Spiel

Solo has touched on my prefernece for line on a center pin. For me the line needs to be wirey, stiff with low/no memory. A line that wants to spring up and run off the reel. Soft, supple stretchy lines are a poor choice in my opinion. Find a stiff wirey line a minimum of 2lb greater than the heaviest leaders you use and you're all set.

The boat and motor restoration are pretty slick and admirable projects Bernie. I've no doubt you'll ace them.

Limestone quarry threatens prime farm land November 6, 2009 Ben Rayner / thestar.com SHELBURNE–It has been three years since John Lowndes began quietly approaching landowners in and around Melancthon Township, an idyllic stretch of rolling fields radiating out from the town of Shelburne, north of Orangeville. He worked his way through the area's numerous potato farms, generally offering to buy the properties at $8,000 per acre, above market value. Throughout, he touted a vision of becoming the province's largest potato grower. Since then, under the banner of the Highland Companies, he has accomplished that goal, acquiring more than half of the roughly 15,000 acres of arable land in the area and a couple of its largest potato farms, Downey's and Wilson's. Some of Lowndes' new neighbours were suspicious, however, that Highland – backed by a $14 billion hedge fund out of Boston called Baupost Group – wasn't all about potatoes. Just over a year ago, Highland sent a letter to Melancthon council indicating it planned to "explore additional land uses." Those additional uses included the far more lucrative "crop" of aggregate limestone to be found just a few feet beneath the region's honeywood silt loam soil, prized for agriculture. That plan has sparked a fight that has split several of the close-knit farming communities that sit atop the Dufferin Highlands, less than 100 kilometres from the GTA. Some were happy to sell their struggling farms. Others welcomed new investment in the area. But now that Highland has made clear it plans to quarry 2,400 acres of some of Canada's finest farmland, opponents say what is at stake is the most basic stuff of human life: water, food and family heritage. "Once he started talking quarry, there was no way he was gonna get this place," grumbles local potato and cattle farmer Jim Black, before taking a visiting reporter for a flight over the designated area in his two-seater plane. "I have six grandchildren – one of them's 19 now, two 15-year-olds – and we've got one here who just can't wait to get farming, so what are we going to tell them later on, our kids? We made a big hole in the ground?" The water table sits close to the surface on the highlands. In nearby communities such as Horning's Mills, there's a pond or running water seemingly in everyone's backyard. Any large hole in the ground thus troubles locals about their well levels and ability to water and wash their crops. Sitting on the highest point in Ontario at 1,700 feet above sea level, their lands also border on the headwaters of the Nottawasaga and Grand River systems, meaning any lowering of water levels or water quality at "the Roof of Ontario" could be felt as far away as Hamilton to the south and Georgian Bay to the north. Last January, a matter of days before Highland made explicit what "additional land uses" it was mulling for its newly acquired properties – wind-power generation, reinstatement of the rail line connecting Orangeville to Owen Sound and, yes, aggregate extraction on 2,400 acres in eight phased operations of 300 acres – some of the holdouts and other concerned residents banded together as the North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Taskforce (NDACT). Since then, they have amassed 1,200 signatures on a "stop the quarry" petition and relentlessly hounded politicians and environmental groups. They hired an independent planner to assess the consequences for the nearby waterways. They filed complaints about what they claim is illegal tree-clearing on some properties, and they are lobbying the Melancthon, Mulmur and Grey townships to designate their honeywood soils as an "agricultural specialty crop," which has protected the Holland Marsh against development. "This has totally taken over my life, and I had it just the way I liked it," sighs Dale Rutledge, NDACT's chairman and the proprietor of Rutledge Farms, the second-largest potato grower in the area behind Highland's expanded Downey Potato Farms. "We may not be able to grow anything other than limestone. We were worried about our well, but now we're worried about the fact that if he drains all of our water or he lets our water go too fast out of the ground, that we've got no water, then, underground to feed our crops ... I'm fighting for my life if that happens." Rutledge, 61, is currently in business with his sons, Mark and Scott. If his grandchildren take up the trade, six generations of Rutledges will have farmed the fields near Reddickville and Honeywood. The core Rutledge Farms acreage now, however, borders on a vast tract of properties that could soon be turned into 75-metre-deep limestone pit mines. "We're totally surrounded," he says. Jim Black, too, is stressed by Highland's plans. "It's one thing to talk about growing potatoes ... and everything, but as soon as you start to destroy this land there's nothing left. It'll never come back again." Black has been one of Highland's most vocal foes, having grown sufficiently fed up with what he sees as duplicitous and strong-armed business tactics to have gone public with his complaints. Other farmers in the area have similar stories – of being given 24-hour deadlines to make decisions about selling, or of $100,000 cheques being surreptitiously left on kitchen tables – but are reluctant to go on the record. For its part, Highland "categorically denies" that it attempted to bully landowners into selling with 24-hour deadlines and that "any cheque was left in the manner that is seemingly being alleged," says spokesman Michael Daniher. "The provision of an offer and the provision of any cheques only occurred after a number of meetings and discussions that were held as part of the process resulting in the tabling of an offer. Cheques were, in fact, provided but they were attached – physically attached – to offers that were left with prospective vendors. People had asked John, `How will we know that an offer you bring is sincere?' So the company endeavoured to address that question by providing a cheque ... as indication of a sincere offer and as a down payment." Black and his wife, Marian, were actually considering selling the farm after a drought-prone stretch when an unfamiliar real-estate agent approached them in September 2006. The Blacks subsequently listed the property for a year with another agent, but there were no takers. They had taken it off the market when the first agent came back with an offer that, Marian says, "he felt we could not refuse." "The next time, John Lowndes himself comes waltzing in," recalls Marian, who found it odd that someone professing to be intent on buying their farming operation displayed no interest in examining the buildings that came with it. "He says: `I'm here, I'm going to buy your farm, I need to see you right now.' And I said, `I didn't know it was for sale. If it was for sale, there'd be a sign at the end of the road.'" After their refusals, the Blacks allege, a seed supplier from Saskatchewan called them to say that Lowndes was offering to buy a substantial debt they had accrued during their rough patch. Jim describes it "as just another way to get control of us ... The seed grower informed us right after (Lowndes) phoned him." The Highland Companies contend that the reverse was true and the grower actually rang up Lowndes – as the man behind "the leading farm operation in the area" – asking: "Is there anything you can think of or do to help us try and get our money from Mr. Black?" Lowndes himself does not personally respond to such matters these days. The voice of Highland in most of its public dealings belongs to Daniher, a public-relations pro affiliated with a Toronto company called Special Situations Inc. He has represented the company at several community forums held to discuss its intentions, not to mention "30 of the last 31 meetings of Melancthon council," says Daniher. Lowndes, he adds, has become "increasingly unavailable." The unfailingly cooperative Daniher takes pains to point out the diversity of Highland's interests in the 9,500 acres – 7,500 in Melancthon Township, 1,000 in Mulmur Township and 1,000 in Norfolk Township – it now owns near Shelburne. Potato farming and aggregate extraction comprise but half of the company's grand scheme. In promotional materials, Highland touts dreams of a four-tiered business that will include adding its own wind turbines to the many already dotting the horizon west of County Rd. 124 and an eventual relaunch of freight-rail service from Toronto to Orangeville to the Great Lakes port of Owen Sound. Presumably the rail lines would be used to ship aggregate. Those interests both remain at the "research" stage, says Daniher. "That's a vision we've tried to share with a lot of folks. Some just won't buy it. That's their right. But we're not the ones who've described this in the fiery language they have. We've tried to be fair and reasonable and responsible." NDACT and Highland both accuse each other of "misrepresentation." Highland maintains the quarry won't be the 2,400-acre environmental nightmare it's been portrayed as during the long run-up to a yet-to-be-filed application to the province under the Aggregate Resources Act – one that the company said in May would be filed within "three to six months." (Daniher says the company is taking the time to put forward the "best possible proposal.") "Active" open-pit mining will be restricted to 300 diligently "buffered" acres at a time, he says, and the dug-out land left in its wake will be re-soiled and returned to an arable state. NDACT's water anxieties should be allayed, says Daniher, by the fact that Highland is, in part, a potato farmer just like them. "As one of the largest landholders and active farmers in this township, water is as important to us as to anyone else... "The reality is that aggregate quarries in Ontario – of which there are a bunch south of here, in a lot more sensitive land than this – operate below the water table. There are a number of proven solutions that manage water. That's just something that has to be done as part of a quarry and that we have very knowledgeable folks dealing with it." Since an actual, official proposal to go ahead with the Highland quarry has yet to be tabled, the bodies that have a say in whether it will go ahead – the municipal governments, the provincial ministries of natural resources and the environment, the Ontario Municipal Board and environmental monitoring agencies such as the Nottawasaga Valley and the Grand River Conservation Authorities – have little but cautious comment to offer. "It's certainly the largest proposal of this nature that we've ever seen or heard of, so certainly we're concerned, and we want to know what sort of impact or effect it's going to have on the environment," says Chris Hibberd, director of planning for the Nottawasaga authority. Any aggregate extraction conducted below the water table has "large potential for impact," says Hibberd, and the Nottawasaga watershed encompasses a particularly "vast" area wherein the effects on everything from drinking-water supplies to fish and wildlife habitats to wetlands must be closely watched. The Highland Companies will thus be bound to provide "a significant, detailed list of technical studies" demonstrating they've attended to all of these details. "There is no doubt: we're being told this is a huge application and there's potential for significant issues, so we have to make sure that there's a careful review," says Wayne Wilson, chief administrative officer of the Nottawasaga authority. "The local citizens have made sure that it's an issue that has a high profile." Not everyone is down on the Highland Companies, mind you. Over at Downey Potato Farms, Trevor Downey, vice-president of marketing and sales, boasts that while most others are tightening their belts, his operation is investing in new gear and selling more – even growing "exclusive specialty potatoes" for clients likes Loblaws – since Highland bought in. Downey Potato Farms also now imports from California to keep the potatoes flowing to clients during the months when their competitors' bins are empty. "This is a 12-month operation," says Downey, "which is uncommon in Ontario." There are other quarries in the Shelburne area, although the largest hover around the 100-acre mark. What's compelling Highland to risk public outcry is the incredible value of the rare Amabel dolostone limestone – a commodity crucial to virtually every road and construction project on the planet – underneath all those potato fields. According to a formula devised by the Friends of Rural Communities and Environment, a group fighting a quarry in Flamborough, at current market rates the properties are capable of generating more than $18 million an acre in aggregate. Daniher, who points out that the quarry would create jobs in the community, says Highland is simply offering "a vision of a sustainable future for this community built upon its natural resources." For the farmers involved in this fight, however, the future doesn't look so sustainable. They see bleak, barren fields stripped of the homes, barns and fence posts that once demarcated family farms. They fret about "rural blockbusting." They've lost friends over the side they've taken – after all, the Highland Companies are now a substantial employer, taxpayer and corporate donor in a township of just 2,800 people; people chattering at local gas stations and chip trucks are careful to avoid letting too much slip, with the phrase "I'm a fence-sitter" coming up often. "My friends and neighbours that used to be my friends and neighbours, nobody talks to anybody anymore," says Rutledge. "I went to school with these guys, I played hockey with these guys." Another NDACT draftee, cattle and pig farmer Ralph Armstrong, says he has "lost a lot of sleep" over who's going to sell next, not because of NIMBY-ism at the prospect of a quarry at his back door but because of an erosion of "our own values, of what's important." The Crown deed to his farm is dated 1861. "Food has been rationed in my lifetime," he says. "It doesn't take much of a hiccup to cause a problem. We're talking about the generations following. It probably doesn't make much difference to me, but where's the good food going to come from if you don't have land to grow it on? What can you leave your grandchildren? Clean air to breathe, pure water to drink and good quality soil, secure, that you can grow food on. "What else can you leave them that's any more important?"

Hey Mike I spoke with my friend yesterday who has been diagnosed with Lyme disease and asked him if he'd be willing to talk to you directly about it, he said he'd be happy too. Might be worth talking to someone with first hand experience in the matter. If you'd like his phone number shoot me a PM. As a cautionary measure I ought to warn you, he'll talk your ear off.

Some might say your just "plain ole nuts!" I wouldn't be one of them.

Agreed.

UGA College of Veterinary Medicine researchers lead team in discovery involving freshwater fish parasite, ‘Ich' Dec. 3, 2009 / http://www.vet.uga.edu ATHENS, Ga. — Researchers from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine have made an unexpected dual discovery that could open new avenues for treating Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, or "Ich," a single-celled protozoan parasite that commonly attacks freshwater fish. With the aid of whole-genome sequencing, researchers found that Ich harbors two apparently symbiotic intracellular bacteria: Bacteroides, which are usually found free-living, and Rickettsia, which are obligate intracellular bacteria.The two bacteria represent new species. Five researchers from the college's department of infectious diseases worked on the project in collaboration with two researchers from the department of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and a researcher from the J. Craig Venter Institute. Their initial intent was to map the genome of Ich; the DNA sequencing was done by JCVI and funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their study is published in the December 2009 issue (Issue 23) of Applied and Environmental Microbiology with an image from the study on the cover. It was the presence of Rickettsia DNA sequences found in the initial genome data that provided scientists with a clue that bacteria might live inside of Ich.Intracellular bacteria have been described in free-living ciliates such as Paramecium, but never in Ich, which is an obligate parasite. "It was unexpected; it was stunning to find bacteria in Ich. And, it came about due to the genome sequencing," said Harry W. Dickerson, a co-author who has been studying Ich in the veterinary college for more than 20 years and a member of the UGA Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, which has a focus on parasitic diseases, primarily of humans. "Ich occurs world-wide and is one of the most common protozoon pathogens of freshwater fish.It is easily recognized by most aquarists, and fish farmers often are confronted with massive epizootic outbreaks to devastating economic effect." Ich (which causes "white spot disease") is a ciliated protozoan parasite that bores into the skin and gills of fish where it feeds, destroying tissue and thereby blocking exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, usually leading to death of the host.Each parasite grows on the fish from roughly 40 microns, which cannot be seen by the naked eye, to approximately one millimeter in diameter, which can easily be seen as a white spot. The parasites leave the fish in about 5-6 days (a ciliate with its typical large nucleus is shown in the image). Each cell then divides multiple times to produce up to 1000 more infective organisms.The entire life cycle takes about 6-7 days.With subsequent rounds of infection the number of parasites continues to increase, and each wave of re-infection becomes more deadly than the last.By the second or third re-infection the fish population is usually overwhelmed and fish begin to die.Fish that survive mild infections can develop immunity. There are currently no drugs or chemicals that kill Ich while it resides in the fish skin or gills; they can only kill Ich when the parasite is in the water, and therefore all current therapies require a cyclical re-treatment program. The first major outbreak of Ich in North America was recorded at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.Ich is a well-known problem for aqua-culturists, aquarium owners, pond owners, hobbyists and retailers of freshwater fish.People and birds can also carry the parasite, unknowingly, from pond to pond. "Work to sequence the genome of this parasitic protozoan unexpectedly revealed that bacterial DNA sequences were also present," noted Craig Findly, one of the college's researchers on the project. "Following up this discovery led to our demonstration that two new species of intracellular bacteria use Ich as their host. We now need to determine if these intracellular bacteria play a role in infection." Next, the researchers will try to determine what role the two organisms play in the physiology of Ich and whether Ich remain infective if the bacteria are removed.The scientists hope their finding takes them a step closer to developing better treatments for Ich.

I couldn't agree more.

Actually they do, well sometimes. I seen a few pike taken on roe bags and the biggest pike I ever hooked was through the ice on a roe bag.....go figure. As to Splashopper's query, I have nothing.

Is this going to be a problem for you Gerritt.

Welcome to OFC Chuck and Linda, nice to have yous aboard. I've only been fishing up your way once a few years back but I plan on getting up there again, soon! Great pictures, keep 'em coming.

Perhaps he was "board" after he "saw" the "lengthy" battle. Lame.....

He wood knot listen.....

I can just imagine how this story would be unfolding had it got away some 10 minutes after it was hooked....

Yep, you're onto us. We kicked off 7,651 people last month alone..... Almost surpassing the previous record of 7,982.

A rule that applies to most any expenditure, do your homework before spending your coin. This could help enusure your not spending good money for a less than par product/service. Ask for references, talk to former customers, research, research and more research.

I really wish you'd waited till after I've had an outing with Mike before you'd suggested this John.

Buggers! No worries Glen those Esox Angler mags will be at your door this week and you can bone up on how to do it right. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to let Wayne read them as well....

Congratulations son, well done and welcome to the world of hardcore steelheading.

When you own the boat you make the rules. I'd have my own side too. I was thinking what a great day it would be to have the boat out, despite the coolness there was little wind to speak of down here and it looks like you had fairly calm winds up there as well. Can't wait to see the MONSTER.

Protecting Lake Michigan Battle against Asian carp off to a promising start December 04. 2009 Jim Lynch / The Detroit News After introducing thousands of gallons of toxin into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and monitoring results for a day, biologists recovered one Asian carp Thursday in a canal leading to Lake Michigan, the nearest the destructive species has come to the Great Lakes, Illinois environmental officials said. Illinois and federal officials began pumping the toxin rotenone into a section of the canal Wednesday evening in an attempt to kill any of the carp that may have passed north of electrical barriers designed to stop them. The application was necessary for maintenance work on the barrier this week. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials found the 22-inch immature specimen among tens of thousands of dead fish, from gizzard shad to drum, identified in a fish kill operation in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, about 40 miles from Lake Michigan, said John Rogner, assistant director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. "Asian carp are indeed knocking on the door of the Great Lakes," Rogner said. "This is the closest to Lake Michigan that an actual Asian carp body has been found." After being introduced to the United States in the 1970s, Asian carp have been making their way through the Mississippi River system. They can grow to 4 and 5 feet , weigh as much as 100 pounds and eat 40 percent of their body weight daily. Their voracious appetite could devastate a $7 billion-a-year fishing industry, officials fear. It likely will be days before officials have a clear idea of what they've learned from this week's project. Phil Moy, a researcher with the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute and co-chairman of the Dispersal Barrier Advisory Council, said Asian carp may not have risen to the surface yet. "Because of their size, we expect them to sink during the first 24 hours or so and then begin to rise as their bodies decompose," Moy said. It's unlikely the steps taken this week will quell the concerns. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm was among those calling for more action. That could include closing off all the waterways leading from where the Asian carp is established.

I don't have a problem with a $10.00 fee, it's more reasonable than the boat launching fee there. I suspect this will increase the revenue for the township from all the parking tickets issued to those trying to save $10.00....LOL I just hope they have someone on duty early enough to allow us to get in the park and on the ice before sunrise.

You may very well be the first to get up an icefishing report this season Simon and I'm looking forward to it. Good luck and be safe.

Yep, same deal with my baitcast setup, only I be using my thumb.

A beautiful post Ryan. Thank you.