Rich

I agree, this time of year sucks! Bring on the ice!

Not hard to find a cheap used sled. Just look in my neck of the woods, everyone is ditching them and buying quads. It never snows enough here for more than a week.

Reminds me of a Sleded and BBR Filth Hound adventure

Beauties! Gotta love the brown water bringin' out the browns! And I am so appalled by the mud on the fish.. lol

Sugarpacket carved a special pumpkin for the season (bass season that is)! Remember - Halloween means one month left of bassin! (in Southern Ontario anyway) Happy halloween!

Never had the problem of it doing any damage to anything.. it's common practice for me so much that I don't even think about it anymore. And the splash is so minimal I can't see anyone getting wet unless they were leaning with their face over my lure. I think you guys are really going nuts on the smashing of the lure by the sounds of it. It doesn't take a huge whip, just a couple swings of the rod tip in a circle.

Good stuff for your bro! Can't say I'd be jumping in the cage with that guy anytime soon (or your bro for that matter). Takes some real guts and determination.. and he did really well, all things considered.

That's called reckless driving.

Less visible to the fish, and more visible to you while flippin' when line watching is important.

It's about time (for the cell phones) .. the GPS thing is just stupid

Oh trust me Wild, that's what I spent 80% of the day casting for! The bass was caught while I was giving my arm a rest casting bass sized baits, lol

.....Yeah.....

Ryan and I had planned to hit the bay nice & early Saturday morning but unfortunately those plans fizzled away as Ryan had a bit of a family emergency (everything is okay now). So plans changed and were set for a Sunday morning fish. Sugarpacket kindly asked if she could join us for the morning and Ryan was nice enough to allow us both to join him. We woke up at 4am to raging winds in the 30 - 40kph range. We hit Timmies up and headed over to Long Point to launch the boat. While we waited for the sun to come up we all enjoyed a coffee and shot the breeze, and casted a little from the dock. Finally we had enough light and put the boat in. Ryan worked the bow mount for about 10 minutes then suddenly he had "reel troubles" and said "Rich take the bow for a minute" ... well that minute lasted all day and let me tell ya, working a bow mount in 30kph winds is just NOT easy to do! There was no protection from the wind as we pounded some docks and canals and I just had to move us out on the flats where we were completely unprotected. The wind was coming from the Southwest though so waters weren't rough out there.. but we were blowing about 2mph across the bay. Here's a look at a beautiful relaxing morning on the inner bay. It wasn't long in what I call "pike alley" before I hooked a little hammer handle right next to the boat. Not much to brag about but certainly nothing to complain about... especially since I had just landed the first fish in Ryan's new boat The other two kept fishing like champs. We all chucked spinnerbaits for a long time and finally Ryan switched up to a twitch bait (Mercer's Magic) and his rod bent over. He said "damn weeds" and seconds later I heard splashing behind the boat. Ryan had hooked into a better pike! Before we knew it we had literally drifted all the way across the bay in a matter of an hour (usually takes me that long to run it in my boat, lol) and we were fishing shallow near St Williams. Suddenly SMASH beside the boat at the end of my line. I had nailed a really decent, chunky Long Point largemouth! No idea of the weight but this thing was a stocky, chunky little pig and actually my biggest out of the bay this year. We tucked into a little cove just to basically take a rest and this is when the trolling motor skills went out the window. It was so shallow and the motor kept getting bogged up with weeds that Ryan's outboard took a few dings on some rocks. No big damage but man I still felt bad. Ryan understood it was beyond my control. With winds like that it's near impossible! Anywho we exited the cove and the motors were still working fine so we decided to check out a marina for some perch or other panfish action. As we entered the marina of choice Sugarpacket missed a good'un on a spinnerbait, unfortunately it was a good pike and it took her spinnerbait with it. A bite off, too bad.. I was really hoping Sugarpacket would nail her first LPB pike today. We moved to the back of the marina and found some emerald shiners doing their fall thing. I dropped some Gulp Alive maggots and was almost immediately into a jumbo perch. Unfortunately that was about it. Ryan nailed one more perch (a keeper but not a jumbo) and the sickliest looking largemouth any of us had ever seen. We should have got a pic of that fish. Skinny as heck and beat up too! Looked like a crackhead bass. Anywho, here's a pic of the big perch. Time unfortunately ran out soon after and we had to head back. This time we were running against the wind and it wasn't quite so comfortable - yet still cushier than the Filth Hound, lol We pulled into the marina soaked and wind burnt but none of us wanted to go home. Even days in that weather are better than days at home or at work! Ryan took a minute to pose with his ride(s) before packing her in. I gotta say despite the hurricane weather it was an awesome day and I'm jealous of Ryan's boat! Though I'm sure he was glad to have me navigate in the wind for him like that We all had a great time and we all can't wait to do it again. Hopefully in nicer weather. lol Thanks again Ryan!

I think you spelled BROWN wrong cuz the rivers will be full of them! I only wish I could be trib fishing after or during this rain. My favourite time to go!

Great stuff! Always good when groups give back to the community. Thank you for doing that!

Those are loose eggs in the pic...

Is this post for real? Dude, you might as well grab a dead salmon right off the shoreline and cook her up!

That's awesome dude, I'd say you had a great first season of fishing. I'm sure you'll enjoy many, many more to come! And as the experience goes up, the general size of the catch does too. I'm sure we'll see quite a few "new PB" reports from you in the near future.

Just like they said about smelt, zebra mussels, carp, ruffe and gobies.

Had many of the same experiences fishing Lake Erie.

Like a good crankbait, the boat just doesn't ride right unless it's well tuned.

I've switched almost all my rods over to Ugly Stik Lite rods the past 2 years. The braided line makes up for any deminished sensitivity (though they are pretty darn sensitive as it is). And for the 40 - 60 bucks, the rod will last you quite a long time!

Surprisingly I loved my reasonably cheap Quantum Cold Water noodle rod. Then I busted it stepping on it. I plan to get another one this year.

Lower gear ratio tends to be better for cranking, coupled with a soft action rod. Could also use it for topwater fishing. This post has me wondering. In these days of technology, why has nobody invented a variable speed baitcaster?

I prefer to just freeze the fresh eggs and tie as necessary, but I'm sure that'll work great for ya. Like others said, it's more of a confidence thing. Personally I have no confidence in anything borax cured, not sure why but it just doesn't seem to work for me.. but I know others that do well. I've done good things with a brown sugar/salt cure in the past.