't buy much take-out coffee (huge waste of money if you do it on a regular basis), but I try to do so elsewhere. What ever happened to this neat invention called a "Thermos"?

A while back you joked about wanting to 'rape the resource'. Two of the stories at wawa-news.com show that a few American anglers are doing just that! There are bad apples in every barrel, whether stamped with a maple leaf or "Product of USA". American anglers who blatantly break Canadian catch and possession regulations, or Canadians who do it in the USA, should have their fishing privileges in the host country revoked for life (in addition to hefty fines and confiscations).

Go to Country Style. The coffee's better. Interesting bit of trivia... My wife and I were at the North Bay Country Style one morning getting coffee-to-go as we were making our last stop before heading down the highway to Kingston. There were two OPP cruisers in the lot, the officers sitting inside having a coffee. The interesting thing about it was that the cruisers were parked at the back of the parking lot behind the coffee shop, even thought there were plenty of spaces at the front, closer to the doors. I'll bet it's policy for the officers to park at the back so that the cruisers attract less attention. Watch for it in other places.

Don't try flying in to a remote tourism zone. I don't think they allow fishing access by private planes either.

There are so many possible variables in this story that it's hard to know where to start. But that aside, I'm not unsympathetic to the business plans and projections of outfitters. I believe, however, that their plans and projections should take cognizance of what the long-term plans are for an area (i.e. forest management agreements) and that their planning should be done accordingly. If I were an outfitter and I knew for example that I had a 10-15 year window on a lake, I might build a quite decent outpost. If I knew that I had a 5 year window I would be looking at a more basic structure. Of course if I were in the outfitter's shoes, I would like to build an outpost and have that outpost (and the lake it is on) completely protected for as long as I wanted to run it. But that's just not realistic in areas where multiple land use is expanding. One might say that there is a strong tradition of fly-in outfitting in the North, but there is also a strong tradition of guys working hard (and investing $$$ heavily) at accessing deep woods fisheries. It's one of the key perks of being a year-round resident of the north and making the most of your locale and lifestyle. The idea of business preserves does not sit well with many fishermen, just as it would not sit well to have a commercial fisherman have exclusive access to the fishery on a lake that you can drive to.

Right on! There's no problem as long as all the public users of the resource have equal right of access to the resource, even if the access or use is restricted in certain ways for all equally. Tourism operators are basically public users, not a special sort of category that should have preference. If pushing back the "frontiers" means more public access to lakes that at one time used to be remote, then tourist outfitters need to go with the flow. In that vein, I don't think I would have any problem in granting a sort of "grandfathering" to outfitters, where they would have a few years grace (and protection) before they re-locate. But I firmly believe that outfitters do not have a right, ad infinitum, to hunker down on certain lakes or in certain areas and call those their own. That is what the government is granting them right now, and it's not right.

No of course not, not in our lifetime anyway! A couple of hundred years from now? Who's to say. It's a good thing that the majority of fishermen are law-abiding and do have a sense of conservation. Also, we should give a nod to the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters for the stellar work they do. For those who neglect to respect resources (there are always some of those) we have enforcement. Timmins is relatively close to the Chapleau area. I myself made the trek many times along HWY 101. And Timmins is a good example of an expanding population base hemmed in by lessening fishing opportunities - too may fishermen on too little water. So when you have the gov't and the MNR declare road closures and remote tourism zones, and deny expansion, there's bound to be an outcry. Trouble is, the outcry doesn't reach way down there to Queen's Park.

The Remote Tourism Zones are another aspect of the same problem. --- I don't agree with another poster here that just because some lakes are "wilderness" lakes and are difficult to get to, they should be like that forever. That's the same mentality that drives fly-in outfitters to say that just because they have an outpost on a lake that it is basically theirs for eternity. Population pressures mean that the "frontiers" must expand or else you have a larger and larger population competing for the same resources in already overcrowded and overfished areas. Imagine in the 1930's or 40's if many lakes in the Muskokas had been designated as remote tourism lakes or wilderness lakes, and that the designation was still in place now. A little ridiculous, no?

Bigger and better next year?

I just had a thought... If you used a Bob Dylan-type harmonica mount for your camera, you could mount it on your chest, fish hands-free, and maybe even see the view screen as you're recording. It shouldn't be too hard to copy that kind of frame in heavy wire (coat-hanger?) and adapt it to hold a camera. Your next project!

My wife thinks I'm enough of a techno-dork with some of the things I do. I'm going to have to pass on this one.

JB Weld is great stuff but it dries rock hard. If there's any flex in a seam, automotive windshield adhesive seems like a better idea I thought it was only me seeing that. Very strange.

In the Chapleau Remote Tourism Zones it is not only illegal to access with a motorized vehicle, it is also illegal to fish the zone unless brought in by an outfitter. You can't walk in and fish a little creek for specks, for example, even if the creek is miles away from a lake that houses an outpost camp.

Thanks for a great idea, Cudz. It generated a lot of interest and amusing comment. I thought it would generate a lot more entries as people rose to the sporting challenge, but maybe it wasn't so easy to forsake good equipment even for a little while (I know for me it wasn't). Or maybe the timing just wasn't right for some reason. I wouldn't be surprised if the Dollarama Derby is tried again next summer. I've had second thoughts about chucking out that awful reel; I think I might just store it away in case another opportunity comes up to use it.

I was planning one more shot with the crap gear but it was too windy to get the boat out today. So the reel gets thrown in the trash, the rod gets emergency status or given away, the baits I'll continue to use once in a while.

Enjoyed your report, thanks! That pike looks to be about 15-16 lb. to me.

Fewer issues.

I don't do any elbow-to-elbow river fishing, C2F, so I'm intrigued by this comment. Can you elaborate? I do agree that "meat hunting" (i.e. fishing to eat fish) is not a bad thing. Actually I think it's a little aberrant to fish and NOT eat fish.

No, but it's Quebec.

Very informative. I don't suppose there is much that can be done about it, though, once an invasive species becomes established. It creates a new balance. I wonder if the white bass is classed as a game fish in Michigan. In Ontario it isn't.

Where we live on Nipissing there are no distinct shoals to attract spring fishermen in the first couple of weeks of the season. Fishing the flats off river and creek mouths can be productive too, but it tends to spread the boats out more so they don't get in each others' way. I recall times, however, fishing the Laronde Rocks with my Dad and my Grandpa, where the boats crowded so close together that they were in each other's way. If you started catching pickerel one after the other, other boats would sidle up so close that you couldn't cast, and sometimes even so close that you couldn't properly fight a fish you had hooked. There were some frayed tempers at those times too, as I recall. The other thing I've seen often enough is somebody cutting across your troll lines, even if they can see that you're obviously trolling. It's aggravating but there's no percentage in getting too belligerent. This talk of pushing somebody else into the water is too extreme for me, even though I can sympathize with the thought. It sounds like a great way to ruin your day, as well as possibly being charged. I do like the idea of cutting somebody else's line if it gets tangled with yours more than once or twice because the other fellow isn't paying attention to "personal space".

Thanks, Bernie. So I take it they are built along the same lines and would look somewhat similar to the untrained eye (like mine). I saw a cedar strip a few weeks ago (cruising a few hundered yards from our shore) that looked to be in very nice shape but it was completely painted in a gray and white scheme with a name or logo painted in big letters along the side. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it. I enjoy seeing that kind of boat more than seeing fancy "runabouts", but spotting one is very rare. Yes, from what I recall of my Grandpa's boat, these boats are great for choppy water because of their weight and their lines. They don't bounce or pound like a tin boat. They need a bigger motor to match the speed of an aluminum, but speed isn't everything, and in rough water you can actually travel faster with them. Altogether a better boat for sea-handling qualities, but they require a lot more maintenance, I think. Would I be right in thinking that that's the main thing that puts people off them nowadays?

Great video! It's not unknown for moose to be easily tamed but this is certainly unusual.