solopaddler

LOL too funny Paul

Fortunately when the moose is chopped in half the breeding gear becomes non functional .

Boy, that's alotta sausage, bet that beast was shot in Alaska.

Holy jeebus, not bad for close to Cambridge! .

Great report! It's interesting to me to see the video of your portaboat and how stable it is.

I used to own an older 10' model for back lake fishing, almost round in shape when assembled. It was like putting a motor on kiddies wading pool. I called it "The Floating Death Trap"

Thanks Alan, once again some amazing fish and on the fly to boot. Very impressive!

WTG guys, there'll be nothing stopping you now, LOL!

Hey Cliff, if you want to know how to paddle the canoe then yeah, you might want me to chime in, but that stuff is mostly gobbldeygook to me .

Honestly, beyond having a whistle on my lifejacket I've never been concerned with most of the stuff you mentioned, but then I'm usually paddling in remote areas.

Anyhow, as far as the nav lights go, I'd imagine if you were using the canoe locally you'd want to have them. If I'm not mistaken you can buy small battery operated nav lights that clamp onto the gunnel of the boat. You'll need the tri coloured one in the bow, and one white light in the stern. You could attach more permanent lights and wire them to your trolling motor battery also.

You definitely don't need an operators card, although if you want to get it anyway you can take the test online, it's very easy. (I've got the answers saved to my computer if you want to make it REALLY easy ).

Also, is this a regular canoe or a squareback? If it's a regular canoe do you have a side bracket for your trolling motor? If you need one I've got one kicking around the house somewhere and you're welcome to it.

Cheers, Mike

Rona never lets me pick through the wood in their yard so I'm not a big fan personally .

Good luck with the new job though I'm sure they'll be fine to work for.

Thanks Justin, great report!

Great report and some very respectable 'eyes for being so close to town.

Some nice fish there jedi, looks like you guys had a great trip!

That was great Jen! So what would you guys have won if you were able to weigh the fish?

Man what a report! First off glad to see your buddy is on the road to recovery.

Surprising to me that the Sultan Road was that bad, I drive it a couple of times every year and it's not usually that bad (I'm assuming you broke your trailer bunk on that road).

Some real nice fish though, congrat's on that! As far as I'm concerned Nipigon is very much untapped for huge northerns. Very cool to see that you got into a few...

cheers

Nice report looks like fun, and congrat's to your buddy on his new boat!

My condolences John, hang tough.

Unfortunately there's no way to put a positive spin on these fish taking hold in our waters....there's plenty of other non harmful sources of omega 3 currently available.

Hey, nothing wrong with that fish, wtg! I really like the mogambo grubs too...

What a beauty, very impressive!

55" eh? Would love to see a picture...

Yecch, what an ugly brute! (Nice lookin' fish though )

Another great report Steve, looks like you guys had a blast!

Well that's too bad you didn't get out as much as you wanted. Maybe next time you go up you can try trolling some of the areas we talked about.

Oh I did. I think you guys cleaned it out already

Congratulations Cliff, sounds like things are working out well!

Well, we decided at literally the last minute to head north to Doe Lake just north of Huntsville for a couple of nights. My brother in law and his family were up there for the week. We don't get to see them that much and we had the time, so why not?

It was a tight fit in the car though. My mother in law joined us so Joanne was crammed into the back seat between the 2 child seats. No room to move and a kid on each side of her grabbing at her.....she was glad when we arrived .

We rented a pretty decent little cottage on Little Doe Lake at another resort right next to the one my in laws were at.

Small private beach right at our doorstep was nice, my daughter loved it.

Now, before I left I solicted the board for help in finding walleye up there (thank's again everyone for the info, especially Joey!). In all honesty I didn't get a chance to fish all that much, and when I did get out it was tough! My brother in law Dale owns a boat that looks eerily like the one Relic on The Beachcombers drove ...not a great fishing boat, we tried for a bit in his boat, but you coudn't troll in it (too fast), and there wasn't a breath of wind for a drift, so that was out. I was getting frustrated so I broke down and rented a small tin boat Thursday evening and brought my 13 year old nephew Ryan out to a small rockpile on Little Doe.

We tried our best, but other than a few Rock Bass and one undersized smallmouth, we came up short. Real nice evening and sunset though...

Friday the weather continued it's trend of hot, hazy, flat calm conditions. I went out for a bit by myself early Friday morning, but man, conditions were tough!

Here I am entering the narrows from Little Doe into Middle Doe.

Once on Big Doe I tried a variety of spots, but it felt like fishing in the Gobi Desert!

Caught a bunch of dink smallmouth and that was it...

Now I've got to say these lakes were unbelievably busy. Jet skis, waterskiers and pleasure boats churning up the water all day long. That combined with the weather conditions made for pretty tough conditions (that's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it!)

With those conditions combined with the near full moon what I should have done is troll all night long with some of my modified oversized floating Rapalas. Unfortunately that wasn't an option on this trip.

Ah well, it was still fun! We capped off our mini trip with a huge barbecue on our last night

No complaints, it was still a fun little getaway.

Headed north to my place in Quebec with a bud later this week for some serious back lake fishing. One lake in particular is reputed to have numbers of big pike over 20lb's (and never gets fished) so it should be interesting, hopefully we'll put a few more fish in the boat!

cheers, Mike

Thanks for that, brings back memories! I paddled up the Atwood system to Felsia then up the Witchwood River entering the lake. That's some real nice country up there!

Thanks Rob, every little bit of info helps!