Way north bass guy

Luckily for me I have literally hundreds of lakes within a 1/2 hour of me, so the truck won’t burn too much. Most of the lakes are small to med size, and even running way out on Georgian Bay my Suzuki sips the fuel, so I’m not too terribly worried about it. I will say, as a self employed stonemason, the price of fireplaces is going up, up, up! I love my job, but “thank you” doesn’t do you any good at the grocery store ?.

Our new property that we moved to last summer has about ten random apple trees scattered around the fields. The old owner said he’s never seen them produce anything, and a couple of them are over 15’ tall. Early this spring before the buds came out, we gave them all a very hard pruning. Well it’s seemed to work, as most of them are now completely covered in blossoms. I’m certain they are just some sort of crab apple, but it’s still cool to know that we’ve helped to tidy them up a bit and given them a new life again ( and I’m sure the deer will enjoy the treats this fall too).

Funny you mention that you don’t see many snakes around you. I’m pretty much exactly as far north as you, but we have quite a few different species of snakes around here. All but one are harmless. The only venomous one we have is the Massasauga rattlesnake, that pretty much only exists along the shores of Georgian Bay. I live about 20 min inland of the bay, and have never seen one around my house, but I’ve seen lots of them along the bay. They don’t get very big, but do pack a punch. Our local hospital is about the only one around that carry's the anti-venom, and they often have to use it several times a year, mostly on hikers etc. This guy was on the driveway at a place I was working on last summer. It’s about the largest one I’ve ever seen, and was about 2’ long. We get some pretty good sized water snakes, fox snakes and puff adders, but they’re all harmless.

I’ve not looked into it to hard yet, but are there such a thing as clear glasses that are polarized? I have several sets of different colours, but thought if there were clear ones, they’d be great for that first or last half hour of light, when any tint can hinder your sight through the water.

At least it didn’t mangle up any fingers! That would’ve sucked for casting. By the looks of things, you shouldn’t even be slowed down much with a cut like that.

I used to use them a bunch as a kid, and still do use the muskie killer for big pike/musky. Wouldn't it be cool to see a major tournament win on an old school Mepps! I’d bet that under the right conditions, they could be a wonderful bait, especially in an area where they’ve been pressured with standard spinnerbaits or even chatterbaits.

I also have a ninja grass blade on my motor, and it works fantastic! I can go through just about any type of weeds we have, and it’ll clear it all off. I often used to have to lift it and clear weeds, but now I hardly ever have to.

That is a weird hookup, but I will say, that is an absolutely beautiful looking fishing spot you have there ??

I enjoy it, but it’s not my most favourite thing to do when it’s super hot out. We have a much larger yard here now than we had at our old house. Between the rider, couple small spots to hit with the push mower and running the weed eater, my son and I are around 2.5 hours total a week. As much work as it can be, it sure does look nice when it’s all done, and I’d much rather mow grass than blow snow!

Couldn’t even imagine a number, but over the years I’ve owned a Triton bassboat, Lund Pro-V, couple other smaller boats and now the Smokercraft I currently run. That alone totalled up is well over a 100 grand. For gear, it’s up there, way, way up there. It’s all good with me though, cause I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, and it’s never once made my, or my families life harder because we couldn’t afford to live properly. If I had to do it all over again, I’d do the same in a heartbeat.

I use my hitch for work all year, but up here in the “land of winter salt”, I always remove mine when I’m not using it. All they do is trap salty road dirt up around them all winter, and even just plain old dirt and mud in the summer, and like mentioned before, can be a real pain to remove. Also, I’ve been known to “remove” a bit of hide from my shins from time to time, so off she comes when not towing.

That’s a fine looking mess indeed! We’re just in the process of getting fibre optic lines run through our part of the world right now, they just ran the line under the road to our side today ( we’re the only house on this side of the road). It was pretty cool to watch the drill pop out of the ground, then watch them pull the line back through to the other side. The whole time I watched, I was thinking about you, and that you must see this stuff all the time. It’s amazing the technology they have nowadays to run wires/pipes etc underground without disturbing the surface at all.

My one guide bunk on the side of the trailer was a little wobbly, so I decided to remove it for closer inspection. Needless to say, I’m rebuilding that side! Weirdly the other side ( and the main support bunks under the boat), are still rock solid.

As a stonemason, even though I’m still relatively young (42), I’ve had the odd “ache” here or there. It’s pretty much all I’ve ever done since I graduated high school, and even during summers before that working for my father. I’m self employed now, 99% of the time I’m all by myself all day, so I know to go easy and not do stupid stuff to my body. I’m more than busy enough that I can pick and choose my jobs, and have absolutely no problem turning down one that I know will be a killer on me, cause I have so many other ones that’d be relatively easy. My back, knees etc are all still in good condition, and as you can imagine, my core strength is “pretty solid” ?. Funny though, two days ago I went in for a physical ( haven’t been to the doctors in ages, but I figured I should at least have them check me out to make sure everything is still where it’s supposed to be), and I got my tetanus booster, since it’s been a long time since my last. Well this morning, I was moving some old, nail filled lumber around and managed to absolutely hammer an old, rusty exposed roofing nail about 1/2” into the palm of my hand, right through the glove. It’s fine, but once I stopped working at the end of the day it sure seized up quick. Did some stretches and moved it around and it’s ok again now. My wife said “ I don’t think you had to actually test out the tetanus shot did you”.

It’s the best motor I’ve ever run, and I’ve had Yamahas and an Optimax. Had it 6 years now, fires right up every single time, has plenty of power for my fairly heavy boat, and sips the fuel. All I’ve ever had to do is oil and lower unit oil changes ( yearly), and replaced the $10 fuel filter and the plugs once and that’s it. I don’t see myself ever buying another brand of motor.

Finally got the boat out today. Was a breezy, but sunny and warm day. Only went for a couple hours, mainly just to get all the cobwebs out and make sure everything is running smoothly. Bass season isn’t open yet, so I trolled a while for lake trout. Funny enough, all I got was one 3lb smallmouth on a jerkbait, and no trout at all. Didn’t matter though, it was great just to get out for a float.

One of the best days of the year! Pulled the rig out of hibernation on the way home from work today. Got a bunch of gear back in it, hooked up the hose and muffs and she fired right up like it’s as anxious as me to get on the water ?. Gonna spent a bit more time tomorrow loading up stuff and going over everything ( tire pressure, safety gear etc.), and if Mother Nature isn’t too miserable on Sunday, hopefully we can get some big old lake trout slime on it ( bass season is a ways off here still).

Yup, finally it’s all melted. Still some ice floating around in the lakes but it should all be gone by next weekend. I expect to start seeing our resident deer population returning to the fields any day now.

We’ve been at our new place for ten months now. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get used to the view here every evening. Sure beats the view from a lot of other places I’ve been to.

Gord Pyzer ( writer from northern Ontario), wrote an article not too long ago about getting on a giant pike pattern where they were concentrating on sand flats and beaches, and the big fish were pretty much solely hunting smaller pike in the 18-24” range. Said it was a fantastic way to catch the largest pike in the system. I’ve seen many smaller pike that are tore all to heck, some of that was from spawning but I’m certain lots were from exactly like this video.

In high school my buddy and I were fishing on a small island ( about the size of a big house), and he had to “go”. Of course he didn’t have any TP with him, so used the closest leaves he could find. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant few weeks for him ?

I got a rod when I was about 14, and learned on my own, mostly from watching fishing shows. Was pretty abysmal for a while, but eventually got it figured out. I used to mainly target smallmouth on topwater poppers etc. Kind of put the fly rod away for a few years, but just this winter I picked up a new rod, line and some flys. I now own a beautiful piece of property with a nice river running through our backyard, and plan to hit it a fair bit this summer with the fly rod for smallmouth and largemouth.

I’ve had a DF140 since 2015, and it’s been the best motor I’ve ever owned ( owned Mercs and Yamahas as well). All I’ve ever done is oil and lower unit oil changes, filters and plugs and it’s always run like a champ. Lots of torque to get my fairly heavily loaded 18.5’ deep-v hull on plane, and will top out about 50mph, but I still can idle down to a perfect trolling speed for downrigging all day long as well. Oh yeah, it also sips the fuel compared to my Optimax. I can’t see myself going to a different brand for any future boats either.

First nice sunset over the barn in a while the other day. As spring and summer move along, and the sun changes it’s setting angles every evening, we get some fantastic views looking out the back. It’ll be nice to soon see green grass again with this.

Yeah, I was on the lake today, but it was with the snowmobile, hauling a couple tons of flagstone out to an island to work with in the summer. I guess I could’ve towed someone around on the ice with a pair of skis if they really wanted to, there’d be no chance of drowning at least ?