solopaddler

After fishing for so many years I'm just not into punishing myself anymore, fact is I just can't stand the cold. Was supposed to fish last Thursday but bailed for obvious reasons, Friday and Saturday were possibilities, but the weather still looked cold... After seeing the weather forecast for Sun/Mon with both days reasonably warm I made a couple of calls. First to my co-worker who was happy to cover for me on Monday, then to my steelheading buddy to see if he was game for an overnighter. He was of course, so the plan was set. Over the course of the last 2 days we put a lot of miles on my Honda and fished a variety of different trib's. Sunday was fun as we caught a mixed bag of Browns and Steelhead. Started out the day though with the breakfast of champions . I thought this sign was a hoot! Some fish... Today was interesting....very surprisingly it rained overnight which blew out the river we had it in mind to fish. Fortunately there's always a back up . We made our way to the estuary of one of my favourite rivers under a leaden sky with light rain falling. No wind to speak of and temps well above zero, just perfect! We found a decent little push of fresh fish, all full of pure evil , with lots of spunk. We had some epic battles today! We did catch a few real booty looking ones, obviously they'd been in the river for awhile. Some though, like this nice buck had just gorgeous colours... All in all another 2 solid days of fun. Cheers, Mike

How come you guys always pick weird days like a Tuesday or Thursday? LOL! How about a Friday or Saturday night? C'mon, then I might actually be able to attend.

I never re-freeze my eggs. I generally use them before it becomes necessary to do that. As mentioned they're frozen in packs with enough eggs for a days fishing... If you do re-freeze them there shouldn't be any issues as long as you dry then off and sop up any goo that's on them with paper towels. Any moisture on the eggs will create ice crystals that will pierce the eggs and turn them to mush.

Absolutely nothing. Skein is scraped and air dried 'till it hardens a bit, then it's vacuum sealed in small portions, enough for a days fishing. Mature loose eggs are water hardened briefly, carefully dried off then packed the same way. Sometimes I don't even water harden the eggs, just take them straight from the fish and use them that way. You'll have a much softer egg that's still easy to tie if you do this. Au natural is by far the best. I do have an opinion on the various cures available as I've used them all. The best thing to use if you must use anything is plain old 20 Mule Team borax from the grocery store, and not in a solution. Simply sprinkled lightly on the eggs after they've either been water hardened or air dried.

Wayne, just bite the bullet and get one of these babies: http://www.snobearind.com/

The reason that happened was because you put the eggs in a solution with salt. Osmosis me lad, look it up, LOL! Seriously in the future don't do that. It's not a bad idea to water harden your eggs (preferably with river water) for a short while, maybe an hour or 2. But don't store them in a solution... As mentioned you can attempt to dye them, not sure if that will work or not.

Okay, well Virginiatown is pretty much equidistant to both Kirkland Lake in Ontario, and Rouyn-Noranda in Quebec. Both roughly 40km away. Both cities are reasonably cosmopolitan with large shopping malls, grocery stores, theatres, hospitals, etc. Unless you're planning on moving up there (are you? LOL!) I think you'd find everything you need in either one of those cities. The Virginiatown/Kearns area is beautiful, but is a little short on visitor facilities. It's a mining town, not really set up for tourists but nice nonetheless. If you're looking for accomodations in town there's pretty much only one place worth recommending, Cheminis Lodge right on the hwy in town. I know the owners Bonnie and Dave personally and they run an absolute 5 star operation in my opinion... As far as fishing goes, well if you get to that point shoot me a pm and I can fill you in. I know the area intimately and can put you onto some great fishing. Cheers, Mike

My cabin is 15 mins from Virginiatown/Kearns, what'ya wanna know? LOL! It's a fabulous little corner of the province, great scenery and great fishing.

I've used the Maxima perfection as tippet steelhead fishing and have found it to be NO WHERE near as durable or strong as Maxima Ultragreen. No comparison really... As far as the other line goes, are you sure you don't mean Stren "Magnathin"? I could quite easily be wrong, but I've never heard of Stren Megathin... Anyhow, as far as the Magnathin goes, when I'm finesse fishing with light spinning tackle, 8lb Moss Green Magnathin is by far my favourite line, (if I can find it). Virtually no memory and quite durable...

Jackie first off if you don't have a NY State lisence I'd get one. You're severly limiting yourself if you don't although you will catch fish drifting the Canadian side only. Second, your boat is just fine although I wouldn't go beyond the powerplant up into the Glen. Go upstream as far as the plant but not beyond and you'll be just fine. At the moment there's been a good bite on roe. Assuming the river is still relatively clear use smaller, dime sized bags of preferably trout roe in natural colours. You will indeed be bottom bouncing and due to the snaggy nature of the bottom I'd highly recommend using either pencil lead or a slinky for weight rigged on a 3-way dropper.3/8 to 3/4oz is not too heavy. Run a relatively long tippet (3-4') as well down to your hook. Now the most important point, in order to effectively slow down and control your drifts you MUST utilize a bow mounted electric. If you don't you'll be drifting waaay too fast and out of control, spinning around in the current. The whole key is trying to keep your bait as vertical as possible by slowing down your boat by running the electric into the current. You'll see what I mean if you closely watch how the guide boats operate down there. Cheers and good luck!

Some info.... http://msocustomrods.com/MSOCustomRods/Han...turn_floats.htm

It's nice to read all the different Quinte reports, everyone has a different perspective. Thanks for posting Mike, sounds like you had a good time and met some good people.

Nice report bly, thanks for posting!

Great stuff Wayne! Just curious but did anyone in the OFC contingent troll Picton harbour at night? When I was there a couple weeks ago the shad were just starting to enter as were the big 'eyes. Some pretty easy fishin' at night if you can pull yourself away from the campfire.... Cheers

That's awesome Cliff, what a great catch!

A CD with 1:50,000 series topographic maps for the entire province of Ontario. Best $130 I've ever spent. I'm seriously into backwoods fishing and exploring and have a accumulated quite a collection of the standard hard copy maps over the years. At around 20 bucks a pop per map it was starting to get a wee bit expensive. Gotta love technology! http://canadianmaps.ca/Maps/QVNON/ontario.htm

Very impressive!

Nice read, but take it easy on the beer, LOL!

Happy birthday!

Hey Mike that was great thanks for posting!

Check out the bulletin board on the NOTO (northern ontario tourist outfitter) website. There's always lodges looking for people exactly like yourself. Good luck! http://www.noto.net/bulletins/talk.cfm?i=2

Enough already......please .

Wow, sorry to hear about the bad experience at Merlands. I'm not surprised in slightest though. I've never stayed there, but have heard several horror stories from friends who have...

Nice fish Steve. Sure looked a lot calmer out there than some of the pic's from out Picton way.

Cool report thanks! The rainbow with the large tail fin is commonly called a "fantail". Very common genetic mutation that's been popping up in Lake Ontario in recent years... And yeah, LOL!, you might want to steer clear of that dam next time... Cheers