The Joys Of A Car-Topper

Buying a little 12-foot aluminum boat is one of the best decisions Darrell and I have made. The process was not without frustration, but the end result was worth it. It took a lot of searching on Kijiji and other classifieds, a sale that fell through, several phone calls, and eventually a two-hour drive before we found it – our perfect boat – a 12ft Alumacraft with a 9.9hp Johnson motor.

I thought the lack of a trailer would be a major inconvenience but it turns out that having a boat we can throw in the back of the truck and drop into any body of water, regardless of the existence of a launch, is awesome!

Sure it sticks out a little, but it takes up less room than a trailer! The boat is surprisingly easy to load.

It took a bit of trial-and-error but eventually we figured out that propping the boat up with an oar was the easiest way to load and unload equipment.

Here's the best part of the boat. See that bracket...

...that bracket is for the wheels! That's right, our boat has detachable wheels It's a simple matter of inserting two pins and then you can wheel the boat around wherever you like.

We get a lot of comments about the wheels. Usually from people having to lug their boat here and there while we happily roll ours around. I can tell you these wheels make Darrell's life easier because they make me less likely to whine and complain about moving the boat around

Ready to hit the water...

Having a little aluminum boat is really handy when putting the boat in at spots like this.

Once the boat is in the water you can take off the wheels, or leave them on and just raise them up.

This awesome little boat goes in easily anywhere we choose to fish. It braved the big water in Owen Sound during the salmon derby and yesterday it got us into some nice crappie on Guelph Lake.

A nice little crappie from Guelph Lake

Catching crappie on the drop-shot.

I love having this boat and look forward to taking it out each weekend. There’s no shortage of places we can put in at and there are many lakes yet to explore…

Don’t Forget To Check The Knot, Especially On Vacation

With the first half of our vacation drifting into the memory banks, Darrell turned the truck towards Killarney and our last stop, Tyson Lake.

While Sturgeon Bay is full of campsites and cottages, there are relatively few cottages at Tyson Lake and the feeling of being in the wilderness cannot be avoided. At Tyson, and its adjoining lake, Spoon Lake, it is quite normal to spend an entire day on the water without seeing anyone. And that is how we spent the last two days of our vacation – seeing only a handful of people and boats, having much of that wild beauty to ourselves.

Rock faces and trees - the predominant sight up north. My pictures fail to do the scenery justice as it was absolutely breathtaking.

The launch at Tyson is actually quite nice and easy to use. The main problem is that the parking lot is not big enough to turn around in if there are other vehicles parked there. It was easy to tell first-timers from those that had launched there before by the tight spots they got themselves into.

Once again we used drop-shotting as our go-to technique. On Tyson it worked well close to shore to land us some decent smallies during the day. The numbers weren’t there and neither were the trophy fish, but with such a relaxing setting it was hard to be upset.

The night bite proved to be best as the smallies hit frequently on top water lures. Again I used my Rapala DT Fat 1 and boated quite a few smallmouth. I don’t do much night fishing and found it difficult to remove trebles with limited light without hooking myself!

I think we finally managed to make Jack tired. He insisted on crawling into Darrell's lap and refused to get back down.

We ran through the narrow and obstacle-ridden channel that joins Tyson to Spoon and spent some time fishing there. In Tyson we targeted smallies but in Spoon it was all about largemouth bass.

Look at all the wonderful weeds and slop! Prime location for largies.

Again, Scum Frogs ruled the day and the fish had fun teasing us before finally biting. It took some work and we had to get through a lot of small fish, but we finally caught a few decent ones.

There is something about the air up that way – it’s so much cleaner and refreshing, with just the right scents mixed in to make me want to bottle it up and bring it home. It’s no wonder that sleep comes easily after spending the day enjoying the beauty of the wilderness and inhaling that air. Eventually you drift into a world where only you exist, almost like it’s a separate planet. It really is amazing up there.

Of course, our trip would not have been complete without another ‘mishap’ and this caused us to reconsider moving on to another lake. We pulled into a bay to anchor and have some lunch. Darrell lifted up the anchor and was about to toss it over when the knot came undone and the anchor fell to the bottom of the lake. *sigh* Now we had to spend more money on the way home to pick up another anchor. But more than that, the incident left us feeling a little snake-bit. On this trip we had already enountered:

• a bent-up boat trailer,
• a broken fishing rod,
• a burnt up bilge pump,
• and now we had lost an anchor.

Our original plans called for moving on to a more remote lake with a difficult launch but after the latest incident we felt something more dire may happen if we tried that launch. Images of a sinking boat and a very stuck truck came to mind and we both agreed that we did not need to tempt fate. We spent a little more time at Tyson before packing up for the drive home.

An early morning on Spoon

Our last morning enjoying both Tyson and Spoon. It was a beautiful way to end our vacation.

It was an amazing trip and only strengthened my desire to move north. I know it’s a longer winter but to be surrounded by something this special would make it all worthwhile.  And despite all the mishaps I can’t help but think our week away was perfect – I got to spend it with my family, in the boat, catching fish, in a beautiful setting.  I could not have asked for more.

 

Island Lake Hawgs

Last weekend, to reward ourselves after a day of building new fencing for the horses, we decided to head to Island Lake Conservation Area in Orangeville to hunt for some bass.

This was my first trip to Island Lake in the summer and I was pleased to find a nice boat launch and reasonable admittance fees. While we took our own boat, many people chose to rent one of the conservation area’s many aluminum boats and canoes. Since there are no gas motors allowed we made sure to throw an electric motor on the back to help the trolling motor pull us around.

The sun was already inching high in the sky as we launched and there were many other people on the lake taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

Cody got the first bite of the day when he pulled in a hungry little sunfish that wanted his white mini-king, and as we moved along it was more of the same. No big bites, just a few sunfish and rock bass. I had been promised big fish and I was getting impatient.

A couple of hours passed and we threw a variety of different baits with little luck. I finally decided to tie on the go-to bait – a Rapala Husky Jerk in Tennessee Shad. Jerk, jerk, jerk…wham! Before I knew it I was reeling in a decent largemouth. It wasn’t a hawg but it made the day much happier all of a sudden. After releasing my first bass of the day I took a couple more casts and then again…wham!…another nice bass.

I was thrilled to finally have caught some bass and was in a much better state of mind when I once again tossed out my lure and hooked a tiny pike.

My little pike that Darrell had to unhook.

We eventually drifted out of this productive area into one that looked like it had to be a hawg factory. There were underwater stumps everywhere and promising looking weed patches. Talk about structure!

We all took turns tossing small jigs in amongst the stumps and ended up with a rock bass bonanza.

A nice rock bass double-header for Cody and Darrell.

It was great fun yet, still not what I was looking for. But then we moved on to the weed patches and lily pads over by the shore and I decided to tie on my absolute favorite lure – a Scum Frog.

There are a lot of frogs available on the market, but in my opinion you just can’t beat a Scum Frog. The bass love them and my wallet appreciates them. My biggest bass have all come on a Scum Frog.

I decided to take a long cast and worked the frog back to the boat slowly. I was just looking at the frog when there was a splash of water and my frog disappeared. Woohoo!!! Anyone who spends time tossing a frog understands the adrenaline rushing through my system at that moment. I set the hook as hard as I could and started reeling. He put up a great fight before ending up in the net.

My hawg for the day, and he sure wasn't the biggest one in there!

I let this guy go and two casts later another bass decided my frog looked tasty. He was smaller than the first but another great fight. After releasing him I really had to concentrate on slowing down my retrieve…the adrenaline was running!

We moved along the shoreline, I took the boat into spots so that I could cast exactly where I wanted, I’ll admit I wasn’t really thinking about whether or not it meant Darrell or Cody got a good cast

Both Darrell and I managed to lose even bigger fish. I had one just sip up the frog and the moment he felt the hooks, dived for the weeds. I couldn’t make any ground and eventually this monster got off. I was definitely cursing for a few minutes!

In the end we had a fantastic day. The only blip was the 3 canoes that managed to run into the boat because the people in them had no idea what they were doing. I’m all for people getting out and trying new things, but how hard is it to figure out that sitting still and shrieking will not steer your canoe?

I got over that momentary frustration by remembering the incredible fish we caught that day. I can’t wait to go back and get some more!

The Ultimate Skinny Water Boat

Earlier this week my attention was drawn to a blog post on Craig Ritchie’s blog about a 4×4 boat. I had to have a look and what I found was a boat I absolutely must have.

The boats are Jet Boats made by Harbercraft, incredible welded boats made right here in Canada. While Harbercraft makes a variety of boats to suite all sorts of uses, it is the jet boats that get my attention.

I enjoy river fishing but I often wish I could have a boat with me for such fishing – easier access to good fishing holes and no long walks (even though they’re good for me). The canoe works well but it’s not the same. This boat would make it possible to fish some of my favorite rivers, without having to worry about damaging it. With full bottom armor there’s not much this boat can’t handle. Only a trickle of water? No problem for this boat! Just check out these videos for proof:

For more history on Harbercraft:

 

These boats are awesome! I would absolutely love to get the chance to drive one. Although I am in no position to buy a boat these days, I’ll be dreaming about this one until I can afford it. In the meantime, I’ll keep watching videos of all the great stuff you can do with these boats

Goals For This Fishing Season

The last few days have had me anticipating some fishing. I have spent a lot of time visiting the river and prospecting for good holes for the upcoming trout season. I also spent time visiting tackle shops to pick up new line, and inevitably pick up some new lures. Then today we spent some time cleaning up the boat and started to get it ready to hit the water.

All of these activities have had me thinking even more about the upcoming season and I realized that I have quite a few goals for this year:

1. Learn to fly fish – I received a fly rod for Christmas and although I’ve practiced casting I really haven’t had the chance to use it. I know very little about fly fishing but it’s something I’m eager to learn. Discovering the Outdoor Blogger Network has opened the door to a wealth of blogs with information about fly fishing and I’ve spent the winter reading as much as I could. I can’t wait to take my fly rod down to the river and cast for brook trout in two weeks. I think I’ll invest in a lesson at some point too, it’s always good to lay down a solid foundation.

Online Fishing Tournament From Crestliner

A few weeks ago I found a story about Crestliner’s plans to hold an online fishing tournament. I was intrigued by the concept so I went to the Crestliner Trumped site to find out more.

It’s a simple concept really:

1. Request an official Trumped ruler (the ruler is free and can be requested online);
2. Catch a long walleye, pike, bass or crappie and take two photographs – one of the fish against the ruler and one of you holding the fish;
3. Upload the pictures to a leaderboard.