cheaptackle

I gotta admit I ain't NEVER heard of it taking a week to get a tow truck - y'all sure they haven't forgotten about you? Michael

Kept mine on so I could get around all the out of towners turning left off atherly onto to 12, cut 'em off and wave at 'em! (brian will confirm I'm just kiddin' whicha!) Michael

Great Idea Cliff! BUT...you first! Michael

This morning we still had a good 90% ish coverage, probably thin though. Got home around 3 and not only no ice in sight but some good 3+ foot waves blowing in. Guess this lake is officially ice free now. Water's way up too, think the dams gonna breach again if it hasn't already. Michael

"Could" there is not, "do" there is only padewon! When done pictures post you will... (betcha do a much better job at it too!) Michael

Only ever shore fished it and only found consistency with the bass unfortunately - I've seen walleye occasionally caught by others, heard that there were a ton of species in there. The one sure thing is the one spot I liked to go to (been inaccessible for a while now but that might have changed for this year) was the blankety blankety blank snapping large turtle that was an expert at taking not only slow moving baits, but if you use a stringer for your catch it was considered by him as a meal served. Michael

Same here Chris, was walking out the door with a fishing rod in my hand to deliver, heard a crack (oh expletive expletive expletive), thought I'd caught the rod on the door. Went back in, turned on the lights to check the rod (door is still open) and heard crack crack crack! I'm very close to the water (ice) here so of course I had to invest the 12 steps or so to stand at the shore and listen to the symphony. Of course I had to stick my toe on the new ice - where it was water yesterday - and found almost 3/4" had reformed. That was as far as I was gonna check even though the rest of the lake is still pretty much frozen, no way I was gonna volunteer to find out how much! Michael

Let's see... Parted company at 8 this morning... You were gonna drive around a bit visiting and looking... Posted pictures of the rod at 12:58... That's almost 5 hours! So why wasn't the reel filled, the rod loaded and a wide angle shot of the first fish being caught also in the post? What did you do with all that time on your hands ha ha ha ha! Tight lines buddy! Michael

No chocolate? LOL Michael

If those work they'd be cheap enough to build I'm sure. Ya gotta check out the rest of the pics he has on there - 44 in total and some are just wow! The TP holder has got to be the coolest I've ever seen. Michael

4 days of rain and high single to low double digits next week should wash out a lot. Keeping an eye on the Black River flow data - it's shot up a lot in the last 2 days. They haven't lowered my lake as much as usual over the winter yet so if that Black River gets up and over the St. John creek dam again with the levels already up it's gonna be dicey! Michael

Roe Bag - Please be assured I mean nothing but respect when I say this; From what I've seen thus far you've put a lot of effort in for a few hours now to this rant as you so correctly titled it. Take a breath, hop in the car tomorrow and talk to the guy. That appears to be something you haven't done yet. You've assumed the worst - which can be a good thing rather than get your hopes up and be disappointed. Now try to make it better for yourself - nobody is going to do that for you. Just approach him and ask if there is any way your goal can be achieved. Do calmly remind him of your first conversation and segue into how many years you've dealt with him and what you've spent with him in those years. I've gotten all this and more out of what you've expressed - now he needs to hear it too. Maybe he hasn't told you everything, like if it is a leased barn maybe even HE hasn't got access to it at this time for some reason he hasn't told you yet. If you don't get what you want then clam up until you get your boat hooked onto your vehicle - at that point you can express all your frustrations on him and never return if that's your choice. But getting worked up over it right now ain't doing y'all any good at all - and getting others worked up ain't helping you either. I really hope this works out for you but please remember - the only way it will work out is if YOU work it out, otherwise the only SURE thing you or anybody else can know right now is that it may very well be mid or even end april before you see your boat again. Good Luck to you and I meant what I said about it working out for you. Michael

When I saw the subject of the post before opening it I was already seeing RED! Thankfully I found the OP has expressed very well what should be said, rather than the complaint I was expecting. I had just finished reading about it online in the Orillia Packet & Times site along with the OPP statement about the many who complained. Good gravy folks - it was an alert erring on the side of caution, if anything, that had potential for heartbreaking disaster. It (the alert) probably disturbed/disupted/interrupted your tv viewing for less time than you had to invest in complaining about it, along with said complaint yet again taxing the emergency communications phone lines. I personally feel that all those who called to complain should be banned from the ability to use 911 or ANY other emergency service. Let them then see what happens when THEY need it while someone else has made it unavailable to them. That would be justice served in my book, but even I couldn't wish that on anyone no matter how much it might be deserved. If only there was some way to make common sense a required skill...NAH not gonna happen! Michael

Well at least they did do a good job on the shadows - lines right up! Michael

But...but...but..the broken line and the fold back dent in the front of the drivers door both lend truth and credence to the credibility of the photo! I have GOT to get back to work! Michael

Welding cartridges extra...Wonder how much line I could buy and tie knots in for the price of the welder, cutter & cartridges? Hmmm, probably spend a lot less than what the total would come to! Michael

No investigation beyond normal reporting. If there was they missed talking to me about it. We had all reasonable precautions for manual lifting in place as far as I could see. the wall having slid off the edge of the floor deck when it came down can only happen if the base toenails and/or the stops failed enough that the remainder couldn't hold in my estimation, the end I was on was furthest out after the fall so I'm guessing that the wall pivoted on the remainder. Didn't look at it that much, I was walking around trying to get my arm to work or something like that - kinda blurry from about the time I noticed it wasn't going the right way till just before we started walking to the boat to head to shore. Thanks for the good wishes - every little bit helps! Michael

It was an island job as well Dave, like yours, and because we had to barge everything in we used manpower most of the time. The wall jacks you used (and showed in your posts) were the first thing I thought of during the boat ride to shore to get in a truck to go to the ER. Toenailing the base plate and putting several "stops" on the edge of the floor deck to keep the wall from kicking out is pretty standard practice, plus we did it in stages putting in temporary supports as we went. It was on the last push to vertical when the bottom came out - we can only guess that the stops broke or let go. I haven't been back to the site since so I have no first hand idea of what really happened other than I was all of a sudden in a whole big world of hurt, on my back and wondering how the @#!&%$$!!!! I got there! That was almost 7 months ago and it's looking like either another 3-4 months or permanent now. Not a happy camper! But then that's life ain't it? Michael

August 12, 2015 - 16' x 15' wall being erected (raised to vertical from floor) by a crew of 5, base stops broke out, wall kicked out at bottom, slid off deck and came down (at warp speed!). Ruptured my right distal tendon, had to be surgically reattached, also torn bicep muscle, since then shoulder, wrist, and upper arm muscle & nerve issues. Been in physio since Oct 6. Any type of movement hurts, and hurts more the harder, faster or further I go! Fun eh? Michael

Guess I got it all then - 16-18 INCHES to wade thru to get to the van in the driveway, promptly got stuck as it's pure ice under the snow and had to shovel with only one good arm (yeah right!). Took me over an hour to do what should take about 15 minutes. Got to physio 45 minutes late and had to skip all my exercises, just do ultrasound and some other electrocution machine along with hot pads. At school now and the bad arm is just throbbing. Landlord ain't gonna be too happy when I get done with him about this.... RANT over! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming... (dang that hurts!) Michael

Joey - what about on treble hooks like I said? They still work? I'm guessing at best they'd only cover 1 of the 3. Michael

At first I thought it kinda cool too... Then I thought - treble hooks? Doesn't look like it would work with them - which we use a lot! Michael

They're making a left turn! And look! Another Left turn oh wow but wait...YES another left turn!! That should hold you for a while Brian. OH ya got it fixed I see, so you already knew there was gonna be ANOTHER LEFT TURN!. Couldn't resist, sorry! Michael

Says it comes with "no keys" so I guess they couldn't start it... Michael

What he said ^ Michael