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So my favourite holiday is upon us. Nothing I enjoy more than Turkey , Ham and pumpkin pie. It’s like Christmas but I don’t have to buy anyone a gift, it’s the perfect holiday for this Scotsman. It also means fishing, traditionally we do a mixed bag of fishing but since it was only me and the wee man at home for this one , I let him pick. All he wanted was to catch a salmon. As any good Dad would, I heard the call and loaded up on the proven lures . Set up the float rod and rigged up a bottom bouncing outfit . We had all the tools to catch him a big gal , now we just had to put in the time. Friday night we hit the minor moon phase and casted J-11 and J-13’s till dark , then switched over to an array of glow spoons . 5 hours of watching fish surface and nothing hitting . Friday was a bust. Saturday we had crazy winds down in Southern Ontario, felt bad for everyone fishing the CTE on Erie . Almost lost some patio furniture (gotta put that stuff away soon) The weeman and his friends went out for smallies and managed to land 3 fish before the wind sent them home. I opted to go into work for a bit and then spent the rest of the day watching 39 hours and dreaming of fishing . Sunday A.M. we were out early, casted glow spoons till the sun came up. Rapalas and spoons got thrown, bounced roe bags and even floated a few jigs, nada , not even a bump. Out of all the anglers we saw only one fish almost get caught , but after it pulled some circus class acrobatics , she spit the hook. Another 6 hours of fishing and the wee man is convinced no one catches Salmon . Had a great dinner Sunday evening with all the fixins, wasn’t the usual big get together but the world isn’t it’s usual place right now. In the midst of a turkey and ham coma and watching 3 different games at once I agreed to head out again this morning. The lad had his waders at the door this morning at 5 am. Get down to the water and tie up leaders , I put on my trusty K.O. Wabbler , third cast , bang , big gal on. The wee man grabs the net and after a couple of runs and jumps I have her within seconds of being in the net. My son , who I love with all my heart , makes the worst attempt and netting a fish I have ever seen. Puts the rim of the net straight into my leader and snapppp , I just miss the tail of the fish as she swims off. Welll #@€£ , I was losing it on the inside but thankfully my Parenting skills kicked in and I didn’t react . We had a good talk about proper netting and what went wrong. Last thing I want to do is make it a negative experience for the lad and have him swear off fishing all together. Another KO on the line and away we go. Hour later I get another one on and lose her to the rocks . I would repeat this a few times on both KO wobblers and Little Cleos. The spot we were fishing has some serious boulders and on some of those long runs they seem to head directly for safety in there . The wee man had a rough morning. Countless snags and spoons lost , I think 8 in total . He was tying leaders for days . Poor kid I lost another biggun to the rocks and finally landed a small trout . I didn’t want to leave without seeing him get one on but time was against us and he had to get to his Moms for Turkey . Man was he just steaming , cursing all things salmon as we were leaving. I tried to relay stories of the countless hours I have put in and the thousand of fish I’ve lost, but none of it matters, he’s on his own mission and so far he’s losing the battle. I told him we would get out a few times this week , just gotta get into Peters and restock on lures and I think the Abu needs more line after this weekend Fishing, sometimes ya land em, somedays ya don’t . It’s a suckers game I tell ya. The wee man and I are out on Erie for football sized smallies come Saturday. Throw a few prayers up that I can get him into a Salmon before then. Tight Lines

I am spending some writing up reports from old trips and re creating some other ones for my site In 2008 5 of us did a boat in trip to Island 10 Lodge on Lady Evelyn Lake It was the start of a 10 year journey and 4 of us are still doing these trips together You can read the report here https://www.northernjacks.com/post/things-that-go-bang-in-the-night Cheers Andrew

Hi Guys, Looking back its been longer than I thought. Its been over 6 months since I last told you guys whats been going on in my life. The boat is away in her slumber for winter and we are in that terrible limbo period between no ice and enough ice to walk on. I somewhat planned it earlier this year to finish up getting my Project Management Professional Designation that I have been working on over the past 5 years. I of course timed it right into the period where fishing is limited by ice and bad weather. Well after taking a 4 day intensive crash course and then studying intently for a month straight I took the exam on Friday and to quote Ricky "I passed with flying f-k-in carpets" Now that my mind is a bit more free, there aint much fishing to do, and work somewhat quieting down as we head into the holidays I figured it was time to post up yet another AKRISONER's (eh-kree-one-ers) somewhat semi annual year in review! When we had just left off, Bass season had just opened, we had had some absolutely incredibly spring fishing. the bugs were bad but the bites were good. Once July hit though, I dont know what tipped it off, but it set off one of the most challenging summers of bass fishing up on G bay I have experienced. My catches were less notable size wise but this two faced smallie was interesting. Ive seen the black spot patterns on smallies many times, but this guy had the most extensive black marking I have ever seen on a fish! My girlfriend, her beginners luck having long dried out, is now learning the finer details of what it takes to catch fish consistently. You dont catch a PB every trip, her face telling as much HAHAHA!. Her luck the previous couple of years was just ridiculous, she still had the biggest pike caught at the cottage in the past 3 years! Bites were tough to find, when you got them the size just wasnt there. In some ways it was a blessing in disguise. The smallie bite being junk meant i spent way more time learning how to flip and punch. I can honestly say I am now a flipping addict. Aside from a good topwater smallie bite, i may not enjoy anything more than flipping. Georgian Bay's recent high water has caused large expanses of forest in the back bays to be reclaimed by the lake. The areas I fish have within 2 years become an incredible timber fishery. If you want to talk about Bass and their movements, It became 100% obvious that those fish are opportunistic as all hell. They go where the best cover is even if that cover didnt exist two years ago. Flipping the flooded trees takes me back to fishing santee and guntersville. In fact sometimes I swear to god the laydowns at guntersville and up on G bay are almost indistinguishable. Whats scary though is that when the wind blows hard enough the dead trees regularly fall! Multiple times this year ive been fishing near them when a gust of wind knocked over nearby trees! Spending a lot more time in the back bays brought a couple of really cool new experiences due to situations that I was aware of, but had never specifically tried to capitalize on. The first one being the late summer collection of gar that occurs in a couple of my largemouth spots. They seem to just one day appear in droves. Im talking trophy sized gar, some definitely close to 50 inches if not over. Admittedly I have absolutely no friggin clue what so ever to what I am doing when it comes to gar. One particular hot sunny day in the pads flipping I switched it up on a particular clear patch and tossed out a small sized spook, and not realizing that the gar were there, one charged my spook but didnt bite. This was quite literally the first time I had ever had a gar act aggressively towards one of my lures. Ive had them swipe at crank/wakebaits in the past, but generally even they spooked any of the fish with any size. It was only the tiny ones that were aggressive. This fish however was a decent size. The Gar having settled right back into sunning itself on the surface of the water was open for me to make a quite approach and begin flipping my spook until i felt that I had the perfect line to bring the lure right past his mouth. Sure enough as my spook walking approached it, he began to get excited with his fins fanning, I brought the lure right up to his mouth and gave it a twitch and he swiped. Knowing i needed to bury those trebles into that bony nose i set the hook hard and he was hooked. He went airborn and gave me a decent little fight and sure enough I had caught my first gar on a topwater none the less! a quick photo and release later i then realized I was completely surrounded by hundreds of these things. Big small and in between there were gar absolutely everywhere. I kept using the same technique, kept getting bites, even hooking up but could only manage to land one more. I even had an absolute giant on at one point but I couldnt keep it pinned. He t-boned the spook and had it clearly sideways in his schnoz, one extra jump and off he came. Regardless a really cool experience and maybe something I will have to exploit a bit more when the bass fishing is slow. The one thing I cant get over is how damn weird they feel to hold. They stink like a pike and feel like a sheet of metal! To switch it up, a big part of my summer has now also been diverted to fishing a small set of tournaments mainly based around the kawarthas, 2 of which are hosted by my close family friends and two others by the trailer park that they have their trailer in and the finale a small family tournament hosted by me for the first time this year! (more on this later) I love fishing the tri-lakes because they are just so very different then G bay, it challenges me as an angler and summer largemouth fishing offshore is something that I have a driving desire to continue learning. This year I learned a lot fishing those tournaments and I hope to continue to understand deep offshore weed structure and how largemouth relate to it. Spent time graphing, pre-fishing, learning and fishing hard. Some of those weekdays off of work alone on the water learning were absolutely awesome. The lakes were what they always were, punishing during the tournament and more than gracious while fun fishing before and after the tournament. One particular July weekend, we didnt catch 5 keepers all day saturday, feeling dissatisfied we went out and did some flipping on pigeon, sure enough in the hour and a half we were out there in the absolutely howling wind, we hooked up with a 15+lb sack and a couple of muskys to boot. go figure lol My buddy dave actually won the tournament earlier in the day so perhaps it was his luck in the boat that did it. What a contrast, he had close to 20lbs for his days fishing, meanwhile I had about 4lbs until i started fishing with him! That tournament wrapped up, back up to my place I went to do one of my favourite things, taking my neice and nephews fishing, they are all old enough now to learn how to use spinning reels so a few weekends were spent teaching them to drop shot and catch smallies. The boys arent even scared to hold the fish anymore, Ashley not so much. My nephew Hudson is 10 now and has good command on a spinning reel, it was time to take him out fishing for real in the bassboat and teach him how to cast work a topwater and catch on his own. He loved the boat ride,i drove it like a tournament for him that day 55mph through the channels and narrows a big grin on his face the entire time and wouldnt you know it, a 10 year old is a better person to guide than his Dad...the main reason is that he listens to every word i say! Hudson became a pro with the Pop-r To quote him to his mom when he got back from fishing "today was the best day of my life" I think I felt the same way the first time i started catching smallmouths on topwater as well More tournaments on the tri lakes, more time spent fishing grass...youd think I had been getting a little sloppy or something! Then came the time, my best friend was getting married and a trip planned much earlier in the year saw 25 of his friends all make the trip down to Nashville for his bachelor party (I know 25 people?! his wedding also had 400!...if i died i dont think 25 people would even show up to my funeral lol) I saw my first college football game the Georgia Bulldogs vs the vanderbilt commodores. Nashville is an incredible city, great times were had along with far far too many alcoholic beverages. Back home we came where cooler september weather had arrived and finally the fish were doing things that I was accustomed to again. Another family tournament this time on stoney lake had me thinking I was finally going to take the trophy after struggling all year. The format for this one is a series of 3 5 hour sessions over the weekend. Session one we went out and caught pretty darn good for Stoney at that time of year. We had close to 11lbs for our 5 fish including a 4lber. Figuring the other guys did ok we got back to the docks to find out that Jamie the host for this family tournament didnt make it back for weigh in. Sure enough his outboard was having electrical issues so out we went to tow him home. Once at home we weighed fish, they had 2 fish for 1.2lbs and their boat was toast. The other two boats literally got skunked. I had a 10lb lead. I figured if i caught a limit of fish again there was basically no way to catch me even if I only caught dinks...the other guys got skunked again. I decided to go fun fishing in the evening since we weren't going to do the second leg due to the motor issues but with no main motor those guys went out on the next morning go figure I caught a limit of 5 bass that weighed 4 lbs and they caught 13 something and I lost both the big fish and the biggest weight. Needless to say I was a little rattled. My following weekends were not much fishing and a lot of work on our boathouse up at our house. I spent 4 full 9 hour days on weekends in the lake in late September replacing a crib (about the worst work you can do, diving under 6 feet of water to pick up 150lb rocks, hauling them to shore, replacing the crib and then filling it back up again) and then the next weekends jacking up the boathouse to try and get the beams out of the now high G bay water. Weirdest of all of this was a bowfin that had taken up residence in our boathouse cribs that basically had no fear of humans at all. He would swim right up to you while you were working in the water. One evening I snuck out for a quick largie bite and explosion after explosion in the pads had me thinking that the bass were feeding. It was dark and out I casted my frog when it got absolutely smoked, I set the hook hard and a hell of a battle ensued, I figured I had finally caught a PB largemouth, not being able to see anything in the black water, This bugger got bass flipped over the side of my boat lol. Once the work settled down a late september warmup hit...past experience told me that sometimes when you get those hot calm days in late september and early october where the water temperature spikes, the fish come up almost into a spring trance, youll find smallmouth up feeding with their backs nearly out of the water. That weekend was one for the books. We put down a bag just short of 20lbs for our best 5 fish, double headers, top water strikes, sight fishing in 3 fow of water, crankbaiting on shoals you name it we were doing it and just hammering big smallmouth after big smallmouth. What a riot! Then a week later, back to the cold fall weather. The fish moved back out of the edge and started stacking up and feeding on bait. Find bait, find hungry hungry smallies nearby. This time it was my turn to host all of the guys up for our family fishing jam and the lake was setting up beautifully. Having put a small no fishing zone to keep everyone on their toes, i headed to it the day before just to see how the fish were patterning up. While on the phone chatting with my brother on speakerphone, I was catching some pretty decent fish when i hooked into one and I immediately said to my brother "hold on this one feels really big" She came from the front of the boat and made a run to the back and then around my motor just to keep things interesting. As i swung her around away from the motor i yelled "oh my god thats huge" continuing the battle on the 8lb test dropshot i am crying "dont come off!" and into the net she went, just a beautifully thick healthy fish 5.86lb and not even a lot of gut on her, just pure muscle and size. I figured if I lost my little jamboree I was hosting, it didnt matter I had just caught a pb smallmouth whatever came next didnt really matter. The next day we headed out, and the magic begun. I had a few places in mind related to a small chain of shoals plus a couple of main basin points. We started on the shoals and proceeded to catch fish after fish after fish. We had a limit in about 25 minutes and the spot just kept producing for almost 3 hours. After things started to slow down, we moved. We found a musky, a couple of big pike and a couple of small bass so off we moved again. We upgraded one fish at the next spot, but with only 2 hours left in the day my partner and I agreed, maybe our original spot had replenished after resting for 5 hours, lets give it one last shot to see if we could upgrade. Upgrade with did we culled two more fish and pulled in the big fish for day a beauty 4lb+ smallmouth. returning to the docks for weigh in, The guys started weighing and I looked at the fish they were weighing and i said to myself, omg there is no way in hell we have won, everyone had clearly laid a beating to em out there. I didnt see a single fish under 2lbs easy. When it came to weigh our bag, the scale showed 16lbs I couldnt believe it, we had won by 2oz. Everyone was within 1lb of each other the lake had absolutely produced a pile of sacks that day. The boys even went back out in the evening and Dave hooked up with another 5lber plus the guys bagged a couple of 4's just ridiculous numbers and size. All told I think between the boats we had all caught over 100 fish on the day and only a handful were less than 2lbs. Work made the call a week later, and it was off to thunder bay for the first time to do a meeting, and with a free flight to thunder bay, i was also going to have a look around and wet a line. I ended up doing a bit of fly fishing, but the river was pretty blown as thunder bay had just had a big rain storm 2 days prior. It was nice to do some fly fishing again. Thunder bay was absolutely beautiful as well. I made a quick drive out to kakabaka falls (spelling?) as well. It was far more impressive than i expected...the size and volume of it was astounding! It was also quite cold, with the mist putting a layer of ice on everything. Fall was in full swing indeed. Even the November Great lakes Gales were early, that one particular storm that devastated the shorelines of lake erie, I headed out musky fishing in it. Usually when I go fishing in intensely bad weather I get rewarded. Well if you can call a blood blister rewarding after the gearing on my Abu reel exploded and jammed my finger all into the spool rewarding, then i guess it was a really successful musky trip in 100kmh winds. The good news was though that with the arrival of crappy weather, the walleye were getting hungry. An annual tradition up at our place my brother brought some of his buddies for our walleye weekend. The season as a whole this year was definitely not as crazy as previous years for numbers, there were good days and slower days mixed in. No skunks but only one day with the insane numbers that we have grown accustomed to. Some great fish caught and a few lost. The cold snapping right in before october was done. That called for my favourite chore of all (intense sarcasm), removing the docks and marine rail systems while the snow flied and the lake froze. Just out for a casual dip in the snow. A few more odd jobs around the cottage, I learned to service an outboard carb for first time, it sort of felt like a right of passage. The motor is all ready for next years musky trolling, the boats are away and im sitting here itching to get on the ice while it pours rain outside. I guess we shall see what happens as the week winds on. Early forecast calls for some very cold nights up near north this week, hopefully not too much snow and maybe just maybe Ill be able to throw the lifejacket and rope on and sneak out onto the ice in front of my place and wet a line again. After all of that month of studying its due! Cheers till next time.

I haven't posted much on this site for over a year - to be honest mainly because I have fished very little until our most recent trip Our group decided to venture out of the Algoma region this time around and head further north to Nakina Ontario We used Ogoki Lake Outfitters run by John and Gloria Ritch http://www.ogokilakeoutfitters.com/ What a choice - we had by far our best trip ever for fishing and the lake and its surrounding beauty was just awesome I did a much lengthier report here and for whatever reason I have not been able to copy and paste and keep the formatting or the pictures https://www.canadafishingguide.net/forum-2/member-trip-reports-1/go-northwest-young-men-a-week-ogoki-lake/ For those who don't want to flip: We had some epic weather roll in, caught over 500 fish for the week and really had a great time If you are ever looking I would definitely endorse both Ogoki Lake and Ogoki Lake Outfitters A few pictures below Cheers Gordy

This Autumn the Agent Stevie Zebco and I snuck away for a short Fishin’ Mission out on the big Lake Nipigon. As always, he and I rolled with some punches and kinda sorta just made it up as we went. Finding some friends along the way, we took in some night time campfires and day long hooksets. Not entirely your typical turn of events and not entirely your typical fish either, but with the Agent along anything is possible. As always, it’s yours to read into if ya want... http://bunksoutdoorangle.com/humpbacks-halos-misty-maple-moonshine/ Bunk.

This is going to end up being a banner year for me when it comes to fishing trips My group goes every other year and we leave in 16 days to fish Shekak Lake with White River Air was all that was on tap until an invite from my father in law changed that Every year my FIL takes a group of guys up to either Strikers Point Lodge or Miminiska Lode through Wilderness North - its a work thing. In late May he asked if I could join them A quick check on the home and work fronts and hell yes, I am in Mim is a widening of the Albany river and to get there we would take a flight to Thunder Bay from Toronto and then we would fly on a Pilatus PC 12 to the lodge. Over time the group had come to prefer Mim as it didnt require the drive from T Bay to Armstrong like Strikers Point does. Its about a 50 minute flight in the wheeled plane The Lodge Mim is a very nice lodge, nestled on a sandy beach not far from where the Keezhzik river flows into Miminiska Its a full service lodge and I mean full service - made to order breakfast, choose your own sandwiches and if you wanted it the lodge will meet you every day on the lake to cook your shore lunch for you (we did this one day) or pack all you need to do it on your own The lodge runs 16 foot lunds with 25 horse 4 stroke Yammys. Each boat was equipped with a Humminbird Helix 5 depth finder/gps combo which was great - its a big lake and easy to get turned around in with all its various bays and inlets The Lake Mim is an interesting lake - lots of structure, lots of bays and inlets, rocky in parts, weedy in parts and sandy in parts When we got there part of the orientation was to be mindful when running the boats - the water levels were down almost 5 feet and that meant many rocks and shoals which normally wouldn't be an issue were now a hazard. Trust me - we found them, thankfully boat insurance was paid and the engines have rock guards on the prop. The Fishing What can I say - best expression I can come up with is "shooting fish in a barrel" Here's an example - on our first day my bro in law and I were the first guys in the boat and were circling around the dock waiting for everyone and to get a feel for the boat. Rather than waste time we put on Berkley Flicker shads and just started to troll - well we found a nice little hump in 15 feet of water about 400 yards from the dock and proceeded to catch about 10 walleye and 5 pike in 20 minutes That set the tone - basically the walleye and pike are everywhere - and what surprised me the most was in spots that I would only expect to catch pike (3 feet of water in lily pads) you would hook walleye or trolling in 9 feet of water on a rock shoal one of our crew caught the biggest pike of the trip a fat 37 incher I was also impressed with the average size of walleye we caught - the lodge has its own slot, only 2 fish under 18 inches in your possession and a few days we struggled to get fish under the slot - avg size was about 20 inches and fat If there was a key it seemed to be finding sharp breaks - one day we circled a big rock in the North Arm that was surrounded by 17 feet of water but had small shoal around it that was 1 foot deep - the three boats pulled in easily 35 walleye and a few pike in about 45 minutes I love gear and I love to fish and I can honestly say I caught fish (both species) on just about everything in my tackle box - spoons, cranks, jigs, harnesses on bouncers, spinner baits - it didn't matter but if I had to pick my top 3 I would say Rapala Minnow Rap in Bleeding Olive, Blue and Silver Hot n Tot and any bright harness on a 2 ounce BB Biggest pike was 37 inches (but my FIL lost what was a solid 40 + incher right at the boat...) biggest walleye was a 22 and 3/4 incher caught by yours truly. There was another group in camp and they did qualify for 2 master angler pins - a 26.5 inch walleye and a 41 inch pike You can fish parts of the Keezhik or the Albany for Brook Trout - but with the water levels you could only get there with a very long portage or pay premium $$$ to get a flight past the low water to the better pools. Bryan the lodge manager gave us directions to go up the Keezhik but about halfway to the portage a lightning storm rolled in and we werent keen in getting stuck on the water. Bryan mentioned that the week before Mark Melnyk from the Real Fly Fisher was there doing a brookie show and got 14 fish including 2 5 pounders on the afternoon the filmed The Experience I have never been that far North in my life and loved every second of it - the scenery was astounding and we made long runs in the morning typically to see it all - we ran up the Keezhik one day but could get to far as a lightning storm interrupted us. We headed all the way to Snake Falls down the Albany river - that was a butt clenching run as the water levels were so low. We went and visited the church which was set up by Missionaries years ago, we visited the old abandoned mine in Wottam Bay and we had shore lunch at an abandoned native hunting camp near Caribou Island One of the coolest things was started by a not so good omen. Fishing w my father and law we hit a shoal pretty hard and knocked a wire loose on the engine - anytime he tried to rev the engine out of trolling speed it died on us. So after many false starts (and some foul foul language) we decided since we were close the our shore lunch spot we would just troll in the area. As we got set my FIL said - whoa check out the beach over there - out came a large white Timber Wolf - he jogged up the beach and watched us - we tried to get close to get a good photo but every time we moved closer he would start to trot away, when we slowed he would stand still and watch us - I swear he was saying"this is my house - who the f are you!" Bryan and Kate the camp managers along with the rest of the crew were amazing - friendly, helpful and just great all around Meals were very nice, accommodations all of that was top notch. Overall it was an incredible trip - its not a cheap lodge by any means - normally way out of my groups budget but it was amazing experience that I was so glad to be a part of I have had no luck uploading images so here is a link to a small folder of pics http://s1056.photobucket.com/user/gordy28ca/library/Miminiska?sort=3&page=1 Thanks for reading Gordy

I look forward to this weekend every summer. The third weekend of summer has been one of my favourites for the past three years. There are two obstacle races back to back that are just a short drive away from the cottage in Clarington. I always take a few extra days off to 'recover' and enjoy a little extra fishing. This year I was lucky enough to have my buddy Brian (Dynamic_Bear) join me at the cottage on Saturday and compete with me in both races. As well, my fantastic girlfriend Nikki (Laughing_My_Bass_Off) was able to join me sunday and Monday. Friday night Brian and I were able to drive up to the cottage late, but with traffic and work, we weren't able to get to the lake before the sun went down. Sadly no fishing to be done on the Friday night but that was to be expected. Saturday was the day of the race. I didn't have the greatest run and I failed a few obstacles. Brian had a fantastic run and was hot on my heels. At one of the last obstacles, I had fallen off the monkey bars and was forced to do 30 burpees. When I was 10 in I saw Brian coming over. He had fallen off as well and was forced to complete a penalty as well. I've never done 20 additional burpees so fast in my life. I finished ahead of him, but just barely. Back at the cottage, we headed over to one of my more preferred spots. It was still fairly hot during the day but I had confidence the fish would bite. Brian ended up nabbing a nice smallmouth on the senko. [url=http://s151.photobucket.com/user/jerpears/media/photo%201_zpso96udkeh.jpg.html] [/url] I never get tired of catching or seeing anyone catch smallmouth bass. The small ones are such acrobats. This one put on a show with a couple of expert jumps and headshakes. The spot wasn't hitting as well as it normally does so we went out to the middle of the thick weed patches. After drifting and casting for some time we reached an open 'allyway' of weeds. Brian mentioned to me 'You know, this is typically where muskie like to hang out'. Right as he mentions this his rod bends over as something goes for a loooong run. He starts laughing like crazy. After a good fight and a bit of work we thought he had a small Muskie coming up. [url=http://s151.photobucket.com/user/jerpears/media/photo%202_zpsid0c1iyb.jpg.html] [/url] Not a muskie but still a beautiful walleye from the lake. We wern't out too long and I didn't end up getting anything but I was happy to see the fish come up. Next day we were off to the 2nd obstacle race. This 2nd event is about twice as long as the first in a total length of about 15km. Brian and I met up with a few buddies on the day of before we started out. We all finished and it was a good race. I felt much better about my time for this one then the previous as I had shaved 8 minutes off of my time of my first race. All in all we were pretty happy. Brian wasn't able to stay until monday so we bid farewell. Nikki had a wedding on the saturday so she wasn't able to be up the whole weekend but was very excited to get out on the Sunday and the Monday which we had booked off. We set out to her favourite spot for the evening bite. I have no idea why, no one else can catch fish here (This is where Brian got the one bass) but the fish practically leap in the boat for Nikki here. [url=http://s151.photobucket.com/user/jerpears/media/photo%207_zpsyoyswb7o.jpg.html] [/url] The fish were biting like crazy again. It seemed like every time Nikki was tossing her line out, she would have a bite. I don't know how she does it. She even managed to land her first Walleye. [url=http://s151.photobucket.com/user/jerpears/media/photo%203_zpsvynyfyno.jpg.html] [/url] I need to teach this girl how to hold a fish for a picture. She could have made that walleye look at least 2 pounds heavier. [url=http://s151.photobucket.com/user/jerpears/media/photo%204_zpsv5was5de.jpg.html] [/url] Look at that smile. She was so happy to add another species to her list. I was even able to land a nice smallie of my own. [url=http://s151.photobucket.com/user/jerpears/media/photo%205_zpszrvxrbd6.jpg.html] [/url] A little while later Nikki sets her hook and something starts peeling off line like crazy. She gives it a good fight and we see the tail surface, we coudn't get a good look at it but we both knew it was big. It starts swiming towards the boat and goes under. Nikki wasn't able to get her rod under the boat fast enough and the fish ended up breaking the line. Needless to say we were both pretty upset. Its strange how, out of all the fish we catch, the ones that get away will always be the ones we think about. A few more good size bass came and went and we called it a night. Over the night campfire, while cooking marshmellows Nikki asks me 'were you still thinking of waking up early in the morning to go fishing' and I say 'I have been getting up early all week, I was thinking of sleeping in...... why? Did you want to wake up early to go fishing?” she responds 'I kind of want another shot at that big fish'. So I know better then to miss out on an opportunity like this so we ended up waking up early. The morning bite wasn't as good as the evening but we were able to get a few more good sized bass. [url=http://s151.photobucket.com/user/jerpears/media/photo%206_zpshyyugpxn.jpg.html] [/url] We had planned on leaving before dinner but I could tell that the fish that had broken Nikki's line before was haunting her dreams so we stuck around for one more evening of fishing. The fishing was fast and furious again with lots of good sized bass but no monsters. Finally, Nikki gets a good tug on her line. She wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. After a good long fight of back and fourth, she finally landed this beauty. [url=http://s151.photobucket.com/user/jerpears/media/photo%208_zps90x6q1hh.jpg.html] [/url] We fished for a bit longer, landed some, lost some but Nikki felt she had redeemed herself to the fish gods by landing this one. All in all it was the perfect weekend. Good fishing, good friends and good obstacle racing. To be perfectly honest, if every weekend over the summer was this epic, I would be more then happy.