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I'm very fortunate...we just had our 45 anniversary and as far life has gone it has had it's ups and downs. Thought I should try and sell the boat a couple times due to lifes little bumps and ohhhhhhhhh....she got kinda ugly. You will "NOT" sell the boat .... I don't give a $#@!. Things always seem to work out...Praise God She's my favorite and best keeper.

I can tell you most do not appreciate the gift of tackle. I just got a boat for my wife. Best trade I ever made

Brand new type of video for us. Hope you enjoy it!

It's where you go to ride a 1/2 bike with women in tights ? I have 2 spinning rods on deck. One for wacky and one dropshot. Everything else is BC...I have been told, I am better with my thumb than my finger.....

Had a buddy stop by on his way to work and checked things out. My biggest issue is not using my thumb properly and taking my eye off the lure as it hits water. Reel is fine. Pretty funny watching him adjust and literally flip that thing 5 times with serious distance to have him say, "Well, it ain't your equipment." I cast a few times birds nest free until I hit a branch and FRAZZZZZLE... But I have a better understanding. You all are an awesome source of knowledge and support! Eric J

My Dad bought an RV a couple weeks ago and had it out on its first trip over the Father's Day weekend. My buddies dad was nice enough to take us out on Smith Mountain Lake For the day. Its just my luck to go to the premier smallmouth lake in VA, and not catch a single smallie. Day started out pretty decent. We worked some top water baits in a cove then moved out into main lake and started working a point not far from the ramp. Found fish out in the middle busting on bait but they didn't want a top water lure. Caught my first and best of the day (2.5ish) on a jekbait suspending in 90 FOW. My buddy and his dad pulled a couple small striper and got one tiny smallmouth. Late morning the lake got super busy with jet skis, pleasure boats, and pontoons everywhere. Not a speck of wind all day but we dealt with three foot rollers the entire time. The chop out in main lake made it nearly impossible to fish out there. I managed a couple more 1.5 lb largies on a Texas rigged Rage swimmer on an island drop off near the main channel later in the afternoon, but we never could find a consistent bite anywhere. Gonna call it a good day. We had fun (despite the 95° heat) caught a few fish on a lake we've never fished before, and nobody got tossed overboard (even though I was mighty close to it a couple times)!

HA! I tried to say that once. My wife ended up counting her pairs of shoes. 43. She said I have way more lures than that.

First one of the season on the rat First one in 2 years on a chatterbait

Solid one from Lake Boon a couple weeks ago. No scale. Pushed 22”.

My PB, caught it on my honeymoon a few weeks ago.

Bluegills....

I can tell you that you have to buy additional mapping software if you want a decent chart. A lot of people love the birds, I went with a Garmin echomap plus series and feel that I got a better value. Just something to consider. I was dead set on a helix 5 or 7 because my buddy got one and I was impressed. However, I ended up with the Garmin after I spent some time in a store playing with them. The touch screen, ease of use, no additional money for mapping software, and the screen size led me to purchase the Garmin. Before pulling the trigger, I would highly recommend getting some hands on time with them in a store. It's worth the drive and time to really nail down what you want. Make sure to go through the menu systems and simulate how you would use them on the water. Personally I felt that the helix menu system was a little bulky and cycling through the choices was time consuming always hitting the back button. With that said, I think the Helix side imaging is just a tad better than Garmin's but it wasn't enough for me to justify the cost premium. That's just my $0.02 though.

If you're not losing lures, you're probably not fishing the right spots.

Bad A-Jay! Bad!

Do you think you invented that line of reasoning? I've been married almost 40 years. I'm way ahead of you.

Freedom Flag Foundation (Google them...)

Best Fathers/ Grandfathers day ever

Took a quick morning fishing trip on Father's Day. Smallmouth Bass were gone at my local shore spots but the Bluegill were bedding. I used a Leland Trout Slayer jig dragged onto their beds to get them going. When they picked up the jig to remove it from the bed I set the hook and reeled them in.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads on here and also to all the moms who have to be daddy too, if there's any on here. Well for Father's Day, today, My niece, Amber, her husband Jacob, their 2 kids Brantley and Ariel and my brother in law Warren all went to Cross Lake this morning to do some fishing from his boat. We had lots of fun, got a few bites with nothing to show. Got to try my new baits. Threw the prop frog, had a blowup, but somehow he missed it. Threw my chatterbaits, nothing doing again. So I threw my new 3/8oz green pumpkin swinging swim jig with a bama bug Rage Craw trailer it got bit but the fish came off. My hand was wet and slipped when I set the hook, had him hooked for about a second or two but couldn't keep my hand dry enough to quit slipping. Was a nice one, definitely had some weight to it. Oh well, we can't catch em all...lol! Stayed with that bait since it got hit the hardest and it was smashed by this 3lb 3oz hawg. That's Brantley my great nephew in one of the pics holding her up. He's 5 years old and thought it was totally awesome. Wasn't long afterwards, everybody but me wanted to leave and go home. Needless to say, I was out voted. Hope you fathers caught a hawg or better today! God Bless! ?

Someone requested one of my grips again. This is a variant of the design i did on @Lucky Craft Man's Sage ESN. It went out in the mail today.

Its that time of year again. The Noxen Rattlesnake Roundup is going on in Noxen, PA. Got up there today and took some pictures.

Hey guys got a solution for you that worked for me tonight.I was reorganizing my tackle bags and my wife was watching me saying omg you could open up a tackle store,I don't think you need to buy any lures any time soon ,so I paused for a moment and said to her honey it's like how you woman buy shoes and purses and she looked at me and said I totally understand it makes me happy that you enjoy fishing basically what she said she's gonna keep buying shoes and purses and I can keep buying lures and gear ? That's what you call quick thinking ?

As mentioned above, one way to stop one type of backlash is to use your thumb to slow and stop the spool before it hits the water. But there's another type of backlash to take into consideration that happens before the lure hitting the water causes an overrun. We know that when the spool is unwinding faster than the lure is moving and the line slacks is when the line starts to birds nest. This can hap[pen when you try to cast too hard and you get too handsy or wristy. With a spinning reel, often it's that snap combined with the powerful arm movement that gets you more distance. That motion is pretty much a no-no with a baitcaster. For me, when I want to cast far with a baitcaster I decrease the brakes a bit and make sure I use a long, smooth casting motion rather than trying to muscle it. At this point, 100% of my overruns and birds nests come from getting too handsy and trying to muscle the lure out there. One more thing - don't be afraid to adjust the brakes slightly along with the tension for different lure types. You'd be surprised how far (with the proper weighted lure) you can cast a baitcaster by adjusting the brakes and being smooth and easy.

You must admit, that Slug-O is not easily categorized : ) and probably way less popular then it should be !

You are correct but to me a Slug-go is more like a Fluke

It is better to ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission.

You will often read (or be told) to fill your spool full to achieve maximum distance... bull-fertilizer, distance shouldn't be your objective when you're learning. A 3/4 full spool of line is much easier to control. A side-arm cast with a slightly upward motion is also easier to control. oe

Lure loss is pretty common. It also seems like when it rains it pours, never just lose one. Seems like once you lose the first one on a trip, you lose several more throughout the day. Same goes with fish loss, you know how some days you can be not even paying attention and still land fish, other days it seems like no matter what you do the fish comes unhooked right before you get it in the boat.

We both get an allowance from our main account every 2 weeks. We can spend the money on whatever we want. This works really well for us. She never complains about my spending, because it is my money!

I would not be a part of the roundup but I would give them a hollow point headache.

I get it. I had the same issues. Like @BigAngus752 said stick with it and soon enough it will be second nature to you. I love it so much I would use a baitcaster all the time if I didn't do a lot of multi-species and finesse fishing where a spinning reel shines.

My wife noticed that every time we go to Walmart or any place they sell tackle I am always buying a lure or something fishing related. She asked me, "Are you ever going to stop buying fishing stuff?" I said, "Yes, when you bury me."

Like I said, if you struggle for bites, go back to other baits that worked in the past. I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than wait for a 1/5 oz. poop jig to hit bottom at 25'.

Doesn't seem to hurt Rich Zaleski's success, but yeah - that's why I recommend new anglers set up their drag properly, and rely on it. I have watched video of him doing the back reeling thing. Wat I noticed is he isn't tugging on the fish as hard as most everyone else does. It's just calm, and easy convincing the fish back to the boat. It looks a lot like how I'd play a fish when I know it's barely hooked with a treble hook bait.

I just went through this last year. It can be a difficult learning curve but stick with it. Now casting a baitcaster is almost second nature to me. I don't even have to think about it anymore. I just fish. The pros will chime in here shortly but here's some suggestions from a fellow new guy: 1. What line are you using? Get some 12-15lb mono or Yo-Zuri hybrid. Maybe even use some line conditioner. 2. Too late. Don't watch the reel. Watch your lure. Train your brain to thumb just as the lure is landing. Not before (huge splash) and not after (huge backlash). But obviously thumbing early is preferable to backlash and somedays the huge splash will catch you some fish. 3. He is right. Don't practice with something that's 1/4 ounce. Misery will follow. I readjusted and learned faster by using a 3/4 to one ounce weight making easy casts and gradually increasing in distance and lowering the weight. Also, practicing pitching and flipping REALLY helped my thumb control. Honestly I think that was the game changer for me. The wife and I spent HOURS in the yard pitching and flipping until I could routinely hit a 4in square piece of cardboard from any reasonable distance or direction. Then suddenly I could hurl a lure 35+ yards with no backlash. Maybe that was a fluke but I'm convinced the flipping trained my thumb. Keep it up! You'll be glad you did! I was a 100% spinning reel user. Now I'm 80/20 baitcaster/spinning in just one year. Totally worth the trouble.

As many of you guys and gals on the Forum know, I am a strong proponent of being hydrated when you hit the water. For this past Saturday's club tournament on the Potomac, I hydrated myself starting on Wednesday and going through Friday. But I still got dehydrated during the tournament; got leg and foot cramps; got a little off balance; got really tired; and put down four bottles of water (one gallon) during the tournament. What is scary is the fact that so many guys and gals don't hydrate themselves and you can get into trouble with dehydration on the water or along the bank in a New York second. Leg still hurts a little but foot is fine. Although the temperatures were in the upper 80's and lower 90's, the sun reflecting off the water magnified the heat problem. So be careful out there this summer and be sure to hydrate as best you can before hitting the water.

It was 90 and humid today and I went through two 32oz powerades and 7 bottles of water during my 10hours on the water. I was peeing every 30 minutes. Basically if I stop peeing, I know it's time to drink another 2 bottles. It becomes a chore, but I'd rather be ticking 24/7 than be dehydrated.

Down here many of the lagoons have thick, soupy aquatic algae. You know the kind - your lure goes through it and you real in a big glob of green slime. But a lot of times in the heat there are bass hiding in there. The trick is getting them to bite. Note - I bank fish these small lagoons. If you try and drop a bait in there more often than not it gets slimed. Maybe I need to try punching with a heavy weight. It's hard to run a lure underneath as well because in many cases the algae goes from the surface to the bottom (keep in mind these are shallow, man made lagoons). So what I tend to do is drag a frog over the top and stop and pop over any open pockets. The only problem is that a 3 pound bass comes back with an additional 4 pounds of slime. As I've been told, that does not count as landing a 7 pounder. Other than the slime, we have very little vegetation and no docks or piers as these lagoons are small and in residential communities. There are stormwater inlet pipes in most of them, and many times the bass hang out there as well. They'll hang out both in and around the inlet pipes.

My grandson was over yesterday. He's 11 months old. When he's with me, I forget that anyone else is even around.

I have heard Dobyns are good rods and they have great customer service, but I have read reviews that they aren’t the most sensitive for their price. The Daiwa Tatula Rod is more sensitive I’ve heard and has as many good reviews.

You're a wise man, sir.

Have you...or someone that is not a reel tech...had the reel apart? EDIT: I asked because I received an expensive reel (when new, I bought used), that I couldn't even spool line on. The drag had been changed to something inferior and there were 2 parts missing in the reel. I also had a used reel that locked up after about a half hour's use. Someone didn't get a spring attached correctly and it wound up destroying the gears. Both reels kick butt now, tho.

Hi Bob ~ That 505 lbs is what the 200 Opti that's on there now weighs in at - so no difference there. The Talons are really quite 'light' - the extendable poles are fiberglass, the case is basally plastic and the mounts & internal framing is aluminum - Don't know what the exact weight of each is but I'd put it close to perhaps 55 lbs or so. The Pro-V's composite transom and 96 inch beam seems to be able to support what's there well. And in an interesting turn of events - there is some serious consideration being made to ADDING a hydraulic jack plate to the mix. With the new motor going on, seems like a perfect time. The SeaStar Xtreme Jackplate Hydraulic Jackplate 6” ~ Seems to be where we're headed. http://www.seastarsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SeaStar-XtremeJackplates-DataSheet.pdf Since I'm currently running SeaStar Steering, this one is designed to maximize engine tilt when used with SeaStar steering cylinders. More to follow . . . . A-Jay

I'd still go with a Tatula for $110-140

Tonic and coconut water? Now we're talking, make mine a double.

In almost 30 feet !

Bed fishing drop shot is deadly. Tom