Beats

I think it's just ppl getting excited about bass season's approaching opener. Rapala's X-rap is still fairly new compared with other lures and a lot of ppl still haven't tried one. I agree that if a product truly works well there will be a buzz about it. During ice fishing season there are post after post about which augers are best and I'm sure if we had a week of straight rain that there would be some threads up about rain suits. Doesn't mean that some board members are getting kickback off their posts or are somehow affiliated with the products they choose to review favourably.

I have a subscription to OOD and Outdoor Canada. I occasionally get Bob Izumi's magazine or an Infisherman magazine but I basically just read what comes to my door. OOD is my favourite by far as it talks about rivers/streams that are somewhat local or that I atleast know of or have been to. When my parents moved last fall I threw out a few hundred fishing magazines that I had collected since I was 7 or 8. The covers for all the magazines over the years basically advertise the same articles they do now. Just more recent baits and techniques like dropshotting. There's only so many ways you can tell a reader to drop their ice fishing line down the hole jig it a few times and wait for a fish.

I did take a brief look and the Mooneye is listed as being found between Chatham and St. Clair.

I actually have that poster. Got it last weekend but it's still rolled up, haven't looked at it yet.

I went out today to a spot on the Thames in downtown London a few minutes walk from my house. The spot is well known and contains a nice hole there where I have pulled out sm bass, rock bass, white bass and a channel cat so far. Today I was there and saw quite a few rock bass in the rocks but not interested in eating. I had one hit on my spinner that I thought was a pike but turned out to be a gar. This year is the first I have ever seen gar (see previous post) and I am now seeing them everywhere in the Thames. I must have seen 30 or so in the last few weeks. All around 2 feet long with one being close to 4'. I was just dragging my Mepps Comet along the bottom when I hooked into a fish. I reeled it in and thought it was a white bass but the mouth was wrong. I got it out of the water and it freaked out and was trying to flip all over the place. I recognized the fish as what I have seen in pictures as a Mooneye. I know that the fish Goldeye is very similar but this one doesn't appear to have gold in its eye. It was quite flat especially the belly at the back 1/2 of the fish. Never seen one before or heard of them being caught in the Thames. I would guess they originate in Lake St. Clair but I really don't know. After catching the fish I was talking to a guy that I see fishing down there often and he said he had caught one a while back and that someone had tried to tell him that it was a white (silver) bass but he knew that it wasn't. I'm fairly sure its a mooneye, but if I'm wrong it would be nice if someone could properly identify it for me. Later on I moved a dozen yards or so upstream and could see a pair of these fish chasing each other in a mating like way but I couldn't get them to bite again. All pics are of the same fish. I took a few just to make sure I would be able to identify it.

A few weeks back I was fishing in London and stopped and talked to a guy for a while about fishing in the area. We discussed various spots that are good and he mentioned a few spots that he said used to be great and now he can't understand where the fish have gone. He then threw his beer onto the shore and continued to talk about the downfall of the river..... if that isn't ironic.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I just happened to be standing in the middle of the river when I took those 2 shots. I wasn't really fishing right there, just passing through. I hit every hole I knew of and could find as well as spots recommended to me by members here over the years. I was scouting out the little creek-like spots off of the main channel where the water slows down and has gravel and sand bottom, but no fish to be seen. A lot of the spots I figured pickerel would be had gar instead. All in all not a bad day as I saw with my own eyes that gar do in fact exist in the river. Now if only I had seen pickerel it would have been perfect. I don't even necessarily have to catch one, I'd be happy to just see one or see someone catch one. I really want to catch one in the Thames. I live right at the forks and I know that if I consistently fish the holes near here over the summer I am bound to get a resident fish eventually.

So I decided last night that I would get up early today and go out and attempt (as i do every year) to catch a thames river pickerel. Today was the first day that the river upstream of Chatham is open for the species. I started by getting to the bottom of Fanshawe dam around 6:30 this morning. There were already 13 other people fishing down there. I stayed for an hour and saw no pickerel caught. One guy hooked what I can only guess to be a carp by the way his rod bent but I saw no other fish caught of any size. I then spent a couple of hours at Labatt's dam where I managed to catch a decent white bass and a few small smallmouths. I tried a few holes on the way to and from the dam and only managed a few small sm bass and one fat rock bass. I then figured that since the regs were changed this year and we weren't able to fish for them in April like usual that the fish had a huge advantage and had probably already come and gone back to the lake. I decided to try further downstream and drove towards Chatham. I noticed a few cars pulled over here and there along the river between London and Chatham but not nearly as many as I expected. I got into Chatham and pulled into Thames Grove Conservation Area. I spoke to another guy fishing with his kids for a few minutes. I asked if he had caught any pickerel and he said "I wish!". Not exactly the answer I was hoping for. I told him that I had tried the Fanshawe dam and the Labatt's dam with no luck and had decided to try and find the fish on their way back to the lake. He said that he had been out on the lake a few days ago and hadn't seen any sign of the pickerel and that in his opinion the run hadn't yet started due to our past winter. He said that when the fish are running the spot we were standing at is great for catching them. Now I was just confused. Either the fish had gone up river from the lake and returned before the season opened, or there were a lot of people out there fishing for fish that have not yet arrived. I cast into the river for 25 mins or so and then headed back home. I had essentially fished the river from its near beginnings in Chatham and its "end of the line" spots in London. When the river forks in London the North branch coming from St.mary's is blocked at Fanshawe dam and the south branch coming from Woodstock in blocked at Labatt's dam. I decided to make one last effort and try a well known area that I go to each year. I waded out to an island of sorts and saw tonnes of sm bass in pairs on nests and tonnes of suckers all over. At one point I thought I saw a gar but I wasnt sure. I then went to a little stream like area cutting through the island that a board member had told me about last year. I noticed hundred of minnows swimming around. I then noticed pairs of gar all over the place. I had never seen one in person before. All around the island in the reall shallow water were gar paired up all being around 2 feet long. They had cool looking spotted tails and patterns on them. I counted up to a dozen of them and then walked to an area where they were swimming all around me. In total I saw over 2 dozen in one small area of the river. They were all the same size except one (pictured) which was not far from 4 feet long (seriously) and had no colour to it at all. I walked right up to it before it took off. I took a few more pics of all the gar to show how many there was but the glare off the water makes the pics useless. Other than that I caught 2 sm oos bass at this spot. One being 1.5 pounds and the other was 2.4 lbs(pictured). I had my boga grip scale with me so I put it to use on the bass. Both were released quickly. I quit for the day after this as I did not want to catch bass. The bass that were caught were hooked in the middle of the river and not from nests at shore in case anyone was wondering. The only bait I used all day at all the places I fished was either a white jig head with a white power grub or a black jig head with a white grub. Again, another year of no Thames pickerel for me. I might try it again in the next week or so but I think they have come and gone already. I heard of someone catching 2 near to where I was fishing but that's just word of mouth and I saw no signs of any.

http://www.gettinghooked.net/Episodes.htm These are great shows. The only drawback is that these guys(mostly Barry) are just WAY too excited and into everything they do in the shows. I know they need to get an audience but its really pretty ridiculous. Good info and techniques but they make even the smallest panfish sound like they are reeling in a monster.

I went out on a fishing boat for mackerel from Halifax a few years ago and the captain told me that a good percentage of the cod that they catch out there have worms because the cod eat seal crap, and the seals have worms. I don't know, but that's what I was told. They also said, like everyone above, that you can either pick them out or just cooke them as they won't do you any harm cooked.

I caught a couple of them last summer/fall in London. Don't know all that much about them but they seem fairly aggressive and all the ones I have caught have been on spinners near the bottom. The few that I have caught have always pulled fairly hard and stayed down, no jumping.

I sat there one day and counted the number of times they said "puff" during the Pancake Puff infomercial. It's ridiculous. While this doesn't say much for me, it certainly shows what WFN is subjecting their subscribers to.

The sad part is that a lot of people actual consider that to be camping.

Here's a few pics from last April's attempt for pickerel in the area. Some really nice stretches of water if you find them

The ppl you are seeing at Wildwood are after pike. They fish the beach from Fall to ice and then again right after the ice melts. You can tell when the run starts by just watching for ppl near the Thames in April. From my experience its more of a "run of people" than a run of fish. People pull over and start fishing cause they see a guy fishing.. which then gets more and more ppl fishing there all wondering where the fish are. My dad and others I've talked to have all caught them near London 15-30 years ago and say they were big lake-sized fish. If you are willing to drive I would highly suggest going to the lower end of the river. If not I know ppl catch them at the "end of the line", being the bottom of Fanshawe dam.

I don't know who told you that but there are no pickerel in Wildwood. There are , however, some in Fanshawe lake. Fished the Thames my whole life and gone out during the pickerel run each spring and never seen ANYONE catch one. The fish do come up the river and they ARE caught in small numbers each year. They don't come up with the numbers that they did decades ago. I have heard of pickerel caught in London each year but they are extremely rare. Bass are everywhere though. You can go anywhere in London and fine sm bass. I caught a few white bass downtown last year as well that have been spreading out due to Springbank dam being down. If you want a crack at pickerel in the London area of the Thames your best bet is Deleware, Komoka, and Killworth areas in April. However, the closer you can get yourself to St.Clair the better your odds are gonna be. I know ppl that have caught them in the Thamesville area before. I'm confident the fish get thinned out each year trying to get past the nets in Muncey.

That isn't awkward at all...

I guess what I'm getting at is this. Most of the people who are indeed calling fishing a sport are referring the naysayers to tournament pros as proof. OK, but what % of ppl here saying this are themselves regular tournament fishers? That's like calling driving to work a sport and when someone calls you on it referring them to Nascar drivers. Forget the technical definition and actually evaluate a day (any day) of fishing that you do/have done and make a personal judgment for yourself if you really think you were involved in athletics. I'm sure plenty of ppl on the board are true tournament fishermen. I'm not doubting that at all. Im just surprised that so many ppl who don't fish tournaments/competitively are still considering themselves athletes for their weekend fishing. The real poll question should be "Do you consider the fishing YOU DO to be a sport and YOURSELF an athlete". I think the results would be a little more honest and realistic. At least I would hope so. People are calling it a sport based on a very tiny percentage of the fishing population that makes a living off of tournaments and who fish competitively compared to the massive numbers that do it for a past time. If I go for a few km walk in the woods every weekend am I justified to tell people its a sport since it is a sport in the Olympics? You definitely can't go off definition for this.

Again, people will always be trying to call their hobby, whatever it may be, a sport. Can we find loop-holes in the definition of the word "sport" to make fishing sound like a sport? Sure. And by that same definition you can call almost anything you do a sport. I think the topic here is more about standing back and looking at what you personally do and asking yourself if you think you are an athlete participating in a sport when you fish. There is tonnes of exercise involved particularly if you don't have a boat. Walking to spots and climbing around and all that stuff. This is all part of a day of fishing but not technically fishing in itself. It's part of the "pre-game". Another issue is the huge variety of types of fishing that people do. It's hard to compare carp fishing in the grand to mackerel fishing in Nova Scotia to tuna fishing in Hawaii. The differences in line strengths, rods/reels, boats etc all makes them very specialized and I think that having specialized gear and lots of equipment again makes people feel they are real athletes in a specialized sport. Does catching a huge shark make the angler more of an athlete than the guy reeling in panfish? At the end of the day it really doesn't matter. It's just another argument/debate that will come up over and over again. If you truly can say that you feel like an athlete when you go fishing than go for it... I just don't see it. Most of the year I spend my time walking many km's along rivers and often having to fashion a spot to stand and cast from at shore to even get a few casts in. That's the most physical activity involved in the day's fishing. Can't say I am really put out by reeling in small bass or the odd pike. I mean, that's what I'm there for. But I can honestly say that getting up early and getting to the moment of making the first cast is more physically demanding than actually fishing by far. I will be going to Lake Simcoe this weekend to ice fish. I will be sitting in a heated hut 20+ feet above fish with rods sitting on pails and a beer in my hand. I know I'll sure feel like a competing athlete when I raise a 9" perch from a hole in the ice....

I agree completely. It's definitely not a sport. Its a past time/hobby. People like to think that anything they do that requires the smallest amount of movement is a sport. I just shoveled out my driveway in the cold (not a sport) and am about to go to my outdoors job in construction (also not a sport) momentarily. I think a lot of ppl dont do much physical activity such as play hockey or baseball, run, etc. so they always refer to their time spent fishing as a sport so as to not feel like they aren't athletic. Just because fishing isn't a sport doesn't mean there is no merit to it physically. Just getting up earlier than most people and getting out the door is good for you to do every once in a while. Yeah, you cast all day long out of a boat.... and I swing a hammer, and the guy next door walks to work both ways each day, etc. does that mean that it's all sport because there is a slight bit of discomfort and physicality to it? Who cares anyways? I don't think anyone is going to stop fishing because it isn't technically a sport. Also, don't you really need to be able to chose a winner to have it be a sport? Yeah, there are tournaments but that makes up maybe .01 % of all fishing done worldwide.... You can definitely have fishing competitions, but you can also have competitions for most hot dogs eaten, alcohol consumed, computer gaming (i dont care if they call them "cyber athletes", they are sitting infront of a screen) I think some of the confusion comes from the term "sport fishing", as in to fish for sport. The word recreation is what should be used instead of sport. Sport fishing = recreational fishing. "Sport fishing is a term (often used interchangeably with game fishing) that describes recreational fishing where the primary reward is the challenge of finding and catching the fish rather than just the culinary or financial value of the fish's flesh. The distinction is not completely rigid - in many cases, sport fishers will also eat their catches. The philosophies and tactics used for sport fishing, however, are usually sufficiently different from "food fishing" to make the distinction clear enough."

That's gold.

That's what it's all about. The Super Bowl is the only football game I watch each year. Sometimes the Grey Cup game as well. I, more often than not, can't even tell you the teams involved most years until the game starts or I hear it mentioned on American Tv in the days before the game. I don't even really watch the game seeing as I still to this day can't tell you what 1/2 the positions in football are supposed to be doing. It's just a gathering of friends hanging around eating and drinking and sitting in front of a screen for hours on end but always turns out to be a good night, football or not.

I buy stuff on ebay with paypal all the time. I have it setup with my bank account and my credit card as well. I initally had it setup with just my bank account. It took about a week or so to initially put some money from my bank account into my paypal account. I then used that money to purchase things off ebay. I since setup my credit card to my paypal account. I did this because I don't like putting money into my paypal account from my bank account and just leaving it there til I need it. Otherwise, you have to wait for Paypal to take it out of your bank account for you when you need it. The way I have it now the money comes out of my credit card instantly when I make a purchase. For example. If I have 200$ from my bank account put into my paypal account and then make a 180$ purchase online, that leaves me with 20$ in the account. Now, If I go on ebay and win an auction that costs me 100$, Paypal will take the last 20$ from my account and instantly take 80$ from my credit card and its a done deal leaving me with an empty account. Using your credit card is much easier and requires no shuffling of funds.

The needles are from the needle exchange program. The health unit where they come from is a block from the river so the river is the closest/easiest place for ppl to use the needles out of the public eye. Some ppl do return them but I can go to several spots and get rid of the needles and then revisit the same spots 1 week later and more needles are there again. As for the ones in the package... I was fishing one day and found a bag on the shoreline. It had a box of needles in it. Like a box that a hospital would get with like 50 needles in it. THe bag was full of bloody needles and there was bloody tissues and needles all over the area as well as hydrocodone pills. I called it in to be picked up and returned a week later to find that no one had gotten it and the needles had somehow found their way into the river and had been caught in rocks/branches further downstream. I fished a few dozen out. Desperate ppl take desperate measures. You gotta take into consideration the mindset of ppl that are in this state of mind. They aren't thinking clearly and for the most part aren't too concerned about public health and the proper disposal of these items.

You should see the poop I find in the THames in London. Here's a taste of it. Slight bio-hazard. It sucks cause there are fish in these areas. Also, these were all from a 6 week period or so. By spring there will be hundreds in a 2km stretch or river. I have no doubts. I spent dozens of hours cleaning this stuff up last summer/fall so that myself and others don't have to walk in it. I'd say I removed about 50 needles from a 2-3 km stretch of river. Mostly on the ground but the odd one in the river. The needles are bad enough but there are 10x as many wrappers/packaging pieces out there than there are needles. You see the parts all over the place and just makes me wonder how many are on the bottom of the river...