Dontcryformejanhrdina

Haha I don't doubt there are many kids out there that would beat me, but I'm not exactly the competition you have to keep an eye out for.

I simply don't have the time to be out on the water every day, or even more than twice a week if I'm lucky. If I catch a nice sized perch I'll gladly take a picture of it holding a sign, but I'm not doing that 30 times a year for any 4" perch I catch lol.

They can still participate if it's in inches, either way I doubt a kid wins it lol. That's why I suggested the different age groups, I realize that makes for extra work, but why not keep track of their fish/total inches throughout the year (like everyone else), then after it's over find out the ages of each young participant and the most total inches in that age group wins? That isn't THAT hard, certainly easier than taking a picture of every perch every day out on the water.

I was under the impression that he wanted it to be 1 point per fish species caught each day. So if a person could catch a bass, perch and walleye every day they get 3 points every day. No way in hell I'd be able to keep up with that lol.

So does taking a picture of EVERY species of fish caught EVERY time out lol.

But the old way, a skilled angler could fish once a week and have a good shot at catching a large fish based on skill/knowledge. Meanwhile any guy who lives on a lake with multiple species could easily "beat" the other angler by simply taking a picture of any dink bass/perch/whatever he catches each day. I'm not that great at fishing but under the total inches category I'd at least have a chance at staying competitive through luck, and it would inspire me to fish different species rather than just 2-3 kinds of fish. This way I wouldn't even bother trying because I know I wouldn't be on the water as much as other guys, I just don't have the schedule/opportunity for it.

Why not have separate categories for kids and/or shore anglers then? Different age groups, perhaps? It's not like a 6 year old is going to have a chance at out fishing Mike lol. Maybe categories for ages 5 and under, 6-10, 11-14, then shore anglers in their own category (any fish caught from a boat counts towards the boat angler's category, regardless of who's boat it is).

Wouldn't that put people who can't get out fishing every day at a severe disadvantage right off the bat?

I'd be in, though I highly doubt I catch any great lakes trout, salmon or whitefish since I never have and don't have the gear/knowledge to catch them. What are the kind of fish in the contest?

Yeah the drive from Oshawa to Belleville (and vice versa) is a breeze, I have family in Oshawa and actually enjoy the drive to Oshawa from Belleville. Once you get past Oshawa headed west it gets brutal, can't say I enjoy that very much lol.

Well I certainly don't regret buying it Dan. It's definitely been worth it for me! I certainly got plenty of use out of it this year, from April to November I had it out at least once almost every week, with most weeks twice a week and several long weekends thrown in. The only thing I regret is that I have to wait until next March/April before I can get it out again.

One tip about taking pictures (and could be forgotten in the excitement of landing the fish/in a hurry to get it back in the water) is to position yourself so the sun is in front of you, not shining behind you. Or you could have a crappy picture of your trophy and not even be able to tell it's you.

Geez, it almost looks like a smallie!

I started targetting musky last year during bass opener/late June....I never caught my first until September. It was well worth the wait though. One big mistake I made was I fished low density waters while looking for my 1st. Fish high numbers waters if you can. Fishing from shore is going to be tough, since you usually have to cover a lot of water while looking for active fish. It's certainly not impossible though.

Sorry for your loss Paul. Doesn't matter how old you get, it's never easy losing a parent. My condolances to you and the rest of her family/loved ones.

Musky/pike: 9" sledge, black. double 10 inline spinners, any combination of black, orange and chartruese. Bass/walleye/pike: Husky jerk, usually in black/chrome colour. I LOVE this lure, catches almost everything and you often see the hits come out of nowhere.

Wow is all I can say.....

I was on the Trent this past weekend. Sat morning I had a hit on a sledge, couldn't tell if it was a pike or musky. Later that morning I had a blow up in the same bay on a bucktail and it followed to the boat a few feet down, could hardly see it so not sure if it was a pike or musky. Went back that afternoon and caught a 30" pike on a sledge. Had a pike go crazy on Sunday afternoon. I was casting off the dock with a crankbait and hit weeds and a pike came in HARD right to the dock but saw it was covered in weeds and took off. I yelled to my brother to come down, gave him my sledge and we took the boat out to fish the outside edge of the weedbed. My brother had the pike hit boatside on the figure 8 but didn't get the hooks in it, then a minute later I had it hit my crankbait as I was jerking it but my hookset sent the bait flying out of the water, then finally it hit my brother's sledge, only 28" but it was his first pike. This was all within a span of less than 10 minutes, that was 1 fish that wanted to get caught lol. Fishing was very hit and miss for us. My brother got his PB walleye (23.5"/4lbs) on a husky jerk, I got 1 walleye jigging a worm (18.5"). Only bass I even saw was a smallmouth that followed a hellhound to the boat. Other than the walleye, we got nothing on husky jerks. It seemed the pike wanted bigger baits (8-9"), can't say for sure what the musky wanted since I'm not sure what I raised. Had no interest in big (12oz) soft plastics though.

You never want to stop a spinner (well, inline anyway) while musky fishing. A quick speed burst then back to normal speed works well. If the fish is interested it will pick up speed to follow the bait and once you slow it back down to it's normal speed it's right in the musky's face.

Nice muskies guys!

I don't have the gear for trolling and honestly I don't feel like spending any more money on fishing gear at the moment than I already have so I'm wondering, how's the jigging bite in the fall? Keep in mind that I wouldn't mind getting some eaters, not necessarily looking for the huge ones (though that would be nice too).

My personal best/worst gar. Personal worst 21" musky. It was actually pretty fun to catch on a bass rod, very strong for it's size and took a couple of fast runs.

Nice musky, is that ever thick!

Every June and September I go up to the Trent with a bunch of guys and we hold our own little tournament just for fun/bragging rights. Every September I've been there, the walleye fishing has always been much slower and bass is slow too. The only walleye caught this past weekend came from slow trolling some kind of spinner in and around the deeper weed edges.