Way north bass guy

I did the same thing one cold winter morning with the truck block heater. Got about a mile down the road before I noticed the 50’ cord following me down the road ?.

I’ll bet that’s a sweet smelling bridge to fish around ?.

I’ve owned three different new fishing boats from three different companies over the last 20 years or so and never once got a manual for the boat, just for the outboard. Not sure if there are many boats that even have manuals for them.

It’s an emerald shiner, Simcoe is full of them and that’s the number 1 bait minnow that’s sold in the Simcoe area for ice fishing bait. The smaller ones are called pinheads and work great for spring perch.

It’s all good, I’m sure there’s guys out there that've had some awesome days with he helicopter lure too ?

I want to go with my Leafs this year, and if all the stars aligned they might go fairly deep but there’s a lot of teams that could do well this year. It’s gonna be an interesting couple of months for sure this year.

That’s harsh ?. I’ve done fairly well with them for bass and smaller pike here the last couple summers. Not my first choice to throw but in shallow water the random sway seems to do alright, especially around lay downs and over open weedbeds. To each their own I suppose.

I have a couple mustang MIT ones that I use, after a few minutes I don’t even notice them on. Pretty good price for some piece of mind for the whole family.

This entire subject seems a bit odd to me. I’ve always used my right hand on the reel handle, spinning and casting. For almost all my casts I use both hands on the rod for acuracy and to get distance. My right hand is at the butt of the rod when casting, and just goes to the reel handle when the lure touches down. The only time I use one hand on the rod is when pitching, and I’m so used to quickly switching hands when the lure lands that I don’t find it a nuisance at all.

If you’re running around the lake hitting different areas and you find some fish on a certain stretch, go back and give that spot another pass sometime later in the day. I know I’ve been guilty of wanting to check out that “one other place” before, and sometimes they’ll be there too, but quite often if there’s fish in an area, you didn’t catch em all in the first pass. I’ve done well in tournaments before by finding a few spots and just going back and forth milking everything out of them. Lots of times you’ll drop back into the same drift and suddenly there’s fish loaded up again.

That is exactly what it’s looked like at my place for three days now. I don’t know if I have enough booze in the house to last this weekend. Starting to go just a little bit BONKERS ?.

I’ve used both deep and shallow versions of the scatter rap, depending on what kind of cover and where I’m fishing, but I’d say in summer I’m mostly throwing the deeper versions. I don’t normally use a wire leader when I’m bass fishing, but I will use heavier fluoro or tieable wire for leaders when I’m strictly targeting pike in the spring and fall. I don’t usually lose too many fish to break offs when cranking for bass, but it will happen on occasion.

I’ve only used amazon.ca. Not always the best selections and you have to watch the prices because sometimes they’re way out there but there is some decent deals and the shipping is usually pretty quick.

I’m in a similar way as you, I’ve not yet used tackle warehouse but I’ve got some stuff from bass pro and cabelas, as well as amazon. Recently I’ve ordered some stuff from eBay and was very pleased with all the transactions, got some decent deals on baits and good prices on bulk treble hooks. One place in Canada is Fishntech, they’re out of Quebec and I’ve got a lot of stuff for my boat from them for electronics etc. Good prices, and fast shipping.

-18c here this morning. It would look beautiful if this were Christmas Day, but right now I’m not in any kind of Christmas/winter spirit.

And only take the males!

Here’s my drive this morning ? And my front yard this afternoon.

Yeah, you can’t shovel that away.

The view from my “office” today, overlooking Lake Rosseau in Muskoka Ontario. Still lots of ice but it’s trying to go.

If the past is any indication, they’re going nowhere again. Oh yeah, GO LEAFS GO! ?

A view from shore overlooking Georgian Bay from Parry Sound. Still some ice out there but maybe after this crap that’s coming at us from A-Jays area goes through and it warms up next week, I might be able to launch and try to find some lakers.

Kinda sounds like a tape measure ?

I’d rather have a pole, or talon if your mostly fishing real shallow water. Spot lock coukd be noisy and muck up the water a lot if you’re only in 2’ and trying to stay still. I have a 12’ talon and will never own another boat without one, but the spot lock would be nice in deeper water for sure.

And if you want a deflector, a cheap white plastic cutting board works great. Cut it to size with a jigsaw, and attach it to the top of the transducer mounting board ( if you have one installed). I got one for $5 and there’s enough material there for a few in case one got broke for whatever reason.