June 18, 2017 — The ramblings of a Golf, Fishing, Gaming, and Fantasy Sports Fanatic.

Is it just me, or has the quality of video games gotten worse as the capability of consoles has gotten better?

I’ve owned a lot of systems over the years, and would qualify as an early adopter of my favourites. I waited in line on release day for Playstation 2, Playstation 3, XBOX 360, and Playstation 4. The anticipation of what’s capable with a more powerful system along with the release title hype that goes with it gets me amped. More often than not though I’m left sorely disappointed. PS4 was one of my greatest letdowns. For a year leading up to it’s release I absorbed as much information as I could like a sponge. I was especially interested in the launch title The Division by Ubisoft. I figured that game alone would make waiting in line to purchase it on opening day worthwhile. The PS4 release date was November 15, 2013. The Division got pushed back due to development issues, and was eventually released on March 7, 2016. The harsh part was that the delay wasn’t advertised, and then to make matters worse it kept getting pushed back for years. Was it even a good game when it finally did launch? In my opinion it was. It’s one of my favourite games on the PS4 to play cooperatively online. Actually the two games I planned on purchasing on PS4 release day we’re both pushed back. I settled for a couple others that are so forgettable they aren’t worthy of a mention. Month after month I’d buy new games. Just hoping that there would be something that begins to rival my favourite PS3, and XBOX 360 games. There wasn’t. At least not until September 30, 2014 when Warner Bros Interactive released Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. Till this day it remains as one of my favourite games.

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I’ve seen it on the PS3, and the difference is significant. I’ve never actually completed the game. If you hadn’t noticed by now, I have a lot of hobbies. I’ve started and restarted Shadow of Mordor 3 times. Only to be interrupted by something else before I complete it. I will finish it though. Especially now that the sequel has been announced.

My point of all this is, whether I will wait in line for the next generation of consoles when they ultimately release. To be honest, I seriously doubt it. No matter how much hype, incentives, or new technology goes into them. The reality is that next generation consoles require on average a year of software development before you actually begin to realize their potential. Even then you need to be careful about which titles you choose to invest in because even the larger developers release a fair amount of crap. Game developers will sometimes tease 5 or 6 new titles to be released in the following year. Be very wary of that. No matter how amazing their teaser trailer might look. Chances are extremely slim that they will be able to release 5 Marquee titles. Realistically they would be lucky to release 2 great games.

I used to play absolutely everything that showed even the slightest promise. At one point I operated my own store that held PS3, and XBOX 360 tournaments. Those days are no longer. The prices have gone up, while the average length of games have gone down. Most Developers used to release only one or two games a year. Now it’s unusual for a major Game Developer to release less than one per season. Increased competition from Application based cellphone games has meant that maintaining a reasonably active online presence for some games is difficult.

Has this soured my love for video games? Maybe just a little. Not enough to keep me from being excited about finally beating Shadow of Mordor. I remember when laserdisc games first appeared in Video Game Arcades. Dragon’s Lair was so unlike anything before it. I was one of those guys that people would stop whatever they were doing to watch me play it. I was one of the first guys at my local Arcade that memorized the moves required to beat it. So many of today’s games borrow from that original fairytale style of game. Some day there will be another Game Developer that takes games another giant leap forward. I’ll definitely be ready to play it.

I just won’t be first in line.

Would I consider myself a professional Angler?

HELL NO!

I don’t enter tournaments, own a boat, or have ever purchased high end equipment. I would consider myself an enthusiast. My wife loves fishing almost as much as I do. She never fished as a kid growing up so she’s still learning. Every catch she makes is full of excitement for her. We live in midtown Toronto so we are always looking for decent shore fishing spots in, and around the city. We have found a few. I’ll share them with you, along with what we caught in this blog. Over the summer we take a few day trips out of the city to fish as well. This year we are adding Peterborough, Sandbanks provincial Park, the Bay of Quinte, and Minden to our list of places to fish.

Our first drive out of the city this year was up to Guelph Lake. The Guelph Lake Park and Recreation area doesn’t open until 8:00am so we began our day at a great little spot I know of. It’s only about 5 minutes from the Guelph Conservation area entrance.

The road 29 marker at the center of the picture is the spot. The East side of the bridge is the better location but both sides will yield results. Having a small dingy to get further away from the road is a real advantage for landing some really good sized Bass. My wife and I just casted spinners and spoons for a couple hours from shore. There are a lot of snags so precise casting is necessary from the East side. If you can’t control your casts yet, then there are far more open areas on the West side of the bridge. We spotted a few decent sized Bass breaking the surface about 30 feet further in from where we were fishing. I hooked a Bass that immediately got under a downed tree and shook loose. The time we spent there wasn’t for naught though because my wife landed a Smallmouth Bass. Just a little guy, but it was her first Smallmouth so she was thrilled. We packed up, and headed over to the Guelph Lake Conservation area shortly after that. It did not disappoint. There’s a small dock a little ways in toward the island access in the Guelph Lake Conservation area. We parked there, walked over to the dock and began casting spinners. My third cast in I hooked a decent sized Largemouth Bass to start my day. It’s the one pictured at the top of the Post. My wife had a solid strike just a few minutes later but wasn’t able to set the hook quickly enough, and it got away. It was about another hour before I landed another similarly sized Largemouth. Already a good day by our standards. The real celebration would happen another couple hours later. Around 1:00pm I had worked my way a little further along the shoreline and found an access point where I could comfortably cast alongside the shoreline. Maybe 25 casts later I got a heavy strike and set the hook well. Fish On! I’m using an Ugly Stik spinning rod with 8lb test monofilament, and a size 3 Mepps spinner. By the time I brought the fish within eyesight after working it out of some branches and reeds I realized that it wasn’t another Largemouth Bass. It was a Pike. Not the largest Pike, or anything worth bragging about, but thrilling all the same. My whole reason for coming out to Guelph Lake was to hopefully land a Pike. I didn’t land a single Pike last year. Not even a strike actually. I’ve caught Pike in this area before, and there was a lot of talk of decent sized Pike being landed in Guelph Lake recently. My day was a total success. The wife was thrilled because she had never seen one caught before. There’s something about the sleek lines of a Pike that just makes you think it’s a fast capable fighter. Needless to say that my wife is now hell-bent on landing one herself. We fished for another couple hours but the Pike was our final catch at Guelph Lake.

We took the 124 to Erin where our favourite little Pizza place is. Whenever we are anywhere near Erin we will go a little out of our way to buy a Venezia Pizza. Their signature pizzas are excellent. There are a lot of great pizza places in Toronto. What makes Venezia Pizza that much better is the crust. Thin but not too thin. Crisp without being brittle. The taste actually adds that little extra zip whereas most pizza crust is just dull. We took it to go, and made our way to Belfountain to try our luck at my absolute favourite fishing spot as a kid.

At the corner of Shaws Creek and River roads there is an access that takes you down to the credit River. I have never left this spot without landing a fish. Usually a great spot for Brook Trout, we spotted a school making it’s way upstream. We were casting Yellow spotted Panther Martins upstream into the current, and slow retrieving them. Basically we were allowing the current to carry the lures past the school, and just reeling them fast enough to keep them off the bottom. Took about 30 minutes of casting but we both landed what I originally assumed was a couple good sized Brook Trout. It wasn’t until after I posted a picture to the Fishbrain app that I was informed that they were actually Atlantic Salmon. I was happy when I thought they were Trout. Realizing that they were actually Atlantic Salmon made it that much better. I’ve never fished for Salmon. I was planning on fishing for Salmon later this year. There’s an area on the Don River that very few people fish that they’ve been spotted the last few years.

If you are serious about fishing, and are looking for places to fish. I would strongly suggest that you download the Fishbrain app. The community is very active, and like me aren’t afraid to share great fishing spots.