Catchy tunes: Homepage of the Swim Drink Fish Music Club, this month featuring new music from Dave Bidini of the Rheostatics

Like music as much as fishing? Then you’re sure to be interested in The Swim Drink Fish Music Club, a music Web site developed by environmental group Lake Ontario Waterkeeper to raise money to “fight for swimable, drinkable, fishable water in the community.”

Exclusive new songs are created by musicians who care about clean water, and are uploaded to the site once a month. Artists including Broken Social Scene, Sarah Harmer, Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip, Chris Brown and Bruce Cockburn have all contributed exclusive songs.

September’s featured artist is Dave Bidini, one of the founding members of the band Rheostatics. Bidini, an avid angler and accomplished author as well (Outdoor Canada published a piece of his in May 2007), has uploaded a suite of 30 short songs about Lake Ontario. Says Bidini of the project:

“A lot of the songs are about living close to water – youthful summers on Toronto Island; a misspent teenagehood hanging out at the Leslie Street spit; as an adult sailing with my dad out of the Etobicoke yacht club– as well as the polluted soup that is our city’s lake. Almost all of the pieces here were created through the ‘instant song’ technique– basically writing and singing whatever came into my head– although a few were more obviously crafted. Whatever the case, enjoy, and please help support the Waterkeepers. I do and will and will continue to, evermore.”

Bidini’s songs will be available to both members and non-member of the site, though only members will be able to download all 30 tunes. Of course, an annual membership costs just $10, and promises to include more than 50 songs, uploaded monthly, which can be downloaded and played on any portable music device. (You can expect music from the likes of Apostle of Hustle, Attack in Black, Emma Lee, Ghost Bees, Gord Downie with The Sadies, Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers, Holy Fuck, Land of Talk, Matt & Jill Barber, Neko Case, Ohbijou and Wintersleep in the future.) Plus, you’ll be helping a great angling-related cause.

Hunters out there who are accuracy junkies are sure to appreciate the latest online

Going ballistic: A sample screen shot of Winchester's new online calculator

ballistics calculator. Winchester Ammunition launched its new, free Ammunition Ballistics Calculator about a month ago. It allows users to choose their type of ammo and compare up to five different Winchester products with easy-to-read, high-tech ballistics charts and graphs. User can also customize shooting conditions by entering wind speed and temperature, adjust zero marks for sighting in, and then print the ballistics for later reference at the range or in the field.

Fans of Winchester products are sure to also enjoy the other new free downloads available from the company’s Web site, including desktop wallpaper, scorecards and targets. To access them, all you have to do is sign up to Winchester’s free “Red W Club.” Both the ballistics calculator and the downloads are just the kind of stuff to tide you over until your season opens.

Are you smarter than a fifth-grade angler? You can test your knowledge of angling in Alberta by taking the new fishing quiz online at www.mywildalberta.com. The quiz is primarily aimed at kids ages 15 and under, who, if they score enough points, can win one of 200 Special Walleye Licences to catch and keep three walleye from either Newell Lake near Brooks or Pigeon Lake near Edmonton. Says Ted Morton, the province’s minister of sustainable resource development, of the initiative:

“We want more youth to discover fishing as a great way to experience the outdoors and have some fun. Fishing also shows kids their connection to our natural environment so they can develop a sense of stewardship for our fish resources now and in the future.”

The quiz will still be available for anglers of all ages after all the licences have been won, so  adult anglers can prove they’re smarter than a fifth-grade angler. Or not. Take the test and see.

If you’re a hunter who likes to get a little off-season action playing hunting video games—or if you’re just a fan of hunting video games—you may be interested in checking out the new free online game “The Hunter.” Launched earlier this year, “The

In the crosshairs: A screen shot from "The Hunter"

Hunter” promises realistic hunting action for small and big game, as well as a social-networking function that allows you to meet other gamers to compare virtual and real trophies. While I haven’t had a chance to play the game—it’s only available for PCs, and I work and play on a Mac—by and large, the reviews from respected gaming media are very positive, particularly in terms of the game’s stunningly beautiful graphics and its promise of “realistic hunting action.” Writes Will Herring for GamePro:

“You begin your adventure by selecting your weapons, ammunition, lures — even canned smoke so you can tell which way the wind’s blowing. After selecting a drop-point, the game is pretty much your oyster. Flexible to all styles of hunting, you can spend hours tracking animal droppings and noises, or lay low and try to lure animals to your location — it’s all up to you. The feeling of successfully tracking my first deer, even if it was about 3 AM in the morning, was fantastic; hours of watching for buck tracks, using my HuntersMate GPS system to analyze and locate the creature’s last known location… when I finally came eye to eye with the beast, it was simply fantastic, and a genuine experience that I haven’t felt in a game of any genre for quite some time.”

And says Michael Grimm for GamesRadar:

“The Hunter aims for realism, and any trigger happy twitch FPSer that plans on racking up monster kills with a rocket launcher is going to go home empty handed. The bulk of the game is spent running around the reserve on your own, looking for clues as the player slowly narrows down the search radius. Given how elusive the animals are in the game, it’s a pretty big deal once you actually spot one, and the level of tension once it’s in the sights is huge. Knowing that an hour of tracking and creeping around through the bush all rests on one shot is incredibly nerve wracking but rewarding.”

Sounds like “The Hunter” is indeed fairly realistic. And it just might tide you over until you can hit the field for real.

Talk about dedication to a craft. Fourteen-year-old avid angler and artist Ziggy Linklater

January 3: Sockey Salmon

of Burnaby, B.C., is drawing a fish a day and posting them on his blog (www.afishdaily.blogspot.com). That’s a couple of Ziggy’s works down the right-hand side of the screen. The project stemmed from a challenge Ziggy’s parents issued at the beginning of the year: do something everyday for the entire year that would help Ziggy excel at that one thing. Naturally, the passionate artist who loves to fish, decided to combine the pursuits.

January 31: Catfish

Writes Ziggy:

I like drawing so that was the first step. Then I decided to take it a step further and draw something specific everyday. I chose fish for one reason. I am not particularly that good at drawing them and maybe if I draw one everyday for the entire year I will draw them well. Some days the fish suck and other days they are pretty good. But all that counts is that I am continuously drawing a fish everyday for 365 days.

Indeed, Ziggy’s amassed quite a collection of styles and mediums of piscatorial art in the first third of the year. I’m certainly going to stop by Ziggy’s blog regularly to see the latest catch of the day.

Rapala has made some very funny television ads over the years (my personal

Catchy: Rapala's Extreme Net Men ad micro site

favourite is the one where you see a guy falling out of a float plane and the voice over says: “Don’t be the guy who forgets the Rapalas.”), and it’s new Extreme Net Men series of ads are hilarious. Check them out at http://www.extremenetmen.com/

.

Props to Pike Slayer on the Ontario Fishing Network forum (a popular online community I regularly visit), for bringing the ads to my attention. His thread also included replies with links to some other comical fishing ads. Check these out:

Minn Kota ad

Bass getaway

Got a favourite fishing or hunting ad yourself? Please share.

Outdoor Canada readers regularly e-mail the magazine photos of fishing feats, and every once in a while we get a line on a particularly astonishing achievement. Take for example, the following message (and photo) I recently received from Robert Mercer of Calgary:

The real story? Manitoba lodge owner Tim Matheson in 2006

“Being a subscriber to your magazine I thought that I would send you this pic that a friend sent to me knowing that I had spent some years working in Labrador City. I do not know the gentleman in the picture, Tom Turnbull, but he is one fortunate fisherman. I have fished in that area, namely the Ashuanipi River, which is close to the QNS&L railway line used to ship iron ore from Labrador. Labrador City and the Wabush area are easily accessible by commercial airways, and there is wonderful hunting and fishing in that area.”

An impressive catch to be sure. Curiously, however, editor Patrick Walsh had shown me the very same picture a week or so earlier. He’d received it from a friend who reported a completely different set of facts regarding where and when the fish had been caught.

Of course, when Patrick first showed me the image, I immediately recognized it as one that had made the rounds in late 2006 soon after the fish was actually hooked and released—by a Manitoba lodge owner named Tim Matheson. (See the real details here: www.brooktrout.ca/manitoba-record-brook-trout.htm.)

It’s not the first time Outdoor Canada has seen a awesome image hit the viral e-mail circuit. In fact, I wrote a story about a number of them a couple of years ago (“Web of lies,” Summer 2005).

The lesson here? The next time a buddy sends you a picture of some incredible catch, don’t necessarily fall hook line and sinker for the accompanying story. Do some poking around on the Web, and you’re sure to find other tales of the image’s origins, if not the real story.

Oh, and be sure to forward the image my way. And if you haven’t discovered the truth, I’ll gladly go fishing for it.