The Rooster

"Get your 6 inch lizard out, put it in her face and shake it real good and maybe she'll bite it" (casting to bass on the beds) "Grab it by the head and pinch it" (threading a nightcrawler onto a hook) "Show her a purple colored 7 inch power worm, she'll like that!!" "Sniff it once to see if it stinks before you use it, sometimes I even taste it too" (one guy to another about reusing previously rigged power worms again) "Man, look at the size of the mouth on that b!tch" (two guys watching a bass fishing video on a display TV in sporting goods at Wal-Mart as a woman walks nearby pushing a shopping cart) "Man she's a big one. You're gonna have to have a stiff rod to handle her and from the size of her you ain't gonna get her off the bed easy either" (one guy to another observing a large female on the nest) "She won't hold still long enough for me to get her off" (guy talking to his buddy while trying to unhook a fish and is frustrated with it because it keeps flopping) "If she'd have been just a little bigger Ida mounted her. They gotta be a certain size or I just ain't interested. But I'll always remember the mouth she had on her, swallowed my 8 inch lizard whole and I like to never got her to let go of it. Grabbed her by the lip with one hand and had the other one in her mouth and was hollerin' for help from my buddy. Thought we was gonna have to get the pliers there for a minute" "I had both hands on my pole holdin' it tight. I knew she had it in her mouth good on the other end but I still wasn't lettin' go. Not till I got her close enough to grab hold of her with one hand at least"

Yeah, I'm about to have to agree with that one. Since I started coming here I can ask a question and get 40 responses in the run of a single day. In Bassmaster if I want to know something I have to wait until I get lucky enough for them to do an article on it. I borrowed some Bassin' magazines from a buddy of mine and I like what I see. They seem to be written for the everyday fisherman about everyday techniques. Bassmaster seems to be a lot of tournament related stuff with a few articles containing fishing tips. Only thing I don't really like about Bassin' is that you only get 7 issues per year instead of 11 like with Bassmaster. But from what I see, there's more to read in those 7 that I want to read about. It's cheap enough, I'll probably just have both memberships if I can get the Bassmaster problem sorted out.

I am now down 3 issues, March, April, and May. I've called them 4 times and each time they assure me that my membership is valid until May of 2009 and they don't know why I'm not receiving my magazines. I've checked with the post office to see what's the deal and they tell me that it's obvious they're not sending them or they'd be in my P.O. box. I've also made sure that Bassmaster has my current P.O. box address, which they do. They said they'd put a trace on my magazines, but the post office says that can't be done through them for something like that (no idea how that's gonna work then). The best that Bassmaster said they can do is re-issue them and it'll take 4 weeks to receive them. BY THEN THE SPRING FISHING WILL BE OVER AND I WON'T NEED THOSE ISSUES FOR TIPS!!!! They said they could send me some "used" copies from their office, issues that other readers had returned that "weren't in the best condition but still readable". Those will mail out today according to them and I'll have them in a week. That's only March and April though, which those months are now over!!!! > What am I supposed to do?? I had to threaten to cancel my subscription to get them to do even that much!!!! I'm about to do that anyway. Sign up for Bassin' magazine instead. What a pile o' shiyat for them to treat me this way after I've been a member for years and renew it for at least 2 years at a time each time I do it. It burns me up that the May issue is in stores now and I still don't have mine when normally I'll receive the coming month's issue in the middle of the previous month. The last magazine I got was the Pro Guide they sent out right before the Classic tournament in early February!!!

Most productive and favorite as well would have to be the Worden's Original Roostertail in 1/8 or 1/6 sizes. Favorite color would have to be black/chartreuse. Many many other fine colors also, really have never seen a color that wouldn't work, even the ones I don't particularly like. Recently though, I've gotten into Bandit crankbaits, the 200 series. The rootbeer color here on one of my local lakes has gotten me 5 nice bass in the last week, and one bluegill ;D that could not possibly have eaten it if it had actually been live prey. I've had that bait for years now and it's always produced. Hope the rest of them are that good cause now I'm starting to stock up. The Bandit baitmonkey is trying HARD to get out!!

I would read this but I haven't recieved a magazine since that Pro Guide they sent out in February right before the Classic tournament. Called them 4 times so far and they said they're looking into it with a trace on my mail and that it will take 4 weeks for me to get all the issues I am missing. My membership is current through May 2009 too. Maybe when I get them all I'll be able to check up on it. >

Seems to me that whenever I see a spot that looks like it would hold fish, or see them on the fish finder, I cast whatever I happen to have tied on at the time and usually get a strike. If I miss the hookup that's usually my fault. Getting anxious too soon and setting the hook like it's a 50 pound catfish instead of a 2 pound bass. I'm trying to do better on that but I do that a lot it seems. ;D But I just noticed that the color usually didn't seem to make a difference, they hit it no matter what it was. One time I even switched colors every time I got a fish to see if I had a color they wouldn't hit, inline spinners that is. I got a fish on every color I had in the box that day. Really good day for whitebass and hybrids.

At one time I used to think color was everything but now I'm finding that for some strange reason I tend to believe that whatever I have on at the moment, if it's not too far off from what I'm trying to make it look like, will work to catch a bass from whatever target I'm throwing to. I tend to stick with natural colors, whites, browns, greens, for clear to slightly stained water, and black or other dark colors for dark, muddy water. Occasionally I'll use a bright color like chartreuse depending on the light conditions. Seems like to me now it's more about how light or dark the lure is instead of the color itself. Just yesterday I was thinking I'd like to switch to a solid white color with a white tail in a spinner I was using for stained water instead of the brown and white with brown tail I had on. In order to lighten it up some so it was more visible. But I was too close to a stump I wanted to cast to and thought I'd use it for a few more casts to fish that stump before I drifted passed it and I ended up catching a decent fish from it, which was this one...... I may be wrong but I'm thinking if I had changed to the white one, or even something totally different like green or black......I think I'd have still caught that fish off that stump no matter what color it was. I'm not that good at fishing, I'm beginning to get better though, I can tell, and this type of thinking is where I seem to be going to. So, do you think color of a lure is gravely important or only slightly important as opposed to the type of lure and how it's fished being more important instead....like crankbait, spinnerbait, plastics, and so on??

OK, enough. Nobody believes it's a 10 pounder. I'm not sure it is either, but it's definitely more than 3 pounds. That's ridiculous to say it's that low in weight. Look at how long that fish is and give it just a little credit. Anyway, it's clear now that no one thinks it's a 10 pound fish so further comment is not necessary. Just thought I'd post a pic of how someone else's luck is when fishing. At least she's getting to go instead of being stuck at home and there's not a person here who wouldn't like to catch that fish. Not all that common to find women who like fishing anyway so why tear it down and make her feel bad and not want to do it anymore?? She's reading this you know. All these comments and not a single "nice fish" in the bunch. I'm sure she'd like to have seen at least one.

She said it was caught on a watermelon lizard, 6" long, rigged weightless with a weedless hook. Not in KY either, it was in Brookport Illinois, in a private lake called Hohman lake.

So far I got that it was caught on green watermelon lizards bought at Wal-Mart. I'm still asking for more details on where, how it was rigged and all that. I know it would have been in western Kentucky or in a surrounding state but not sure where exactly. I'm only asking so I can provide details on the catch and make this thread interesting to readers.

Well, I have never seen a 10 pounder in person, but honestly, just from seeing pics in magazines I also thought it looked like it weighed less but I just have no idea so I just repeated what was said to me when I posted it.

I didn't catch this.....wish I had though. This was posted on another private forum I go to that's not a bass fishing forum. Car stereo forum actually. One of the members there caught it and I asked if I could post it here for you to see. She caught it this morning. I'm trying to find out the bait used and still waiting on a reply, but here's the pic. She said it was weighed by the local bait shop and weighed out at 10 pounds 4 ounces.

I suppose that would depend on how much amperage is put out per bank. I just recently got an onboard charger too, haven't installed it yet but I'm using it here in the house until the next warm day. Mine puts out 5 amps per bank, dual bank, and it's owner's manual says that mine would take 10 - 12 hours to charge a discharged battery fully. I bought a Guest 2611 dual bank charger. Puts out 5/5 for 10 amps total. Interestingly, it also says I can parallel wire the banks for 10 amps output. I'm guessing that would be into one battery?? The wiring diagrams didn't show that pic so I probably won't try it.

I almost always feel I'm guaranteed to catch at least one fish. Most times I get up that morning thinking I'm going to catch 20. But I have had days where something just felt wrong and I thought I wouldn't catch anything, but even then I usually can manage to get one and then after that my entire attitude changes and I feel that I'm going to continue catching them. It's probably me being negative when I start out feeling that way. I tend to do that a lot. Fishing though is one of the only things I have complete confidence in most of the time. Probably 95% of the time I'm thinking positive when thinking it's going to be a particular kind of day.

Nope, no photoshoppin' here. It started right up. Now I wish I was hauling it to the lake for the first fishing trip. Oh, but you did get the Chebbie part right. Ceptin' it's a newer Chevy, a 97 with a 350 VORTEC in it, and it's dyin' to be on the way to the lake too.

I thought I had a soft spot in my boat's floor too but when I pulled up the old vinyl floor covering I found out it was just a pop rivet along the edge of one piece of wood that had broken. Quick fix with a new rivet. Might get lucky on that if you haven't already tore the carpet up there and found out for sure. Here's the link to the thread where I posted my pics of my boat doing the recarpeting job. I tried to document as I went along what I did so you may see something there that will help you with yours. I have pics of how I carpeted the wood panels as well as the aluminum ones. Shows the different steps I took. http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1206128651

It took one crank to start this engine today even though it had been sitting outside all winter long only covered by a tarp. I ran Stabil fuel stabilizer through it last fall right before I shut it down for the winter. I did nothing else at all to winterize it. And today it started up as if it had been running just yesterday.

Coming from someone who just went through the same thing....nice job. You used the exact same carpet as I did, color and all. Got mine at Lowe's but Home Depot sold it also. Looks great, reminds me of my very first boat, it was a 14 foot V hull also. I built a deck in it, carpeted it out, but never had a fish finder, let alone two. I did have a Minn Kota Autopilot 36 lb thrust TM on it though. Got it new for $100 on clearance at Wal-Mart. Was originally a $550 motor. Your boat looks great man, good luck fishing.

So you're saying my fill tube should be turned horizontally to fill from the top instead of vertically to fill from the bottom?? I noticed when I got this boat that it was loose and free to move so it stayed vertical because of gravity mostly. Now that I've redone it and tightened everything up, it no longer is free to move and I'm not sure how it's supposed to go.

If you got that information out of an old bass fishing book it was probably assuming that you kept the fish for harvest and are filleting it to eat so you could also check out what he's eaten recently while in there. That's my take on it anyway. That would probably have been a book written prior to "catch and release".

No, all I ever did was use it normally running it while at the lake. When I came home after fishing I just parked it until next time I took it out again. Might be 24 hours later or a couple of weeks. Sometimes during that time it wasn't even covered up unless I thought it might rain. During the winter I put some Stabil fuel stabilizer in the gas to winterize it and ran the motor for a few minutes, then drained the lower unit, and then removed it from the boat for storage indoors. I did not fog the engine as some suggest but I never had any problems at all with springtime startup. When I sold the boat the motor still ran like new. That was almost 10 years ago now and the guy I sold it to still has it and it runs fine now.

What one person here said about two batteries hooked together and one running down killing them both in a short time is totally true. My brother in law has a truck that has two starting batteries in it wired in parallel. Whenever one battery goes bad, or dead for some reason, the other one won't even crank the truck over. So we started trying to find out why and was told that two batteries wired in parallel must be totally equal or one will end up drawing down the other one with them trying to equal themselves out in terms of charge. So if you do this then I'd get two brand new ones exactly the same and at the same time. My brother in law has had nothing but trouble replacing only one battery at a time in that truck. Putting a new and an old together just doesn't work at all cause one is no longer equal to what the other one is. I would think that this would carry over to deep cycle batteries as well.

Did you put a hole in that rear bench for the rear seat mount?? I noticed that it does not have the aluminum tubing you used in front. Is the rear deck screwed down?? And if not then do you worry that the rear deck might tilt and dump someone off of it?? It's not as wide as the front deck is so if someone leans too far towards the motor or center of the boat it might allow them to fall off by tipping since it's so narrow.

My first boat I had a 15 HP Mercury, a 91 model motor. I left it on the boat all year long except for winter and then I stored it inside. I had it for 3 years with no problems at all.

It's been awhile but I bought one and paid about $30 for it on sale, regular price $40, and it charges deep cycle batteries as well as starting batteries. Gel cell, wet cell, and dry cell also. It's a fully automatic charger, 12 amp output, and has lasted me for 12 years and still looks like new cause I keep it inside also. Only use it between fishing trips to charge the batts up. so what I'm saying is you should be able to score one for about that much money that will do you fine. 10 - 12 amps will charge up a battery fairly quickly, around 2 hours to top mine off after a trip, and maybe 6 hours or overnight if the battery is COMPLETELY dead. 6 amp or smaller and it's gonna take a long time to charge them up. I don't know if you can get a portable one that's a dual bank or not. That would charge two batteries at the same time so you wouldn't have to switch it out after the first one charged up. If you get an onboard charger it installs as part of the boat's equipment, bolt on I mean, and they make those in all kinds of bank sizes (1, 2, 3, up). Just plug it in when you get home and it's charged your batteries up when you come back the next morning to go fishing again. If you're like me you go back to back several days in a row. I do every weekend so I really could benefit from one of these. Just haven't had the money to lay down on one yet. I've spent it on everything else for my boat instead.