Tacklebuster

what an awesome looking fish, thanks for posting.

Great pics and report. Nice to see all the wildlife thriving. I thought we had it cold on Saturday.

on the opener, surface temps ranged from 58-62, on the 19th, temps ranged from 60-64, depending on where you were, and the time of day

Has anyone else had a problem with the split rings on X-Raps opening? I have had the split rings on the hooks open on two X-Raps.

Great report, by the way that star is Venus, and lower on the horizon below the crescent moon and slightly north of it you can see Mercury just after the sun sets.

Woohoo, I finally figured out how to get a pic in my post. So here we go, for the pike opener my brother in-law and I decided to hit Cooks. We arrived at Harry's by 7am and the lines were in the water by 730am. The wind, chop, and temps, sure made it a bit of a challenge, but our perseverence was rewarded. Here is our first pike of the season. By 9am we had 4 in the box, by 10am 6, and the livewell (never mind the floater) is starting to swell, By 3pm we were 8/8. The largest was 8lbs, three 7.5 lbers, and the others ranged from 4-5.5 lbs. After 3pm the bite came to a halt, so at 5pm we decided to troll back, and by 6pm the boat was back on its trailer. It sure felt great to be back on the softwater, everything worked, the motor started on the first turn, nothing broke, and we had a feast that evening. Also hooked into a nice 4 lb smallie, however it had several large black blotches on it. Sure hope its not that disease thats invaded the great lakes. Got back home by 8pm and it was time to unload the boat and examine our wares. In keeping with our tradition, we like to have a little fish fry while we are fileting the fish. The result The grand finally Saturday May 19th My brother in-law and myself, had another opportunity to hit cooks and get into some more pike action. After the openner, I was very eager to give it another shot. I used to consider Couch. more or less my stomping grounds, and my fav. body of water, but now, I am starting to like Cooks more and more. It definately helps that it cuts my travel time by and hour. We launched at Harry's, as we're getting into the lake, I realized I had forgot the net. I guess we are going to have to land anything by hand, at least we had those fish handling gloves. Had our lines in by around 7am, and had our first hit within 5 minutes...lost that one. Next hit 10 min. later, lost that one too. Uh Oh, no net, and no fish yet, well lets see. 30 min. later, next hit...this one get landed and its a decent 5 lb pike. Great, no skunk, and no hooks or pike teeth in the fingers. I noticed that compared to last week, the water temps warmed about 2-3 degrees, depending on the area. By 11am, the bite really slowed down, so we explored a bit with no results. By 2 we called it quits, and went home to enjoy the rest of the day, with family and friends, and enjoy our fresh fish fry. We ended the day, with 4 pike. The weather was great too. Hope you all had a great weekend. By the way, I filleted these pike using the 5 fillet method which I learned from a video I saw on the net. I modified it slightly into 6 fillets, and for the first time I we had boneless pike fillets. So for those of you who don't like to eat pike because of the bones, try this method out, and enjoy what is IMO one of the best tasting of our fresh water fish.

anyone try dropshotting for whitefish?

how can anything that ugly taste good?

as mentined by the other posts, your boat could have been swamped by the waves breaking over your transom (seen that happen before), or your live well overflowing (but I believe you would have noticed it while you were fishing), I would also check that the screw holes are sealed where you have the transom mount transducer installed. I installed a new transducer a couple of years ago and didn't seal up the holes properly. After only a few hours of fishing, I was surprised by the amount of water the boat took on. I never had such a problem with the boat before, so I immediately suspected it, sealed it up with Marine Goop, and problem was solved. Nonetheless, since its a new boat, I would definately water test it again to rule out any manufacturer defect, and if its still taking on water...bring it back.

if those things get into our lakes, the Salmon Hunt is going to become the Carp Hunt. Good luck catching any chrome whatsoever. They are so prolific they will destroy the ecosystem of any body of water they get into. I doubt they will have anymore success at stopping them from entering our waterways than they did at trying to stop the goby. Nonetheless, that sure did look like fun.

thanks for the link Andy, its quite informative

you can be pretty sure they won't be doing that for very long, sooner or later one of those guys is going to shoot someone with that spear gun.

just curious, how long it takes you guys to clean you limit of perch?

Congrats Islander Fans!

That was funny as hell Gerritt

Congratulations? I would say thats counting your chicks before they hatched. Go Islanders! Leafs/Leaves don't deserve it.

We are dealing with a similar situation here in Oakville. You have to get a coalition together, and raise issues that would force the land owner and township to basically jump through hoops in order to get the construction plans approved. Some of the issues that were already mentioned are: environmental impact (which may come from various sources:Light polution, noise, etc.), increase in traffic which may pose a threat to children or pedestrians which may require the town to install street lights or traffic lights, etc. You have to get as many concerned residents together and brainstorm.

Another Great report Moosebunk, I was starting to suffer from withdrawl.

Great report, fun times for sure. I love the Temagami area.

great pics, I was hoping to see it for myself and perhaps take some pics, unfortunately we only had overcast sky's here. Thanks for sharing.

I hunt and fish, so I am deffinately not jumping on the tree hugging band wagon. However, I believe you should only take game which you are going to consume. As such I will never hunt black bear. The exception of course is self defence, and if you are a farmer who needs to protect his herd. I was also under the impression that cougars were a protected.

there's plenty of good fishing in port severn and the pool, bass, pike, musky, gar pike, cat's. Lots to explore, and if that gets borring then go to GB. The fun just never stops.

If you're a Leaf fan, the best thing you can do for the team is to not support them. Go see them in Buffalo.

I agree, I booked a site last year at Six Mile. I must say that their system leaves much to be desired, you practically have to be a pro in order to navigate the site, not vey user friendly that for sure.

Big Chute