Fisherpete

I dunno Pigeontroller... I think there are some to be had! Oct 1st last year... 47" and heavy... (PB) Oct 6th last year... another 47"... (PB) 45.5" and thick earlier this year... But you are probably right, I would likely have a better shot at a fifty at one of the other lakes... just not as many fish overall. I would trade every one that I have caught this year for that first fifty! I have a few places lined up for this fall... but I should fish them some in Aug & Sept first to learn them a bit I suppose! Any PM's are welcome for lakes to try...

Alex - our day shall come, and Optimus Prime shall filleth to the brim with a fifty of epic proportions, battled from the depths of Rice Lake...! Actually, I would be extremely happy catching ANY fricken muskie from Rice! See what you miss when you let a job opportunity get in the way LMAO! Next time bud... just be sure to stock up on skunk lures first. Hmmm... I thought I tried that "insert media" link... let me try it again... got it. Thanks Alex!

No probs Greg, it was a great day for sure! Anyone know how I can embed the Youtube player right here in the post instead of an external link? I think I have seen it that way in other posts...

Does it work with AVI files? I thought it was only for MPEG?

Fishgreg purchased two of my musky bucktail lots during my recent tackle purge, and I only thought it fair to show him that they were not duds... and the best way to do that is of course a water test! Greg met up with me yesterday morning at 6am with Tim's in hand, and off we went. Conditions were pretty good when we arrived, a mix of sun and cloud, surface water temps not too high at 76F, and a nice little chop on the lake. Best of all - only saw one other boat on the water! Those waves would build into whitecaps as the day went on, but didn't cause us too much grief (ok, I got a few good face soakers heading into the waves, but whatever!). The new Legend continues to impress me with how it handles rough water, I would have had a rough go of it in my ex Tracker yesterday. As we loaded the boat, Greg realized that his lunch had stayed in Toronto in the car LOL... but I always pack some extra stuff, so we woudn't starve. Greg has caught some nice pike, but was in search of his first muskie, and it didn't take too long before he hooked into a beauty while casting... on one of the bucktails I sold him LMAO!!! How much to buy it back??? He has started his muskie career in style, with a 43"! She was fairly skinny, but had an absolutely MASSIVE head and tail on her. I would love to see her in mid November with some pounds packed onto that frame. She had totally engulfed the bucktail, and was hooked deep, but the hook came out OK, and she only bled a bit. Greg got her back in the water quick, and started the revival process... and out came the new camera for it's maiden underwater voyage! I have to tell you, I was worried sticking it in the water for the first time... but the video turned out great and it still works LOL! Oh yeah, notice in the first pic that I am LIPPING that pig... think I trust my Lindy gloves much? Here's my first attempt at posting a video... you can watch it as is in 360p (better for low bandwidth, but grainy) or select HD 720p in the bottom right... leave it loading for a couple minutes... grab a beer, take a squirt... then come back and enjoy my annoying voice for 3 minutes! NOPE scratch that, I just swapped my voice for an acoustic tune on Youtube! I will get some wicked footage on future trips... I plan to jump in the water and record one being released from there! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHsurCE4brU After catching the first fish, it took a while to figure out what the day's pattern would be, but once we did, the action was pretty consistent for the rest of the day. Greg ended up with three for the day, his 43", a thick 36", and another mid-30's fish that was released 'conservation style' at boatside without a pic. (OK, I was fumbling for the net and she got off!) Greg repaid the net favour shortly after on one of my fish - his lure got all tangled in the net, and as he struggled with it my fish came off too! Oh well, you don't need to take a pic of every one anyway, especially smaller ones. I ended up with five for the day, the last one being a nice 42". We both caught an incidental walleye (both keeper size too, but both were released), and Greg got a decent LM bass as well. I'm almost forgetting the best muskie story of the day! Mid afternoon, Greg got a VIOLENT hit on a perch patterned body bait, felt a couple massive headshakes, and then she was gone! I think she grabbed the lure by the head and tried to decapitate it! Take a look at the tooth mark on this lure... the divot she took out was almost 1 cm deep into the wood! Man, I would have loved to see that fish... one can only guess at the size. I think we now have another certified muskie addict in our midst... welcome to the club Greg! Lastly, I still haven't gotten around to taking some decent pics of my new ride, but she has a name now... MUSKIE WHISPERER 67 skis so far this season, but the Quest for the 50" continues...

*sigh* I can't get the week off of work. Aarrrgghhhh! Guess my 40"+ pike will have to wait a wee bit longer.

I recorded some HD video footage of a fishgreg muskie release yesterday, and would like to edit the file a bit before posting. How does one do this? I just signed up for a Youtube account, and the file is now uploading... one minute and change long and 500MB! Can you edit from Youtube once uploaded? It would be better I suppose to edit first and then upload (faster). Any suggestions on what program to do this with?

Yup, I have to feed that skunk some pretty funky stuff to get her smelling just right!

Nope - as of this year, muskie must be 44" in the Kawarthas to keep... this one was a 37" or so. I have only ever kept one, one of the first I ever caught back in 2003. I caught it on light gear, and could not revive it despite trying for 45 minutes. It does suck that an already dead fish had to go back, but if that rule was not there, all kinds of under or oversized/OOS/slot fish would be kept, with people using the explanation "It was dead anyways". By the way, I ended up picking up the $169 Fuji XP10 today... also grabbed a 8GB SDHC card for only $23. I am seriously tempted to fill the bathtub and record a Rapala LMAO! It seems to take some pretty decent pics so far, probably will be even better in the outdoors. I'll break her on the water sometime this week... stay tuned for some underwater release shots in HD! Alex - I'll send you a PM tomorrow...

Yep, this one will be a fishing/outdoors only camera... we already have a decent Canon G3 (not waterproof) for normal picture taking. It is only 4MP, and we have had it forever, but it takes great shots.

59 is the boat total. It's more than has been caught in my boat over the past 6 years combined!!! The lucky lure rocks! Don't feel too bad about the camera, I won it from the show "Urban Outdoor Adventures" with Shaun Rickard... they had a photo contest on their website, and the pic in my avatar won me a Nikon Coolpix S2. It served me well for 4 years! I was thinking about getting it repaired, but it owes me nothing, and I want a camera with better video for my solo trips.

After working a bunch of overnights this week, on Friday morning I decided to head out solo straight from work to the lake. In the past, I have found that if I stay awake the day after working a night, my sleep pattern returns to normal much faster. It worked... I passed out last night around 10pm, and woke up today feeling great! On to the fishing... fished from 10am-5pm, and the day was a set of bookends... two in the first hour, three in the last. All were caught in the same 500m area! Fish were extremely aggressive today, absolutely inhaling the lures despite a very high retrieve speed. Sadly, one of the fish didn`t make it - the hooks were way into her gills, and she was spurting blood even before I cut the hooks out. I tried to revive her anyway for ten minutes, but I know she was a goner. I hate when this happens, it`s only the second out of 59 muskies this year that has been hooked fatally. Nature of the game I suppose... when you fish with big hooks, some of those hooks will eventually find their way into a sensitive part of a fish. Today`s fish ranged from 33-40 inches. Pics are kinda crappy as they were taken from video clips, and I managed to break the camera after fish number two (dropped it), so the last few pics are from my phone. So, the search for a new camera begins... the Olympus Stylus tough series is nice, but I am leaning towards the Fuji XP10 that is on sale right now at Future Shop for $169... 12MP, 720p HD video, waterproof to 10 feet, shockproof from 3.3 feet. Not sure if the extra $230 is justified for the few extra features on the Olympus! Anyone own one of these, or something similar? Let me know what you think. Here's the key specs on the 3 cameras. Olympus Stylus Tough 6020 - $329 14MP, 5x optical zoom, 5x digital zoom 720p HD video Waterproof to 16 feet, shockproof to 5, freezeproof to -10C 1GB internal memory Olympus Stylus Tough 8010 - $379 silver, $399 black 14MP, 5x optical zoom, 5x digital zoom 1080i HD video Waterproof to 33 feet, shockproof to 6.6, freezeproof to -10C 1.6GB internal memory Fuji Finepix XP10 - $169 12MP, 5x optical zoom, 6.4x digital zoom 720p HD video Waterproof to 10 feet, shockproof to 3.3, freezeproof to -10C 13MB internal memory

Wow two beauties... and the dad is really brave - fishes for muskies in a speedo. That's Chuck Norris level right there.

Me too!!! The wife has given me her blessing, she has wanted to send me on one of these trips for a few years now, and what an opportunity this would be. Our baby boy is not due till November, so all good on that front, just working on the boss right now... first week of school is usually pretty hectic at my work. The $650 is for the lodging & air costs I am assuming? What else should I budget for? Fuel for the drive up, food & drink costs, what else? I have never done one of these before...

I'm working on it!!! Trying HARD to get that week off...

I have had a couple of them over the years (one Eagle, One Humminbird), they work well for the price. As a bonus, I used mine for ice fishing as well. My advice is to stay away from the ones that use "AA" batteries (usually 8 of them) - go for one that has a rechargeable battery pack of some sort. It will save you a pile of $ over time. Also, if it is a suction cup type, I prefer to rig up a C-clamp and mount the transducer to a piece of wood - still portable, but more stable giving better readings, and less chance of falling off and getting cut by the prop (been there, done that!)

For those of you who troll for muskies, what is your baitcasting reel of choice? I am looking to pick up a reasonably priced one to pair up with a Compre that I have as a secondary rod for my son or guests when they fish with me. Cardiff? Tekota? Go the extra mile for a Calcutta? I have never had one with a line counter, I am thinking it might be a nice tool...

Carp for sure, maybe some pike and bass, but I have heard that the weeds can get pretty choked up in there this time of year. Let us know how you do!

Nice fishies! If you upload your pics to a site like Photobucket first, it makes things much easier. You can put as many pics as you like in your posts, and at the size that you want. I resize mine first before uploading down to 800x600 pixels (I use a program called FastStone Photo Resizer, but you can do it with pretty much any image editing software) Upload to Photobucket, then copy the link and paste it into your report. The link will start with .

Luck rhymes with another word that starts with an F... maybe that's what they thought you said to them!!!

On my old boat, after losing two suction-cup transducers, I rigged up a home-made c-clamp/wood version. When I picked up my new ride last week, I dished out the $40 for the Tite-Lok one... it looks quite a bit nicer and you can adjust the height of the transducer easily if need be. (I did on my first trip out - the transducer was set a bit low and was kicking up a rooster tail behind the boat) I got it at BPS. Looks like this... I did have to customize it a bit to fit my Humminbird transducer, just drilled a couple holes and used some longer bolts than the ones that came in the kit. Took 10 minutes all said and done.

That's the one I use, it is awesome for trailering, has lots of straps and is quite adjustable. It also has a great warranty... 4 years if I am not mistaken? Mine wore thru earlier this year (3 years old) from rubbing on one spot on the boat, I took it in with receipt and they handed me a new one! When it is $100 off, you can't beat it for the price in my opinion...

Drawing? That's Pepe the skunk getting what he deserves!

My tacklebox is empty from my tackle purge! Ok, no it isn't. I still have a stupid amount of stuff. I ended up trading that Fenwick/Abu musky combo for 4 double cowgirls and $20... and the collection grows LOL!

Headed out for an early morning fish with Al. On the water at 6:30am, mix of sun & cloud, nice chop on the water. Surface temps 76F. Despite the favourable conditions, after four hours we had nothing to show for our efforts, save for a nice 3+ smallie pulled from a dock that Al lost at boatside. All our musky milk run spots had failed... shallow, mid and deep. Was Pepe Le Pieu going to make an appearance for the first time in 2010? Was the Stowmaster going to stay stowed? Methinks not. Out came the map, and using depths and contour lines, a new area was scouted out. Pepe Le Pieu was hooked thru the nose, scolded, and cast out to perish. I did the musky dance. Al still refuses, something about having his dignity. Hmmmmph. Ten minutes after getting to the new area, the Stowmaster came out to play. Not a big one (low 30's), but it felt great after hours of effort. No pics of this one, just a quick release. Revitalized, we continued working the area... I got a solid hit, and number two was soon in the boat, a better fish at 42". We fished for another half-hour or so after that, and then packed it in around 1pm, as it was getting really hot and humid out there. Al's new ride is quite nice to fish from, and flies around pretty good with its 90 EFI 4 stroke Merc, I think we hit 45mph. I have to say though, boat control with a bigger engine can certainly be a challenge.