Jonny

Man, like I need another piece of technology to get hooked on! Bad enough I sit in my boat playing Vietnam War-era Huey chopper music.

Wow talk about a tough one for A/C recognition. To me it looks like a 50's era Banshee (which I think is a type that was flown off the HMCS Bonaventure), but I don't know of any flyable examples of that one. *** Nice pics from Orillia, kickingfrog, thanks! I was at one of their air shows a few years back. What a great way to spend an afternoon.

Well, let's do the math - 30# PP, same dia. as 8 lb mono, but the next time I snag a $10 Rapala, I have a chance of getting it back. And the next time, and the next time. I don't try to break free snags with just my bare hands even with 14# XL. Why would I try it with 30# PP? Far be it from me to defend a line I've only just started using, but you have to be rational about certain things.

OK, all good to know. Thanks for the info, Pete. I guess I'll go with some fluorocarbon to play it safe.

Wow, I find that surprising! I couldn't even cut the stuff with a good pair of nail clippers and still had a heck of a time breaking it. But you're the expert, much more than me. I don't know this line.

Here's something else to be concerned about... Visit: http://www.ispeakforcanadianrivers.com/

There's the ticket! Buy two or three and use 'em like disposable razors.

Just about any good-sized fish is good for one more "spooked" run when you get them close. You have to be prepared to let them take that extra run and NOT interfere with it by panicking and grabbing the line, or trying to net tail-first, or any one of a number of mistakes. If you do, it's almost always bye-bye fish!

Battery-pack stuff lasts me two years at the outside, even good quality stuff. I have very little luck with rechargeables of any kind. The only cordless tool I really need at times is a rechargeable drill, so I buy cheap and when the battery fails, the whole thing goes in the garbage.

Throughout my 34 year teaching career in Northern Ontario my students stood at attention and sang the national anthem every morning. As a matter of fact, every once in a while, when the office would play a new version on the P.A., there would be complaints if it was a version that was hard to sing to! Not only that, but in the halls (kids late for class), and in the office, everyone stopped and stood still for the anthem, even if they might not sing it. That's the way it should be - showing some respect for a minute or two. I used to love how my kids' karate classes started too - a moment to think of family, country, and God. When my wife and I first moved to Timmins, the movie theaters would play the national anthem before the first showing. Everyone would stand. I wonder if that happens anywhere any more. It always seemed to me that there was more respect for the old traditions, up north.

The problem with these areas is that they protect not only fly-in lakes with outpost camps on them, but deny fishing opportunities, through existing or future timber access roads, to entire areas - creeks, small lakes, forest good for hunting. I can buy lots of things if they treat all users of the resource equally. So it sounds like we're much the same. I have seen too many examples of outfitters thinking that they have a right to a resource and nobody else does. Not only that, but they think that, for them, time stands still. What was a remote area once might not be a remote area in 20 years, but they still think they should be the only ones with access. It's OK if everybody else gets squeezed, as long as they can maintain their "preserve".

Well true enough, gentlemen, it all depends on the kind of fishing you're doing, and your preferences. My line of choice for various applications has been 10# to 14# Trilene XL for years. The 30# PP is a new thing to me, and I'll see how it works out. I like to fish without leaders if I can, and I figure this line might stand up to pike fishing w/o a leader. I may lose a little casting distance compared to lighter tests of PP, but I fish from a boat (very seldom from shore), so if I want to get closer to something, I move the boat! Trolling depth, I would just use a deep-digging lure, but this setup is not primarily for trolling. For that I have an Abu-Garcia Ambassadeur on a medium/heavy rod. Sensitivity, yes, some sacrifice there, but based on my very limited experience, this stuff seems to "telegraph" better than mono just the same. It reminds me a bit of having 300' of steel line out for lakers and being able to tell if you're hitting rocks, gravel or soft bottom. Well, not like having your own reel with its own history, but ebay might be the place to look for one! I've bought lots of stuff there.

Define "light". This Mitchell, and an older 301, on a medium rod, have accounted for some "heavy" fish, including in saltwater. Snags? Would you try to break off a snag with the rod-and-reel? I would use a leather work glove or take a couple of wraps around my gaff and pull until the hook straightens, the knot breaks, or the snag comes up with the lure. Power Pro 30# is the same diameter as 8# mono. It's supposed to be less prone to "tuck under" on your reel under a heavy load, and as I'm finding out it still casts like stink. Why not use a heavier (higher-rated) line if it works?

Wire-lining for lakers on Wawa Lake a few years ago, I thought I had hooked a small one. It turned out to be the sole of a running shoe. I took a day or two of merciless ribbing from the guys about catching a "freshwater sole".

Like in a lot of areas, the MNR (government) relies on short attention span and NIMBY to defuse criticism of poor policy. Something like pike in the Kwarthas eventually meets the same fate as access elitism in the North. A flurry of criticism dies out after the MNR holds meetings and accepts letters, and then it's back to business as usual for them. Any bureaucrat loves nothing more than to be left alone.

Good to know. I caught one 2 lb. OOS smallmouth that I would have kept had it been next week! Sexy lookin' line...

A few days ago I "revitalized" my old Mitchell 301A spinning reel. Yesterday I spooled it with 30 lb Power Pro (red), and took it out for some drift fishing and casting. Well-behaved on the reel, good feel for the bottom. And can that stuff ever cast! I'm liking it so far. Thanks for the opinions in the other thread, guys. My only problem with this PP is that I find it hard to see against the water (polarized sunglasses or not). Maybe the choppy conditions I was out in.

I know you feel some guys were trying to tear a strip off you, but I think you made your point a while back already. I'm one of those (unskilled) SMB fishermen too. But I could say (from personal experience) that you haven't fished until you've landed a 35 lb chinook on a windy day on Superior, or worked you ass off fighting thru tag-alders to tease creek specks out from under fallen logs and cut-under banks. But I wouldn't. To each his own. When you've got your system down right for a particular species, you meet success, but there should generally be no snobbishness to it if you're talking to other people who just plain enjoy fishing.

Great pictures, even without a polarizing filter! We've got lamprey in Nipissing too, which I didn't know for sure til I actually saw one during ice fishing a couple of years ago. Can't remember what kind of fish the guy took it off of.

We were trolling for pike.

Flying in a DHC Beaver --- quintessential Canadian bushplane --- nice! It could be a chub. More likely a lake chub than a creek chub. Creek chub has a black spot at the base of the caudal (tail) fin. Lake chub and creek chub are proper I.D. names. There's also a river chub, and several more distinct species. However, chubs average only about 4" long. If I gauge the size of your fish correctly from the photo, it's considerably larger than that. If I'm properly seeing a small darker area at the base of each scale, and if the fish is more like 10-12" long, it could very well be a fallfish. "Large adults, quite silvery in overall appearance, are usually called silver chub by trout fishermen who catch them unintentionally... at times [they] cause considerable annoyance, especially if they occur in numbers. Since adult fallfish attain weights in excess of 1 pound, they may be fished for sport in their own right. The flesh is firm, white and sweet." --- From "Freshwater Fishes of Canada"

Pyrotechnics. At least it wasn't next to the gas can!

Who made the rule about what you can call your personal best and OOS fish not qualifying? Personal best is kind of self-explanatory. I was trolling shoals and weedlines today and picked up two 2 lb smallmouth (and released them). If one of them had been bigger than any SMB I had ever caught before, you can bet I'd call it my "personal best". I'd say give the guy a break. He isn't going to break the bank, fishing from a dock, with a 100 ft cast radius, and releasing everything he catches. If he says he was hoping for a pike or two it might be neighbourly to just take him at his word, instead of coming on like a Conservation Officer looking for an infraction.

I posted this recently in another thread, but here's a great site with videos... http://videofishingknots.com/basic-fishing-knots.html

When you're by yourself, the gas tank is best to be full, ahead of the middle seat if possible, and on the port side, to balance your weight to the starboard. Your battery should be on the port side for the same reason. You want to distribute the weight forward and to port as much as possible to keep the boat level, especially if it's windy.