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Big Gull Lake Weekend, The Good, Bad and Ugly


Raycaster

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Had a great weekend on Big Gull Lake, sorry no pictures as it was just too hot to fart around with a camera or gopro.

 

The Good:

 

Lots of Walleye, Sunny days, New Minn Kota Terrova, Great friends.

 

The Bad:

 

Navionics (Ipad) let me down again, thought map was downloaded but no and of course no internet service up there. I swear the old Canada Lakes Android version was 10X better with never needing to update your maps (you just download them all one time). I know it's more efficient to just download what you need but the new tablets and phones have a ton of memory on them so who cares? Pay $75 for the latest Ipad version and get no depth maps the whole weekend... A little unhappy but what can you do?

 

A ton of baby pike everywhere, I swear in 5 years the lake will be a big pike factory.

 

The Ugly:

 

Boat prop took some punishment (Totally my fault).

I have an old 30hp Yamaha with a 9 7/8 X 11 1/4 F prop that got one of the blades torn up. Tried hammering a bit but it was weak and the piece just snapped off. Not sure if it is repairable? Never bought a prop before and have no idea on the cost of repairs or a new one.

 

I'm in the Hamilton area if anyone knows of a local prop repair shop just pm me, I'd appreciate it.

prop3.jpg

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My buddy gets one prop a year repaired and i believe it costs him 150-200 bucks per depending on the amount of damage.

He goes to simcoe prop up in georgina so a little far from you but an idea of cost anyway.

His are all stainless.

Good fishin and good luck!

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Thanks for info guys, will be making calls tomorrow.

 

Sinker, we stayed at Big Gull Cottages and basically stayed in the Chimney Island area just jumping weedbed to weedbed in 8-12 ft.

Landed a 37" pike but the rest were small and we probably tossed 15 "snot rockets" over the weekend.

Steady walleye action just casting and ripping minnow lures in the weeds.

Trolled awhile by the narrows but not productive...

 

Nicely only found 1 OOS bass...

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Raycaster that's too bad you didn't have depth charts. Did you have cell reception?

 

It should be possible to download all of Ontario at once if that's what you need. It'll be a huge file though. Temagami alone is 100MB I believe.

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Cell reception was hit and miss with half the txts being sent didn't get through.

 

I'm going to contact navionics support to see if its possible to download Ontario as I have a 128G Ipad!

I swear I never had these problems with the original US & Canada lakes $14 for my phone.

It used a big chunk of memory up on my phone (around 5-7 Gig I think) but the phone had 16G and even with a few apps and music I still had space.

I never used data and after the initial wifi download at home I had access to all maps every time.

 

In truth the depths were not really needed as I know the lake pretty well and have 3 fish finders on board...

 

But at $75 for an app its easy for an old guy like me to grumble...

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Cell reception was hit and miss with half the txts being sent didn't get through.

 

I'm going to contact navionics support to see if its possible to download Ontario as I have a 128G Ipad!

I swear I never had these problems with the original US & Canada lakes $14 for my phone.

It used a big chunk of memory up on my phone (around 5-7 Gig I think) but the phone had 16G and even with a few apps and music I still had space.

I never used data and after the initial wifi download at home I had access to all maps every time.

 

In truth the depths were not really needed as I know the lake pretty well and have 3 fish finders on board...

 

But at $75 for an app its easy for an old guy like me to grumble...

 

No need to contact navionics, just "box in" all of Ontario when you download a map.

 

If you have 3G reception (or better), you can turn your phone into a wifi hotspot, all I phones can do it and I believe samsung phones can too. You then connect to the wifi and download maps.

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No chance for hotspot, no data on lake.

 

I've been an owner of the navionics app since the first android US & Canada maps came out.

 

As I've posted a few times before, I love mobile Navionics but it has had some serious problems.

Still remember buying the Android HD version and having 1/3 of the map viewing blocked out by other Navionic Ads for addons to purchase!

Had all my maps erased after not updating the first year. Even with the problems I'm still a huge fan of their apps.

 

I also have Vexilar Sonar setup (part of the beta) so I really enjoy the app but sometimes it seems like more options are more important than just basic operations.

Pushing the user for wireless data integration kinda defeats it original best feature.

I feel the data login etc. is more geared for piracy protection than actually improving the product (like many PC games now a days).

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Im no techy, but i had no problems with my navionics chip in my lowrance.

 

Im assuming you try to use a mobile app on your ipad and didnt have enough service for it to run? I could see that.

 

Part of the reason i like that area is the spotty cell service. Its nice to have no contact for a dew days.

 

S.

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Man I am getting old. I remember having to go into town a half hour drive from the camp and use the payphone to reach someone. Now it seems nobody want to be out of touch at anytime. Leave the I phone at home and enjoy the outdoors and the wilderness. It was so exiting getting a flasher for the boat, man that was hi-tech and let's not forget the Color-C-Lector, it was a must have according to Al Linder.

 

But I do understand as it now is the norm to be connected at all times. You should have heard the old timers make fun of us when we showed up with all these new gadgets way back then. So I really get it.

Edited by Old Ironmaker
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X2 on them have sent slot of people there no complaints lower ends and props

 

That prop is repairable. Over the years they have done several for me. I think the last time was somewhere around $100.00

 

City Wide Prop Repair

1867 Drew Rd.

Mississauga

905-612-8046.

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J & J Marine Services Prop Shop 905 768 9188

#6 south just passed Caledonia.

Big Gull Lake, been going there for Years, Kirk Kove Cottages. Heading there soon.

Sounds like you were on Little Gull, west end.

Edited by Fish Farmer
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How is the walleye situation on that lake? We're keeping our eyes open for a cottage and Gull is on the short list.

Depends who you talk to I guess. A lot of people struggle from what I hear, but they are in there, you just have to change things up a bit to get them. I love that lake and wouldn't hesitate for a second to buy a place there. I keep an eye on properties for sale there. Great area with a lot of other lakes with good fishing close by too.

 

S.

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We hit Big Gull Lake once a year and have no problem with the walleye numbers.

 

We are far from "pro level" and still have pretty good success.

 

Most of the vets on the lake troll the narrows while we just rip the weeds hoping for a combo of pike/walleye.

 

As mentioned, there seems to be a lot more baby pike in the past few years so I can see the ratio tipping in the future.

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Funny about the pike. We stay at a friends cottage at the far east end of the lake and i have only ever caught one pike there. I have never founď any weeds there either, so assume that is why. We have never had to go to the hub of the lake at the west end to fish, but i hear it gets more pressure.

 

S.

Edited by Sinker
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J & J Marine Services Prop Shop 905 768 9188

#6 south just passed Caledonia.

Big Gull Lake, been going there for Years, Kirk Kove Cottages. Heading there soon.

Sounds like you were on Little Gull, west end.

We use to go there until the now tree huggers owners took over............the OLD couple was FANTASTIC to deal with......had a huge pile of firewood that was FREE....the new owners charge for a 5 gallon bucket of GREEN wood that will not burn.........now (haven't been there in about 7-10 years) the younger couple that took over raised prices and gave me a hard time when I took a half limit of walleyes to the cleaning station for that's night dinner. Butterflies and artistic paintings just don't do it for me and they soon learned that was not their clientele so now I see the are once again pushing for anglers to join them. TOO LATE.........

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