dabluz

I have a Cardiff 101. I use it for pike, landlocked salmon, large brook trout and walleye (no bass where I live). Casts great, very smooth and silent and light It casts as well as my Daiwa Procaster 103HLA Z and 103H X which are known for their casting distance. I only paid 60 dollars Canadian for it (on sale...100 dollars off). It's a beautiful reel and fits in my palm real nice. Now, for the drag, I don't want the drag to be too tight. I started fishing when the only reels were level wind reels with zero drag. If you wanted drag, you used your thumb on the spool. That's what I still do today when I want extra drag at the right moment. The pike in my area take long fast runs and then jump out of the water like a salmon at the end of their runs.

Let them dry before storing. Do not let them rattle around in the box, this rubs the finish on the lures. Ideally, they should be stored in their cardboard box but that would mean hauling huge tote bags. Putting each crank bait in a small plastic bag before putting them in the tackle box is a good idea. Keep them out of the direct sun and heat.

Here in Quebec, walleye spawn in late april or early may....depending on when water temperatures warm up to approx 50 degress Farenheit. As you can imagine, further south, they most surely spawn earlier and that's only a few months from now.

The hard part about trying to improve fishing in most lakes is to convince people to release the large fish. Get a person who has never caught a 5 or 6 lb bass in all his life and try to convince him that if he releases that fish, it can grow into an 8 or 10 lb bass, is quite difficult. When a person catches a real monster fish, keeping that fish is not much of a problem either. These fish are often near the end of their life cycle. The spawning potential of these very large old fish can be quite small. For those who want to mount their huge fish, it's a simple matter to take measurements of the fish, some good photos and get a reproduction that will look more lifelike, cost less and last longer than the old style of using the skin of the dead fish to mount it. Those that like to eat fish (I am one of them), the mid sized fish are excellent eating. I see no problem in someone keeping his limit of mid sized fish. In fact, these fish are most often healthier to eat due to their younger age. Imagine having a place where the fishing is good, some very large fish for that extra thrill and enough middle sized fish for a good meal.

That superstition stuff is all baloney. I don't believe in that stuff. However, I don't bring a landing net when I go fishing. I never catch a big fish or even hook one when I have a landing net so I don't bring one of those things anymore. That's not a superstition....that's just a fact. You guys can take a landing net with you if you want. Just leaves more big fish for me.

Yes, there is fantastic potential for some very big bass. Right now, the fish population is stable. The only way to produce big bass would be to weed out the medium sized fish in the lake. There are not enough or even any large fish that can eat the middle sized fish. When the bass spawn, these middle sized fish eat the fry because there are too many middle sized fish. The small bass do not even produce as many eggs. Weeding out the middle sized fish will leave you with a population of larger fish and small fish. The larger fish will eat the small fish, will produce lots of bass fry and there will be less predation of the fry. The large fish will get even larger because there will be lots of food for them. These large fish will reduce the population of the small and middle sized fish which in turn also leaves more food for the small bass fry who have less competiton for the very small sized organismes. A 25 acre lake will never produce a large number of very large bass but as long as these very large bass are not killed off, their number will increase. The "bio-mass" of the lake will remain the same as it is now but the bio-mass will be replaced with very large fish, fewer middle sized fish. Think about it in reverse. Imagine a lake with only very large fish. Add small and medium sized fish and they will almost all be eaten by the very large fish. When a few very old large fish die, they will be replaced by the next sized fish.

I'm very surprised that your buddy did not save guard his book. All he had to do was insert a diskette into the computer and every 5 or 10 minutes, all that he had written would have been safe guarded automaticallly. Lots of things could have happened to his computer and he would have lost everything. He had 4 years to figure that out. Lots of crimes are preventable. I had my house broken into in 1996. We were away on vacation. All my guns and rifles, 2 tv, 2 videos, computer, ghetto blaster. We got a call from a friend saying we had been robbed. We didn't interrupt our vacation...lol. In a way, I was kind of glad the stuff had been stolen....I ended up getting brand new stuff that was much better. Now I guess you are wondering why I said it was preventable. About 1 week before leaving for vacation, my wife and I were at a big party. There were about 200 people there. Almost everyone knew us. Somebody asked when we were leaving for vacation and for how long. My wife yelled out the day we were leaving and when we were coming back. I didn't want to reprimand my wife too much but I did hint at the fact that what she had done was not a good idea. When you tell 200 people....it's sure that in the next few days at least 1000 people know about it. We live in a community that has a lot of family ties and friends. News go through this community real fast. I don't own anything really precious. Maybe my vintage guitars and amps, a stamp collection that I started over 50 years ago, family photos and my fishing gear would be hard to replace, but that's about it.

Wave action does more than just push the zooplancton. It also oxygenizes the water...often, shallow water does not have enough oxygen to satisfy game fish. It obscures the fishes vision above the water and it creates a background noise therefore making it possible for an angler to approach fish more easily. Waves also confuse bait fish....they get tossed around more and they have to move off to deeper water. Waves often cause surface water to cool. Waves also disloge small insects, invertebrates and other small animals that are food for larger fish. Some fish like walleye can readily found on the windward side. Meanwhile other fish like brook trout prefer the shore that is protected from the wind. They are a nervous fish. They often congregate in the quiet water near points and wait for tidbits to get pushed past the points

The area where I live has about the lowest crime rate in the world. But still there are things being stolen every once in a while. As it is now, the punishment is not strong enough to deter thieves. Corporal punishment should be part of the sentence. Maybe amputation of a member along with a jail term for the amputation to heal would be a good idea.

I use the double palomar knot. The new "super lines" are however notorious for breaking when sudden shocks are applied to them. I think that you may let some slack line get in between you and the fish when you are ready to strike. I've been using 20 lb test Power Pro, Tuff Line and Mason Tiger Braid for the past few years and they all work great. No bass where I live. However, there are lots of pike and walleye. I rarely troll for fish because I fish from a canoe and I rarely use a motor. The pike fishing is very similar to large mouth bass fishing.....meaning casting to likely hiding places in shallow water with all sorts of lures.

Walleye spawn in the spring. Their eggs start to develop during the winter. If the eggs are large, maybe the fish did not spawn during the spring for some biological reason. Usually, unspawned eggs get absorbed by the walleyes body and another set of eggs develop in time for the spring spawn.

On the contrary, the territory where I worked, the lakes have only brook trout in them. No other species of fish. Not even minnows. The trout feed on insects with maybe a few salamanders a few frogs (very few) and small rodents. Brook trout are also a short lived species. Management results are quickly noticed. Spawning sites are easy to inventory. The lakes are all similar in structure and age (less than 10,000 years old). Water quality is excellent throughout the territory. The lakes are small and it's easy to meet the fishermen on a daily basis. Statistiques are gathered when every vehicule leaves the territory and compiled every night. We can actually calculate the catch per hour of fishing. All this makes for an excellent learning ground for basic fish management before going to other territories where there are more species of fish and so many other factors that complicate fish management.

Well, from the looks of things, the lakes are well managed. From what I have read, I'm sure that if the self sustaining populations of bass do suffer any adverse effects, measures will be taken to rectify the situation. So, if fishing on the beds hasn't been detrimental....by all means let everyone have fun. One thing I admire about the fishermen in the U.S., it's their propensity to release the fish they catch. I'm too far north for bass or sunfish. Further south west there is some very good smallmouth bass fishing and in the most south western part of Quebec, there are some largemouth bass. And yes, they do grow very slowly here in Quebec. A 4 or 5 lb smallmouth is very old. As you can imagine, I pounce on those who like to show pictures of limits of large dead bass.....lol. I used to do a lot of bass fishing in Lake Ontario when I was young. You can always count on bass to bite. What was the most fun, they bite on anything. They are a hardy species. I sure miss fishing for them. I compensate by fishing for northern pike. It's just like fishing for largemouth bass. The pike even jump out of the water.

So, ouachitabassangler has been doing the same thing that I have been doing or maybe it's the other way around. I was also regional president of the Wildlife Federation, co-founder/vice president of an association to restore native landlocked salmon, vice-president of the local hunting and fishing association etc etc. I have chatted with a bunch of people all over the U.S. and I know that not every state has the same way of protecting and/or renewing their wildlife but, I have heard complaints that only well visited bodies of water get any help from the governement and that there is a reluctance to change regulations that might indispose fishermen. I'm not saying that things are rosy where I live either. I would like to see slot limits in order to maintain quality fishing and good reproduction. Since a body of water can support a certain biomass, I would like limits to be changed from the number of fish to the mass (weight) of fish a person keeps. As an example....in my region, we mostly have brook trout. Knowing that in our region, on the average an area of water 100 meters X 100 meters can support approx 14 kg of brook trout, why is the limit set at 20 trout of any size? A person leaving the lake with 20 trout weighing 1 to 3 kg each does much more damage to the overall population of trout than the person leaving the lake with 20 trout of about 1/2 kilo each. Why not a limit of 5 kilos of fish (plus 1 fish...the heaviest one) while not exceeding the limit of 20 fish? The governments only response is that it is too complicated. However, this system of limits is in force elsewhere for over 40 years. "Whatyoumaycall" must certainly know that the number of fish in a body of water is calculated first by the average mass of the fish. You monitor the body of water by weighing the fish caught by fishermen or by using traps or nets, you count the fish, you divide the mass by the number of fish in order to get an average size, you then calculate the capacity of the lake to support that particular species of fish and you mesure the size of the lake. With these statistiques, it is possible to estimate the number of that species of fish in a particular body of water. Then you determine how many fish are needed to sustain the population and you limit the catch so that there is always enough adult fish to spawn every year. After the initial studies have been carried out, you just keep on monitoring the catch. If you see any adverse change in the average size of the fish, you can take measures to correct the situation. It won't be necessary to stock the body of water with genetically inferior fish. Maybe someday, we might meet on the territory of about 1200 square kilometers where I worked and I could explain in more detail how the studies are carried out. There are about 600 brook trout lakes. The fishing is as good or better than it was in 1978 when this system was initiated and when I started to work there. It's called a "controlled exploitation zone". Anybody can fish. No reservations needed. Costs about 100 dollars per year for the family. It's close to town (30 minutes). When 60% of the population of trout have been caught in a lake, it is closed for the rest of the season. Of the 600 lakes, about 50 to 100 are closed before the end of the season. As you can see, the territory could use 6 to 12 times more fishermen. We do the same for moose and the number of moose killed each year has remained constant. If the wording or terms seem a bit strange....it's due to the fact that I am french-canadian and I did all of my work in french.

Those who think that fishing on spawning beds is okay should re-think a little about this. The wool is being pulled over your eyes. The reason it is allowed is for economic reasons alone. If a body of water gets lots of fishermen and the resource is adversely affected, there is suddenly money for restocking. If a body of water does not receive much traffic, no restocking is done. It's cheaper to let fishermen fish as much as possible and then restock. The problem with stocked fish is the genetic pool is weakened. The best way to manage a fishing resource is to impose slot limits....this allows for more pr édation on the scrap fish and larger scrap fish that eat the fingerlings and a larger population of sport fish of spawning age. Along with the slot limits, something should be done to protect the spawning fish and the spawn beds. Wouldn't it be fun to catch bass of 2 to 4 lbs all day, have so many bass that even the fishing away from the spawn beds would be great? In the U.S., there is even an advantage for bass.....they grow faster and their growing season is longer. Ok, some will say that the population of forage fish will be decreased. I say no....because larger bass will be eating the larger forage fish. 6 and 7 inch perch, sunfish, etc will become part of the food base. As it is now, these fish are getting fat on the unguarded spawning beds. They are too big to eat for about 95% of the population of the bass living in the body of water. If my plan doesn't work....fine with me but it is worth a try.....and costs nothing.

Guys who fish spawning fish or fish guarding the spawning bed are sick in the head.

Pitching a lure involves muscles in the arm that we don't use much. Maybe using an underhand "sling shot" cast a bit more could help. Switching from one arm to another is a good idea. Most of my fishing is siting down in a canoe so I don't pitch very much. I use a backhand or forehand flip type cast.

I hope your bad luck continues. You should be as far away from spawning beds as possible and at the same time showing your offspring, family and friends a good respect for the resource. If you want to be a good sport, take a canoe and paddle near enough to see the spawn beds. Take the kids along and all of you can admire the spectacle. Hone up your fishing skills (and if you want....cooking skills) on fish that are not spawning.

I would say that the best person to contact is a guy called "fishingelbow". He has tendonitis in both arms. He fishes from shore and specializes in long casts with baitcasters. Just do an internet search with his name and you will quickly find him.

My lucky piece of clothing is my zipper. Almost every time I open it, I get a bite if I'm bait fishing. If I leave it open....I shrivel and pee my pants.

I couldn't help noticing that the average size you guys catch is quite small. Do some people keep the best fish for some reason or another? Someone is surely killing off the nice ones. Do people release the bass that are over 5 or 6 lbs or do they keep them to show off?

To me, clear water is where I can stand in my canoe, look down and see my anchor on the end of 30 or 40 ft of rope. It's like I'm on the edge of a 2 story building. There are brook trout streams that I know, where the water is so stained, it's like fishing in pepsi. The small brookies I catch in these streams are almost black. Most of the waters nearby are stained to varying degrees. The stain comes from the different deciduous trees that make up 95% of the forest in my area. The walleye in these stained waters bite better on brownish or golden coloured lures...ex.; Ripplin Red Fin with gold sides, black back and orange belly, craw couloured Shad Rap, Smithwick Suspending Rogue with gold sides, black back and orange belly.

Fishing during spawning time is about the stupidest thing a good fisherman can do. The worst part is when the male bass is on the spawning bed and protecting the new born bass. As soon as he leaves the bed, scrap fish zoom in and eat the young bass. Doesn't take much skill to catch a fish who spends all of his time chasing away anything that comes close to the spawning bed. Releasing the fish.....it's often too late to save the young bass....and the fatigued fish cannot protect the spawning bed efficiently. The reason that some places allow year round fishing is purely economical.

If the fish put up a good fight, the lactic build up in the muscle tissu was just too much for the old fish. The scars etc might have caused the fish to catch a virus or a bacteria. Don't worry about it. I once caught a huge walleye. Anyway, it was not heavy but very long. She was 32 inches in lenght but weighed maybe 7 lbs max. She had a huge head and her stomach was so depleted that there was a long large crease running the length of her belly. She didn't put up a very hard fight....just bulldogging in deep water. I had 4 lb test mono on my reel. This happened about 20 years ago. When I talked to biologist in my area about the fish, they said that the walleye was probably over 30 years old. Their research in my area showed that they could tell the age of the walleye over 24 inches long just according to it's length. The largest they ever caught was 28 inches and was 28 years old. I should have kept a few scales to take to the biologists.

I recently bought a few used baitcasters. I babysit my 18 month old grand daughter every day while her parents work. Anyway, I put my new aquisitions on a 24 inch ice fishing rod and practice pitching into a cardboard box about 20 feet away from me. As you can imagine, the little girl was carefully watching me so I handed her the rod and showed her how to reel in the practice lure. She will be going fishing with me next summer. My daughter was also fishing when she was 2 years old.