Dabluz

Actually, the females taste a tad better than the mature males at this time of the year. Since the males change (go into reproduction mode) before and after the females. Many of the males I have been catching have flesh that is a bit softer and not as red as that of the females. I noticed this for the past few weeks from the trout I have been catching in the Saguenay.

Ordinary mono for water up to 30 feet deep and then I switch to Fireline when the water is deeper. For trout I use 4 lb test mono and for walleye I use 6 lb test mono. I sometimes fish in 450 feet of water for salt water fish in the Saguenay.

I fish for brookies through the ice. My "go to lure" is Sutton 44. Don't even need bait. I use it on 4 lb mono and add nothing else to the line. Yes, it does take time for it to reach bottom but it's worth it. Otherwise, I use a no 8 Gamakatsu Octopus hook and the head of a nightcrawler. Minnows (dead or alive) are not allowed in my region.

The dark fish is most definately a male and the pale fish is a female for sure. The males do change colour more than the females. They also change colour before the spawn and stay coloured for a longer time after the spawn. Then there is the fact that different bottom colours also will make fish change in colour in order to blend in to the environnement. The other day, I caught a male brookie in the Saguenay river. It was quite pale when I caught it. I put it in a bag and when I took it out to fillet it, it had turned dark. I guess it did not die very quickly in the bag it had time to change colour.

I always had a belly button that stuck out a bit. Anyway, I developped a hernia just above the belly button. Had an operation and within a year, I had another hernia just beside the one I had before. Had another operation and it's still not 100%. Yes, you will be on your feet real quick.

I'd like to help you but I'm in the Saguenay region of Quebec. Up here, brook trout (which are actually char) are as numerous and common as perch in Lake Ontario. Went fishing in the Saguenay River for about 2 hours today. Caught my limit of 5 brook trout (12 to 16 inches) while bottom fishing from shore. I guess, you will have to add more info. Are you fly fishing? What kind of trout are you fishing? If I was a newbie in a certain area, I guess that the first place to haunt will be the local fishing stores. Then I would join the local fishing association. You can get a lot of info on stocked fish from the regional ministry of natural ressources. If you see a conservation officer, you can ask him for info too. Maybe there are no trout in your area at all. Where I live, there are no bass, no sunfishes and no crappies.

The Legend CX for 100 dollars is an excellent price. A good 50% off. This unit has the colour screen and expandable memory slot. That makes it just as good as the 60C or the 76C except it does not have magnetic north (points to north when standing still) nor the altimeter.

No...the lead jig was not specifically signaled out except for me saying that the Beetle Spin should be on the list. This lure was a jig, had a plastic bait and a spinner.

I find the list in the first message to be great except for the last 2 items....the graphite rod and the Ugly Stick. I just can't see where they revolutionized fishing all that much. I've used steel rods, glass rods, fiberglass rods, graphite rods, boron rods and cane rods. They were all great for their time but they didn't change fishing. I remember when I used braided nylon...you know that black line and I think I even used a silk line on a level wind reel and I remember my dad drying out his silk line in the house by looping the line over the door knobs. Mono was a big breakthrough and the new braided lines have not replaced mono.

How about the Beetle Spin. Before the Beetle spin, plastic baits, jigs and spinner baits were unheard of. Then....maybe....the Daredevil spoon. Most certainly the muddler minnow.

You can buy rechargeable batteries in stores that sell security clothes, hardhats, goggles, steel toed boots etc. They have 6 and 12 volt rechargeable batteries for emergency lighting systems. Alkaline batteries are not really rechargeable. Yes, you can put some alkaline batteries in a special charger and recharge them a bit but this must be done before the battery is dead and the fix is temporary.

I don't doubt in the least that the Great Lakes will get invaded by Asian carp. I have never heard of anyone winning a battle against invading species. N.America has been invaded by all sorts of animals and plants...examples; cows, horses, starlings, sparrows, crows, pheasant, brown trout, various species of salmon in the Great Lakes, african bees, zebra mussels and thousands of other examples. We still play dangerously by introducing species into new habitat. One good example is the fact that Atlantic salmon are being reared in pens on the West Coast. Why something like this has been allowed?

I think it's a great idea for a person to do as much work as possible on his machines. When a person gave me a 1979 Honda CB350T motorcycle, I bought a manual at Canadian Tire for it. It only needed a bit of cleaning and I traded it for a 1983 Yamaha Virago 920 CC and I bought a manual for that. Then I bought a used 1988 Yamaha 350 Big Bear ATV and bought a manual. I did end up taking it all apart a few years later and took the engine to have the transmission selector replaced and then I re-installed the engine. I saved a ton of money by doing this part of the work myself. My old 1989 Bombardier Safari 503 fan cooled needed more repairs than I thought. I bought it at an auction for very little money. However, the chain case exploded not long after. With the manual, I did the job myself and found other parts that needed to be changed. I knew nothing about these machines before getting them but now I know what to do when something breaks down and most importantly, I know what to inspect before it breaks down.

I don't think that any particular manufacturer has any real advantage over another....just like cars and trucks, all vehicles are quite equal. Bearcats are popular up here and I know of a few die-hard Polaris users that have switched over to Arctic Cats in the past few years. From what I have seen on TV, Arctic Cat is popular with the extreme racers. I think that a person should first look at where he will get the best local service, prices and garantees. Where he can get to test drive the machines that will be best suited for his needs and then make his choice.

Not enough snow in the Monts Valin yet. There is some snow however. The outlook for the next week doesn't look good for snowmobilers in the Monts Valin. But, there can be surprises before the second week of November. In the Monts Valin, the snow usually arrives fast and furious and it's rare that there is not enough snow by the 2 nd week of November to play in.

Yes....the Bravo is a great off trail machine and yes....used ones are hard to find. They are Yamaha's answer to the Bombardier Tundra.

Try getting a GPS manufacturer to donate one. Send them an official letter asking for such a unit. I'm sure that they would send a refurbished unit.

It is possible to play around with software programs so that you can scan paper maps, photos, images, drawings and program them into your GPS. One program in particular is OziExplorer. You need at least 2 gps coordinates on the paper map or photo so that the program can "snap" the image into it's program. Then you can convert this image into the format that your GPS is using. The easiest GPS's to use are Garmins. Most of the freeware and mapping programs to do this task is for Garmin gps systems. There are even people who will give you free maps and if they do not have them, they will make one for free for you. If you think about it, a GPS screen is only a blank page containing millions of coordinates. If you can get an image on this page and if you can snap it in place with already known coordinates on the image, all the other coordinates will line up.

I often use my 503 air-cooled machine in very hot weather for fishing very remote lakes in the spring in the Monts Valin about 30 km from my home. In the Monts Valin mountains, the snow gets very deep during the winter. In the spring when there is no snow in town, there is still lots of snow in the Monts Valin. At night, it gets cold enough for the melting snow to freeze so I go out very early in the morning to get to the remote lakes that are not accessible other than by snowmobile. During the day, temperatures get hot enough to sun bathe. This means that I have to head back to my truck before mid-day otherwise I will get stuck in the slush on the lakes and my machine will sink into the granulated deep snow after I get off the lake. Yes....there are large patches where there is no snow but the machine has no problems going through this. However, the old growth forest is littered with fallen trees. I bring along a winch and tools to battle my way back to the truck....lol. The fishing is usually excellent. Not many people want to go with me so I go alone. Ok, I'm not riding at 50 km/h, just moving very slowly over the ground for a couple of kilometers. The motor never heats up. I've often done this to the end of the month of May.

There is one big problem with high powered fish finders.....they scare the fish when used in shallow water. I see this every year for over 20 years on opening day of brook trout in a nearby river and then a month later for opening day for walleye on another river. All the boats are huddled together in the same area and bombard the bottom with signals. The fishing turns off real early in the morning. Now there are guys who get out on the water at midnight in order to catch fish before the big rush. Later in the day when there are fewer fishermen, the fishing gets better. I don't use a fish finder when I fish these places. I know the layout of the bottom. For the walleye, I just very slowly move here and there with my electric motor while bumping the bottom with my jig. I try to steer clear of the tight groups of boats. I catch way more fish than the others. Yes, I do get followed around a lot because I catch dozens of walleye. Yes I release all but my limit of male walleyes on opening day. It's hard to secretively catch those large females without someone spotting me and pointing to me. In any event, the whole area has between 4 and 10 feet of water. Some areas of the bottom are covered with large stones, other areas where the current is almos non-existant are a bit muddy with a few weeds. On top of that, there are tons of suckers that are also spawning in the river plus perch and bullheads. It's the same for the brook trout in the Chicoutimi river on opening day...but here the fishing is done from anchored boats and canoes and the best fishing for the brook trout is on the bottom in 30 to 50 feet of water amongst the large boulders. Using a fish finder when anchored is ridiculous. The best way to fish for the brookies is to use 4 lb mono and use just a Sutton 77 spoon with no bait. There is some current and the spoon does move around a lot but when it gets to a spot where the current is weak, it eventually gets to the bottom where the current is almost nil and that's where the brookies are and they attack the spoon, thinking it's a smelt. If you want to try something, put your hand under the transducer of your fish finder.....palm side down. You will feel the pin pricks on the top of your hand. If things are very quiet, you can even hear the ticking sound the transducer sends out. Pros fishing in shallow water use low powered fish finders and then switch to high powered fish finders when fishing in deep water. If you really think about it, when slowly drifting or motoring over a section of water with your line in the water, do you really need to use your fish finder? Your line is in the water....does the use of the fish finder help make the fish bite? Using a fish finder to locate structure is great....especially if the angler does not know the area well. But, after the structure is found, just the fact that there are signals on the screen does indicate what species of fish it could be. A small fish that stays in the center of the sonar's beam will appear huge while a huge fish that just passes through the outer portion of the beam will appear small. If you are fishing parallel to a steep slope, I doubt you will see any fish at all because there is a phenomenom called the (shadow) where one side of the cone is in shallow water while the other side of the cone is in deep water. Anything inside the cone will be invisible except for the very center of the cone that gives you the depth of the water. With a single beam fish finder, you would never even see that you are moving along a steep incline. I now use a 3-D fish finder that sends out 7 signals. I have been using various fish finders for over 25 years. Unless I'm fishing somewhere new....I don't even bother to use one anymore.

With the Canadian dollar now down by 20%, buying in the states is a great idea. Long track...short track....it all depends on snow conditions. Where I live in Quebec, the snow we get always stays very soft and gets deep except on the snowmobile trails. A lot of my fishing is on the Saguenay river and the tides break up the ice so we have to climb over broken ice a lot and this is where a long track also helps. I also do a lot of off trail riding to get to remote areas. Liquid-cooled versus air-cooled....there are plus and minuses for both. In -30 and colder, the liquid cooled engines often have frozen gas lines at the intake after they have been turned off for a while. The ice in the air thaws in the intake but freezes up when the engine is turned off. We have to pour boiling water to thaw them out. Then there is the problem of ice forming under the sled. It rarely gets warm enough so the air-cooled engines have no problems. In our area, the most popular machines have long wide tracks and the air-cooled versus liquid-cooled is pretty well equally divided between users.

sorry....I gave an answer for fly fishermen who encounter wind knots. Post edited out.

I like the Bombardier Skandics. Either a fan cooled 380 or a 503. The 503 is a better 2 up machine but I have done lots of 2 up riding on a 380 and it was ok. I have an 88 or 89 Bombardier Safari with 144 X 16.5 inch track (the only year when Bombardier did not make the Skandic). It has a fan cooled 503. No reverse....no electric starter so it's quite light. I added 8 inch wide plastic skis under the original skis. Ok, it's not as wide as the newer machines nor does it have a great suspension but it sure does go through soft deep snow and can pull a good load. For one person.....it's hard to beat an old Toundra with a long track. Parts and repairs are cheap and easy for the Skandics and Toundras. However, they are not luxury machines for extensive travel on trails.

I forgot to add that with my old Hummingbird LCR 3004 (from the late 70's), I could easily see my no 8 Gamakatsu hook baited with the head of a night crawler into at least 50 feet of water.

When ice fishing in the Saguenay River, the more sucessful fishermen use fish finders. The fishing is done in 150 to 600 feet of water for cod, lingcod, ocean perch etc. Ocean perch are a favorite among the icefishermen because they are more numerous. A big ocean perch is about 13 inches long. Anyway, we can see a 2 ounce jig on the screen. If we spot a fish swimming at the 250 foot level, we quickly bring the jig up a few feet higher than 250 feet. We then can actually see the fish react to the jig and we can see that the fish will swim upward towards the depth of the jig. We usually get a bite when the fish reacts to the jig. As you can imagine, the guys using fish finders are always glued to their screens in order to intercept fish that roam around at different levels. Many fish do not react but there are enough of them that do to warrant the use of a fish finder. A lot of the guys have ingenious contraptions that house the screen in a heated box with a clear plastic lid. They place a thermometer in the housing and turn on a 12 volt light bulb to heat the interiour of the housing. Most even have a 12 volt motorcycle battery inside the housing too.