tjsa

Darn it all, how did you get so lucky to get that precipitation?????????? I know you saw my post from last saturday, and noticed the complete lack of snow in the bush in the few pictures. 2 weeks ago, we had a small squall, which left us with about 4-6 inches of snow. Its all gone now, not melted, it evaporated. Did nothing for our current low water situation, nor provide any runoff for our steelhead spawn. Our rivers up here still have ice on them, no runoff to break it up, so it all sunk to the bottom. Gonna take a bit of time for it to melt, even in plus celcious weather. Rain would help break it up, but none of any significance in the forecast. Fish kills in the rivers, because of the ice sinking to the bottom, will be common up here. Already happening in the Geraldton area. Seen the pictures, and heard the reports already. Darn, you are one lucky dude MTP!

SSHHHUUHHSSSHH..............Jamie, SSSHHUUSSHHH!!!

LORISSA!! Where have you been?? Glad to see you back here.

Oh, that is what we need carp-starter, not that we would like to deal with it, we just need it. That, and more, rain, rain, rain. Hope it happens for us, sucks to deal with it, but we need it.

And, a roll of duct tape, and cuss words, work wonders in most situations.

Where the heck is my invite, lol.

LOL, the boats name is Paultergeist, should be an ethereal experience. Artergeist just doesn't work though. Guess you and Art are gonna have to rename it "Rocket".

Lew, last weekend my bud had to use 4x4 to get into the lake we went to. Same area this weekend, and we drove in in 2 wheel drive, all the snow from last weekend was gone, evaporated, not melted. There are only patches of snow in the the bush in the sun sheltered areas. Our rivers are just starting to flow again after the recent cold snap, but all the ice is now on the bottom of the rivers, it sank down 3 weeks ago, because there is not enough water flow to raise it up and break it up. Reports are coming in of fish kills because of low water, Geraldton area is getting the most notice. My bud has a minnow pond behind his place, he was back there in August, and it was full, he went back there last week, and it was down 4 ft. Probably frozen to the bottom. We will have zero runoff this year, except for few rivers that are large lake fed, the others will be extremely low runoff. The steelhead run will take place really fast. When they are ready, they will run up, spawn, and retreat to the big lake within 3 days. It happened about 15 yrs. ago in a few rivers up here, during the week, and everyone missed it except for a few guys who weren't working days.

Art, even if I could buy a 16 ft'r. for 500 bucks, I couldn't carry it down the portage trails

Yup, send it our way, please, Moosebunk doesn't need it as much as we do. Okay, maybe he does, but I am being selfish.

I do not keep many bass a year, mostly because I do not fish lakes that have them. We avoid lakes that have them before June 30th, because after that date we can keep 4 any size, before that we can only keep 2 under 13.75 inches, to protect the males on the nests. So, why bother to fish for walleye in lakes where we may hook into a male accidentally, and drag it 30 yds. or so away only to release it. But after June 30th, I will keep bass in the 15-18 inch range. They are great tasting, a slightly sweeter taste than walleye.

EXCELLENT BREN!! and you also Drew Those are some very nice fish, heck, Bren caught more large walleye that day than I do in a summer And those pike are also awesome. I should try for them that size sometime.

Musky, in my immediate area, no, none. Pike..............sorry guys, but they are trash fish to me, steal my walleye presentations, lol. Bass, yes, we have em, smallmouth, but I do not target them specifically, and since the season for them is 2 under 13.75 inches before June 30th, and then 4 any size after that, I avoid the lakes they are in for the first half of the summer.

My first watercraft, a 17 ft. Sprinbok canoe, was free, inherited from my dad, my 2nd, was a 14 ft. fibreglass canoe, $200.00 bucks, my 3rd, is a boat, 12 footer for $300.00 bucks, and am looking at a 4th 12 ft'r for the exorbitant asing price of...........................................$125.00 bucks, lol. Guess its all in the perspective of what you fish for, and where you go.

Its in the plan for the summer to go back to the rainbow lake, sometime in mid august probably, by that time, if there are any left, they may be up to 6 lbs. Won't take us long to troll around that lake to find them, lol. Heck, we could circle it 3 times in about 3 hrs. But, we could get those one or two fish that survived, and that would make our day. Did that last year, mid may, went into a stocked speck lake, trolled the entire shoreline, my bud thought he had a follow casting, but nothing happened, then we went over a reef near where we launched an hour and a bit later, and a 3.75 lb(approx) speck hit my line, incredible fight in the shallower water, but my drag was set perfectly, fortunately.

I expect ice out will be around the 2nd weekend of may, if the temps stay up. If we ever get any rain of any significance, it will be sooner. Right now, the ice is only evaporating, and guys are still driving on lakes up here.

Excellent Ed, looks like you could even put in a few holes for a par 3 chip'n putt.

My bud and I were invited to join a couple of other guys today for some fishing. Dennis, who is an area technician for the MNR up here, and his bud Dave, wanted to try a lake near the other one we caught fish out of. It is a much smaller lake, almost split in two by a point, but they put rainbows in it, and no one has caught any yet. They trap netted it for 20 min. last summer, and caught 3 nice fish almost 4 lb.s, so some are still alive. So off we went at the crack of..................7 a.m. , we are usually walking ito the lakes at this time. Drilled a whack of holes, only 16 inches of ice, set lines, and jigging, but unfortunately nada, not a sniff. The southern body of the lake. The northern body of the lake. Dave relaxing and jigging. Dennis also moving from hole to hole jigging. I was gonna make a comment about the colour of his chair in the background, but I just met him, and I might need more info from him in the future. So, we packed up, and out, and drove 20 min. to the splake lake. Long traversing trail down a 150 ft. hillside, and the last 20 ft. I finally lost my footing, almost crashing onto the ice No damage done, so we go to a point. Drill a whack of holes, and start at it again. Dennis drilled one in 8 ft. of water, and you could stand there and see bottom, incredibly clear lakes. About 40 min. in, Dave sees a fish come to his lure, basically sniffs at it, and disappears. Drill more holes near trees in the water, a couple out deeper, jig, chat, eat, no bites. Dave and my bud walk across to another point and beaver dam, drill and open a few old holes, jig there for a bit, but nothing happened and they came back. Tried lots of lures with no success, then Dennis had a fish right up to his lure again, but again, it just moved away. Finally, on my 6th lure, a small yellow marabou jig, in about 16 ft. of water, I had a fish hit hard(well, as hard as a fish of its size can hit), and set the hook. No chance of it getting away, solidly hooked through the upper jaw. My 2nd splake ever, first one I caught was 4 yrs. ago and was 6 inches long, this one is 15.5 inches long. Typical splake, so I am told, not very thick. The cool thing is the eye, it was golden coloured. Never seen a trout with golden eyes. I took this pic about 30 min. later so it lost some of its colour as I went right back to jigging, but we did not have another hit, and left an hour later.

I agree with you on that one TJQ, I know Bill and Annie personally, and have seen their product. I don't own any of their stuff because I do not need that level of gear, but they hand make everything to a standard no one else does. They can tailor make anything you want also.

Absolutely, as Whopper said, cold weather affects battery performance, same as in your vehicle. I presently have Duracell AA/HR6/DC1500 NiMH/1.2V/2300mAh batteries. You can get higher mAh batteries, buy my charger is for the above model batteries. No issues so far.

Even in the cold outdoors, my camera has no problem whatsoever. I have rechargeable Duracells, and they can last for 2 trips easily, and I do not keep my camera warm at all, its exposed to the elements. My recent post from last weekend, the camera was in my pack in the back of the pickup for a 2.5 hr. trip into the lake, in -10C temps, and I took 37 pictures with it, and it is still working, used it on batteries to download all the pictures also. I bought the duracell batteries, and charger combo pack from CTC 2 yrs. ago, and they are all still working just fine. Even bought another 4 pack of batteries a year ago for more devices(GPS, and FRS radios), and everthing is still working well. I bought the one hour quick charger pack. Gotta be something wrong with either the camera, or the batteries/charger.

Congrats Carole, nice fish, good of Cliff not to knock the lure out of its yap with the net. As for the above quote, we want pictures, video if possible.

WOW...........I'M VERCLEMPT!!!!!!!!!! You are female, and freely admit your age HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN

Yeah, I sometimes wonder about that myself, especially when he knocked the camerman off his boat, with a very expensive camera probably worth in the range of $10,000.00 bucks back then, not including the lens which would have been another $5,000.00 bucks.

MoB, I am glad no one jumped all over you, and that a member gave you a heads up via PM about it. I saw the picture, and thought exactly that, someone may take issue with you about it. Personally, I had no problem with it as you explained it well, and have no problem with people taking pictures of OOS fish, or posting them, but for the benefit of this site, it is much better not to do it. It was an accidental catch, not a targetted OOS fish, it happens. It happened to me 3 weeks ago, but I did not take a picture, nor had the opportunity to do so, just released the fish a.s.a.p.