alphaalpha

gotta love getting the kids onto fish! nice work! thanks for sharing, AA.

Thanks guys, it was a great one. @tb4me yes the energizer head lamps are impressive, ive gone through 4-5 different brands and much prefer the luminosity and balance of it. it is heavier than most but wears well I find. @16footer doing the annual thing is definitely the way to go. wives can't say no when they know its a traditional thing that you won't let go of :-) @bowslayer I think I will check out some of the other lakes on future trips. maybe not next year as my buddy picks but the year after. cheers, AA.

Hey all, been a while since I've posted a report. here's my favorite outing for the year: Got out for my annual guys trip camping/fishing/canoeing. Normally the plan is to drive for a couple hours then spend a couple hours portaging and paddling to a lake we will set up camp on for a few days and fish the crap out of with the goal that it will be remote enough to not really encounter many people. This year a couple friends couldn't commit to the full 5days we go for so the plan needed to be altered. After doing some research on different lakes and getting advice from Bowslayer here on the boards I decided on a lake near Restoule provincial park. This lake was chosen as it had road access, somewhat with a pickup/suv only really. I didn't want to have to do any portaging if some friends were going to come up to meet us half way. The original plan for the main four of us was to take two vehicles with the canoes up and then use my pickup to ferry in the gear from the other car. This seemed like a large waste of time so i set out to build a rack to hold both canoes on the truck: With this in place we met up and loaded everything on the truck. The road in was pretty much exactly as Bowslayer told me about; not an issue for a pickup/suv but i really wouldn't want to take a car or van down it. I just got my new pickup this year so went slow and cautious. actually got out of the truck 2 or 3 times to check the best side/path of the road to take. Being canadian shield country there were a couple hills topped with solid rock that if you didn't know what was on the back side before committing to it you could end up teter-tottering your vehicle on it. taking it slow it was no problem at all though. We got to the launch around 11am and met a guy pulling out his tinny from the lake. This was a wednesday morning so I was starting to worry this was going to be a more popular spot than i had hoped for. It turns out after that we had the lake to ourselves until saturday and then only 2 or 3 tinnies for a couple hours. Launch pic: After a relatively short paddle we came to an island with a beautiful campsite and even a newly built outhouse. Someone must go there quite often to go to the effort of building that and we were quite grateful for it. We quickly set up camp and headed out for some fishing. knowing it was a bass lake we were prepared. we always have a contest amongst the group for largest bass and since i won last year i was feeling the pressure to defend my title. My buddy however put up a nice largie to start the trip the first afternoon with this one: It took me until friday evening to top it with a 4.3 on a spinnerbait in near darkness The next day I picked up a better one at 4.54 which i really thought was over 5 with how fat his belly was (i haven't broken the nickel since i was a kid). On the final day for the morning fish I decided it was time to use some of the 2 dozen live worms i brought along. Unfortunately the box must have been uncovered during the rain we had as all but one of the worms was gone. Generally the box holds them well but if too much water gets in they can get skinny enough to escape. Oh well i figured i might as well put the last one to use....and that i did. Upon arriving at what early on in the trip became our favorite spot on the lake i casted him out there and got my biggest of the trip; a solid 4.82: After catching a few more smaller ones on plastics it was time to head back and tear down camp. Last day group shot: We got packed up pretty quick and with how beautiful the day was we decided to fish our way back. after a couple smaller fish my buddy casts his spinnerbait on one of the last casts of the trip and just a stones throw away from the launch. He hooks into a good one but with all the gear in the canoe couldn't grab it himself. pointing his rod in my direction I lipped him and immediately felt my heart sink. I was CERTAIN he had just bested my biggest with only moments left in the trip! With a quick weigh on the scale it came in at 4.52! I was safe and the title remained mine! I was especially glad that it didn't beat my second best as my best fish was caught with live bait and i probably would've had to take an asterisks beside this win if that was the case. All in all we caught tons of fish both largies and smallies (my biggest smallie being around 3.5 but fought harder than any of the big largies). The lake was great and once we figured out a good pattern it was very consistent. The weather was decent, only one day of constant rain but wasn't very windy or cold that day so wasn't terrible. It was nice to do one of these trips without portaging (this is our 7th year). since we didn't have to haul anything we all brought in plenty of beer and a few steaks so it was quite a nice trip compared to previous. Again a big thanks to Bowslayer for the intel on the surrounding area, fishing and travel conditions. Your input was invaluable! next year is my buddies turn to pick the spot and he will have a tough time doing better than this one! cheers all, Alphaalpha

Thanks for the replies all. I will keep doing more research as I haven't gotten time to install my motor yet (I still need to decide how to arrange the two batteries up front). Do most of you charge your cranking batteries after a day out? I never have and have never had a problem but I typically run my big motor enough that it keeps up with the drain of my fishfinder. I wonder if I am just pushing my luck...? cheers, AA.

Hey all, I just picked up a new terrova 80# and obviously don't want to be pulling two batteries out to charge up after every trip. I am looking for recommendations on brands for onboard chargers. Space is a factor as well so if some brands are smaller than that would be better all other things being equal. I'm not too picky on amperage as I don't typically fish two days in a row so a slower charge is fine. Thanks in advance! AA.

very cool read. Thanks so much for sharing, can really feel the excitement in your posts! Keep it up, there will be lots of people rooting for you up here cheers, AA.

attaboy cliff, great to hear there is some follow up being done! I personally would like to see them stripped of their weapons and never allowed to own or hunt again. You screw around with guns you shouldn't be allowed to handle them again imo. cheers, -AA.

very cool looking! nice work and thanks for sharing! -AA.

I have had my olympus stylus tough 10mp for about 5 years now. smashed on some hard rocks and concrete and still takes great pictures in and out of the water. It was around double the price of the fuji when i was looking but i got it free from airmiles at the time

water wasn't too fast and muddy yesterday? What do you use for the suckers? I am thinking about trying for a couple for some cutbait, was just going to use a scaled down catfish rig with a live worm... cheers, AA.

congrats steve! My oldest now 3 is also named Henry, it seems to be gaining in popularity again. nice work on all the fish as well! thanks for sharing, -AA

Yup I don't mind paying an increased license fee as well. Like other poster said the current fee is dirt cheap... Doubling the sport and conservation fee and it's still a joke really. Leave the folks on a fixed income alone. If you want to fish once or twice a year a conservation license is way cheaper than going to a movie or two. If you fish often and keep a lot or fish tourneys a $50 year fee is a drop in the bucket. All that being said the increases damn well better go back into the fisheries. Cheers, AA

Apparently a spoiled ballot just gets lumped in with all others that may have made a mistake or what have you. If you immediately hand your ballot back and say "I decline to vote" apparently those are counted as such and may make a stronger point. -AA

Nice hog! And super lucky getting the gear back,well done!

Nice work. Still pretty early in the season. Where'd you go out from?