Spiel

Well I'm partial to Loomis. As for hands on, well that depends, where are you located?

I think a $1000 will get you anything you want.

Sounds like all is right over there.

There are many options. First how much are you willing to spend and of course what will you be using it for?

Lower left corner, choose any skin you like.

One of the owners of Bay City Marine did a seminar at our club meeting about this Lew and he maintains you should add stabilizer to your outboard fuel at all times. I will heed his words starting this year, as Cliff says "consider it cheep insurance". Not sure if you saw this Lew? http://www.ofncommunity.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28215

You're welcome. The "Driftwood" skin is now the default skin which is to say that is what anyone not logged in will see. Once logged in members have a choice of "skins" available by utilizing the drop down menu in the lower left corner. I believe that there are still members unaware of this option. Perhaps I should have chosen the "Lavender" as the default....

That is one sweeeeet fish.

Effective and non effective. My tackle box is full of the latter.

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa......*chokes on coffee*

Please accept my heartfelt condolences Jacques.

Law could boost Lake Michigan beach algae February 15, 2009 Gitte Laasby / Post-Tribune More algae could make its way onto Lake Michigan shorelines if a bill introduced in the Indiana Senate becomes law, environmentalists say. "We have concerns in Lake Michigan about the amounts of phosphorus and nutrients because they can cause algal blooms, create problems and you get a lot of algae washing up on beaches like we've seen in Wisconsin and Michigan. Scientists believe it's, in part, tied to large amounts of nutrients," said Lyman Welch, water program manager with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. Welch is concerned the problem could worsen if the Legislature passes a bill by Sen. Beverly Gard. Under the federal Clean Water Act, facilities that want to dump more pollution into Lake Michigan are required to go through what's called an anti-degradation analysis to demonstrate that the increase is necessary to accommodate important social and economic benefits. Otherwise, the facility can't get a permit. But Senate Bill 419 attempts to undermine that law by exempting nitrogen and phosphorus from the analysis, Welch said. "This bill would exempt several different pollutants and facilities and companies from having to go through this analysis," he said. Nutrients like phosphorus have impaired many Indiana rivers, lakes and streams, including the Grand Calumet River at the Indiana Harbor Canal, Cady Marsh Ditch, Stony Run and Bull Run in Lake County; and Upper Fish Lake in LaPorte County. The bill could also undermine attempts to improve impaired waters so they can eventually be used for swimming and fishing. Albert Ettinger, senior attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said the bill would prevent the Indiana Department of Environmental Management from calculating the total amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still meet water quality standards. The calculation helps IDEM determine permit limits and ultimately ensure that impaired waters improve. Ettinger said if the General Assembly forces IDEM not to enforce federal law, EPA would have to take back IDEM's delegated authority to issue permits. "The whole point of a delegated program is that IDEM?will do what's required by federal law," Ettinger said. "This is certainly a bill that, if enacted, would result in U.S. EPA writing permits for Indiana." Welch pointed out that the bill would also disrupt ongoing meetings between businesses, government officials and environmentalists to flesh out Indiana's version of the federal law. That process has been ongoing since an independent review in 2007 concluded Indiana's unclear law contributed to the controversy over BP's wastewater permit. Welch sent a letter to Gard to point out the Alliance's concerns. Gard was not available for comment, but spokeswoman Erin Reece said Gard is working on an amendment to the bill, which she expects to introduce this week.

Gotcha.

Leave it to beaver to prove river cleaner, Animal spotted in Detroit after 75-year absence

Sturgeon spearers bring in 506 fish 91-year-old Hilbert man bags 125-pound sturgeon February 15, 2009 Ross Bielema / The Post-Crescent Tom Schumacher of Oregon flew all the way home just to spend some quality time in a Lake Winnebago sturgeon spearing shanty with his grandpa on Saturday. Schumacher's trip was worth the effort. He watched his grandpa, 91-year-old Aelred Schumacher, of Hilbert, drive a spear into a behemoth on opening day of the 2009 season. "I've been out on the ice 100 times with them, but this never happened," the grandson said. "It's the first time I've seen one come through the hole." He was ready with the gaff, pulling the 76.4-inch, 125-pound female lake sturgeon out of the hole on his first try. Aelred's fish was the second-largest registered Saturday on the Lake Winnebago system sturgeon spearing season, which also includes the upriver lakes of Poygan, Winneconne and Butte des Morts. The best fish of the day was a 148-pound female speared from Lake Poygan by David Koball, of Elkhart Lake. State Department of Natural Resources senior sturgeon biologist Ron Bruch, of Oshkosh, noted in his daily e-mail report that a total of 14 fish weighing 100 pounds or more were harvested, with 506 fish in all brought to the scales. The season will close when one of several harvest quotas is reached, or will remain open one more day after 90 percent of an individual harvest quota is reached. Aelred, who alternated between standing with his walker and sitting on a bar stool outside Harbor Bar's sturgeon registration station in Stockbridge, was beaming as a crowd gathered around to hear his tale. "I aimed for the middle, but I lost my balance a little bit," Aelred said. His grandson had spotted the fish and warned him that it was coming. Aelred's aim was a bit forward, and four of the five tines on the spear head Aelred made himself connected with the fish's head. "I think that's going to be my last fish," Aelred said. "When you're 91, it's time to quit." His party, including sons John and Don Schumacher, groaned when they heard of his possible spearing retirement. The upriver lakes typically are shallow and boast clearer water than Lake Winnebago, making it easier to see a sturgeon swimming below a spearer's hole. "Water clarity diminished significantly in the southern end of Lake Winnebago over the last few days due to the warm weather-induced runoff last week, so many spearers were moving north and east to areas of clearer water," Bruch said in his report. The Stockbridge weigh station on the lake's eastern shore registered 153 fish Saturday, the most of all 11 sites, while nearby Quinney tallied 63 fish. On the upriver lakes, Indian Point registered 60 fish. For comparison, Wendt's on the Lake along Lake Winnebago's west shore registered just 30 fish, with Harrison Town Hall recording 32 fish. Biologists and students from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Great Lakes Water Institute moved their research spot from Wendt's to Stockbridge when it became apparent that's where the fish were. Rebecca Klaper, a scientist with the Water Institute, said the crew was taking liver, gonad and blood samples in an effort to find an easy, non-invasive way to determine a sturgeon's sex and growth stage. Kendall Kamke, a DNR fisheries biologist, was getting his hands dirty stripping eggs from an 87-pound sturgeon speared by Dave Shymanski of Chilton. Biologists will weigh the eggs and match it with the fish's overall size so they eventually can determine how many eggs a female of a certain size can produce, Kamke explained. While the science of this prehistoric fish is fascinating for some, others simply love the camaraderie and social aspects of this sport. Mike Matznick and Kevin LeMay, both of Oshkosh, were passing a bottle of vodka to celebrate the 49-inch sturgeon Matznick jabbed about 11:30 a.m. Saturday. "He came in fast," Matznick said. "I had to spear him at an angle." It was his first fish in 13 years, and his best, although he admitted to missing a few last year. There were a record 6,853 spearing shanties on the combined lakes Saturday. Although there was speculation that a 200-pounder might fall Saturday because of the increasing health of the estimated 60,000-fish population, the 188-pounder taken by Dave Piechowski of Redgranite in 2004 remains the one to beat. Of the 10 largest fish on record, four were taken in 2008. Water clarity made for good spearing, and the season closed in four days last year. Picture and Video here

Lessons from the lake: Rescued ice fishermen needed a backup plan February 15, 2009 Steve Pollick / toledoblade.com The ice fishing season on the south shore of western Lake Erie is finished, thanks to the recent warmup, rain and very high winds. But some unfinished business remains, particularly in light of the bashing ice fishermen generally are taking in the court of public opinion, thanks to and shaped mainly by the national television media circus that was ramped up to nonsensical levels on a slow-news Saturday afternoon. First, several points are beyond argument: •Bad judgment was in play here, especially by the minority of fishermen who did not have a backup plan and had to be retrieved. •No one should question the call of public safety authorities, from the coast guard to local fire and rescue departments, to institute the retrieval of stranded fishermen. They are the professionals and they face having people's lives in their hands every day. •Western Lake Erie is arguably the most unpredictable ice fishing venue anywhere. It is not, say, Upper Red Lake, Minnesota, where ice is measured in feet, not inches, and whole shantytowns are set up for months at a time. Erie lies on the southern fringe of the ice fishing zone; some winters there is no season, and the weather can change so suddenly and drastically that the need for caution is paramount. Which is why going out on a warm day with 40 mph south winds forecast was a bad move. It is no surprise that a manageable-size crack that had to be bridged suddenly grew unmanageable. But a majority of the fishermen on the ice that day - 75 to 80 percent of them, actually, figured it out for themselves and simply moved east until they found safe passage back to the mainland between Turtle Creek and Camp Perry. They didn't need rescuing. Their actions are part and parcel of living on the ice, and most of these individuals are capable enough and well-equipped enough to do so, as their actions proved. So let's spike the all-ice-fishermen-are-jerks stereotype. As for the wooden bridging of the initial crack being used by fishermen, that actually was a smart idea, astounding as that may seem to underinformed public critics. Pressure cracks and heavings always occur on ice, even on the aforementioned Upper Red Lake, Minnesota. Bridging is a common, if temporary, way to keep from beating up or wearing out the edges of a crack and to prevent it from growing wider - at least until strong winds shift the floe. So the fact that fishermen had built a bridge to cross a crack was not the issue; ignoring the wind forecast was the issue. Another popular criticism floating out there is that the rescued fishermen should have been fined for the cost of their retrieval. OK, open that can of worms. But then why stop with just ice fishermen? If they should be fined for bailout over bad judgment, why shouldn't everyone be fined when a fire and rescue or other public safety agency has to bail us out for carelessness, recklessness, or negligence? Falling down stairs, often because of carelessness, injures tens of thousands of people every year, many of them requiring rescue-squad calls. Many house fires are the result of negligence. How many motorists imperil themselves and others - and cause rescue runs to roll - because they drove too fast for conditions or were too busy jabbering on a cell phone or wolfing a cheeseburger at the wheel? Where do you draw the line? Golfers struck by lightning because they had to get in one more hole before the thunderstorm? Skiers in an avalanche? Or how about summertime boaters whose distress is caused by negligence? This is about saving lives, not about property. If you break it or lose it, you fix it, fetch it or replace it. Stranded ice fishermen are a sensational story, especially for a public and a media that barely understands it, and the story usually develops at a dull time of year so it quickly becomes high profile. Admittedly, this was the biggest Erie rescue operation ever, involving 21 agencies and the retrieval of some 130 or more fishermen. But the coverage lacked perspective and at times seemed almost semi-hysterical. [Gotta boost those ratings, you know.] Another thing: To say that "ice is never safe" is to utter an empty statement. Nothing is ever safe, including highways on a dry and sunny day. I like the reaction of Lucas County Sheriff Jim Telb. He essentially said setting up a system of fines as a deterrent to bad ice-fishing judgment may be worth a look. But he tempered that with the observation that public safety agencies exist to get people out of jams 24/7/365, and a lot of those jams are induced by improper behavior. A lot of blame gaming also is under way about what caused that unmanageable crack to widen - that it somehow was commercial shipping's or the coast guard's fault. For one thing, shipping has as much right to be on the lake in winter as ice fishermen. It is not ice fishingdom's private walleye honey-hole, and a fishing license does not entitle anyone to think so. Ship traffic moves up and down western Lake Erie and the Maumee and Detroit rivers from Toledo to Detroit, only very occasionally, every winter. Pelee Passage is also periodically opened by coast guard cutters for ship traffic, again every winter. This is not new; get over it. More importantly, ice moves - even 16-inch-thick, 8-square-mile floes. Just take a look at the 22 to 24-foot high ice piles on the beach at Catawba Island State Park northeast of Port Clinton. It is part of what is left of the Erie ice field after last week's windstorm pounding. The forces of nature have power beyond our micromanaging. For crying out loud, Rhode Island-size chunks of Antarc-tica's ice sheet break off and float out to sea in the coldest, most barren lands on earth. Do passing barges or ice breakers cause that? Another popular myth circulating among angling circles these days is that fishermen already pay their own way for search and rescue because $2 of every fishing license is designated for that. That is nothing but a six-pack fairy tale. Public safety agencies are funded by general taxes, not fishing licenses. In the end we dodged a bullet here and perhaps those who need to learn something from the experience will have learned something. To think before acting. To have a backup plan. And not venture onto Erie ice with 40 mph winds at their backs on a warm Saturday.

I got called away early so I was wondering what the concensus was on "Tiger Mucksie, do they taste as good as they look?"

Okay, so I've changed the default skin to the "Driftwood" and when Rick gets back to his ole self we'll get him to look at the script fot the "OFC Club" skin. I'm sure this will upset somebody.

Getting busy in there.

Very nice Lew. For and aft casting decks, how perfect is that.

In a word...."Beautiful!"

Fish porn!

It does say a lot for the state of the Grand River, doesn't it....LOL

If you really like the "skin" you are using there's always the "GO" button lower right corner. It takes you back to "general discussion" or any other forum on the site using the drop down.