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I own two small businesses. One is a bodyshop that specializes in fleet business. Cabs, police cars, car dealer work etc. I have no website for it as "word of mouth" drives sales for that business. The business was built by knocking on doors and now it is on auto-pilot. The other business is a home inspection business and it is what I expect to do on into retirement. I've already unloaded most of the car stuff. I do have a website for the inspection business. It's more to add legitimacy to the business than it is to drive sales. I'm still going door to door to sell it. I received a box load of 2500 professionally printed discount coupons yesterday and today I visited eight real estate agencies and hand delivered them to them. I asked how many agents worked out of the office and I gave them each three coupons. I'll do this every day until the 2500 coupons are gone. 2500 cost me about $250. I need one sale to cover the cost, maybe two to cover gas. I have found that eyeball-to-eyeball sales is the most effective and people are more willing to take and keep a coupon than a business card or brochure. The reason I'm telling you this is that my website alone won't drive sales. I need to drive customers to my website and the most cost effective way that I have found is through direct mail and knocking on doors. Another way to drive people to my website is to pay "bird dogs" to do it for me. I can optimize my site by paying Google for top billing or any of a plethora of other search engine optimizing providers. That's not cheap. I can pay Yelp for top billing and that is more than $600 a month. I use Home Advisor and Thumbtack. H-A is about 275 a year but I have to pay about $18.00 a lead. I still have to close the lead. It's pricey but I can narrow down my marketing area using zip codes. Thumbtack leads cost about $2.00 per lead but the quality isn't very good and I can't pick and choose my marketing areas. I get a lot of leads in areas where I wouldn't go without a police escort. The size of the market for my product is limited to the number of people buying homes. If you are a very well known fisherman in your area, you may or may not have a bigger market than me. But nobody has to pay to view my site, except me. I went through all of that to give you an idea what I have to go through just to be seen and quote an inspection. The Inspection business is less than a year old and I get the most leads from knocking on doors and referrals. I'm competing against 6 other inspectors in my immediate area and in the 300+ other zip-codes where I do business. You are in a little bit of a different situation. You need to drive business to your site and get their money before they can view your content so you have an even bigger uphill climb than most. You're competing against all the free sites like Face Book which is riddled with free "local" fishing sites and Even BassResource.com. I've fished coast to coast and I the only way I would pay for local information is if I was fishing a tournament in a new spot and I needed inside info. How much is that worth? If I were to pay you, you would need some credentials like local tournament wins, a successful guide service, news paper articles etc. You'll need something that you can prove is worth the price of admission. The biggest lake in Maryland is Deep Creek and it's hard to fish but once you know the lake, you can expect good days on it. It took me three solid weeks of fishing everyday just to get an idea where and how to fish it. There is a website called Fishdeepcreek that is free. It was run by guides and started by the biggest guide service in the state. All the local anglers are regulars on the site. The site is going belly-up on Jan 1 and it has about 10 years worth of content in it. The biggest problem was that there weren't enough visitors to sell advertising and nobody was willing to pay to keep it going and not enough population in the area to make it viable. I'm new two BassRescource and what attracted me to it was two things: The great content and the price. I would suggest that if you start a site, make it free. Do a blog and write a lot of topical and constantly updated content. If you can get enough visitors, sell advertising on it. It's about selling again, business is always about selling. Great ideas still need great salesmen. If you do a free Facebook or YouTube site and it's successful, advertisers will pay you for ad space. If it isn't successful, you wouldn't have been able to sell subscriptions anyway so nothing ventured. Ask local guide services, hotels, baitshops, boat rental places etc to support the site and link them. It's pretty easy. Edison invented the light bulb but Tesla made it work, sold it and actually made money off of it. For my website, I use Bluehost as my web-host and Weebly as my provider. Because it's easy for a Luddite like myself. It costs me about $400.00 every two years. I can easily update Weebly and I do a couple times a week. I don't know the first thing about anything computer related and I was able to build a decent enough site with all the links I require. I have the option to take payPal or CC transactions, for a fee on it also. I get no optimization or tracking data at that price. That would easily cost you that much each month. But it's simple. Picture uploading is easy and they have lots of free templates, including Blog templates. Sorry this is so long winded. Neil

I have about 20 PMs all saying the same thing. No reason to think I don't know about this. The fix is not easy nor fast. It may take a few weeks to sort it out. Thanks for your patience!

There is nothing you can do other than to continue to love him. I am an alcoholic/drug addict. Been clean and sober for 14 years. There wasn't a person on this planet that could have gotten me sober. I had to do it myself with the help of OTHER alkys/drug addicts. I had to decide whether to be a person that wasn't going to live very long and die in the gutter or be a Father/Productive member of society. I chose well. Some don't. Getting sober was by far the hardest thing I've ever done but holy moly was it worth it. There is NOTHING you can do to convince him to get clean. Stop trying. Doesn't mean you should stop loving him, it just means don't bug him, don't enable him, don't "help" him if he doesn't want it. If the addiction feels threatened by you, he will cut you out of his life.What I am telling you is a very hard thing to do but you have to cut him loose. Hopefully he will hit bottom and that bottom doesn't kill him. It sounds very harsh but that's the way it is. I've known a lot of people that only stopped at death. I've also known MORE people that hit bottom and then stopped digging that hole and found their way into the light. and that light is a glorious place to be. Now if I can only find a bait monkey 12 step program. I wish you luck and peace

Mine arrived today and I'm doing my best to resist, but it's like it's calling my name...

I had a bunch, they're not the same thing.

Hey folks! If you've been around here long enough, then you know this is the time of year I introduce major design and functional improvements to the site. Today is one of those days. By now you're noticed the forums look a little different. I've introduced a "refresh" of the forums with a cleaner look. I've also made changes to the navigation menus to reduce clutter and make it easier to move about the site. Plus, you'll notice we have a little contest going on. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, and you'll be automatically entered for a chance to win a $250 Bass Pro Shops gift certificate to spend how you choose! Enjoy! Glenn

I go to great lengths to retrieve all my baits, but I'd do about anything to get this one back.

just b there when he asks for help, only he can changes his situation. i spent about 10years on that same path & now have had about 15years on a much better path!

Snipe Hunter, welcome to Bassresource. Thanks for your above comprehensive post. It makes the point very clearly that there are few shortcuts when it comes to business, whether brick and mortar or online.

Sorry to hear that.My daughter has had drug addictions for years.I have prayed and kept loving her even though. She is slowly getting better.With her,the successes have come slowly over a long period of time instead of all at once. Enabling can be a problem.If they can stay home and have all their needs met and remain an addict then they usually will . Without sounding like I'm preaching,I recommend the Lord.He knows and cares.He is making the difference for my daughter and me and I'll be praying for your son and you.Whats his name?

Thank you to whoever is in Frisco, Texas. I couldn't find a name. A nice selection and variety.

Well, I always answer the question of "what is your favorite (rod / reel)" the same way: "the one with the big honkin' bass on the end of the line"... BUT, if I had to answer the question as intended, I couldn't - there are just too many great models that have been produced over the years. SO, I will identify a "group" of reels as my favorites (and following the lead of several earlier posters) and say that my favorite ones are the ROUND ONES...

When using on a phone it makes the screen wider. When I look at my notifications I have to scroll to the right. No biggie though

I'm hearing some info out of CA that a 10.80 fish was taken recently by FLW pro Cody Meyer. Pictures are impressive. Congrats to Mr Meyer. https://www.facebook.com/CodyMeyerAngler/ A-Jay

I live in Miami where there is no off season.

Expect a package from TW Jared F! Hope you enjoy santa's choices.!

Just saw some speed spools in the bargain cave for $69.99. http://www.cabelas.com/product/bargain-cave/new-this-week/boating-fishing|/pc/105591780/c/105633180/sc/105638580/lew-s-reg-laser-reg-pro-speed-spool-reg-baitcasting-reel/1794273.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Fboating-fishing%2F_%2FN-1102644%2FNs-CATEGORY_SEQ_105638580

My grandfather hand carved a spoon out of abalone shell that a friend of his gave him. He used it many times before he passed away about 10 years. My grandmother recently passed it along to me. Not only do I refuse to lose that lure, I refuse to let it leave the house. Not only a beautiful hand made lure, but a memory of the times he took me fishing when I was little.

One of my wife's brothers...a bitter addict. Very sad situation. Sorry, @Bass Turd for your struggles, you are definitely not alone. Even so, I can't imagine your pain with it being your son. I grew up a PK "Pastor's Kid" and saw a number of drug addicts grace our doorways, one or two made it, the rest ... no idea. Grace to you and your son. I wish I had more and better things to say, but I don't. And for that I'm sorry, no words will take the pain away....

None taken.. and I know you're right.. But... you and I both know people make their own decisions. You know you didn't do everything the way your dad wanted you to.. when people get to that certain age they don't want to be told what to do or how to live anymore. They think they know best... they want to live the way they want to live. It is their life. And although this is horrible, it is not your fault sir.

I fight the battle every day of blaming myself but I did make mistakes and I take responsibility for it,but she also made a lot of bad choices ,but she mostly sees it my way now.I try to give it to Him when I get burdened by it.You also have an enemy that will try every day to load you will guilt.It doesn't help and is not productive to blame yourself. I'll be praying for Garrett and you.Please let me know if I can help and keep me posted.Feel free to send me a pm if you want. Mike

Man, this was hard to read. You nailed it on the head when you said, " He will not stop until HE wants to stop". This does not mean you have failed. We all make our own decisions in life.

Looks good on my computer, but the mobile version takes a lot more scrolling than the previous.

No, but she's the reason I was there. Apparently it was his final tour....I had no idea he was still alive. But, for never owning an album and never actively listening to him, I think I knew 90% of the songs. Finger or toe?

Thought I would try my hand at whittling, carving with just a pocket knife. A little rough, but it's a start. Hootie

1989 Bullet 17Vee with an old 1989 Evinrude 150 XP.

I have an addiction for hand tied hand made jigs and will tie anything that has a hook, Let's see your homemade hand tied creations........Here area few of the thousands I have tied. 6" and 1 oz. Gizzard Shad 1/4 oz. P-Nut head bucktail and living rubber 1/8 oz Foxtail Modified Poison Tail Jig to free swing 1/4 oz. P-Nut head with living rubber Modified Poison Tail jig Sworming Hornets tied with craft hair.......killer in the fall on flats. Drop shot hair fly

My attempt to revive the joke thread: As I was packing for a business trip, my three year old sat on the edge of my bed, joyfully playing by herself. After a short, quiet spell, she turned to me and exclaimed as she held up two fingers: "Look daddy!" In an attempt to keep her occupied, I replied: "Dady is going to eat those little fingers" and put her fingers in my mouth. I left the room to get some grooming items to pack and upon my return, my daughter sat bewildered, looking at her hand. "What's the matter, honey?" I asked her Still staring blankly at her fingers, she replied: "What happened to my bugger?"

Well.....I got 2 girls. And without trying to sound like a bad ass, I'm 6'1" and about 290. Some fat, yes, but not all. I have a 60" chest and a fairly surly disposition. I cannot remember the last time another man challenged me in anger and when I've been introduced to young men that were interested in my girls, all I ever saw was the draining away of color from their faces and usually a *gulp* in their throats. I never really found the need to actually tell any young man of the kind of damage I could do him.....he could see it my body and eyes. Your friend is a moron. I should also note that I am of Italian descent and all my kids friends have always made the assumption that I am in the Mafia. I live in Northern Missouri, for God's sake, but I never discouraged those rumors. My daughters, of course, loved it because they didn't really ever need to be afraid of any kid. lol

Wow..I would say welcome to the site, but I get the impression you don't care. If you are looking into monetizing ANYTHING, I would look at your approach first. You have thousands of potential customers right here that you have possibly turned off with your initial offering to this site. Good luck.

Got this guy on one of the small trout magnets. The pic in my AV is what the jig head looked like after. Broke my rod tip getting him out of the canal, but it was worth it to catch my first smallie in the middle of Washington DC.

I feel for you sir. I too have a son who is an addict. Started with an addiction to opioids after an accident he had in which he broke his wrist, he was 17yrs old then. My ex and I always thought he was doing pot, and although we didn't like fact of him doing weed we just dealt with it. Took many yrs for us to realize the problem was much worse. At 31 yrs old and after a break up with a long time girlfriend and upon moving in with his mom did the severity of the problem come to full light. While my ex wife was putting some of his clothes away she discovered needles and small packets. That was 2 yrs ago. When we confronted him with the evidence, he had no choice but to admit to it and after a few days he agreed to check into a detox. Checked himself out after a few days, came back home and appeared to be OK, attending meetings, accompanied with myself and or his mom. We were fooled again. We again discovered needles in his room, and couldn't get up and go to work. With this getting progressively worse we went to the courts and had him sectioned as a danger to himself. They put him away for a month. Over the course of the last yr he has met another girl that he loves, they have moved into an apartment together. She too had an addiction problem, hers was alcohol. On the surface they appear to be very happy together. I know for a FACT my son has had a couple of stumbles along the way, but he has managed to pick himself up and dust himself off and get back on track. This girl, his work, along with a loving family and good friends are his salvation, but when I know he is dabbeling in something I never sugar coat it, and make it known that I know. He is now 33 yrs old, I'm in frequent contact with him and I know at times it annoys him, but I tell him I love him, and I'm his Dad and always will be, and it is my job as a parent. He has thanked his mom and I a number of times for sectioning him, and acknowledges that everyday is a struggle. All we can do as parents is hold them near, love them, laugh and cry together, and let them know you're there anytime day or night. I pray for you and your son and wish you all the very best.

I know some B.A dudes with daughters lol. It's just how it goes.. when I found out my girlfriend was expecting, of course I wanted a boy... who doesn't ? But now that she's here... I dont wish she was a boy at all... she's been callin me daddy for over 2 months now. And it's the best thing in my life by far..

Send the photo to Mike Shaw and maybe he has one to send you, less the memories, never know! Tom

this is not your fault brother. i know people who have raised their kids in a loving home, this kid grows up with no problems, that kid has problems. how did this happen? same rules, same love, same everything. there is no rhyme or reason. you do the best you can, then they become independent minded, and it is up to them to live their own lives. you said it earlier. the choice is his to make. all the money, rehab, or enabling wont change a thing til HE says so. when you get to the end of your rope tie a knot and hang on. God bless you

At age ***, I worked at the local drug store stocking shelves and such. Being inquisitive about things, my sticky fingers provided me with a twelve pack of condoms for examination. My curiosity was quenched upon opening the first pack. Unable to return the open package, a friend and I decided to make reusable snow balls (they actually looked like fat sausages) and throw them at passing cars. We could then retrieve them and repeat the 'fun.' The second car to pass was my target and as I let fly, I noticed the elderly lady behind the wheel and momentarily felt a little ashamed as my 'snow sausage' was about to hit her windshield. It didn't, however bounce off as anticipated, but stuck to the wiper arm waving back and forth as she passed. I had to go home and change my pants as I literally soiled them from laughing so hard.

You listen to a lot of "queen" back in the day? You were probably stoned when you bought that album.

It is written that we will all suffer and be persecuted for our beliefs. Keep the faith, we are praying

I lost my 2 best friends growing up to drugs. One died of an overdose, the other was dealing and had a deal go bad, guy shot him in the face and left him. It's horrible to see someone you care about in the grips of addiction. I hope your son decides he wants to get help.

Hell, I wore Gene Simmon shoes back in the 70s! They called them "stacks". Had about four inch heels on em.

Rapala original floating minnow & rapala husky jerk. Rebel floating minnow. Ima flit in the floater version. Bomber long A & bomber 15A. Lucky craft flash minnow.

Abu Garcia Black Max for sure. Best reel for the price and a great reel all around!

I like the user name area being a different color so its easier to distinguish between posts when scrolling quick.

Trying to improve at a technique” is probably always a good idea. The more tools one has in their tool box, the more diverse an angler may be. Something to consider is the environment / habitat you’re fishing. When looking at this, there are a decent list of factors that come into play. These may help one determine in advance if & when a certain technique / presentation is a viable option. Without going down the list, it’s the same considerations one might use to effectively select the presentations you’re using now. As @Fishes in trees so eloquently stared above “fishing skills are transferable from technique to technique" – and I’d agree with that; unless one is in the very early stages of an angling life. So building your “tool box” is often a cumulative evolution. As is often the case, results encourage commitment and a lack of feedback can undermine determination. Perhaps “learning to fish a frog” in 30 ft of open crystal clear water might not be the way to go. But put that same bait in the lily pads you might get your arm broke. I’ll admit that this is a bit of an over the top example, but I think it highlights my next point. And that is learning as much about where you plan to fish a new (or any bait) in advance can be worthwhile. Additionally, knowing as much about the bait, technique or presentation as you can; as far as where it is usually effective can help. The old saying “match the hatch” is one we hear a lot of. I’ll submit that match the presentation is a good one too – for all baits & presentations not just new ones. Finally, not every bait, technique & presentation is effective in every body of water. Some places for whatever reason, the fish do not respond to some baits / techniques. I have no idea why but it sure seems that although a bass is a bass, in some lakes I fish they will crush one thing where the same deal on a lake two miles away goes untouched. I have lakes that I have designated as “a jig lake” while still others have proven that “Topwater doesn’t play there”. So selecting where & when you try “the next new one” may be more than just tying it on and winging it out there. Good Luck A-Jay

While your perception is your reality and I can certainly respect that, it's not mine. The great thing about this country, & especially this site, is we all get to post whatever we want (within the forum rules of course). Each member's personal reasons for doing so may, again, be perceived differently. Can't really control that nor do I choose to. And so just to be clear here, my personal reason for replying to your specific post today was to say that I completely understand your desire to "want some buckage" for your most valuable fishing knowledge, yet you're willing to ask the forum here to offer up that same type of info just because you asked. Best of luck to you. A-Jay

I totally disagree with this assessment. The people that offer best advice often back that up with results. It's not always an ego stroke.

I'll have to apologize, I've had my package for 2 days now but just realized it! The woman, has so many boxes around the house I didn't even realize it came in. (The fact that it came in a full size box threw me off as well lol) I want to send out a HUGE thank you and merry Christmas to bassnchris. He went far above and beyond and it is very much appreciated!

These Trokars are awesome sharp. 1/8head with a 4" Keitech

Pan fish! For bass, I am strictly catch and release. But I love frying up some bluegill, pumpkinseed, crappie and perch!

I see several posts where guys go to great effort to get lures with ultra realistic paint jobs. So why is it that the lures with all the paint scraped off catch so many fish?