Rich

I just crapped in my cornflakes.. that's insane

Headed out to a local reservoir for the last day of bass season in Southern Ontario. If it were a normal day off I wouldn't have attempted going out today.. but it was the last day of bass season, so I had to give it a go. Gave The Urban Fisherman a shout hoping he'd be able to join us, unfortunately he was too bogged with work to fish with us.. however he was more than kind enough to lend us a battery for our motor for the day (mine works but battery life is limited) and even came down to help us load the boat from the rocky bank. Which was quite the challenge. Anywho, Sugarpacket and I got on the water exactly the same time as the wonderful freezing rain/snow mix started, which made things amazingly comfortable. Shortly after making a comment about how the wind wasn't too bad, it proceeded to pick right up and blow those pellets of frozen water right into our faces. We fished some deep drop offs that produced in past late fall excursions. Keeping hands on the rods in those climates was hell for us. After pounding one previously productive point with submerged timber in about 16 feet of water, my spoon stopped dropping. I set hook into the one and only bass of the closer, which was unfortunately about a generous 8 inches long. Soon after we drifted along the drop a little deeper and I broke off my jigging spoon on a brushpile. I decided to change things up with a white flippin' jig (hot bait in past fall trips). I began swimming it over a drop from 16 - 20 feet (okay working on mental GPS cuz my fishfinder was pooched today) and SMACK. This one felt a little better, bit of a fight to it anyway... and up came - one heck of a perch! Well, I've never seen such a thing as a lone perch so I decided to keep it in hopes we'd get a few more off this spot. Nope, nadda.. flippin jig, spoon, grub, it didn't matter. No more perch to be found. Tried a few other perch spots (basically trying to get out of the wind) and nothing wanted to hit. We did see plenty of trout scooting on the surface out there.. of course trout are out of season so why not strut their stuff in our faces? We gave it all we could but the soaking wet/freezing pants we were wearing kept telling us to go home. And we didn't want to be driving if conditions got any worse on the roads. So we packed it up, defeated, with a beaten perch laying in the bottom of the boat for our efforts. Headed back to Ryan's place to drop off the battery, showed him the perch (which was 13 + inches by the way Ryan!) and went for the long haul home. Well it shouldn't have been a long haul, but we took a detour that led us in a huge 40 minute circle before finally getting back on the road home. lol Thanks for the help & the battery Ryan, too bad you couldn't have come out with us.. though in my opinion, you were better off where you were! lol At least you got to see some big fish where you were, haha Next time we'll make sure to bring our boy over so he can play with your girl! Well bass is done. I was hoping to get one decent one before the season ended, but oh well we gave it a good effort. Bye bass, we'll see ya next June! (insert Sarah Mclaughlin's "I will remember you" here) At least my fillet hand was satisfied once again.

With limited success, yes. It seems that they'll only move up to hit a 1" grub or live worm below the float. The ones that hit corn only seem to hit it if the hook hits bottom and stays put for a few seconds. I think I have a video of me using the float gear and landing a carp last fall. I tried a few times in the summer as well, but at that time you can't float anything past all the chub minnows and brown trout.

If they make me eat every carp I catch I quit fishing, lol

Foolish inuit!

Thanks for the heads up. Never been a Quantum fan but it's great that we can let others know about the good deals we find.

I got one of the old ones from my grandfather. The most important thing to remember is that it's not telling you what will catch fish, it's simply telling you what's most visible under the current PH/light conditions.

I use my ultra light reels on ice rods.. never bought a reel just for ice fishing in my life.

Hmm well we went out for a drive looking for a spot to fish a couple weeks ago and a snow squall came up, some idiot flew down the hill in a water tanker and almost side-swiped us. Are we foolish for going out looking for an open spot to fish?

Beauty!! What it lacks in length it surely makes up for in girth, what a fall fatty.

I'm sorry Chickenhawk, I didn't mean to insult you in any way, I really was clueless that you worked at a lodge.. I was wondering if you became part owner or something, my mistake - guess I don't pay enough attention around here. lol As for the leeches.. nothing wrong with that if it's your bag. I guess I'm just spoiled by Lake Erie smallies all the time, where live bait is very, very rarely necessity.

So.. like, when did you become a guide or a promoter for a resort? Last time we talked about hooking up, you wanted to use live leeches for smallmouth..

He was anything but foolish. Unfortunately, mother nature teamed with a great lake proved that you can never fully prepare for what they throw at you. I wouldn't be caught out there in frigid temps in a kayak. However, I did once see Sleded swim across the channel at Hoover's Marina in a floater suit at the beginning of March.

Saw the ad on facebook, pretty funny stuff. I think 'ol Dave should host a new SCTV. lol

I fish a lot of ponds, most flow into Lake Erie and were once just a creek so I imagine that's how most of the fish got in there. Other is usually from illegal stocking.. someone catches something below a dam and tosses it up top or whatever. As for the private access.. well that depends on the pond. There are plenty around here that have public access or if there are landowners they don't mind. Others if you ask the farmer or whoever they will let you fish it. And others just don't let anyone in.. usually gets ruined by some rowdy people who ask to fish then leave a mess or get drunk, injured, whatever.

I tinkered with true hair rigs for the first time this year. They do work very well for still fishing. The way I fish however I am drift/sight fishing with the bags. Without actually seeing the carp pick up the bag (especially this time of year) it's very difficult to get a proper hookset, or often even detect the bites. I saw them pick up the bag for a matter of seconds then spit it out without feeling a thing.. and that's with ultra light gear and 6lb test.

Velvet Revolver was more GNR than this! The CD's not bad though.

For senkos switch to baitcast. Better hooksetting power, subtleness and accuracy.

Yeah, I rarely listen to anyone who tells me the weight of their fish anymore.. like my buddy at work who tells me how they catch 8lb largemouth at his cottage all the time.. I look at the pics and say "nice fish dude!"

:worthy: :worthy: :worthy: Sugarpacket and I thought we had an imagination, HA! That was great! Thanks for the story!

Figured I might as well post a year end review for 2008, cuz it's the in-thing! The year started with winter carp in January.. we had a nice warm front which lead to the biggest in the Lynn River for me. Continuing with the warm trend, there was panfish in the local canals. Many good days were had! Temps finally dropped again, but since ice fishing wasn't so easy for us being stuck without a ride, we pounded some winter carp which were surprisingly co-operative for us. We finally did get out in the ice a few times, perch being the main target. Sugarpacket even nailed her PB out there. Next was the spring channel cats and carp in the Lake Erie tribs. And another Sugarpacket PB ensued. Then of course there was our trip out east to Nova Scotia. Didn't plan to do much fishing out there - won't make that mistake next time. Fished mostly browns and specks and had a great time. As things warmed a little more, bigger carp came out to play.. for everyone but me. lol Sorry bout the logos.. not trying a cheap plug they were meant to only be shown on my site. I finally hooked up with some big cats too. When trout opened we had some good days locally on the streams. Who can forget the day of PB's in Dunnville.. PB sheephead that is! Musky opener was fun for Sleded and I on our annual camping trip. I boated one musky this whole year and that was on opening day, but we saw a bunch that trip and after that even locally. I still have a heck of a lot to learn about musky fishing. Carp were in their full swing of spawning, Sugarpacket and I took advantage catching some post spawners. Sugarpacket's biggest Lynn River carp: My biggest Lake Erie run fish of the year - unfortunately Then came the bass & pike for the next few months! Another Sugarpacket PB: Fall set in, and the bass/pike just got hungrier! And that brings us to now.. a little bit of perchin' and a little bit of carpin' Obviously, I can't sum up all of the year's fish or fishing experiences into a whack of pictures. There's too much to share, too much to write. First off I'd like to thank everybody that came out and fished with us this year: Sleded, Red Devil, Crappieperchhunter, Johnny Bass, The Urban Fisherman, Slowpoke, Arnaldo De Sousa, Markus.. if I missed anyone else I'm sorry! lol Secondly, I can't begin to describe how thankful I am that I have such an understanding significant other.. the fact that she loves to fish too - well that's just like winning the lottery. Sugarpacket had a heck of a year, slamming PB's in just about everything we fished for. For some reason I can't find her PB pike pic.. it was a modest fish at 31 inches from a pond. Splenda also caught his first fish this year - a sunfish, unfortunately we weren't armed with a camera at the time so we'll just have to go on the memory of that. I'm sure by the middle of next year he'll be slamming PB's and showing us elders how to fish! Totally psyched for that. And of course we'd both love to give OFC a big thank you. Thanks for the advice, encouragement, and enjoyment of fishing vicariously through the rest of you while we weren't on the water. Without you all, we'd often be lost and I gotta say fishing just wouldn't be quite so enjoyable. It's been a great year - but it's not over yet. Let's pound that water hard next month! Thanks again, Richard & Candice

Who cares, I just love seeing pics of big muskies!

Look into the Shimano Cardiff if you haven't got the bucks for a Calcutta. I really like mine. Used one season on musky and pike, been through a lot of casting and if I took the line off the spool you wouldn't be able to tell it had ever been used.

I was actually on my way out the door to that spot now that you posted it. The lily pad gave it away.

Whew, much better - thank you!