solopaddler

I took the family over there yesterday actually. Not to buy (they're actually slightly overpriced IMO), but because we were able to look at every vehicle I'm interested in at one spot. The one vehicle in particular that impressed me a lot was the 06 RAV4's. They changed the styling in 06, made them larger and have an optional 6cyl engine which has way more power and supposedly darn near the same gas mileage as the 4.

Wow, lots of input, thanks everyone! Gotta say I'm not ruling anything out, but I'm leaning towards a CRV. I drove one for 8 years before I sold it and bought my current vehicle in February. It's got the reliability, resale value, and the ability to go off road. My older one got 28mpg... If I need more space I can always get a small utility trailer. Probably going to take a close look at the Odyssey as well. My dads been driving one for awhile now and he gets 28mpg on the hwy as well. Thanks again boys...

Actually the vehicle I bought wasn't brand new (I'd never take that hit). It was 2 years old with less than 30K on it. In fact I have looked at a Volvo wagon and I'm not ruling them out. It's hard to find one at the right price though. I should have given a bit more info. What I want (read: if I can convince the wife), is a vehicle that also has 4wd. I'd be lost without it as many of my fishing trips are on pretty rough roads. My head is telling me to buy a Honda Odyssey and be done with it, but my heart is saying buy either a A. Honda CRV B. Toyota RAV4 C. Subaru Outback or Forester (4cyl model) or maybe D. Toyota Highlander The first 3 are big enough for my needs, all get 30mpg or close to it, have great resale value (and are safe). Just wondering if there's any other options I'm overlooking.

Back in February I purchased 2 new vehicles, one of which has proven to be a mistake. Super nice vehicle, but the gas mileage is terrible, nowhere near what it's "supposed" to get. With gas prices already high and likely to climb higher I have to make a move now....the sooner the better. I've got very specific needs. With 2 small kids I need a vehicle with space, and with the amount of driving I do something very fuel efficient (at least 28-30mpg). Resale value is another big factor for me.. In any case I've narrowed my choice down to 3 possible vehicles but would love to hear some other opinions. Does the combination of size, fuel economy and resale value exist? What do you guys like?

Just noticed your reply Rene, glad to hear you had a good trip as well! (we've definitely got to get together up there if possible)

Yes it's an Ontario based board, but you said 2-3 hours from the Thousand Islands. Obviously you're familiar with Cabonga, there's several other fantastic walleye lakes in the same general vicinity. Yes, it's a longer drive. Yes, it's more expensive (for a non resident). But hey, do you want to take your son fishing, OR do you want to actually catch fish. Big difference... I'll take one more stab at answering your question now that I know it's specifically Ontario you're interested in. Big Gull has been mentioned already, it's part of the Mississippi River system. A bit better IMO is Crotch Lake part of the same watershed. It's shoreline is largely undeveloped and it's a very beautiful lake: http://www.virtualnorth.com/tumblehome/ You'd have a great fishing trip there...but still you'd do a lot more catching in QC. Good luck in your search.

There's countless places to consider. If you're willing to drive further I've stayed here before....the spring walleye fishing is outstanding: http://www.quebec-outfitters.net/deerhorn/

Great stuff, can't wait 'till my daughter's old enough to take along.

Hey Paul, you've got an open invitation to come up and fish some back lakes with me. It'd be nice if you could make it this year.... Thanks everyone for the positive comments!

Hey Jason, that REALLY is a wicked tent! Good on ya for sticking it out this weekend, you're girl looks a trooper as well . Can't wait to hear how you make out north of Cochrane. Have a great trip bud, I know you've been looking forward to it for a while!

I left last Thursday with my buddy Fergie for the cabin. The walleye opener in QC being on Friday, we'd have a leisurely drive north and a relaxing evening at camp gearing up for Fridays festivities. All went as planned. Light traffic and a bluebird day made the trip as good as it gets. Made it to camp by 2pm and quickly unloaded. I'd already pre-rigged my stuff the previous week, so I poured a drink and watched Ferg go to work. How shall I say this.... he's a bit of a gear hound. 6 different rods rigged to the nth degree, he was all business. Some of the baits he uses, you guys would salivate, I should've taken pictures. Honestly the most amazing array of hand tied jigs I've ever seen. He predicted that the venerable drop shot rig would slay the eyes tomorrow. Me? I wasn't quite as sure but I liked his confidence. We were up super early with the generator droning in the background and the coffee percolating by 4:30am. As we ate our breakfast we watched the ceiling drop to maybe 500', the wind pick up a bit, then shortly afterwards the rain started. I was cold just looking at the weather outside, but we were here to fish and fish we would. There's a traditional hotspot on my lake that's very near the landing. We (stupidly) decided to try a spot away from the pack a few km's up the lake.... Maybe not a "stupid" decision, but a decision that would soon prove to have bad consequences.. As we motored up the lake through the cold driving rain we were still upbeat, but then how could we not be? It was opening day man! We arrived at our chosen spot and within moments we were backtrolling. About 5 minutes into our morning fate decided to intervene with brutal blow. Don't ask me how, I still don't understand how it happened, but as I shifted gears on the outboard my freakin' prop fell off! Oh, I can laugh about it now, but at the time.... Seeing as how we had chosen the isolated spot to start our morning there were no boats nearby to help. Of course there weren't they were all pounding fish back at the landing! I had my cel phone, but for some strange cosmic reason it wasn't functioning (no service). Go figure, that's NEVER happened before. (Wayne if you're reading this that's why I didn't contact you on Thursday) Anyhow, I still had my bow mount electric and a freshly charged battery so off we went. Through the icy rain and battling a headwind we managed to travel roughly 5 km's before it died as well. We had made it to a (usually) busier part of the lake, but STILL hadn't seen a single other boat. Neither one of us felt like paddling so we began to fish while we waited for a boat to cruise by. Finally, 30 minutes later, of all people, my buddy Mike who owns a lodge in the north end whipped by. We frantically waved him down and our ordeal was over. (Although I DID have to listen to Mike make fun of me, my boat and anything even remotely anglophone as we were towed in. He's a great guy, really! ) Finally made it to the landing, thanked Mike and hopped in the car. There was a Yamaha dealership in Rouyn and I was praying they'd have the parts I needed. It wasn't just the prop, but there was also a threaded nut, and a stainless steel washer that was lost..pretty much the whole assembly. Anyhow we found the dealership and $180 later I had my parts and we were racing back to the landing through the driving rain hoping to get at least a bit of fishing in.. I grabbed another battery from my bud at the marina and raced over to the spot where everyone else was and finally began to fish....at 5pm . I started with my usual twister tail and worm, Ferg was working his dropshot rig with a Gulp minnow.. Not too long after we dropped the electric I FINALLY broke the ice: Ferg got in the game not long afterwards with a clean little pike: Things actually really picked up for a while, heck the sun even peaked out from behind the clouds . As the evening wore on we began to hit fish fan casting small stickbaits in REALLY shallow water, no more than 3-5' deep. I was throwing a 3" Storm stickbait in a hot perch colour and Ferg was bangin' 'em on some kind of cool looking Japanese bait that was worth more than my Stradic reel . We kept 4 for dinner and beat it back to camp at around 8pm, felling a "little" bit better: We had actually planned on fishing a nearby back lake on Saturday, but with the day we'd just had and the horrible weather forecast on tap for Saturday we decided to stick to my lake and the comforts of the big boat. Once again it was cold, windy and raining hard when we set out the next morning. Even though I've been on the lake for 6 seasons now, most of those years were spent working and I'm still learning the ins and outs and seasonal patterns of this large body of water. Because of that we decided to try another new spot that looked like it had all the ingredients about 10km up the lake, so heads bowed against the wind and rain off we went. The first half of the day was brutal. We managed to scratch out a grand total of one measly walleye, and even with multiple layers of fleece and full goretex suits we were chilled to the core by 2pm and pretty darned despondant. At one point we were sitting in this small bay in front of a creek mouth with literally a WALL of water coming down. Honestly I was ready to give up. All I wanted to do was head back to camp, have a hot shower and pour a cold (stiff) drink. BUT this was our last day on the water. Gotta hand it to Ferg he refused to quit and it was only through his attitude that I relented and decided to try ONE last spot. I had to think hard and pick a good one! Our options were A: make a run back to the landing at the south end where we knew there were some fish, or B: Try something a bit...radical. We opted for B. There's a small lake that feeds into the big lake via a marshy creek. I've never fished it before 'cause there's a huge, high beaver dam blocking the passage. I figured maybe, just maybe with this springs super high water it might be possible to get my heavy boat over the dam, so off we went. As we approached the dam I was elated, there was only maybe a 2' barrier to traverse... I knew we'd make it! Ferg stepped out on top of the dam to lighten the boat and I backed up to take a run at it. Just as I'm about to gun it he yells out "RAM THE BEAVER!" First real laugh I had all weekend, had to stop and gather myself before the next attempt. I forgot to get pictures of our beaver dam jump on the way in, but did remember to snap a few on the way out... Anyhow obviously we made it in and instantly knew that we had something very special. First off the water in the main lake was only 46 degrees tops. In this little hidden gem it was 53. Quite a huge difference! As we made our way up the marsh into the lake thousands and thousands of minnows skipped ahead of us in the water. We entered the lake and another massive downpour struck, it was ridiculous. We WANTED to fish, but were basically becoming hypothermic and needed to do something fast. I spied a beautiful looking ice hut along the shoreline and made a beeline for it....shelter! We pulled up to it, hopped inside and fired up the woodstove. In short order we were both drying off and soaking up the heat like a sponge. It was heavenly . After maybe 40 minutes or so the rain stopped and the skies actually started to clear . Nice and dry for the first time all day and feeling great we pushed off, snapped a quick pic of our accomodations and began to fish: Finally the fish gods smiled on us, it didn't matter what we threw we caught walleyes hand over fist: It was awesome! Whether it was because the sun finally came out and turned them on, or we were simply fishing better water I'm not sure (probably a combination of both). In any case we kept a few to bring home: Yes, I'll publicly admit it now....I do use a white bucket . Feeling pretty darn good about ourselves we finally started making our way through the swamp back to the main lake: Once again I had to "RAM THE BEAVER!" and almost made it completely over this time...just the very back end of the boat was hung up: A couple of pushes with the paddle while Ferg played photographer and we were through: We beat it back to camp, cleaned our fish and had a perfectly fabulous evening. Hot shower, cold rum and coke, jumbo prawns sauteed in butter and garlic along with an incredible moose tenderloin on the bbq. It doesn't get any better. And that was it, our fishing was done. We packed up and headed home on Sunday to beat the traffic (good move from what I heard). It was an amazing trip and one I'll remember for a bunch of different reasons. More "memories for the rocking chair" like my dad always says. This was the sight I was greeted with when I walked in the door Sunday night: Life is good. Cheers, Mike

Your writing is so descriptive.....maybe a bit "too" descriptive! Seriously man that was incredible, thank's for taking the time to put it together .

Great read thanks for posting, and good luck up north!

Beautiful fish, looks like a fun trip regardless of the lack of pike.

Great stuff Cliff!

Great news Lew, hope things stay stable with your mom.

I'm actually in N/W Quebec directly east of Kirkland Lake.

Thanks for the write-up, you've got a great sense of humour .

Great stuff, there's nothing better is there?

Have a great one Wayne (you lucky dog ).

Hey congrat's, those are some very decent pike!

Great report thanks for taking the time. I can only hope things are as good for me next week.

I havn't been up to the cabin since last October when I closed her up. Usually I'm up at least once over the winter to check on things, but with my schedule it wasn't possible this year. With the walleye/pike opener next Friday I had to make the time for a quick trip north to get everything in order for next weeks onlaught . My dad was kind enough to join me and we left Dundas at 4:30 AM on Friday (Let me tell ya I wasn't too chipper). After a mostly uneventful 7 hour drive north we were greeted by an incredible sight. I had heard the water was high, but this is what the parking lot in front of my boat slip looked like: There were actually small fish swimming around in the lot LOL! The last time the water was high like that the fishing on the opener was unreal, so it's not necessarily a bad thing. Once again I had a ridiculously huge load of stuff to haul over to camp: Fortunately winds were light and the 30 minute boat ride was a breeze. Here's my first view of my little chunk of paradise: Thank goodness everything went smoothly. No major disasters to deal with, just a couple of small ones. Apparantly the rodents up there enjoy chewing on screen doors . Both of the screen doors on each side of the sunroom were chewed to bits. Patched 'em up with duct tape for the time being. The replacement will be a summer project. Also forgot to get a new foot valve for the water pump and had a heck of a time getting the old one functional again...but I eventually did. Lots of unloading and cleanup, it was a looong, looong day. The highlight was dinner at 8:30: My dad was in bed and sleeping 10 minutes after we ate. He's a pretty tough guy, but he is 70.... Me? I poured a stiff drink, listened to the loons and stared at the night sky: Next week there'll be a lot more fish pic's in my report . Cheers, Mike

Fantastic, what a fabulous report!