Dabluz

There are a good bunch of monofilaments on the market. I have been using Berkley Sensation(clear) for a number of years now and I really like it. It's not a monofilament but a copolymer line. Trilene XL is still a great line. It's elasticity makes it a very forgiving line. I would match it with a long stiff rod and use it for short line situations. 4 lb test Nanofil does cast further than 4 lb mono but it is not as forgiving as mono. I've used both Nanofil and mono during the same day of fishing and fishing results were similar so even though Nanofil is white, the 4 lb test is thin enough to not bother the fish. I have to retie my hook more often with the Nanofil. I'm giving fluorocarbon another try. It's Berkley 4 lb test Trilene professional grade. It's a tad thinner than 4 lb test Sensation at .007" and it is a bit weaker when I break it with my hands. It still is stronger than 2 lb test mono that I often use. So far, I've had terrible results with fluorocarbon line and I kind of regret buying the fluorocarbon pro grade. If it's as good as 3 lb test mono.....I will use it when I want a sinking line. Yes....Berkley Big Game is strong but it is also larger than other lines of the same weight class. Might as well use Original Stren which is the same size but much cheaper and limper than Big Game. The reason that Stren is so cheap is due to the fact that it has more irregularities throughout it's length. However, never below the marked weight class. It's hard to find clear Stren. I only use clear lines unless it's a braid or a fused line. We have to be careful of what we buy and not get carried away by advertising and opinions from people who don't even look closely at the packages. There are monos, copolymers, fluorocarbon. Some lines are harder than other lines but with the hardness comes the loss of manageability, increased memory and loss of casting distance. All lines touted at being stronger than others just have a larger diameter....no mystery there. When using very fine clear lines, I have seen no difference in catch results between monos, copolymers, fluorocarbons, braids or fused lines. Another thing....fused lines are thinner than braided lines.

Yes....your battery is almost dead. You should be able to recharge a good battery to 100% within a few hours on the charger. First of all....the battery you chose is not a deep cycle battery. It's a hybrid between a starting battery and a deep cycle battery. You should buy a deep cycle battery. Second point.....the battery you bought is not a very large battery. It's ok for a couple of hours of trolling but not much more. It has a reserve capacity of 120 minutes. This means that it will give you 2 hours of power at 20 amps.before going completely dead. Every pound of thrust from you trolling motor consumes about 1.2 amps. Trolling at 1st speed does consume a good 5 to 7 amps.....maybe more. Another point to consider is that you never want to completely discharge your battery because this will cause damage and therefore greatly reduce the life of the battery. Buy a woltmeter and never let you battery go below 12.5 volts when you are trolling. A battery left to sit over a long period of time will go dead. It loses a small percentage of every month so you should recharge it about once per month. Even better, make the battery work a bit over the winter by plugging a 12 volt light bulb for a few hours. Since deep cycle batteries have covers that can be removed in order to check battery acid levels, the best tool to buy is a hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of the liquid in the battery. Never let the specific gravity of the battery go below 1.240. If the level of the acid is too low....add distilled water and recharge the battery until it attains 100%. Check the specific gravity when the battery is at 100% to see what the reading is. If you plan to troll for more than 1 or 2 hours, buy a much larger deep cycle battery. Get one with at least 180 minutes of reserve capacity. The largest Canadian Tire Nautilus model (group 31) has 205 minutes of reserve capacity and costs 140 dollars. Some deep cycle batteries sold in battery shops have 225 minutes of reserve capacity and cost about 180 dollars.

Don't you remove the blood along the spine?

Just 2 days ago, same thing happened to me. I went to a small lake by the highway and fished from shore. I've known this lake for many years and it has always given me trout for supper. I fish this lake from shore using a slip pencil float (English style) on 3 lb test mono. I lit up a cigarette and cast out my baited hook with the bobber stopper about 4 feet above the hook. It was about 6:30 p.m. The time it took to smoke my cigarette, I had 7 brook trout from 8 to 12 inches long. 1/2 hour later, the bite turned off but I had a dozen brook trout.....more than enough for a good meal. I ate 5 smallest ones and gave the rest to a lady and her husband who hadn't eaten brook trout in close to 30 years.

I guess you have been working there for only a few days because if you closely inspect the intestines and stomach content of walleye, almost all walleye have some sort of worm infection.

I hope you quit fishing and take up the sport of golfing. Golf balls don't have worms. You can eat as many as you want. Guys like you should take the time to learn more about fish, their life cycle, their parasites, their management etc.

For the guys who think that parasites in fish is rare....they are simply just stupid. All fish have some form of parasite. Even the fish in un-fished northern waters. Some worms are tiny and live on the fins and gills, other worms are very large and long. Some worms are in a dormant state and you see them as black spots on the skin. They got there after travelling through the flesh from the intestine on their way to the skin. Worms in the flesh are very rare. Yes, saltwater fish often have worms in the flesh and they are very easy to spot. I fish for cod and halibut and every time I have a fillet in my hands, I put it up to the light and let the light shine through the fillet in order to check if there are any worms in the meat. The fish fillets are always visually checked by passing them over a white translucent counter top with a strong light source under the counter. However, there are many worms and a lot get past the inspection. I check all of my fish fillets by putting them up to the light and I have never come across any worms in the flesh of freshwater fish. No worms can survive the cooking process so there is no danger. Raw fish.....I wouldn't trust any raw fish that I did not catch and clean myself. I have caught a few fish that did not have any noticeable worms in the intestines but these fish were young brook trout caught in streams. Larger, older fish seem to have more parasites. I guess this is normal because they have been exposed for a longer period of time and the parasites have also had the time to increase in size and numbers over time. Tapeworms coming out of the anus of a walleye, or pike, or trout or bass or any other fish is normal. The host (walleye) is dead and the tapeworms can no longer feed so they are just abandoning ship.

Since you already have a 6 wt fly rod, I would consider buying a 7 wt or an 8 wt fly rod for streamer and bass bug fishing. No sense in ending up with 2 rods of the same weight.

First of all....real deep cycle batteries are expensive. Some Canadian Tire stores sell one but it costs over 300 dollars. Those "Nautilus" batteries are in fact hybrid batteries that can deliver enough current to be used as a starting battery. Second: Real deep cycle batteries must be recharged with chargers that can do the job. Maybe Canadian Tire does sell them now but not 3 or 4 years ago. Sure, some people get more years of service than others but lit's due to the fact that they are not using a real deep cycle battery or for a bunch of other reasons. Not everyone uses their batteries the same way. So far, the best deep cycle battery charger that I have used can be found at Walmart's.....lol. It's made by a company called Schumacher. On top of that....they are inexpensive. I recommend the 15 amp model. When I first bought this charger, I recharged a couple of deep cycle batteries that I had and even a dead car battery. One deep cycle battery (Demone) was new and was acting up. I even returned it to the manufacturer and they assured me that it was ok. This is when I decided to throw away my old CT battery charger and buy the Schumacher. Anyway, the dead car battery was restored, and my new Demone now charges fully. It has been over 2 years now and so far all the batteries are doing fine. I still have a few years before I can really say that I have solved my problem of having batteries that die off after 3 or 4 years. If you ever have a battery that will not accept a charge from your small charger (voltmeter does not budge), add another battery in series with the dead battery and connect the charger for a few minutes. This extra current overcomes the resistance to the charge in the dead battery. Another way is to use a very strong battery charger and increase the charge rate to 40 or 50 amps or even more current for a few minutes. As for the stuff that goes into the battery to make it "hardier".....I doubt it. If that was the case, all the battery companies would be using it. Yes, some dead batteries can be restored. It's a long process involving repeated charging of the battery using only distilled water and changing the water after each charge until there is no more acid in the cells then adding acid and recharging the battery.

I'm an older guy. I have seen so many fishing shows that I rarely look at them any more. The same for fishing magazines because I read just about everything that there was to read during the 60's, 70's and 80's. Now a days, just the few of the fishing articles that I read in the magazines at the doctor's or dentist's office are enough to keep me informed of anything new. I do like to see fly fishing and fly tying shows but I would surely get bored easy enough if I ever see too many.

Hello Muskymatt. I see that you are from Ottawa so probably the park you are speaking of is the La Verendry Park. I do a lot of very early season fishing for brook trout in lakes....starting with ice fishing for the few days that the ice is strong enough. When it's open water, I like to troll streamers. The only surface activity I have seen has been large brook trout running after minnows in very shallow water. When icefishing, I start out in only about 2 feet of water in the early morning. When trolling for big brookies, I've had my best results using a trolling fly called a Tri-Color. I like to tie them in size 6 to size 2 on a 4X long streamer hook. The recipe is a white underbody tied under the hook shank, next bright orange over the hook shank, medium green over the orange and then a few strands of peacock herl over the body. The real recipe asks for jungle noodle cheeks but a painted eye works just as good. The shank of the hook is covered with hammered gold tinsel. Since one of my favourite lakes has smelt in it, I also like to use a smelt imitation like a Magog Smelt or one of the other smelt imitations that I tie. For lake trout, I like to use a tandem trolling fly and my favourite one is a smelt imitation that I tie using mostly polar bear hair. The fly has small amounts of pale blue, dark blue and purple sandwiched between the pearly white underbody and the pearly/light blue upper body. The back is black (not too much) with a bit of peacock herl over all. The eye is white with a black center or jungle noodle. The hook shanks are covered with hammered silver tinsel. The lake trout fly is trolled deeper and often behind a large silver spoon. (a good 24 inches behind the spoon)

I've caught brook trout in a lake with my hands. I released them because it's illegal to catch fish this way. The fish that I have caught were caught at night in very shallow water. I used a flashlight to spot the fish. I didn't even have to get my feet in the water.

Road kill, if fresh is ok to work with. Things to look for are fox fur and fox tails, squirrel tails, partridge or pheasant breast feathers, pheasant tail feathers, crow wing quills (matched pairs), rabbit's feet (the underside of the rear feet of snowshoe hare is great wing material.

I've been tying flies for about 40 years and the thing that I have learned is the fact that you don't need to make many flies to catch fish. I fly fish for brook trout, pike, walleye, landlocked salmon and whitefish. The fly I mostly use for trout and whitefish is a size 8 or 10 mini-muddler tied dry. I use a dry fly hook. You will need a pair of mottled turkey quills and good quality deer body hair. The other fly that I use is a size 20 brown or black ant. A cheap hackle does fine for tying ants and some fur dubbing. When using fur dubbing, get Overton's fly tying wax. It will last for decades. You will most certainly tie a size 18 to size 14 mayfly....usually the Blue Dun with an olive body. You will need a decent quality dark blue dun hackle which is very hard to find......especially now with all the good hackles being bought up by companies selling feathers in the hair styling industry, fur dubbing and mallard flank feathers for wings. For the pike flies, you will need a good variety of strips of rabbit skin with dyed fur which are easy to find and not expensive, very long deer tail hair of various colours and good solid thread. I like kevlar thread for the pike flies. Don't expect to catch many pike on the same fly....lol. For streamers (I like size 6 to size 2), most of the stuff is inexpensive and easy to find except good quality hammered silver and gold metal tinsel....medium width. I have never bought on line. I doubt I ever will because I want to see before I buy unless it's something inexpensive. The best tying thread in my opinion is Danville's Monocord. Anyway, don't buy too much stuff and get the best quality otherwise you just end up unsatisfied and not using it. After a while, you will keep your eyes open and you will find great stuff at great prices for fly tying just about anywhere. Don't overlook roadkill....lol.

I have a question. Do you get more bites when using salted minnows or unsalted?

I fish where there is current so there is a good chance that I spend the rest of the day cleaning slush from my ice holes. I also run light. An ice scoop already takes up a lot of space. Carrying something that is almost as large as a manual auger is out of the question.

I've got an 8 or 9 inch manual auger. I don't know the manufacturer. It is the model where only one handle turns, the other is in direct line with the auger. I've been using it for over 30 years. I bought a second pair of blades for it a couple of years after buying the auger. I have been sharpening the blades myself ever since then. Don't use it much anymore because the ice where I do most of my icefishing rises and falls with the tides and picks up sand from the bottom at low tide. Just one grain of sand and the auger is finished for the day. I mostly use an ice chisel and when the ice gets thick, I re-open old holes to save work because the ice gets over 2 feet thick.

I've had a few dogs...all mutts. All of them have been great. As to how the dog behaves depends on the owner. Everybody has been wowed by my dogs, how the behaved, how they obey and even how they seem to know what I say to them. Some of my dogs had talents. One dog who I had when I did a lot of grouse and rabbit hunting develloped into a great hunting dog. She would yip when she saw grouse and yelp if she saw a rabbit. She would walk in front of me a few yards and would either go left when I pointed left and right when I pointed right and she would flush out the game onto the trail in front of me. However, she never liked the sound of the shotgun. She would run away when I raised the shotgun and then come back after the shot....lol. The last dog I had was a spaniel mix with some border colley mix. Excellent dog. I got it at the SPCA. It had been mistreated by it's original owner and was very timid at the start. Would pee on the floor when someone spoke loud. Ordinarily, this would not have been a good dog to get but I guess I got her just in time. Very obedient and would obey anyone.....to a point that if my wife told it to stay put, no one else could make her do anything....even me. And the reverse was also true. This dog did shed hair year round.

What is the voltage of the battery? If less than 10 volts, many chargers will not charge a battery that has less than 10 volts. Do you have an intelligent battery charger? You need an intelligent battery charger that does recharge deep cycle batteries. Ordinary car chargers do not competely recharge deep cycle batteries....for reasons I don't know even though I did stints at a battery shop when in the military. Check the specific gravity of each cell to see if they are about equal. Yes, the specific gravity of the liquid will depend on how much distilled water you added to a particular cell but too low a reading does mean that maybe a cell is shorting out. Charge your battery at about 15 amps to 25 amps at the start but very soon after, drop the amperage to 10 amps so that the battery does not heat up. If the battery goes above 100F, remove charger to let the battery cool down a bit. Keep checking the specific gravity of each cell as you charge and add distilled water to just cover the plates. Every once in a while, shake the battery to remove any bubbles that can stick to the plates and decrease the efficiency of the charge. After 24 hours, your intelligent battery charger will tell you if the battery is rechargeable. Most intelligent battery charges have a desulfication mode after a certain number of hours.

Third tip....don't wear iron pants in a thunder storm.

There are lots of nice transistor amps these days. Buy one that does not have any effects and you will save money. If it's for playing around the house, 15 watts is ample. Transistor amps in that category sell for quite low prices. For effects, buy pedals. You can get some real nice used pedals in just about any pawn shop. You can even try out the pedal before buying it. If you are really looking for great tone, there is nothing nicer than a tube amp. Expect to pay at least 400 for a tube amp. If you want a clean sound....stay away from Marshall amps. I prefer using a clean sounding amp like a Vox or Fender and then dirtying the sound with effects. You just can't clean up an amp that is meant to play distorted. During the 80's and 90's, few tube amps were being made but now more than half of the amps for sale in music stores are tube amps. Prices for tube amps have dropped considerably in the last 10 years.

I noticed the other day that Canadian Tire now sells real deep cycle batteries. The old Nautilus batteries were actually a hybrid (starter/deep cycle). The new deep cycle is more expensive and has a 200 minute reserve capacity (200 minutes at 50 amps). However, I did not take the time to see if the caps on the battery can be removed in order to check the level of the liquid in the battery. I now no longer buy any deep cycle battery that I cannot open up to check the battery acid. Right now, I am using a Demon deep cycle battery. It has 2 years of use and is still in top shape. BTW....you must use an intelligent battery charger to fully recharge a deep cycle battery. Ordinary car battery chargers only decrease the battery life. I've been using a Shumacher charger for the past couple of years and I have really noticed a difference. I've even restored a battery that I thought was finished.

Now....that looks like damned fine whiskey. I will have to try that. I really like good whiskey. However, if I've had a few too many, I like to start up the next morning with a good Apple Jack (whiskey and apple juice). You can use cheaper whiskey for the Apple Jack.

No one has mentioned tube amps!!!! If you want clean to crunch sounds the only way to get great sound is with a tube amp. 10 to 15 watt tube amps can be bought for under 400 dollars. If tone does not matter then the transistor amps mentioned will do. Don't make the mistake of buying an amp with lots of effects. The more stuff you get on the amp, the more chance of something going wrong. Adequate pedals are cheap and easy to re-sell.

I bought a couple of Live Target smelt imitations a couple of years ago but since then, the smelt imitations no longer have the same colour as the one's I bought. They are more brownish now. The smelt in my area are bluish/purple....not brownish.