Dabluz

Not much info on the lure itself (ex.: cost, weight, length).....just photos of big fish. I'm leery of advertisements that only show big fish but very little about their product.

Yep....fallfish it is. Here in Quebec, they are called "ouitouche". Pike love to eat them. They are also great as cut bait too. The flesh has a pretty strong odour. They are a very rapid fish and often jump out of the water when caught on a small hook and very light line. I have caught them up to 14 inches long.

I also use Fireline a lot since it came out over 10 years ago. I have not noticed any significant fraying. Most of the time, I use the spinning reel that has my original 8 lb test Fireline. It's over 10 years old.....what am I doing wrong??? lol. I don't recommend Fireline over 14 lb test unless it's for heavy deep sea fishing. All of the braids that I have used are similar except for Mason Tiger Braid which had the best test results in tests that were done about 10 years ago. In any event, I do not buy any braids that have a mono coating to make them slicker and reduce fraying. This mono covering just makes the line less limp and larger in diameter. Spiderline has (or did have when it first came out) a rather thick coating of mono. There are no real bad braided lines out there except maybe Remington Braid which I don't see anymore anyway. It's difficult to try out new braided and fused lines because the one's I bought a good while back are still in excellent condition and still on my reels. Spiderline and Remington braid only took me a few days to discover that they were not for me. Fluorocarbon.....I still can't see where that stuff is of any use. I've tried a few (even Seaguar) and was extremely disappointed. They made me lose fish and lures like never before. Is there something that I am doing wrong? I do a lot of fishing and do a lot of reading about the subject. I go fishing almost everyday year round. I've been fishing for 60 years and have seen the evolution from braided nylon lines, level wind reels, steel or glass rods, all the way to today. I find it hard to believe that so many people are satisfied with fluorocarbon line or leaders. Ok....I use the lightest line possible when fishing. I use 3/4 lb to 4 lb mono when fly fishing and 2 lb to 6 lb mono on my spinning reels for most of my fishing. Anything over these limits, I use braided or fused lines. Loss of colour in any of the new lines is the least of my worries. If the line is supple and thin enough, the fish do not notice it no matter what colour it is.

You have to be really careful about which charger to buy these days. Many do not recharge deep cycle batteries. I ruined a battery last year because I could not fully charge my deep cycle battery with a battery charger that I bought at C.T. I now have a Schumacher battery charger that I bought at Walmart and it works perfectly. I got it too late to recharge the battery that wouldn't recharge last year. Yes, it does fully charge now but the battery's capacity is greatly reduced.

I forgot the runners. The fastest and lightest way is to use 2 lengths of 2" x 6" planks that are also used as floor supports. The ends of the planks are rounded off and you add a strip of 3/8 inch thick teflon to make it easy to slide the hut across the ice.

You don't need plans. A floor, 4 walls and a simple sloping roof is all you need. However, a 4 man hut is quite a large thing. Are you sure that you will be 4 fishermen most of the time? For 4 fishermen....you will need at least a floor of 8' x 8' but to be comfortable, maybe 10 x 8 would be better. With a sloping roof, make sure that you make the floor a bit smaller so that the panels for the roof overlap the edges of the wall a tiny bit so an 8 x 8 hut will actually have a floor more along the lines of 7 x 8. To reduce the overall weight, do not make the hut too tall. The floor supports should be made of 4" x 4" while the walls can be made with 3" x 3". The wall and roof panels are usually made from 3/8 inch pressed wood chips. Paint the outside....starting out with a first coat of paint having quite a bit of thinner added to it in order to soak the pressed wood chips. For heating, a propane heater like a Martin will do fine but we're talking about a heater that may cost around 150 dollars. Or, you can even make your own stove out of a metal container and 3 or 4 inch stove pipe. Add a good layer of sand to the bottom of the container. If you shop around, I'm sure you can find a small cast iron stove for around 50 dollars. Use leftover panelling to make a fold-down table.

That 8 inch brook trout is a perfect eating size. Larger brook trout should be filleted if it's for pan frying. I always filet my brook trout because the filet is easier to cook exactly the way I want it. As for the size of the brook trout, all depends on where they are caught. Here in the Saguenay region, brook trout are everywhere you look. Every little stream is crammed full of them but, they are usually small in size (4 to 10 inches) and most of the lakes have nothing else but brook trout. I mean nothing else.....no chub or any other species of fish. This means that the brook trout population is optimal due to no competition for food. The average size is about 8 to 12 inches in most lakes but in the Saguenay river, the average size is around 15 inches. Pike.....I like to eat those around 24 inches long. I do not remove the bones for cooking. I remove them when the fillet is in the plate. It's fast and easy....much faster than fooling around with a fillet knife when the pike is raw. On top of that, there is no loss of flesh. I like pike either fried (filets) or cooked whole in aluminum foil. Yes....pike is just as good as walleye. I have eaten pike and walleye all of my life. A trick you can try is to scrape the scales off the pike before evisceration. This removes the slime that seems to affect the taste of the flesh. No bass where I live but I never did eat bass very often when I lived in Ontario. Whitefish are excellent eating. So much so that north of the 50th parallel, fishing for these fish is prohibited. Only the native population may fish for them. However, I know of a few spots close to home where I can legally catch them.

Yes.....by all means....make your own rack. A few years ago, I bought a small stick 120 volt welder. I use sticks that work very well at 35 to 50 amps. My welder has a 70 amp output. I then did a bit of reading on the internet on how to weld. Ever since then, I have been welding all sorts of things. It's a lot of fun modifying an old trailer or repairing something around the house. Ok....I would not recommend using such a welding machine for welding something that will need to take a lot of weight but for building an ATV rack, it will do just fine. I think I paid about 125 dollars for my welding machine but the thing has saved me a lot of money over the years. On top of that it's fun to use. I also keep an eye out for metal scraps because I save a lot of money doing that. In your case, I would check out your atv to see where you could install 4 short square metal tubes. You can even install the tubes with U-bolts to the ATV. Most people install the anchor points to the front and rear baggage carriers. From those 4 anchor points, it will be no problem to make some uprights from slightly smaller sized metal tubing that will fit inside the 4 short square tubes. You drill through the tubes and you can install pins to hold the rack to the ATV. The other tool that is indispensable is an electric grinder with cutting disks and grinding disk. Grinders sell for 30 dollars and even less. The cutting disks cut through steel like it was butter.

First of all.....use very fine clear mono. I use 2 to 4 lb clear mono for brook trout on a very light but very fast 6 to 7 foot rod. Fill the spool right to 1/8 of an inch from the lip and even more if possible. I like Berkley Sensation "clear". If your tension is set right, the line will not break. When bait fishing, I only put a small hook on the end of the line. A size 8 Gamakatsu Octopus hook is perfect. No weight is needed or other hardware on the line. The very fine line alows good casting distance unless it's windy. For bait I use the head of a large nightcrawler cut off about 1/3 to 1/2 from the dark tip of the worm. The rest of the worm....I cut it into 2 or 3 pieces and throw the pieces into the water around my canoe. Thread the hook through the until you reach about 1/2 way and then expose the point of the hook while pushing the worm up over the knot on your line. The bait will look like a leach. It will be straight and the tip of the worm will move freely. At this time of the year, you will find brook trout in 10 to 20 feet of water near the mouths of creeks, streams or small rivers that flow into a lake. Do not anchor immediately in front of the mouth of the stream but off to the side....you don't want to lower your anchor on top of the fish. Keep noise to a minimum and cast towards the mouth of the stream. Leave the bail open and pull off line from the spool while your bait is slowly sinking to the bottom. You will see the floating mono moving on the surface of the water. When the worm reaches bottom, the line will stop moving. Leave the worm on bottom for a few seconds and then reel in the slack line. Next step is to lift the rod tip about 12 inches. This will lift the bait off the bottom. Let the bait slowly go back to the bottom and repeat. Keep repeating until the bait is on the bottom under your boat or canoe. Slowly reel in the bait and start over again. If you don't get a bite, cast a bit left or right of the first cast. If you don't get a bite after 4 or 5 casts, go to another location. For casting, I like a size 1 or 2 Panther Martin. Either the silver blade and yellow body or the black blade and orange body depending if it's sunny or cloudy. I also like to use small minnow baits. The lure that works best for me is the Original floating 9 cm Rapala in silver with black back. For fishing in deeper water, the 5 cm Shad Rap in silver with black back works just as well. Both lures are great for trolling. For very slow trolling or drifting (it must be very slow), I like to use a 3 inch Lake Clear wobbler that is silver on one side and brass on the other side. The wobbler is set a good 30 inches in front of a baited hook that is baited the way that I mentioned above. Again....no added weight to the line. When using lures that tend to twist the line (spinners or wobblers) I use the smallest black swivel I can find. Since the swivel is tiny, it must be the best you can find. Sampo makes about the best swivels. They are also the most expensive. They cost as much as a lure.

Go to a police station and just verify that the machine was not reported stolen. If not, the police will give it a clean bill of health and you can then get it registered in your name. I have done this with a few old motorcycles and snowmobiles. A situation like yours is a common occurance.

You could use a small dipsey diver along with deep diving crankbaits.

I rarely use leaders except for bottom fishing in the Saguenay river where there are a lot of snags. When I do lose line, it's just the leader that I lose. I use 8 to 12 lb mono depending if it's for the sinker at the end of the line or for the main leader or for the leaders to the hooks. I steer clear of fluorocarbon because all of the comparison tests that I could accomplish with the stuff showed me that it was inferior to mono in all departements. I tried 6 lb fluorocarbon instead of 4 lb mono one time and the stuff was far weaker. My mono is always clear mono. Not fluo blue or fluo clear but just plain clear. Put 6 lb clear mono beside 6 lb fluorocarbon in a glass at home and put it up against the light....you will see that the mono is just as invisible. For finesse fishing (brook trout), I use 2 to 4 lb clear mono. I want my line to be buoyant so that when I tug on my line, my baited hook does not drag on the bottom but lifts off the bottom when I'm fishing with no additional hardware on the line. For walleye in shallow clear water and clean bottom, I use 4 lb clear mono or 6 lb clear mono. For landlocked salmon, I use 6 lb clear mono. I like Fireline for very deep water and use 10 lb to 14 lb test in up to 400 feet of water when jigging for cod, halibut, rock cod, and ocean perch. Still....the 14 lb test Fireline is a bit wiry for this unless I use a jig over 3 ounces. I also use 6 lb test Fireline for walleye when there are a lot of snags on the bottom. It's very fine and breaks at over 10 lb test. I love braid on my baitcasters. The best in my opinion is Mason Tiger braid in 18 lb test. But I don't recommend this line because the knots are hard to make. You need a magnifying glass to check the knot after it has been made to see if the outer part of the braid has been damaged. Mason Tiger Braid is a made in 2 parts....a linear braid like Fireline inside a braided outer covering. The outer covering slides a bit on the inner core and makes the line very resistant to fraying on objects.

I would look at the consumer reports before buying anything. In my opinion, Jeeps are not worth the money you have to pay for them. Buy yourself an old full sized pickup and put a winch on each end. Can't be more basic than that and the yearly cost is next to nil. If you want a 4 X 4 to cruise the girls downtown, get something real shiny and leave it in town when you go into the bush.

You would be much better off going to another lake. 7 feet maximum depth is not enough. The water in this lake surely gets way to warm for brook trout. Brook trout prefer cooler water and I doubt that the lake you mention even has enough oxygen in mid summer to support brook trout. If you decide to go brook trout fishing in a one of the lakes where the MNR does do a bit of stocking, your best method of fishing at this time of the year is to fish from the deep water in front of a small cool stream that feeds the lake. Cast towards the inlet into about 10 to 15 of water using very light clear mono (2 to 4 lb test) with only a small good quality hook like a Gamakatsu Octopus size 10 or 8 and the head portion of a big lively nightcrawler. Thread the nightcrawler on the hook so that the point of the hook is exposed about halfway down towards the tip of the head. The portion of the nightcrawler should be about 2 inches long and it should look like a leech and not like a big "J" that I see so often fishermen do when the want to hide the point of the hook. When you cast towards the inlet, do not close the bail on the spinning reel. Let the line spill off the spool while the worm slowly falls to the bottom. You will see the floating mono moving until the worm is on bottom. When the worm is on bottom, wait a for a few seconds and then slowly raise your rod tip about 12 inches so that the worm lifts off the bottom. Let the worm slowly return to bottom and reel in the slack line. Raise your rod tip again and let the worm slowly return to the bottom again. Keep doing this until the worm is directly under the boat. Slowly raise the worm to the surface and repeat the whole operation again. If you don't get a strike within 20 minutes of fishing, change the worm and go to the next inlet. If there are spots where there is even deeper water....try the same technique. If you don't get any strikes.....there are no trout in that lake.

I have a Shimano Symetre 2000 that I bought over 10 years ago. It's still as smooth as ever. If I turn off the anti-reverse, the reel turns until the handle is in the down position. I use this reel for everything from small brook trout, smelt, walleye, pike and landlocked salmon.

I worked as a conservation officer in Quebec for a while. I worked in a ZEC (controlled exploitation zone). We did a lot of stuff like staking out at night near spawning beds or checking for loaded firearms in vehicles at night. Or portaging for a couple of hours just to check out 1 group of fishermen. It often brought results and the word did get around that we could be anywhere, anytime. I know of some conservation officers who never leave their vehiclev. I also worked with some guys who were scared to write up a report on somebody. We worked in pairs and it's not much fun when you are writing up citations to a group of fishermen or hunters while your partner is doing something like checking our equipment. When I had a partner who was willing to go the extra mile, it was fun. It was particular fun when we checked fishermen or hunters who were genuinly surprised to see us. It's nice to see that some agents do take their job seriously.

Your little Minn Kota voltmeter....does it indicate the voltage? If not, buy a real voltmeter and check to see what the voltage of the battery is because some chargers will not recharge a battery that has too low of a voltage. You hook up the charger and nothing appears on the charger because the charger does not recognize the fact that it is connected to a battery. If this is the case, add the other battery in parallel to your weak battery in order to get a higher voltage. With a higher voltage, the charger will know that it is connected to a battery. After a few minutes, you can disconnect the stronger battery and the charger will continue charging. Is your deep cycle battery sealed or can you check the liquid level of each cell? If it is not sealed, the best way to check a battery is with a hydrometer.

I've had a bunch of old sonars over the years. Most were given to me except for the Hummingbird LCR3004 that I bought brand new many years ago. None of them worked as well as I expected. The LCR3004 did show me fish swimming very close to bottom when I used it through the ice. I could see that the bottom came up when an additional row of pixels appeared on screen. During the summer, it would even detect my anchor every once in a while...lol. Since then, I have had close to a dozen sonars and none of them worked well. Ok....I didn't pay for them anyway. I have 2 old Hummingbird 3-D models (Wide) and (Vista). They don't work well. They show me thousands of fish but I know that it's just bottom junk like branches and weeds. I don't even use the 3-D function on either of the machines....it just does not work well. However, I do have 2 old faithfuls. 2 very old Lowrance flasher units. The smaller one is the LFP250. The other one is a bit more powerful, maybe the LFP350. Yes...they both have bottom alarms that also can be adjusted to become fish alarms (this works great when icefishing). I really like the fact that they immediately tell me what is happening under the boat and don't overwhelm me with stuff from the past that fills the screen of ordinary sonars.

I heard that snakeheads were excellent to eat even though they were ugly as sin. However, bowfin are not so good to eat.

I hate fluorocarbon. I have tried it in 6 lb test, 15 lb test and 30 lb test and it's far weaker than mono. It also stretches as much as most mono and clear mono is just as invisible. Sure, I could use 80 lb test instead of 25 or 30 lb test fluorocarbon but then, why not use 80 lb test clear mono? The problem with 80 lb test mono or fluorocarbon is the fact that the lure no longer has any action. I use stuff that I get from Europe. It's 49 (10 kg) to 54 strand (15 kg) steel. It's finer than 4 lb mono. Flexible enough to tie knots in it but I prefer using tiny sleeves. I admit that the stuff is very expensive but for a few dollars more, I'm sure that no pike can cut it with his teeth. It's a primary principal of physics....something harder than fish teeth (steel) simply cannot be cut by fish teeth. 80 lb test....can you imagine using stuff like that? No fishing rod on earth can lift an 80 lb weight so why use it? I tried 80 to 100 lb test mono for handlining cod in over 300 feet of water with 1 to 3 lb sinkers but I have now turned to microfiber lines with much smaller sinkers and I have the benefit of almost zero stretch.

I don't know the proper way but I do know that the best way to hold a trout is with a fork.

He is right you know. There are some lures that get easily tangled up in the line when cast with a spinning rod. Mostly it's the minnow baits that get tangled up so easy. This is due to the fact that with a spinning outfit, the lure tumbles head over heels when cast. However, with a baitcaster, the tangles are less frequent. Very often, the lure flies through the air like an arrow. When the lure does travel straight like an arrow, this increases the distance of the cast.

First of all, reels with triggers do not have an instant anti-reverse. When you strike, the reel turns backwards for a full turn before the line tightens and you often miss the fish. Trigger mechanisms are made of plastic. They quickly get worn and loose if they are not already loose. Only the cheap reels have triggers.

Well...if it's for new fishing gear....buy spinning rods and reels for everyone. Steer clear of those pushbutton, closed faced reels. Fishing equipment has really improved over the years. Competition and new technologies has made it possible for anyone to have a decent fishing combo for everyday fishing at a great price. You should be able to find something for about 40 to 50 dollars. The rod is the most important thing. I like a rod to be light, from 6 to 7 feet long and to be fast (stiff). The only rods that I would steer clear of the Rapala rods. From what I have heardd, they are fragile. As for the reel, you don't have to go with Shimano or Diawa. The other brands like Pflueger, Quantum, Abu Garcia are making decent reels. Don't be afraid to ask for a discount when buying from an independant seller. Make sure that the reel has positive anti-reverse and does not have any fancy trigger device for casting. Just the other day I saw some rods for sale at 15 dollars and some real smooth Pflueger reels for 28 dollars. The reels were pinkish lavender in colour and sported the name "Lady" on them. If it wasn't for the fact that I don't need a medium light combo, I would have bought one for myself. My favourite rod was a 15 dollar 7 foot "Renegade" that I bought at Wal Mart. I lent it to a newbie and he knocked it on the gunwale. A few minutes later it snapped.

I agree with Jack. However, if you can get a couple of buddies interested in buying lures in "bulk" or "lots" everyone can share in the cost for shipping just one parcel.