Way north bass guy

I’m building an outdoor fireplace and patio at my current project. This morning I found the quickest way in the world to completely soak a shirt, other than jumping in the lake. The trick is to wheel about 12 of these approx 75 yds ?

I can say it’s pretty much the same thing going on here in Canada too. I started working for my dad as a stonemason when I was 13 during summers, and full time with him after high school. When he retired, I started my own company, and work by myself. Been doing this full time now for over 25 years. I live and work in “cottage country”, a few hours north of Toronto. It’s a special place, that has a mix of year round residents of all ages, and jobs of all different pay rates, and in the summers our population triples when all the cottagers come up from the city to stay for the summer. The money that flows around here in construction is mind boggling, this is where the billionaires come to play in the summer, millionaires are a dime a dozen around here now, you’re not even a big deal unless your account starts with a B now! Since covid, a lot of people have moved away from the city and turned their summer homes into year round residences, and there’s still a ton of new cottages going up, so absolutely everyone in the trades is completely slammed with work. Couldn’t hire helpers even if you wanted to, and there doesn’t seem to be a large number of younger people wanting to get into it. I will say, the trades can be hard on your body, but if you’re careful, and “work smart instead of hard”, you can do fairly well. I can pretty much name my price for jobs, some I could pretty much throw an extra zero on the end of the quote and they’d say “ when can you start”, it’s that crazy right now. I work alone, and plan to keep it that way. I can take on whatever size job I want, work at the pace I want and know that when it’s complete, it’s been done to my standards, which are pretty darn high, and I’m paid accordingly for my services.

Had a little power nap on the couch yesterday afternoon, woke up to this staring back at me. Kinda felt like being awakened by Tony the Tiger, THEY’RE GREAT!!!

I had pretty long hair in my early twenties, down past my shoulders. After a summer of guiding and tournaments, I realized long hair was a pita when flying all over the lake every day at 60mph. Just got twisted into knots like the best backlashes you could ever make ?. After that summer I cut it off, and have had short hair since.

Ok, here’s another one then?. After lunch it was supposed to cloud up so I thought I’d take the canoe out on the river that runs through our property. It did not get cloudy, and was hot as blazes, but I did manage to get another 30 or so on a frog and texas rigged Berkley Maxscent jerk Shad. About a 50/50 mix of green and brown bass, no giants, but in the gin clear water it was a hoot watching them blast out from under pads and undercut banks to hammer my baits. I probably saw 90% of the hits clear as day!

It’s been crazy hot here lately, and with it being the long weekend I didn’t want to travel far and deal with the busy ramps, so I just hit my backyard lake this morning for a few hours before it got too hot. Caught about 40 smallies, half on a popper and the other half on a ned rig. They were all in little wolf packs of about a dozen or so, I’d catch one and the rest would follow up to the boat. Quickly unhook it and drop back down and immediately hook another one. Nothing over 3lbs today, but it was fun. Also watched this guy slide up out of deep water and inhale my ned at the boat like a dainty stream trout. Was a fun fight on 6lb line.

Was gonna hit the water here this morning, but it’s stupid hot right now with very high humidity, so I’m just being lazy for once and enjoying a beer in the screen porch. Might hit the river behind the house tonight or tomorrow if it cools off a bit.

Was a big fan of Gulp minnows for a while, but they’re so darn soft and you’re very lucky to get more than one fish on one. Switched to Maxscent when it came out, and that’s pretty much all I use now. I’d say mostly it’s a 50/50 mix of flatworms and the flat nose minnow, with a wacky hooked General also used occasionally on the drop shot. I’m sure others work great as well, but I like these ones, and have a grocery bag stuffed full of new packages of them so I’m not buying any more for a while ?.

Got my hands on a copy today of what many in bass fishing think is the holy grail of books, especially regarding the scientific side of things. It pays to have a wife that works at a public library. She had to hunt a bit and loan it from another library halfway across our province. Said it was the only copy in the Ontario public library system, which is a massive system by the way.

Got my frog fix this morning. Went to another nearby lake, that’s not known for big ones but you can usually get quite a few. In 3 hours I caught exactly 29 largemouths and 1 smallmouth, and lost several more. Nothing more than 3lbs, but almost all of em came on a frog so that was a hoot! The smoke from the fires north of here was as bad as it’s been so far this year. Couldn’t see down the lake very far, and it wasn’t fun to breathe so I packed it in around noon. It’s cleared up here now at least.

Nope, that’s the way she was. Never caught one quite that copper coloured out of this particular lake before, but I have a few lakes around me where most of them are like that.

My folks got pretty much the exact same one a couple months ago. They’re a nice looking rig, and my folks have been happy with it so far.

Well, today was our opener here finally. Got out for a few hours on my home lake. Didn’t want to travel too far cause they were calling for thunderstorms in the afternoon, so a 30 sec drive to the ramp it was. Caught around 30 or so, on a mixed bag of frogs, flipping a creature and a ned rig. About a 50/50 mix of green and brown ones today, no real giants, but did get this nice copper coloured guy on an epic frog explosion to end the day almost at the ramp. All in all, it was a decent start for me, and I was back in the boat shed before the storms hit??.

I’ve been using the Berkley Power Swimmer in several sizes for a couple years now for both bass and pike, and they hold up very well. I’ve caught a dozen like this on one bait before it got too ripped up to use. If these guys can’t wreck em, a bass isn’t gonna do any worse.

Sitting in the screen porch looking at an In-Fisherman magazine I got a little while ago, and I see a guy I recognize. Mr. Famous! ?

If you’re using half decent, fresh fuel from a reputable gas station, and you’re using the boat fairly regularly during the season there’s no need at all for any extra additives. I always add stabilizer to the last tank of the year to get it through the engine on the last run, and in over 25 years of owning large fishing boats with several different companies motors on them, I’ve never once had any issues with fuel, and my boat sits for 5 months in the winter every year.

Neighbours ?! I solved that problem myself two years ago. I now have 25 acres and can’t even see my neighbours, and the ones closest to me are fantastic even if I could see their house. Unfortunately your place is only as good as the neighbourhood it’s in. Hope it all works out for you.

I know they’re technically a salt water species for the most part, but I’ve only caught them in freshwater so I’m calling them that?. My vote is chinook. I’ve had 6 lbers peel 100yds of 20lb line off my downrigging reel in mere seconds, and bigger ones are pretty much like hooking a jet ski that’s going past your lure. They’ll scream off 200yds and be jumping before you can get the rod out of the holder sometimes. Doesn’t hurt that they’re pretty tasty too.

That’s why I work by myself. Only have one idiot to deal with all day long ?

Hope the surgery goes well. We have a huge old doe here that had triplets last year. Only saw the one little guy for the first few weeks till we brush hogged the fields, then we saw all three. By the time fall came they were all good sized, especially for triplets. All four were back first thing this spring, but she’s run them all off now and by the looks of her belly she’s already given birth to another batch. Haven’t seen them in the open yet, but I’m sure she’ll bring them out soon. Here’s last years crew.

We’ve had crappy internet for years now. It’s one of the very, very few downsides to living in a rural paradise. Last year we had a company run fibre lines underground all along our roads in the area, promising high speed internet by last Christmas. Well, the lines got run, but nothing else has come about. I sent an email to the company a couple weeks ago asking if they had an estimated timeline to have this project up and running, and got a generic response that basically said “ we have no idea”, and after talking to a neighbour that said he got his Starlink system in about two weeks from ordering, I said that’s enough, and ordered it. Exactly one week from ordering, it was at my front door, and after about an hour of setup ( half of that was tearing down our old internet equipment), I was up and running. All I can say is SWEET BABY JESUS!, this is a complete game changer! The speeds we’re now getting are like the difference between a canoe, and a Bullet with a Merc 450R on the back! I can load pages and actually see pics on here without having to go pour a coffee between each pic loading up. We’ll actually be able to stream shows now, and get YouTube clips etc. in real-time, instead of waiting ages for them to load. And no stupid expensive overage fees for measly amounts of monthly data. All I can say is I wish we’d gotten this sooner, but it’s here now so we’re gonna enjoy this ??

The tape works great. I’ve had mine on for at least 4 years now and it’s as solid as the day I stuck it on ( and it works quite well too).

Sounds like a great day! By the looks of all the posts on this thread, I guess we in the north are spoiled a bit with fish catches. Sure, many of you guys can fish most of the year, but around here if I don’t get at least 20-30 bass in an outing, especially on a lake I’ve had some experience on before, I call it a kinda slow day. Many days here are 50+ fish days, guess it’s the combination of low pressure and a short season, either way, I’ll take it! Keep racking up those numbers Crickety??.

Yup. Haven’t heard of any outbreaks anywhere near me at all, but we’re gonna keep things as secure as we can, and there’s not many wild birds that are ever very close at all to where the chickens will be. We don’t want to have to deal with that sort of thing at all if we can help it.

We have prepared fairly well for any type of critter we would need to worry about around here. Coop and run is very solid, fencing buried deep and no easy way for anything to get in. There are several neighbours within a few miles of us with sizeable flocks, and they’ve not had many issues with predators. We’ve also got things setup to keep rodents to a minimum. Plenty of snap traps already around to keep them out of the shop, boat etc. We don’t have a ton of mice around, it’s actually been almost a year since I’ve caught one in a trap. I grew up with quite a few chickens, as well as many other farm animals so this isn’t my first time dealing with critters.