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Thats why I bought a big, heavy ice spud a few years ago…first couple of times out each year I always spud my way out from shore…prefer my baths in a warm bathtub!

Don’t know how safe the Grand would be when there was still open water on the rec canal this morning.

The “Weather Network”, Bill, not CHCH. They said a mild, snowy winter. Just glad we are getting this prolonged cold. I put new line on all my ice rods a couple of weeks ago hoping this was coming!

With this prolonged cold weather I guess its really time to dig the hut and ice auger out of the shed. haven’t bothered until now because weather network winter forecast was so discouraging, but they were wrong! 😁

Congrats on filling your tag! You will have lots of good eating there.

Not only Erie, nowhere in Niagara!

Unfortunately, I never had any good fishing days last year. 😞 Had to get rid of my Legend because it became a money pit, and the tin pot we inherited from my cousin was too small to get out for walleye - just did some Pt. Abino bass with it, but that wasn’t very productive for us this year.

Merry Christmas, and I hope everyone has a healthy, Covid-free holiday!

And you have to wonder how many of those drivers went thru one of those “Quickie” driver training schools - I hate driving the thruways now because of all the trucks on them. Always worry that the guy behind me driving the 40 ton rig has had almost no training!

Every photo I've seen of it lately on the news it looks like an eyesore!! They should sink it offshore and turn it into a fish haven reef.

Bill, I was living in Ft. Erie for the blizzard and teaching at Ft. Erie high school at the time. I drove home after the school closed at noon, but ended up going back in at 2:30 when I heard there were still a lot of students stuck there - when I went to go back in the streets were already 2 1/2 feet deep, and I skied in on cross-country skis! we were stuck in there with a lot of students for over a day, until the heating rads all froze up and they had to evacuate everyone because of loss of heat - we all got taken out by snowmobile because it was the only vehicles able to get around. Snow depths around Ft. Erie were phenomenal! Street around corner from my wife’s aunt - when they started clearing snow off streets they found one car sitting on top of another - snow packed so hard driver drove right up on top of another vehicle. After storm ended, one teacher living near the lake went to find a house where radio reports said someone had left a dog behind - they walked up a small drift to see if they could see anything, and found they were standing on the roof of a 2-story house along the lakeshore! A snowmobiler out to deliver medications to a country address stopped and climbed up on a post to try and see a house - he found the “post” he was standing on was the top of a hydro pole!

Re hurricane Hazel - my wife’s parents were in Toronto at the time with a church group. Coming home when the hurricane hit, their bus was the last vehicle to make it across the Don River bridge before it collapsed.

A neat scale Bill. I should grab one of those to put in my turkey fanny pack for turkey hunting.

Good info for anyone needing a hut, Snags! Just a note for anyone using a hub style hut - NEVER use bungee cords for your hub anchors. I heard of at least one case a couple of years ago where the bungee cord snapped in a wind, and the metal hub snapped into the hut and the fisherman got hit in the head w it and ended up with a concusssion.

Way to go! Nice to get it the first morning.

Each day I go to the farm hunting, I have a 55 minute run each way. Glad I got my deer early this year - it saved me a lot of gas money not keeping running there until Xmas!

I paid $132.9 yesterday at Costco, N. Falls. Was $145.9 in Welland.

15 bags is nothing Bill. Last fall I saw 1 house a couple blocks away from us had over 40 bags out for pickup one week!

Was snowing lightly here in Welland at 8 am

It is not putting "garbage" in the water! The rec canal has a totally flat, featureless bottom. Adding isolated structure elements increases the fish holding structure capability, which can increase the fish populations of a water body. It is a proven workable technique that has been used throughout the US to improve fish holding structure in various inland water bodies. The NPC did it at 3 locations along the upper Niagara River to improve fish habitat a couple of years ago. Just do a Google search for "fish habitat structure" and you will see what I mean.

Bill, christmas trees are only good as fish cover for 1-2 years (research I read about from Georgia when I was putting together my proposal). Once they lose their needles, the fish no longer use them. The best kinds of long term habitat cover is rubber tires, plastic items, or tree limbs. I suggested that Welland use tree limbs, because at the time I presented my proposal Welland was having a major die-off of ash trees, and their would have been lots of limbs available. I also suggested tires, and plastics that were being dropped off at Welland’s land fill site (e.g., old lawn furniture), as they make good long-term cover habitat.

Bill, thats not Welland expansion along Rice Rd., thats Pelham. Their plan is for 5,000 new housing units to eventually go into that area over the next few years! As for the Rec canal, I had submitted a 4-page proposal to Welland city council several years ago to place fish habitat structure at several places in the bottom of the rec canal to improve protective habitat and spawning sites, since the canal bottom is so structureless, but the city never did anything with it. They were interested only in improving the canal for rowing to draw rowing events there, and didn’t care about the local fisherman.

You had good luck there!! Nice catch! Darn, I put my kayak away for the winter too soon!

Nice day Mark. From the trees in the photo, I’m guessing your at Dain City.

What an awesome photo! I remembers driving thru Comox on one B C trip - more deer IN that town than most of us ever see out in the countryside!