PB laker, Muskoka Sunday morning

Very nice PB.

Arnie

That's a nice laker!

Great story with nice catch congrats Drew

Congrats on a beautiful laker! Great story man thanks for sharing.

Drew.......I had to go pour myself a drink to finish reading your story


EPIC



dude . it was like I was right there with ya


huge congrats

My heart was pounding reading your report.
Well done!

Great story and hell of a fish! I've landed some big fish on 6lb mono back in the day. 12 lb laker and 46" muskie, both in open water. I'm curious as to what your leader was? I've heard good things about those sienna reels. Great value. Your experience shows by how you adjusted your drag and used the rod to find that sweet spot. A fish of that caliber could easily have spooled you without your adjustments. Was the hook slightly bent after that glorious fight? By the way... frostbiten fingers... totally worth it

No leader, tied direct to jigging rap, and I haven’t really examined the hook but I think it’s fine. Line wasn’t twisted up either, as I try my best not to reel when the the drag is slipping.

Yeah the Sienna reels have been good for me, had been sitting in a cold shed, then using the reel outdoors on a cold windy morning, not in a hut created a bit of a problem with the drag, tighter than it should be until it gets moving some, then the adjustments seem not to do much one click at a time until it’s too little drag - indoors with heat, they’ve been really good. Old Rapala reels I’ve had or probably any cheap reel that comes on a combo would surely have resulted in my line snapping.

Fantastic Laker. Congrats on the PB.

Make sure you don’t eat those big ones. Haliburton region is a hotspot for naturally occurring mercury. I would suggest reading the guide to eating Ontario sport fish for that area. I have a cottage up there and know quite a bit about the area.

Again amazing fish and congrats. Please don’t take offence to the warning. It’s meant as friendly info for those who don’t know.

That’s good information Disco, I think Drew was up in the Muskoka region for his lake trout but I harvest lake trout from the Haliburton region and I just checked a lake I fish regularly. Right at or above the slot size (on this particular lake) appears to be fine but anything below or above, the consumption recommendation is 0. Mercury and PCBs listed as the contaminants.

Below would be fine, it’s likely that they haven’t had an opportunity to net/test that size

And I was in Muskoka, there’s just one, not plural.

Muskoka means “not easily turned back in the day of battle” in Ojibwe. Also name of the guy who was involved in indigenous signing treaties. Also the reasons it cannot be pluralized as it’s not a noun.

My mistake, post has been since edited lol

Or you can have the reel break off at the stem if you are using a Shakespeare ugly stick combo reel Yup, I will never forgive them for that one. They were given a chance and failed miserably.
Agree with Disco, it's good to check the size and eating limits recommended (esp. for kids and women of child bearing age...old guys like us, no one cares too much about so they up our eating limits

Oh and you (anyone) can send them pieces of meat for testing if you catch something above what they have data for...anything smaller than what they have should be better than size of fish. And as Drew said, if the smaller ones are higher, then it's almost certainly a lack of samples to test or it was by chance a smaller fish had higher levels...can happen depending on the size of the body of water and also if they are eating different things.

Flukes I completely agree. Us old guys just send it. ?

Also the smaller size just isn’t tested and would be as good or better than the first sample size. Bioaccumlation happens with age so bigger is worse. ??