Rich

Hey, problems or not its always better than sitting inside the house rotting. Its just a lot more expensive most days.

Always livin' the dream Ryan - love it!

Well if it could go wrong, it went wrong leading into the derby. An invincible swirl of bad karma hit friday night. I haven't used the big boat this year, and stupidly assumed everything would be fine. Went out to check it the niht before, and the hole in the bow I patched last year was coming off. The patch is essentially a ton of JB Marine Weld and an aluminum plate to keep it from bursting. If the protective plate comes off, that JB weld will pop, no question in my mind. My steel boat wouldn't float long with a 3 inch gash. So I redneck fixed it, unloaded a can of rocker guard on the patch, and sure enough it looked good enough to hold for a day to fish, then go get it welded up right. The patch was the only thing that worked just fine all day. I go in to pay for the ramp when we get there. Come out and my face becomes horrified as I see Brandon launching my boat. I didn't put the bung in yet, and sure enough nobody thought of it. So I dash like an olympian to the boat, make a 3 foot leap off the dock and wreck my ankle in the process, and get the plug in as fast as I can. Not too happy at this point. I bail 2 feet of water out of the boat, tie it up and hook up the motor, beginning to curse. Pull, pull. Nothing. Profanity ensues. Pull, pull. Check spark plugs, clean points. Pull, pull, nothing. Send buddy off with my last 20 bucks to buy new spark plugs. A half hour passes. New spark plugs in, good to go now. Pull, pull, nothing. It's flooded. Profanity. Drop electric motor down.... Into a gob of floating weeds. It gums up. I pull string for bow mount, it breaks off. I throw rope into boat and yell more profanity and say we're going home. The electric comes to life, like a slap from God saying "go fishing." We leave the marina very slowly on the electric motor, dodging cabin cruisers and bass boats on the way out. We hit the shallow flats, and everything we went through became worth it. The fishing was on fire out there! Bam, 10 min after the derby officially starts, I got a decent one . 3.51lbs... On the bay, thats a hawg. Take her to the weigh in, on the electric. I'm in 1st, but it's only 9:30. Head back out and fish an unreal amount of water with only my electric. I say we have to go back cuz we're running out of battery. We got lots of small bass all day. I say as a joke "pull the rope, we'll just push start it!" ... One pull, she fires up. We have life!!!! We cheered as if we had just won the Bassmaster Classic. It was a miracle. after that the motor ran just fine all day, better than ever actually. And in the end at 4pm, my fish held up on the leaderboard anyway. It was an 8th place finish but only 0.31lbs shy of 1st place. I'll take that 8th place as we earned every last bit of it. What an opener.

Ever since I got the inflatable, it's pretty much stuffed in the car with all my tackle all the time. Lol at very least though, there is always a baitcaster, a spinning rod and a couple tackle trays, just in case. I've caught a lot of big, unexpected fish by simply stopping for 20 min and fishing on the way somewhere else. I'm late for everything.

The funny part about the photo is all the emotion those people have caught up in an entertaining tv show they had nothing to do with.

When your buddy who hasn't even grasped how to properly hold a baitcaster (nvm casting) says "I'm SO ready for bigtime bass tournaments." With all seriousness on his face. Richard SMASH.

I'd hardly call online disputes of any sort a "fight" .. unless most fights are completely imaginary and unimportant..?

That thing is sweet!

There is a portage ramp on the right hand side of the river (going downstream) just above brant park. That's where people usually pull their canoes out..

The paris stretch is quick and has some good smallie holes. Thats where I would hit.

Dang, I was hoping to get to the painting before anyone else! Beauty!!!!!

There certainly is walleye in the Grand. They stick to pretty specific areas and very few are all that easily accessible. You could always take your canoe up above the Cambridge dam. It's deep and slow, wide like a lake (obviously steer clear of the dam) and has the species you're looking for.

Holy crap, who do they think they are?! Man, I'm mad and I don't even fish there. Price gouging has just gotten way out of hand. I don't like using my big boat for this reason. All the money on gas and upkeep and I gotta pay more to put it in the water than my inflatable boat. 100% more actually. Let's all send them letters.

Small walleye lakes in that area? Doubt you'll find any worthwhile ones. There's walleye in puslinch but I've never seen one.

I'm out. I'm completely insane, and I'm fishing Long Point Bay this weekend. Ya ever need a boat down here, mine's always got a seat.

Well nobody buy this lure that's the ultimate curse! Lol

What species are you after? If you want pike, and probably only pike, and probably only hammer handles: mountsberg If you want a shot at everything, go to Guelph Lake. Kelso isn't great but it does have some nice bass.

Nice eye! And bass. I guess. lol Thanks for the report!

Wow, looks pretty amazing! Thanks for that.

Oh boy. Reading between lines? No I've read between lines, that was more of an obvious smack. If I started spouting off what I read between the lines, people would be attempting to hunt me down. And eventually I'd run out of river to put bodies in. Lol I'm relaxed man.

Your entire thread was based on the assumption that I assumed carp are for some reason a predator to bass eggs. I have never even heard that theory. So dont get so hostile about it.

Thats all meaningless. You havent been able to watch the fish successfully grow up. The growing season is too short here. If the eggs havent hatched going into june, they will not grow big enough by winter to survive, and if they DO survive, they will expel too much energy in the cold water to get a meal and best case scenario will be lifelong stunted bass, and a terrible cancer to the future gene pool. Btw, their main offender of the beds in lake erie is gobies.

Those beds dont have much chance anyway.

Nice fish!!! Congrats man!

Make sure you have good drag.