Man this is a crap time of year, especially for a bass fisherman. The ice is still on most lakes yet the air spews the smell of waiting gamefish.

Just pulled my boat out of storage and have to clean it up, top up the fluids, add my new GPS on it and probably get it to the marina for a spring tune-up. It usually takes me a full day in the spring to meticulously fine-tooth-comb “ol’ Pro” but time goes by quick listening to tunes from the truck, suckin’ back a couple of coolies and maybe puffin’ a Cuban!

Our new Princecraft for the TV show is also in and being prepped at Central Outboards. Can’t wait to cut the shrink wrap on that baby! A bit of work there too with electronics, rod holders, tweaking etc. We ordered it with a Verado. We had one on one of our deck boats and they really are a sweet motor. Very slick and apparently now, very close in performance to the “speedy” 2 strokes. The hull is a 198… pure fish’n machine my friends! With a little 9.9 Bigfoot beside the Verado, we be rockin’

Also I’ve slowly been re-stocking the tackle boxes… man what a chore that is. Replacing lost/broke/used-too-much baits is more like a job than a hobby. It freaks me out when I go into something like a Senko box in the spring and see just how many empty sections there are. Did I use that many baits??? Obviously so! I’m also going to use some of the newer baits on the market and hopefully be able to give you a report later in the year. For anyone living in the Oshawa/Whitby/Ajax area or to the east, if you haven’t heard of “The Rock” (Rock & Reel), check them out, they’ve got a great supply of gear for a small place. You can also grab lunch there. It’s right across from the Oshawa Shopping Center.

I’m waiting for the ice to leave on some of my Crappie spots. Believe it or not, Scugog is one of them. There are some really nice slabs in the Bog, it’s just a matter of finding a spot that the “fish mongers” with buckets haven’t raped and pillaged yet. Unfortunately still to this day, some people have the need to keep everything they catch and it shouldn’t work that way. When I go Crappie fishing I consider who will eat the fish; my wife, 2 little kids and me. 10 – 20 fish max will fill our bellies and probably for 2+ meals. Shame on the guilty culprits.

As you people get out on the water, please let me know how you do somewhere on my blog area.

Good luck, be safe and enjoy the up-coming season.

I’m not sure if any of you tuned into our radio show a couple of weeks ago when we had Wil Wegman on. He gave us the rundown on this years Bass Masters Classic. Wil (as he does every year) sits in with some of the competitors as a press reporter throughout the event.
One statement he made on our radio show was about a day he sat in with Aaron Martin and how the fish were caught. Aaron sat over 40 feet of water and vertically fished Largemouth Bass. Now if that wasn’t amazing enough, apparently Aaron was fishing a culvert. I asked Wil how he knew it was a culvert and he wasn’t sure. I asked if Aaron used a camera but Wil said the competitors aren’t allowed underwater cameras during the event.
Maybe he used one pre-fishing??

I finally asked Wil that after experiencing multiple days in a boat with the absolute best of the best in the Bass world, could Canadian pros stay with, keep up to, hold a candle to the American heroes?
He said we could.
I have my opinion but I’d like to hear our fans first; gimme’ your thoughts…

Just got back from the beautiful country of Cuba; the wife and I haven’t gone south for 7 years so we were well over due! We packed the bags, left the kids and took off.

No, I didn’t do any fishing!

Our destination was Playa Turquesa near Holguin, a very nice resort if you want to get away from the major partiers etc. The food was good and the cigars and beverages were as you would expect, outstanding! The resort is huge and very clean.

I really love the Cuban people. Even if you travel to this great country and your resort sucks, the locals will definitely leave a smile on your face.

We have now been to Veradero and Holguin and personally we would go back to Veradero (they’re both great though).

We did a jeep tour one day and it was great! We got our own jeep, drove through the country side as well as towns, went jet skiing, horseback riding, pulled on an ox-driven wagon, stopped at some local sites and had a spectacular lunch at a cliff side restaurant.

Just a few notes:

While at Pearson Airport in Toronto I thought I would ask about getting Cuban Peso’s. The lady at the exchange place recommended that I buy Euro dollars and take them to Cuba that way I will loose less of a percentage when there. Sounded good at the time so I changed a couple hundred bucks (209 Canadian got me 125 Euro) When I got to Cuba (exchange booth at the airport) I got about 150 Pesos. The other Canadians that did a straight exchange of 200 Canadian got over 180 Pesos. Somewhere along the line I took it for around 40 bucks; not a lot but that’s 4 nice Cohiba’s I didn’t get to puff. Luckily I didn’t cash the whole wad in Toronto. The moral is just bring your Canadian $ to Cuba and exchange it at your hotel. They have the best rates and it’s convenient.

Do not rent mopeds from Via at your resort. We rented one, drove to the town of Guardalavaca only to have it break down 15km from our resort. Due to the lack of communication with the locals we couldn’t get ahold of our hotel however we did manage to get a cab. Leisa took the cab back to the resort, the Via rental people sent 2 guys back to get the moped and left me there waiting for yet another cab. I returned to the resort and asked buddy for my money back… including cab fare! He only wanted to give me back the money for the moped. Luckily the 2 Gomaz’s that picked up the broken down moped gave me the key to give back to the resort. I kept the key in my room safe until El Cheapo would cough up at least a bit more. Ultimately (with the help of a local travel agent) I got 1 cab fare and the rental back from him and I swear he wanted to rip my little head off (this dude was one of the biggest Cubans I’ve ever seen… hands like a gorilla and arms like pillars!) The agent told me that he also doesn’t recommend renting from Via; too many bad stories.

Aside from these couple of minor experiences the rest of the trip was great. We met a bunch of people and they were all fantastic. I couldn’t believe the people that came up and asked if I was the fishing guy… there was even a guy from England who watches the show. If any of you are reading this, the pleasure was mine!

To the rest of the readers, if you’re thinking of going to Cuba… go!!!