Andy

I smoke meat on a Weber Smoky Mountain regularly. I love it, especially on a Sunday during football season. Fire it up and smoke away while having a few pops and watching the games.

My favorite meats are ribs (4-6 hrs), pulled pork shoulders (8-10 hrs), salmon(2-2.5 hrs), brisket (about 6-8 hrs), and steak (about 30 minutes then finish on BBQ).

There are lots of great rub recipes online, most fairly similar and most featuring common spices you already have on hand.

My favorite woods so far are cherry, pecan and maple. I only use a couple of decent sized pieces of wood.

I prefer versions of the 3-2-1 method. I usually start with the meat unwrapped for 2 hrs while the wood is really smoking, then wrap in foil until about 1/2 hr to 1 hr before done at which time I unwrap the meat for little firmer bark.

I don't use water in the WSM. I have a clay flower pot base that I wrap in foil and slide into the bowl. I then cover the boil with foil so that is has a bit of a hollow in it. This catches the grease dripping from the meat. When you are done, you simply pull off the top layer of foil and the bowl stays clean. Easier to keep the temp up when the weather is cold too because you are not heating up any water.

Don't hesitate to wrap potatoes and carrots in foil with a little butter, salt, pepper and whatever else you like. Put the potatoes on for the last 2 hrs or so and the carrots for the last 1 1/2 or so. They are amazing and you have done everything on the smoker. (rutabaga, beets, any firm veg will work great)

Have fun. Andy

I'll let you know in a week or so. I sent in an order a couple of days ago, and although I received a confirmation number, I don't think it's been shipped yet. I have ordered from the Canadian site in the past. I can't remember if I received a notice that it was shipped, but I did get my order in the mail without any problems. So I suspect you will just have to be patient and it will come.

The prepaid credit card for online purchases if a great idea. You only lose what you have put on it.

1. For online purchases, stick with reputable big name companies if you can. I deal with Cabela's, Bass Pro, Rollie and Helens Musky shop, and other reputable retailers. I still like to call a company first and talk to a real person who understands my language and what I'm talking about. (without getting politically incorrect)

2. Have and use a credit card with a very low limit and use that credit card specifically for internet purchases. It's not like you'll ever purchase items worth many thousands of dollars sight unseen over the internet. This way if your card info is stolen or used inappropriately, your losses are minimized by your low limit.

3. Be careful who you give the code to at the back of the card. Again, you should deal with creditable companies. If you are scammed or your info is stolen and used, the financial institution will often refund the loss. But I have heard of more cases recently where the bank or credit card will not reimburse you after you have given up all your info to some scammer. Although misled, you did so voluntarily and it's considered your problem. Same goes for if you give your debit card PIN to someone and they make unauthorized withdrawals from your account.

4. Nigerian scams often involve wire money transfers. Be very cautious when asked to forwarded any funds thru a wire transfer. You can consider that money gone for good if you have been scammed. Occasionally the money is picked up in Ontario and you may have a very slim chance of finding out who picked up your money, but if it's outside of the province or outside the country, you are screwed.

Musky Hunter is on WFN at 2 pm on Saturdays. The same episode will be aired again during next week, I can't remember the day and time off hand. Most of the show Jim was throwing Cowgirls and Bill was throwing a crank bait that looked like a Big Game twitch bait in white perch. They were throwing at the shoreline and they talked about the usual stuff like weeds, weed lines and points. A number of fish were caught after prolonged figure 8s. It was unbelievable how many times they had to go around for a couple of the fish they nailed. Water was stained pretty good.

Today's Musky Hunter episode was on LOTW with Bill Sandy. It was worth watching, especially if you are going to be fishing there. Double 10s are obviously a go to lure. Saric says he favours a selection of double 10s, a couple shallow invaders, a black bulldawg, a jerkbait ( he pushes Phantoms) and a shallow raider crankbait.

Having a basement full of lures, if I had to start again I would get....

1. An okuma musky rod, heavy action in the 7' 4", 7' 6" or 8' length. All just a little over $100.00. I have the 7' 4" that I use for jerkbaits. It's a little stiff for smaller bucktails, but it will work for pretty much anything, including smaller bulldawgs. I would avoid a 9' rod for a first rod.

2. Abu Garcia Revo NaCl Toro, the 50 size. Great all purpose reel if you can afford it. Other reels I use and like are the Curado 300 and the Okuma Citrix. The Okuma Komodo also looks good.

3. 9 inch weighted firetiger suick. A great jerkbait.

4. Salmo skinner 20 in real roach color. A great crankbait.

5. A couple single bladed bucktails like a Mepps Giant Killer, a Mepps Musky marabou, Mepps Magnum or a Windells Harasser. I still prefer my single bladed bucktails. Maybe a double 8 or double 9 bucktail or two. Silver and black, orange and black, chartreuse and black are good colors. Yellow has been good to me as well. I personally don't enjoy throwing double tens, so I might be missing out on some fish, but that's the way it is for me. It might be different if I had a reel like the Tranx, but I don't. I would talk to someone who fishes the area about double tens. They would tell you if they are a must have bait or not.

6. A topraider.

7. A regular black and orange bulldawg or Super D.

8. A large spinnerbait or two. Orange and black and something else. Northland Bionic bucktail spinnerbaits are fairly economical and they work.

From there you can figure out what lures you like fishing best and then add to your collection. I personally can throw rise and dive jerkbaits all day, so I have lots of sledges, suicks, wades wobblers, bobbies etc. Yet I can't catch fish on a glider like a hellhound or a phantom. It doesn't make sense, but that's the way it is. It makes no sense to get too many of one lure type until you've spent some time on the water.

Spend the rest of your money on 80-100 lb moss green braid, leaders, tools, gloves and a nice net. That's my two cents worth. Andy

I just ordered a cheap 7' rod from them. On sale for $29.97. It was during a recent "free shipping when you spend more than $25.00 special". Because it was a rod, they tacked on and extra 4-5 dollars with the $3.50 brokerage fee. It came to $40.00 US total. I hope to see it soon. I would expect it to cost about 50-55 dollars Canadian. I still consider it worthwhile as I get a new rod for that money without leaving the house. ( I know, makes it tough for the local retailers.) I purchased a smoker about a year or two ago when the dollar was about par. Free shipping. It came in a box about 3' by 4'. I don't know how they can afford to ship something that big for free. They must have a deal of some kind with the shipper. You can't really go wrong with the Bass Pro free shipping offers. You just have to wait for them. And you can use any Bass Pro gift cards towards the purchase too. I wish Cabela's offered the same deal to Canada. Even the Canadian Cabela's site doesn't match up to the Bass Pro free shipping offers.

I use left handed baitcasting reels for casting so I don't switch hands during or after the cast. It's how I started and I just like working a bait like a jerkbait better with my right hand and arm, plus my left shoulder sometimes acts up and gets a little stiff.

I will agree with garry2rs that your right hand may get a little fatigued by the end of the day if you don't switch because I do switch my right hand grip from a trigger casting grip to palming retrieve grip all day, instead of handing the reel over to the left hand palm grip. But it's not a big deal. The only time I sometimes wish the rod was in my left hand is when I want to net a big fish, and I can just switch hands with the fish at the boat.

All my trolling reels are right handed retrieve, and I find using them a breeze too. Once I have a fish on, I usually forget all about what hand is holding the reel.

Lew, is right. Don't over think it.

It would likely be very good for pike. Musky no. Many musky baits you would want to throw are over the 1 oz rating. It wouldn't be enough rod. For musky I wouldn't get anything less than a 1-3 oz rating. That would cover smaller bucktails, spinnerbaits and small to medium jerkbaits and cranks. Smaller baits still catch lots of fish.

I had the same questions you do when I made some 80 lb flouro leaders. I initially used the Crawford knot, but I found that it seemed to have inconsistent knot strength in lower lb tests with mono. So I now use the perfection loop. I've tested it and it holds up great.

I have made a few leaders with a short length (3-4") of 124 lb single strand wire at the snap end, and for these I used the canoe man loop knot. It's very easy to tie and it seems to be consistently strong in lower test mono. There are videos and photos on the 'net. It's commonly used by saltwater guys, so it should work for us freshwater fellows as well.

Andy

I have a friend who goes up several times a year with his son. He loves it. He does really well for pickerel drifting the weed edges and for pike in the weed beds. And rarely blown off the water.

I haven't been for a few years now, but the group I went with would usually use a lead head jig with a minnow, same as summer. I get bored of that after a while and I would use a small Williams Wabler ice fishing spoon or a Northland Buck Shot spoon tipped with a minnow. I like the Northland spoons. They are compact and small for their weight. I hope that you have a good trip. I would suggest bringing an auger if you haven't already planned to do so. It can be nice to explore a bit if the bite is tough, as it can be at times.

Yeah, my son and I may have just been lucky the time we went to the Moon River. Unfortunately we never went camping there again. It wasn't because we didn't want to, it's just that there are so many great spots to go and only so much time to do it.

About 15 yrs ago I went canoeing and camping on the Moon River with my son early in the season. We camped at a site that belonged to one of the fishing camps on the south side of the river west of the 400/69 bridge. It may have been the Moon Basin Marina. The fellow I talked to back then said that they didn't get black flies. So we canoed to a private little site and we didn't see any black flies at all for the two or three nights we stayed there. Fishing was tough, but my son was young so catching small bass from shore was fine. It's a beautiful area and perfect for canoeing. I see that another place called Moon River cottages offers rides to camp sites. They may be worth a call.

Good luck. Andy

Good luck. I'd like to know how you make out. I live at the top of the Thames river watershed and the ditches here are full with water laying everywhere. We've had so much rain. It will sooner or later end up dumping into Lake St. Clair at Lighthouse Cove, so that part of the lake may be the color of dark chocolate milk for days, not to mention all the trash being swept along. The Belle may be better as it is a much smaller river.

Lew, I wouldn't give my wife an ultimatum like that. I'm glad that you get to use everything at least once a week.

Despite being around a long time, I still prefer Spiderwire Stealth in darker green. One of the thinner diameters braids and quiet thru the guides. Cheaper than a lot of braids too. I tried Power pro, too noisy coming thru the guides for me. Both lose color after a while, as do all braids to one extent or another. I don't mind the suffix 832, but it's noisier than Stealth. I have never found one brand to be much different in abrasion resistance than the other. The wire leader is good for the teeth, but I think some guys would use a longer flouro leader with it to prevent breakoffs when the line scrapes across the corral or rocks when the fish runs.

I work the same schedule as Gerritt. It wears me out, I seem tired all the time from the constant switching back and forth between days and nights. The benefit is every other weekend off. Like Gerritt says, the three nights followed by the Wed/Thurs days is the worst.

Very impressive. Many years ago I went camping there with the kids. We were canoeing and I thought I saw a log in the water about 4 feet long. Then it swam away! I watch the Musky Hunter regularly and I sometimes wonder if Jim really believes in everything he talks about. Then I read a story like yours and, yeah, the guys a pro. What a great trip.

I took a big chunk out of mine a couple years ago. First I straightened it out as best I could with a mallet and piece of wood on other side. Be careful!!! I managed to break off another big piece of the skeg. Then I bolted on a skeg guard. I got mine thru Cabela's, but they are not hard to find, Bass Pro, marinas, online, etc. Skeg guards are cheaper than getting the skeg welded, and you have a lot to bolt onto yet. The other thing to watch for is your lower end oil at the end of the season. After hitting a rock and damaging my skeg, I cracked a seal and the lower end had water in the oil at the end of the season. A new seal isn't that expensive to get fixed it lets in water. Andy

I have a friend who regularly fishes Callander Bay. He stays in the bay and almost exclusively uses worm harnesses along the weed edges. He seems to do really well.

Now now, settle down. If you've done any fishing at all, you have had days like that before. If you haven't had days like that, you either haven't fished much, or you are a world class pro. It takes time to learn a body of water. I have hundreds of spots marked on my GPS, and it's taken a lot of fishless days and many thousands of dollars to find them. If the only enjoyment you get out of fishing is catching fish, you might need a new hobby. Find one of the bays or long fingers around Warren Bay and keep chucking away at the shoreline, laydowns and weeds with spinnerbaits, spinners or shallow cranks. Then move to the next one. Sooner or later a pike or bass will take your bait. Relax and enjoy your time on the water.

From what I know, it sorta depends what you are after. Generally, if pickerel are your main focus, Callander. If pike , Lavigne. You can likely get to pickerel spots from Lavinge, but it means hitting the big lake and you'll be out in the wind in no time. Callander is small enough that you should be able to get out of the wind behind an island or two even if it comes from the west. And Callander does have pike as well. Someone pls correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the way I see it.

I'm with Lew on this one, unless u are fishing just off of the dock. Sounds like u will have your hands full trying out different lures for different species. I have gone up there for years and I still don't go out at night. Lots of unmarked rocks, and if you find yourself too far away without a GPS, you'll get lost and it will get pretty lonely out there. All the islands will look the same at night.