senile1

There is nothing worse than losing a child, a life partner, or preparing for what may be that coming loss and yet fighting it down to the wire. As you are well aware, life can be brutal for some of us and is one of the reasons why I have rarely been on social media, including this forum, as of late. I wish you all the best with this knowing that nothing I say can truly ease your pain. I hope you and Lynn continue to fill your lives with as many good moments as possible, and hopefully things will turn for the better and you will have many more of those moments to come.

This bears repeating and Catt alluded to it as well. Also, fishing with someone better than you can be very helpful. There are far better anglers on here with more expert advice than I, but this has worked for me. If you fish alone most of the time, I would suggest the following: Learn a small lake known to have decent sized bass first if any are available in your area. The time on the water thing takes less time if you have less lake to learn. Large reservoirs of a few thousand or tens of thousands of acres have lots of unproductive water and if you don't know where to look you can really get frustrated. Become proficient on smaller lakes and then apply what you learn to larger lakes. (Missouri's fishing app provides a list of all conservation maintained lakes. They also periodically provide prospect reports that describe the fish population so you know the size structure of the bass in many of the lakes. Hopefully you can find something like this online, or in an app for your state, to help you narrow down where to find larger fish.) Minimize the techniques you are trying to learn, but make sure they are in different sections of the water column to address different situations on the water. (i.e. Don't just try a number of moving baits. Try maybe three moving baits that cover the upper water column. Do the same for mid-depths. Also try slow bottom baits like T-rigged worms, creatures, and jigs when the conditions warrant it. A couple of finesse baits would be good to learn as well. And make sure you spend time with them to actually develop confidence in them. If you become proficient at fishing two or three baits for each section of the water column you will be equipped to catch fish and more likely to find the bigger fish.) Develop a schedule to practice the art of casting. Accurate casting is paramount. I would throw in that you should at least learn the pitching technique during your casting practice (and I would learn flipping as well). Being able to place a slow moving bait right in a small hole in brush or under a dock will increase your chances of catching bigger fish. Learn to handle your boat or fish from the bank in a stealthy manner to avoid spooking fish. If you think about it, all of the things mentioned above take one thing and that brings us full-circle back to time - time on the water fishing, time on the water or in your yard casting, time in the boat learning to handle it properly. Take time and enjoy the journey.

That is a nice clean boat and motor and definitely doesn't appear to have been used a lot. Congratulations!

Holy Toledo!

What a beast of a fish!

Nice work!

Thanks for the memories, KVD! Fifty-five is still young. Looking forward to whatever comes next.

Lots of great suggestions for baits here. As for bottom baits it looks like you have a finesse jig and a rage bug type bait there. I would add a light weighted tube and Ned rig.

Yeah, wasn't the idea prevalent that it turned to gray very quickly with depth? It seems I have been seeing research showing bass cones are more attuned to green and red now. Indeed.

Fishing in lowland reservoirs, there are times when the fishing is hot near the bank and maybe sonar doesn't seem necessary, but it can often provide understanding as to why the fish use a particular shallow area. On the other hand, it is difficult for me to fish deep, clear highland reservoirs without using sonar. For a lake such as Table Rock shallow water is often considered to extend out to 15 feet (some anglers claim even deeper) and fish will spawn at 10 to 15 feet in certain places on the lake depending on the water clarity. A few weeks before and after the spawn I usually catch the majority of my bass in 15 to 25 feet of water there, and again in mid to late Fall. In summer and into early fall, fish will stage on gravel points, etc at 35 to 45 feet of water which is typically at the thermocline and are often caught on dropshots. I don't think I would find very many fish in this lake without my sonar. I use sidescan and downscan by the way and haven't felt the need to go to FFS yet. As for the deepest water in my lowland reservoirs around Northwest Missouri, it can be 25 feet all the way to 55 depending on the lake. The thermoclines vary from as little as 8 feet to 20 feet on these lakes. Even if I am not using the sonar to find actual fish like with FFS it still allows me to learn the structure and cover in the lake and helps me find fish away from the bank.

For a while now I have been catching a few 5 to 7 lb Missouri fish each year on Siebert Outdoors half ounce Grid Iron Brush jigs with Rage Tail Craws. These are almost always caught on two color combinations: Green pumpkin jig with watermelon red flake craw, and black/blue jig with black/blue craw, although sometimes the black/blue with the okeechobee craw color is the ticket. A few are caught in the winter on green pumpkin or black/blue Siebert finesse jigs with the same color finesse trailer. These jig fish aren't always the biggest for the year, but most years they are. I have to go with one of these jig and craw combinations based on the probability indicated from past years.

Wikipedia states it was 2012.

Thanks for jogging my memory with that. I had forgotten about it. LOL. It isn't an easy job to keep up with elite athletes.

I told my wife the other night you would need one official for each of 22 players on the field to get all the calls right. There is just too much going on for them to keep up. I agree that it is part of the game and missed calls are often human error. But there are those occasional calls that seem to defy explanation. I suspect many of you have seen them. Probably one of the most egregious examples was the no-call on interference in the Saints versus Rams playoff game on January 20, 2019. And once in a while you will see a game where the preponderance of bad calls are called on one team. It just makes one wonder. Going back to my earlier post though, I do think the NFL needs to work diligently on consistency in making calls across the spectrum of officials. With consistency comes acceptance by fans, instead of people thinking they were robbed of victory. As a Chiefs fan, I am happy they won the Superbowl. As an NFL fan I can see why Eagles fans might wonder why the calls were a little more loose in the first half, but then were called more strictly in the second. Consistency in calls would help to eliminate disgruntled fans. Of course, some fans will always think their team was shafted.

True. The point is one obviously affected the catch and the other did not and it was inconsistent to call the last one if the first one wasn't called. The first should have been called. The second one is debatable to many fans. I will go out on a limb here and say that I have been questioning the officiating for some years now. This is speculation but it seems the officiating is designed to keep games close to perpetuate the idea of parity in the NFL and keep every city's fans hanging on the edge hoping their team can pull out a win. We all see questionable calls that happen to the team we favor, but it happens across the board and typically, I see calls that help bad teams stay in games with good teams. Once in a while, those calls end up affecting the final result. How many times have you seen a few questionable calls early in a game affecting one team, and then later in the game it seems the officials attempt to make up for those calls by calling a few questionable ones the other way. Could it be the NFL wants to keep everyone interested in their games so some of these calls are made to try to keep games close? ? Ah, but I digress.

The officials already missed a blatant pass interference by Bradberry in the first half where he grabbed and turned Smith-Schuster. That non-call ended a Chiefs drive. They should have called that one and maybe have let the last one go. In my opinion, the issue isn't the call at the end because by the book it was pass interference. The issue is the inconsistency in how officials call these penalties and it happens to all teams across the NFL.

Eh . . . . not a complete comparison. Is there a comparison of the defenses? Also, the Chiefs haven't had a losing record since 2012 and only one season of less than 11 wins since 2015 (10 wins in 2017). They have had to work harder for decent draft picks than the Eagles over the past few years. I think both of their GMs do a pretty good job with the draft.

Unfortunately as a big Chiefs fan, I am afraid this may be so as well. Expecting Mahomes to heal much from a high ankle sprain in one week would be verging on the miraculous. The likely way for the Chiefs to win this is if Mahomes is hot for four quarters, but he can't even plant his back foot to throw. The rest of the team will really have to step up their game. I hope I am wrong, but without him performing at a high level I think it unlikely. Still . . . . hoping for a win.

Good topic. The only time I really concentrate on hitting bite windows is when the water is very cold in the winter. Cold blooded creatures require much less sustenance when the water temps are 30s to low 40s and they aren't as active. In most cases, it is quite obvious when they are active and when they are not in the winter. In other seasons if they aren't actively feeding, one can often trigger them to bite by fishing the proper presentation. If I have learned a lake and know some spots where bass congregate during the different bass seasons, I can often find the fish and make them bite.

The biggest, 7 lb 5 oz, was caught on a Booyah white/chartreuse spinnerbait with willowleaf and Indiana blades. Second biggest was 6 lb 15 oz on a 6 inch T-rigged black culprit worm. Over the last 15 years, I have caught most of my 6 to 6 lb 14 oz fish on black/blue and green pumpkin Siebert jigs using similarly colored Ragetail craws, and other trailers. A few in that 6 lb range have been caught on Brush Hogs, Rat-L Traps, and soft baits on swinging jig heads. These are the baits that have worked for me in my neck of the woods. Any bait can catch a big fish when properly matched to the conditions. If the OP is seeking higher percentage big fish baits, the jig and craw would be my first choice where the average big fish are 5 to 7 lbs.

@basspro05, welcome back, buddy! I still use older reels. For baitcasters, the Curado 200e7, Citica 200E, and Citica D models still adorn a few of my rods. I also have a Chronarch from the same era as the E models. The newest reel I have is a Revo STX that is maybe five years old. For spinning rods I use Shimano Symetres. I have always been one to use an item for its entire life if it still functions properly. The Chronarch and E series models are awesome reels, while the Citica D may be a bit shorter on casting distance and then of course there is its higher weight. But the D is a tank. I have had to replace parts here and there that typically need replacing, but otherwise these reels have no issues. I will buy newer reels when needed, but I don't buy them just because I can. If your reels are in good shape, they will still serve you for years to come.

Great point! See my signature.

You can go to your settings in your profile and set the visibility of different elements, such as your birthday, to "Only Me." Then FB will no longer notify your friends or anyone else about your birthday.

The last two years hiking 13ers and 14ers has become a big hobby of mine though it hasn't replaced fishing, of course. I am now doing class 3 climbs and hope to move into class 4 next year. The following link provides a chart showing the oxygen percentage you are taking in at different altitudes. For example, at 7000 feet you are getting about 76 percent of your regular sea level oxygen (16%/20.9%). At 14000 feet you are getting only around 63% (12.3/20.9). As some have said, altitude sickness can affect anyone and there is no rhyme or reason as to who falls victim to it though all of us flatlanders have to be aware. Typically, most people aren't extremely bothered by 7000 feet so you should be fine. However if you, or one of your partners' get dizzy and goofy go lower immediately. HACE or HAPE are rare but they can kill you. (Google them. ?) I don't notice it until I get to 8 or 9000 feet but that is me. At 13000 to 14000 I definitely notice it. After a few days you acclimate to it and I generally start with an acclimation hike and increase my highest elevation by a couple thousand each day until I reach 14000 and above. https://hypoxico.com/altitude-to-oxygen-chart/

I find that if I periodically clean my live wells it is extremely rare for a fish to go belly up. For the bass I catch they are only in the live well long enough for me to take a pic. For other fish that I plan to eat such as crappie, white bass, or hybrids if I see them going belly up it has almost always been because I was not on top of keeping my live well pristine.