Lip-ripper

Awesome! Congrats on the wedding and great honeymoon too!

The good thing about Lake Erie is, while you troll, you can use the lake water to develop film or bottle it for use as an effective Drano substitute. p.s. Great report!

I had a couple extra vacation days to burn and decided last week that I would head out to the cottage to get a few jobs done that have been put off far too long. My wife was away for work and I had my beagle and her fluffball maltese to watch, so they were designated as my fishing partners for the extra long weekend. I decided that after having success finding lakers the last few times out and catching a couple nice surprise ones, the focus this time would be on pickerel or rather walleye if you prefer... I had caught a few as various locations around the lake, but no consistency or pattern to them. Different depths, different baits, etc. Patterning them was to be the focus this trip. A few weekends ago, while trolling for lakers, I had to quickly reel up and avoid a steep underwater shoal. This was in an area of the lake that was very wide open, and the depth came from 150 FOW to 18 in a span of a hundred or so yards. Picture an underwater mountain, the tip being 18 feet down, with steady declines on all side of it. The peak of this shoal, is only around 30 feet across. This was going to be my first area to try. I arrived Wednesday evening, quickly unpacked some gear for the stay, and headed out onto the lake. A 1 minute boat ride and I've arrived at the shoal. I figured making quick short passes would be the method to my madness and I wanted to start by trolling the top of the shoal. The bait store was out of leeches, so a jig and a worm it was. about 15 minutes in... success! A few minutes later, another strong hit and after a few minutes, a 4.5 pounder is boated! Now, here's what happened. At first, I struggled with the decision of whether or not to release it. After all, I own a cottage on this lake and that is a good spawning size. I threw it on the stringer before snapping a picture of it, as I had gotten a video of the fight on my GoPro. A minute later and a loud thrash at the side of the boat, I look down? gone... The fish made the decision easy for me. His thrashing opened the metal clasp on the stringer and swam away. My only regret was not snapping a nice picture of it. Here's a screen capture of it though. After this, action was steady, I have found my new hotspot for pickerel. I boated 5 that evening, keeping 4 for the table. The next morning, I awoke to the fog. I wanted to race back to my new hotspot to see it the previous evening was a fluke, but figured I should get a few jobs done first. After staining, splitting wood, cutting grass and dock mending, I was back on the water at 2pm. Oh wait, I had a nice breakfast first... So I figured that yesterday evenings success may be due to the time of day, but figured I would try again... just in case... 6 pickerel later, I found out that time of day really didn't seem to matter. Here are a couple pics of the days success. biggest fish was a shade over 3 lbs. All 6 fish caught Thursday were released. Pleased that the task of finding pickerel was deemed a success, next up was deep deep jigging for lakers. I headed to a creek outflow to catch some chubs for bait. I figured large chub minnows would be my best hope for deep lakers. A little fallfish got in the way. I considered keeping him for bait as I believe they are classified as such, but opted to stick with chubs as the fallfish was a little big for bait. In hindsight, I should have tried him out as I have a 4 oz jig that would have worked perfectly with a fallfish on it. I jigged and jigged... and jigged and jigged... nothing... nada... not even a snag. I failed at the task of deep jigging. Even switched it up and tried white tubes. This is my next task, figuring out what I'm marking super deep... Saturday rolled around and I got company. My neighbor showed up and wanted to go out for an evening fish to get a feed for his family. He was actually with me when the shoal was first discovered, and surrendered a good 20 bucks in tackle to it. He even caught an incidental pickerel near it on a laker set-up earlier in the summer so I had no problem heading out to it with him. The action wasn't as steady as earlier in my stay, but we were successful. We each got one around 3 pounds and I even got a laker on the same set-up in the same spot. These fish came home with us for the table. A very relaxing mini-vacation was had, and pickerel success was found. Now to figure out those deep bottom dwellers... until next time...

lol... good sport. Really though, I believe in stuff like that. I remember about 15 years ago I saw a documentary of what looked like a satellite orbiting earth. It then stopped and accelerated away in the opposite direction. Half a second later, a projectile shot up from earth, exactly where the object would have been. I've looked for that video since and am unable to find it. It was weird...

ummm.... puff puff give man... it's not a microphone...

Try this one on for size... as they say a picture is worth a thousand words... This was in front of my parents house, on the sandbars of Lake Nipissing...

Absolutely! Might try jigging deep or steel line again... Something massive must be down there...

I was at the cottage over the weekend and had the chance to get out to do some exploring. I decided that this weekend was going to be dedicated to experimenting as I have had luck catching good number of lake trout, but no real size except it seemed for the odd decent 2.5-3 pounder. My first experiment was to run deep. We had been catching lots of shakers at around 50-60 feet down, in anywhere from 60 to 140 FOW. Sunday night was the first such opportunity and after getting set up, along came Mr. Wind to spoil the party. Wind doesn't usually stop me from fishing, in fact, I prefer a decent chop. However, this wind won the battle as it was one of the rougher days I've been on the lake and I relegated to drift fishing for Pickerel--Another experiment I wanted to try. I wasn't having much luck and as the wife and 2 dogs patience wore thin with the bobbing boat, we retreated for the night... The next morning (Monday) I headed out alone with my hound dog, determined to get into some fish. It was alot nicer and I decided that flatlining with steel line, deep, would be the first order of business. I had marked several fish on bottom and figured that was where the beasts were hiding. I let out around 350 feet of line, and with the 4 oz bottom walker along with all the tackle I was running, I had no problem tagging bottom in 90+ FOW. It was a beauty morning and I was expecting good things. The only good things that happened was the bonding with mother earth I experienced for 2 hours. I did manage to rid the bottom of the lake of some old fishing line though... Somewhat defeated, I decided to throw on an old jointed Rapala I've owned for 20 years, and find a nice comfy 25-30 foot depth range and troll home. Coupled with a healthy enough amount of weight, I soon starting tapping bottom nicely. I had caught pickerel in that depth range, as well as pike, and figured this would be as good a shot as any at getting some redemption. About 15 minutes into the troll I get an very solid hit and the fight is on! This was a Pike for sure I thought. It had all the signs. A very hard strike, long runs and a very heavy weight it. I nursed it to the surface and to my surprise, it's a lake trout, biggest I've caught trolling this summer @ 5 pounds. Not giant, but I'll take it as we wanted some fish for the table. I couldn't believe that after spending all this time (and numerous previous weekends) trolling the depths, here I am catching a nice laker in 25 FOW on a rapala in a section of the lake I hardly ever fish... I was pretty pumped and stunned but still had a few hundred yards to troll to get back to the cottage so back down the rapala goes. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, another strong hit and again it's fish on! Same type of fight but with more head shakes and now I was convinced this was a pike, surely lightning doesn't strike twice. Well, it did... I ended up getting the 2 lakers both over 4.5 lbs. The biggest I've caught this summer, in 25 FOW on a lure I haven't used since I was a teenager... Here I am thinking I was finally figuring this lake out...

I'm not saying an increase in the Ice fishing pressure or even softwater anglers taking limits isn't a contributing factor. Your point was technology. Your quote: "See many wooden boats with 6 hp on them fishin bobbers on the typical spots lately---very few" No, I don't. But I don't see natives paddling canoes out to gill net with hand woven nets either... Nylon is technology, and so is the aluminum boats with outboards on them. Fact is, there are many causes for the lakes population being in trouble. Gill netting is the method that takes the biggest chunk of fish from the lake so it needs to be the first looked at.

Really? you think this is the cause? C'mon man!

I found the figures pretty interesting. Curious to see where this goes... http://www.ofah.org/fishing/nipissingwalleye

I have one of these also, I like it alot.

I saw a t-shirt that said "if fishing was easy it would be called 'your mom!'" lol

I just gotta figure out how to hook it...

Can i enter a fish from Quebec? Its where i fish 80% of the time and is about 10km from the border...

It's been a while since I reported yet I've been fishing almost every weekend so here's a little catch-up. Nipissing has been pretty solid this year, producing decent numbers right up until shad season and the water warming up. I've heard they have moved deep but haven't tried… yet… Here's one of my classic sink shots for your perusal… Aside from the odd weeknight Nipissing trip, I've been focusing on figuring out the lake my cottage is on. My wife and I bought a little place in Quebec late August of last year and this is the first spring/summer season I've had out there so there is a lot to figure out. The lake produced good numbers of walleye and pike last fall and walleye and lakers in the winter but now came the chance to find out the rest of the story. I haven't been disappointed. In the fall I had success trolling the flats near a river outflow but heard that in the summer they preferred shoals. Growing up on Nipissing, sand flats were all I fished so this shoal thing was new to me. I think the walleye bite in general has been good this year as most people I've talked to have had success on a variety of baits and lures. Personally worms and jointed rapalas have been the ticket for me. Bass and walleye have been cruising the same areas so it's a treat to be able to fish both at once. Here are a couple victims from Saturday. (I don't usually keep bass but we had company and they requested it) A little piggy that had eyes bigger than his stomach too! (Eat your heart out Johnnyb) Later on Saturday I decided to cruise around for Lakers. We have been doing awesome for them this year catching between 5 and 10 per outing. One thing though is that the majority of them have been shakers. We'll catch one decent fish for every 3 or 4 shakers. I'm going to experiment with different depths and baits but I think the shakers will always remain. We caught 6 between 2 of us in an hour and a half on Saturday and lost a seventh at the boat (the biggest of course), so the action was fast and furious. Here's a little guy I snapped a pic of. While trolling I found a shoal in the middle of the lake where the depth came up from 100 FOW to 28 and marked fish on it. Later that evening my buddy caught a walleye near it while trolling for lakers so I think I've found a new spot to try. Might be good in the winter too… I tried briefly for Pike as I wanted to get a grand slam of species but alas it wasn't meant to be… Maybe next time. After a relaxing weekend I get a call at 6 pm last night from a buddy that wanted to hit Nipissing for Bass and whatever else would hit. Why not! We caught a few smallmouth before succumbing to the allure of trolling. A few minutes in and I feel a tap. After a good hookset I feel the unmistakable mass of the freshwater drum at the end of my line. After a good little battle we got him up. Nothing else came along and the sun then set on the evening and we called it a night… Good times

There are a couple options though... ones that wouldn't cost them a player... Huet, Cristobal » G CHI 36 $5,625,000 2012 (UFA) Roloson, Dwayne » G TBL 42 $3,500,000 2012 (UFA) Niittymaki, Antero » G SAN 32 $2,000,000 2012 (UFA) Ellis, Dan » G ANA 32 $1,500,000 2012 (UFA) Tarkki, Iiro » G ANA 27 $1,325,000 2012 (UFA) Auld, Alex » G OTT 31 $1,000,000 2012 (UFA) Modig, Mattias » G PIT 25 $875,000 2012 (UFA) Cann, Trevor » G COL 23 $875,000 2012 (UFA) Sexsmith, Tyson » G SAN 23 $830,556 2012 (UFA) Cheverie, Marc » G PIT 25 $803,500 2012 (UFA) Backlund, Johan » G PHI 30 $800,000 2012 (UFA) Pielmeier, Timo » G NJD 23 $766,667 2012 (UFA) Conklin, Ty » G DET 36 $750,000 2012 (UFA) Raycroft, Andrew » G DAL 32 $650,000 2012 (UFA) Sanford, Curtis » G CLB 32 $600,000 2012 (UFA) Johnson, Brent » G PIT 35 $600,000 2012 (UFA) Turco, Marty » G BOS 36 $600,000 2012 (UFA) Pogge, Justin » G PHO 26 $575,000 2012 (UFA) Climie, Matt » G VAN 29 $525,000 2012 (UFA) Hunwick, Shawn » G CLB 25 $525,000 2012 (UFA) Grahame, John » G NYI 36 $525,000 2012 (UFA) Caron, Sebastien » G NAS 32 $525,000 2012 (UFA)

Because regardless of what they give up, the last thing the leafs need is another young unproven goalie so why even trade for one?

"The Toronto Maple Leafs have reportedly made an offer for Jonathan Bernier. In Toronto, Bernier would likely compete with James Reimer for the starting job and cost Ben Scrivens a roster spot. Bernier would give the Leafs another promising, but ultimately unproven young goaltender. Bernier wants to leave Los Angeles and Toronto would be a much better opportunity for him, but he might not be worth the cost for the Leafs. What the Leafs really lack when it comes to goaltending is an established and relatively safe starter. Bernier might develop into a great netminder, but he certainly doesn't fit into that category yet." IMO this would be a bad move... discuss amongst yourselves...

Nope, there is a place in northgate called kings sportswear(near the as seen on tv store). They are only there til the end of july. they have a big bin of them next to the cash, 8 bucks each, 2 different styles, about 5 different colours...

Awesome video and from what I can tell, not fake. http://www.break.com/index/just-some-fishing-when-holy-crap-shark-2344129 I wouldn't be taking any swims off that dock!

There is a discount place here in North Bay that sells them for $8 each but they only have the crawdad ones in assorted colours. Anyone find these work well?

1) At least you didn't get hurt from the broken gas line! 2) At least you didn't get hurt from being in the accident! 3) At least you didn't get hurt from not being able to stop your fully loaded rig! p.s. was it a Dodge? lol

Well done! Those are a couple tanks right there! perhaps a couple Team 7 upgrades also?