A fishing pole is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool on the other

Part one:

I have returned from the Near-Artic none worse for wear, but with a fish story to tell.

The adventure started at about 4:00pm on Friday at Canadian Tire cause if you want to fish in Ontario you need a fishing license, a so called "Outdoors Card" issued by the Ministry of Natural resources and always available at CT.

The card has five spots on the back for your annual sticker, but needs to be renewed and replaced every three years at a cost of 6 dollars. I know what your thinking, why put five sticker spots on a card that needs to be replaced every three?. Eddie, from Not too Serious really needed to know the answer to that question so he called the Ministry from Canadian Tire. The Ministry rep explained that the doubles as a hunting license, which also needs an annual sticker, which of course would mean it should have six sticker spots, but that's another post and I'll leave it to Eddie to post it. God it was funny, especially since my card expired in 2003, yet I have the 2004 and 2005 stickers glued to the back, but I didn't wait until the last minute to renew. I did it earlier in the day.

So with fishing licenses in hand we headed north. Next stop, Casino Rama. It's kind of tradition. We stop in, lose a few bucks, sort of an offering to the First Nations for the fish we hope to take from what was up to a few hundred years ago, their lake. Well if my winning ways didn't carry into the casino. I won $133 on the first machine I sat at. Ethics and Eddie didn't fair so well. I continued to win, they won a little, I lost a few, then won some more.

All in all I think we were all up a little when we decided to leave and continue our trek north. Except Ethics said something about a system and a roulette table. A SYSTEM! Okay, Eddie and I said, lets see it. We tried to goat him into playing. He refused. We called him a pussy for about five minutes. He refused. We told him we'd put up the money. He played. Actually it was Eddie who sat at the table, but we decided to use Ethic's SYSTEM.

We started with $30. We put $15 on Red ($15 was the minimum). We won 2 to 1. Ethics said now bet black so Eddie bet black. I have to tell you I wasn't all that damned impressed when red came up again. Okay so we're back to what we started with. Ethic's said now bet black and then rambled on about probability. Red again! Okay his system wasn't worth shit. We decided to each play a number with our last $15. I played 9. I always play 9. Damn it's a 6. No wait. Are there 91 spots on that wheel? No there is not. That's not a 6, it's a a 9, that's 35 to 1. Oh what a feeling.

We cashed in our chips, split the money and headed out the door.

Steak diner. I needed a steak diner.

If you are ever in Huntsville Ontario, and are in need of a fantastic place to eat. I would recommend a little Pub called Michelle's on the main street. It was a small, owner operated joint with one guy behind the bar, one guy in the kitchen and a woman with a guitar. The food was amazing. (the best antipasto plate I've ever seen). I would also recommend the local micro-brew they had on tap. My steak was perfect. The shrimp that accompanied my steak were perfect, but they forgot to bring out butter for my mashed potatoes. The owner then returned from the kitchen and apologized that there was no more butter to be had, but would garlic butter be okay. Oh baby would it. Damn good meal.

We arrived, quite stuffed at our destination about two hours latter. With nothing better to do we decided to get drunk immediately. Which we did, and did well might I add.

By the way. The Scotch worked. It worked really well.

End of part one.