Way north bass guy

I could do that here right now, but I’d need one of these and some of these.

You need to get one of these, and some stainless steel staples and just go ahead and staple that sucker right to your front deck ?.

Meh, that’s just another day on the outer shoals of Georgian Bay for me ?. (not quite, but some days it almost feels that way).

We had one that was exactly the same. Boy was he ever mad the day the batteries died on that laser ?

Looks like they were doing an oil change on their little raccoon car before they made the climb too ?

I was thinking the same thing. Ours usually are antlerless by new years or shortly after.

I have a spare for the outboard, and thankfully have not had to use it (yet). Wouldn't be too hard to change it though. I’d either get to the shoreline with the trolling motor, and like @TnRiver46 said back it in ( I’d try for a less rocky area?), or I’d just tie up to one of the many docks and change it there. I don’t think many dock owners around here would have too many issues with a guy tying up in an emergency situation to quickly change a prop. @A-Jay, you could always grab an aluminum spare. Wouldn’t get the performance like with your stainless steel one, but definitely will get you back home, and with the extra money you saved, you could add one or two more Megabass jerkbaits to the pile ?.

The weather here was horrible all afternoon. Super high winds, and snowing so hard I couldn’t see across our field. Everything cleared right at sunset, and we got a pretty nice view of the moon, with Venus and Jupiter lined up above it. The huge, open, lightless sky here at our new place is making me think about getting a nice telescope. I had a small one as a kid, but I’d like to spend a bit of money on a nice one, cause we sure have a ton of stuff to look at here most evenings.

Sounds like not a fun situation. We had neighbours that moved in a couple years ago that were quite frankly, terrible people all around. It took us all of about 4 months to make the decision to get the heck out of there, before I ended up doing something I regretted. Sold and moved, and couldn’t be happier. I now have 25 acres on a dead end road and own all the property on either side of me as far as I can see. It can be a very stressful deal moving, but sometimes the payoff is much, much better than simply staying and trying to tough it out.

That guy was on fire here for a while. Maybe he finally had to go to work, seemed like all he did was fish ( not that I don’t want to do the same).

Being self employed, probably about 90% of my work is for customers that have seasonal properties, almost always on some form of waterbody. Usually about a half dozen times a year or so I have to use my boat to get to the job ( island properties or water access only), and I almost always try to get done early, or maybe stretch the job an extra half day and fish my way back to the ramp. I’ve also found many fantastic little spots on lakes I’ve fished for years, just by simply taking a walk down to the dock at lunch to have a look around. Lots of little out of the way things like small weed beds, old dock cribs, rock piles etc that I’ve driven past a thousand times in the boat and never even noticed.

I was gonna put this in the cooking/baking thread, cause I sure cooked it, but figured it’d be better here ?. The trailer gods were with me this morning. I went to the stone quarry to pick up a couple tons of flagstone for a fireplace I'm building, and after about an hour of driving, I backed into my shop driveway to see my utility trailer looking like this! Never had an issue with bearings in the past, and I even checked both sides about 1/2 hour from home when getting gas, all looked good and neither side had any heat at all. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge deal to fix, but man am I ever glad I can do it in my own driveway instead of on the side of the road with a ton of stone in the trailer.

Another crazy day here. Rained pretty hard yesterday afternoon and throughout the night, then just cloudy and light flurries today until this afternoon when the wind machine turned up! Hard out of the west, and cooling off at the same time. I let the hounds out for a minute and the short haired one basically did a lap around the yard then straight back to the house. The husky was in his glory though. Didn’t come in for half hour or so, just sitting there with his snout into the wind, ears back and a very content look on his face ?.

I was out in our greenhouse picking lettuce this afternoon, and noticed our peas are starting to flower. It ain’t much, but halfway through a long, miserable winter, any green life like this is a godsend! With any luck we’ll have a fresh batch of peas to snack on in a little bit, and with 2’ of snow just on the other side of the greenhouse glass, they’ll taste that much sweeter!

One day years ago I was spring pike fishing with my cousin. Snagged a jerkbait on the side of a dock crib, so I eased up to it and was standing on the very tip of the bow, leaning over to pluck it off with my rod tip, when my cousin accidentally brushed the foot pedal of the motor with his foot while turning. Of course, the speed was set at 100% and the motor just happened to be turned 90 deg, so in the blink of an eye I was suddenly leaning over the water with no more boat under my feet! Luckily it was only about 4’ deep and pretty much the end of the day, and only a short ride to the ramp. While I was standing in the lake, I took the time to easily retrieve the jerkbait, then say a couple choice words to my cousin ?

For smallmouth, I’d say it’ll likely be a Maxscent Flatworm on a drop shot. I catch quite a few fish over the year on them, along with some larger ones. Largemouth will likely be on a frog, probably because I throw one a ton for them cause it’s just so darn fun!

Like the colour, sharp looking. Now go get that thing covered in fish slime!

If I get the chance to get up to my parents place about 3-1/2 hours north of me this spring, where the bass season is open year round, I’m gonna hit a few lakes in the pre spawn that I absolutely know I will have the best chance of the year to get the largest smallmouths, when they first slide shallow to feed heavily for several weeks before they spawn. There’s a real legitimate chance I can get into multiple fish over 6lbs, it’s that good! Judging by the areas I’ll likely be fishing, I’d have to say it’ll be a 1/2oz jackhammer with a Zako on the back. 50/50 on the colour, either all white, or green pumpkin.

It is now!

Not this time of year, but up here in central Ontario in the summer I get some nice ones off deep docks. Many of the lakes around me have super deep water, well over 200’. There’s tons of docks that the deep end are in 50’ or more. Granted, most of the fish are suspended in the top 15’ or so, but I still pitch to them like they’re shallow. Best lures I’ve used are either very light weight tubes or a senko type bait wacky rigged. Pitch it out there and let it flutter down to maybe 20’ or so, then pop it back up and repeat. Usually the real deep docks are on steel pilings driven into the lake bottom, so I’ll try to pitch it to each piling and let it drop down along side, then on to the next one. Another good way to get em is to run a crankbait alongside the dock, or twitch a jerkbait under there and let it sit a bit. Those will often get the active fish first, then go back through with the tube or senko.

You guys got it easy. Last night at 10:00 we officially hit our low for the evening, right at -40. That’s without the wind chill, just straight up cold! Not even sure what the official “wind chill” measurements were, but we’re in a fairly open field area, and there was definitely a breeze ( of pure death?) added to that as well. For anyone on here in the south that’s never experienced those kind of temps, about the only way to describe it is pain. -20 to -30 is pretty cold, but once the actual air temps get down to -40, especially with wind chills added on, it takes literally seconds for stuff to go wrong. Skin freezes, dogs feet hurt, the house pops and booms like it’s being hit with a huge baseball bat, and like @A-Jay said, stuff just breaks. Luckily here, the wood stove was loaded right full when we went to bed, and the house stayed cosy. It appears as nothing broke around here, and it’s already warmed up to a balmy -20 and supposed to keep warming, so we’re on the good side of it now.

I’m with @A-Jay on this as well. I’ve never set a drag to a specific number, always go by feel. I’ve never once had braid or any other line type dig in, and that’s all the way from light spinning gear to my muskie stuff. I think a lot of people crank their drag down way too much because “ they saw …. do it on YouTube”. Sometimes I think people read too much online about numbers, specific settings etc. that you “have to use to be successful”, and don’t just try stuff out on their own sometimes. I see it all the time on here, guys want to know the exact weight/length/pound test etc for a very specific size/colour,scent type presentation etc. and can’t just try stuff out on their own. That’s part of the fun of fishing, figure it out some things without knowing every minute detail from somebody else.

Wait till next winter when you can’t use it for 5 months! Trust me, it never gets easier ?.

Makes our -48 wind chills here feel like summer. Time to break out the flip flops again.