Garry2Rs

Great stuff! I love to see people taking their kids fishing. Making memories to last a life time.

This lake is not very fertile...no weedbeds. The main forage is going to be Crayfish, insects and young of the year all of which will be huddling in the shallows. Since you are not catching mid-size bass, it sounds like you are missing complete year groups. In those years there may have been a problem with the crayfish population, therefore the young bass might have been totally harvested by the adults. Alternately the spawn might not have been successful for a number of years...Bad weather, sudden cold snap, something toxic dumped into the lake etc, etc, etc.

Malibu isn't a name brand. If it's what I think it is, it's under 16 feet long and an old tri-hull design. In spite of the new parts, it's not a very desirable boat at any price.

Recently there has been some discussion about knots for attaching leaders to braid. Most of us seem to be using the Uni to Uni knot. The upside of the Uni is it's easy, the downsides are it's not the strongest and it is quite bulky. Here is a link to a video demonstrating how to tie a very good knot that is quite compact and can be used to attach mono-filament or fluorocarbon to braid. Albright Special When using heavy Fluoro or Mono as a pike or musky leader, it can be difficult to tie a knot in the heavy leader material. On the Seaguar web site I found something that helped me. Seaguar suggested that you lubricate the leader with ChapStick! ChapStick is made from a very fine wax which will help knots in heavier leader material draw down tight much better than saliva. Also on that site was a suggestion that the old Homer Rhodes knot works very well to attach snaps or lures to heavy leader material. Homer Rhodes Now, it is well known that this is not a 100% line strength knot, but if, for bite-off resistance, you are using a 50 pound leader on 30 pound braid you don't need more than 30 pounds of breaking strength in the knot. By-the-way, a simple tool for tightening knots in braid can be made by using a pipe cutter to create a tapered groove in a 3 or 4 inch piece of dowel. When you wrap the line around the dowel and it will lock in the groove allowing you to pull the knot very tight. Garry2R's

I don't think it will be too pricey. I think I heard $20.00US. There are supposed to be some discount coupons available soon to help dealers clear their old stock. Garry2rs

Where is the launch for Sandy?

What has been said about big baits is true. In fact, I think fishing for big bass has a lot more in common with musky fishing, than bass fishing. If your intent is to find big fish, there are five key places to start looking. Points, Ridges, Creek Channels, Humps and Flats. Other locations will hold fish at certain times of the year or under some circumstances, but these five always hold the biggest fish. Get out your lake map, here's what you are looking for... 1. Points...Look for some irregularity on the point...a rock pile, a big rock or a stump this are the key features. Find the sharpest break on the point. If this coincides with the a key feature, this is the spot on the spot. 2. Ridges...You will be looking for the same key features as with points. This is sonar work, but once you find them, the nice thing is ridges don't get as much pressure as points. 3.Creek Channels...Many of our cottage lakes have been improved by damming the exit end, raising the water level and controlling the water flow over the course of the year. If you search, you can often find the old steam bed or creek channel. This feature works best when combined with one or more of the other four. Like a point or hump that ends at the channel. Fish use these channels as highways to guide their movement, but some are better than others. The closer the channel is to other key things like points, hump or islands, the better. 4. Humps or Islands...a hump is a submerged island. Islands are like two points back to back. Treat them the same and find the key features on each. 5. Flats...These are prime feeding areas. Look for fish along the edges, but also seek out any "staircases" or trenches that would make it easy for a fish to go from deep to shallow water. If the top of the flat is barren, check the edges and corners. You're looking for a path to and from deeper water. Okay you have decided on some key places to check out...Remember this. The biggest fish in any lake will have the best locations on these key places and big fish will not move far from their chosen spot. Big bass will go shallower to feed or spawn and deeper in hot/bright weather but we are talking a few yards, not across the lake. Find spots that combine the key features we mentioned and you have probably found a big fish spot. The next step will be to fish these spots with large baits, at three levels, top, mid-water and bottom. One last tip. Try casting from shallow to deep water rather than from deep to shallow. Big fish feed by trapping there prey in shallow water. Good Luck! Garry2R's

In the past, many members have written about sudden break-offs with superline. Sometimes this happens when the line is brand new, but more often, when the line has been used for quite awhile. Personally, I had this problem with the 30 pound Powerpro, on my casting rods, a couple of years ago. The line was over a year old, but it still looked good. Then suddenly it began to break between the rod and the bait when I tried to pull a lure off of a weed or snag. At I-Cast, last month, Sufix announced a new braid called "Sufix 832 Advanced Superline." The name comes from the fact that this new line is an 8 strand braid and 32 pics, or weaves, per inch. Eight strands with such a high pic count will make this line very tight and round. One of the 8 strands is made from Gore-Tex!?! Curious, about the supposed benefit of this Gore-Tex fibre, I did some research. According to Sufix, when the superline fibers drawn tight, past a certain point, they start cutting themselves! The effects shows up as a slightly fuzzy look when the line is dry. Over time this weakens the line to the point where a sudden shock causes catastrophic failure...IE. Sudden unexpected break-offs. According to Sufix the purpose of the Gore-Tex fibre is to lubricate their very tight weave, thus eliminating this problem. So far I haven't seen any of this new line for sale. Most of the new products from I-Cast will be hitting the US market in November. If that's the case, I will give you my first impressions of it on-the-water, this winter. Garry2R's

To join the Fluorocarbon to the Powerpro I would suggest using an Albright knot with ten turns. Wrap the Powerpro around the Fluoro. With such heavy line it will make a much smoother knot. Knotting 50 pound fluoro or mono neatly is not easy. To join the 50 pound fluoro to a snap swivel, or to a lure etc. I would use a Homer Rhodes knot. To help tighten the knot, touch it with Chap-Stick before drawing it down tight. By-the-way, I wasn't suggesting that 20 pound Trilene was my choice for a Pike leader, just that in an emergency it was available at CTC and more bite-off resistant that your raw 30 pound Powerpro. Garry2R's

Ditto on leaders. Thirty pound PowerPro is okay, but not as heavy as I use on casting rods. You could probably use 20 pound mono or fluoro as a leader if you want to avoid steel. Trilene Big Game is available at CTC.

Definitely effecting Jack's...The weedbeds seem to be expanding and joining together. In the shallow areas, Chandos is weedier than it was ten years ago, but with the rocky bottom there's less fertile shallow water. I don't mind generic shad-shapes for Perch, at least they are close in profile, but not for Sunfish! I wish Kopper would do a Rockbass. I feel like Perch, and Rockbass are the predominant forage from here to Bancroft. garry2rs

I don't know your motor, but I will tell how I would start. Although this all seems to have started at once, there maybe two problems... For the tilt there are generally two control switches, usually high up and at the very back of the motor. One is for up the other down. They might be black plastic boxes about an inch and a half square and they plug in. My replacement ones have some light green trim on the edge that plugs it...To test if the down is faulty, try reversing them. If the motor doesn't crank at all. Start by checking the fuses. There might be two in holders clipped to the motor near the starter. I think the power goes from the motor to the key and dashboard where there might be another fuse, then back to the motor. You are looking for a break in that circuit. If it cranks but won't start, check for Air, Fuel and Spark...one is missing. Figure out which one. If it is Spark there might be a couple of black boxes that could be at fault, but that's not something I know how to test. While you have the cowling off check around the power-pack, where all the wires come together. This might be beside the starter. What you're looking for is bare or loose wires. Follow the various leads back to their source. Even without mechanical training or test equipment sometimes a guy can find something that rattled loose etc. Good Luck Garry2rs

Nice fish! Hope you enjoyed the thunder and lightning show. We are doing it ever weekend to impress the cottagers...HAHAHA.

I'm sure that Bay of Quinte has Shad. I have seen them on the Lower Grand River and in Lake Erie. Therefore, I think it's safe to assume that all of the southern Great Lakes and there tributaries now have Shad. North of the Kawarthas we don't see them. I'm not sure if they are in the Kawartha chain. Does anyone know for sure?

Almost everything that is written about Bass fishing is about fishing in the "Lower 48." Our American cousins don't have a lot of clear water...Therefore a lot of what we read is about shallow water reservoirs and is not very applicable to our circumstances. Where I live, near Apsley in the North Kawarthas, most of the lakes are very clear. The introduction of Zebra mussels, and the resultant explosion in weed growth has made the water even clearer. Since we probably won't be reading about it in Field and Stream, let's talk about fishing in clear water. I want to hear your ideas, but here's three of my ideas to get things started. Number one, in clear water I believe that bait Size becomes very important. For instance, at the beginning of the season there are no little minnows. This years hatch are too small to see and last years are full grown...I use larger baits in May and June than I do in July and August. Number two, I think Colour and lack of colour is far more important in clear water. Baits like Kopper Live Target, some Lucky Craft, and some Rapala baits have a great deal of detail and realistic paint jobs. Spro, Lucky Craft, and Rapala also make some "ghost" lures that are translucent. In clear water I think these work better, because you can see light through most real minnows! In plastics, natural colours like light browns, greens, smoke/grey and translucent plastics get my nod. Could the reason that pink works so well be because light passing through minnows makes them look pink? My last idea has to do with Profile. Shad are the predominant forage across the USA but not in areas north of the Great Lakes. There are many Sunfish, Crayfish and Perch pattern crankbaits out there that have the profile of a Shad! I know that at times fish will hit anything that might be eatable, but in my mind, "matching the hatch" becomes much more important in clearer water. Live Target baits have the most realistic profiles, but all the more expensive brands tend to have less generic shapes from lure to lure than the cheaper ones do. I know that not everybody out there fishes clear water but when you do, what, if any, adjustments do you make? Garry2R's

According to Wikipedia: "Swimbaits are a loosely defined class of fishing lures that imitate fish and tend to be distinct in design from a typical crankbait." "Swimbaits are usually different from crankbaits by the way they generate lure action. Some are rubber "paddle tail" lures that appear to swim when the tail flutters during retrieve. Some are jointed baits that wave like a flag in the water when retrieved, without any obvious mechanism to generate motion. Some are large jointed crankbaits or crankbait/plastic lure hybrids." Swimbaits generally come in three models, floaters, slow sinkers and fast sinkers. I have found the floaters and slow sinkers very useful over submerged weeds...as an alternative to poppers, spooks or plastic. The baits are generally large...To draw a big fish up 30 feet the "meal" has to be worth the trip. Secondly, looking up from a depth, the fish might only see a silhouette of the belly of the bait. Until recently Swimbaits were mainly expensive handmade works of art. They were in the $40.00 to $100.00 dollar range with some examples running well above that. The mainstream fishing industry seems to have noticed them at last. Many new smaller hard body swimbaits were shown at the ICast fishing show last month including a new Kooper jointed Live Target Sunfish swimbait...I can't wait to try! In the North American fishing industry almost all the technology is focused on Bass. When I looked at the fine detail and beautiful swimming action of these big "Bass" baits, I couldn't help but think they could be killer baits for many species it Ontario. This picture shows the original late '80s style AC Plug. It's generally recognized as the first California Swimbait. It had a two piece wooden body with a soft plastic paddle tail. They sure look like musky lures to me! This is a modern soft plastic model made by Castaic. I had two. Both only lasted for about five fish...but they were all good ones! These are the Spro hard body baits, design by Bill Siemantel, that I want to try. They come in either a six inch model or an eight inch length. The fins and the tail on these baits are soft, and for $5.00 you can buy a kit with a complete set of replacement parts. This is a new class of baits for most of us and the challenge with anything new is to get on board and use them enough to gain confidence. Garry2R's

I'm new to swimbaits in the last 9 months. Since reading Bill Siemantel's book "Big Bass Zone" I have caught a lot of fish on both soft and hard bodied swimbaits. I have not caught anything like the 15 or 20 pounders he catches, but those fish don't live near me! On the other hand, I've been using the 6 inch models, not the 10"+ baits that the San Diego crowd swear by...grin. Making these baits work...Gaining confidence in them...Has been the real challenge. Along the way I have had to make some adjustments and learn some new technique that I'd like to share. The first thing that I found was that I had to slow way down! This was made more difficult because over the last few years the gears ratios on bass reels have become faster and faster...going from an average of 5.3 ten years ago to an average of 6.3 now. At the same time it seems that every new reel that is introduced is a 7.1 or quicker. All this speed is fine, but swimbaits, in my opinion, need to move slowly. I'm sure that the big ones will wear you out the same way musky lures do. Even the "small" six inch models seem to work best when you slow them down to a crawl. The second thing I noticed was that they seem to like a steady retrieve, with just the occasional change of speed or direction. At first I was using a Skeet Reese type Jerkbait retrieve...jerk-jerk-jerk...pause...jerk-jerk-jerk... This turned out to be a No-Go! Winding at a steady rate, then pausing, worked much better. As I recall, most of my strikes came in the middle of the retrieve when I was doing nothing special. The soft plastic models I tried were a big disappointment. They look great in the water and feel lifelike, but one Pike or Musky pretty well destroys them...That wasn't a big surprise, but what was a shocker was that even a couple of mid-size, 3-4 pound Bass, tore them up quickly. I have now switched to hard swimbaits. The longest surviving one I have is a Sebile Magic Swimmer. It has caught Pike, Musky and Bass and is still in good shape. Although they aren't jointed and have a diving lip, the Kooper, Live Target baits, with their super-high detail finish seem to fall into the swimbait category. In my mind they can stand a lot of close scrutiny. I'm sure the new jointed models will be killers when they are available. In the meantime, stuck in Canada with duty and taxes, on anything I order from "Stateside," not to mention those brokerage house bandits, I've been on the lookout for something a little less pricey that the $18.00US. Sebile baits. Last week my friend Curtis told me he has caught over 20 bass on an $8.00 CTC swimbait made by Matzuo. It's called a Triple Play. The bait is triple jointed like the Sebile bait and runs a little deeper at 2' to 4' feet. Unlike the lipless Sebile, this bait has a small diving lip. I bought two of the 6" size and they both seem to work quite well for Bass in my area. Garry2R's

I carry a lot of natural colours because one never knows what will do the trick! However, fishing theory says that the bait, crayfish, minnows etc, will camouflage to match their surroundings...Therefore I always have a lot of brown to Rootbeer shades and a lot of greens in my boat. I will have to give pink worms a try! I had great success with pink Flukes, but always thought that it had to do with the fact that I could see them better and so fished them with more finesse...

Congratulations on the PB. Glad those ideas helped you-guys Garry2R's

In that price range there is also the venerable Abu 5500C or 6500C. They're not a rugged as the Penn's, but are easy to find. If you want a line counter, Shakespeare makes a reel that is called a Tidewater for about $80.00.

I think that the weight of the line will dictate what rod you will want to use it on. In use, it's just regular Fused Fireline without the black coating. In my opinion all the talk about it being translucent is so much Madison Ave. bull-roar. About 4 years ago I used Crystal 14 pound on a spinning rod and some 30 pound on a casting reel. As far as I could tell it worked okay, without a leader, on cranks etc. To my eye it's quite visible in the water. On the other hand, I was getting bites...Maybe the fish don't care. Garry2R's

It is quite easy to break any rod if you jerk at a bad angle, especially if there is internal damage from hitting it on the gunnels etc. The higher the quality of the rod, the easier they break. I have had several rods replaced by Shimano/G.Loomis and unless I was upgrading, it was always at no charge. Garry

There's no doubt these are some of the lightest and best looking production rods around. At $350.00 and $400.00 US each, they are a little rich for my blood, but I would grab one in a second if it turned up in the classifieds...grin. Garry2R's

Slow down Billy-Bass...I never said Fluoro leaders are 100% not needed! I said When using crankbaits and spinnerbaits etc. you probably don't need the leader. If you are doing a stop-and-go retrieve that is more of a jerkbait, twitch-bait type of presentation, where I said "On jerkbaits, worms and Flukes etc. the bait moves slowly or stands still so a low visibility leader could help. Garry2R's

When using crankbaits and spinnerbaits etc. you probably don't need the leader. These are reaction baits and the fish attack them because they are fleeing. They don't take the time to look them over. On jerkbaits, worms and Flukes etc. the bait moves slowly or stands still so a low visibility leader could help. With poppers, Spooks and glide baits etc. a heavy Mono leader helps to keep the bait from running over the very limp braid. As others have suggested the Uni to Uni is a strong knot that's easy to tie. Garry2R's