Marty

I've always fished ultralight with a rod rated UL, a small reel and 4# mono. If your line is unfrayed, your knot is sound and drag set properly you'll have no problem with a bigger fish. A bigger potential problem than the size of the fish is the cover. If the cover can't handle the light line, you'll break off and have a fish swimming around with a lure in its mouth.

That's a definite "no", unless you subjected yourself to personal danger.

This spring I bought a Pflueger President which I've been very pleased with.

Your user name fits you perfectly I don't see a relationship between the user name and the post, other than the 2nd sentence could've been worded better. A good PFD does keep its wearer afloat and good swimmers often drown. Many of the latter have gotten in trouble because they didn't take precautions due to an overconfidence in their swimming ability. Of course, hypothermia poses a threat to anyone under any circumstance.

Thirty-eight is wide for that length boat. Mine is 39" wide for a boat slightly shorter, but I only use it solo. I knew I was giving up some paddling efficiency, but it's not a problem because I'm never more than about 3/4 mile from the launch. I fished from the front of my friend's 16' canoe a number of times and it's not a lot of fun. Sure, I can fish OK, but there's not much room to move around. This shouldn't be a big problem. Don't forget that people in a canoe are normally in the bow or stern, the narrowest parts of the boat, so landing that bass is not so much leaning as just reaching a short distance while still sitting on the center of the seat.

I'm an owner of a wide canoe with a relatively flat bottom. I keep a whole lot of stuff on the bottom that I have easy access to. The big tradeoff with a wide canoe is less paddling efficiency. I fish some large waters, either in light winds or in protected areas, and some small ponds. Even with fairly strong winds, there is never rough water in those ponds that I fish. As to which is more important, initial or secondary stability, who can say. They're both important when you need them. My boat would have poor secondary stability, but with the width and flat bottom I've never tipped to the point where secondary stability was needed. There are always tradeoffs and you have to decide which are most important to you. Some of the above posts are as predictable as the sun rising in the east because every time someone asks about a canoe others tell them to get a kayak instead. I'm not telling you not to get a kayak, but to educate yourself and make a choice on what best suits your needs and comfort level.

The conventional wisdom is that big line and spinning don't go together well. I've used 12# on a size 2500 Daiwa with no problems. You using 12# on a 4000 reel should pose no problem and you can probably go bigger. The key thing is my estimation is to use a spinning-friendly line. I found both Trilene XL and Original Stren to meet that requirement and I'm sure there are others out there as well.

I don't know how you become good at line watching, nor do I know if I'm good at it or not. What I do know is that I've caught many fish on soft plastics when I've seen the line move off to the side but felt nothing. So I think it's very important to be a line watcher.

Great pics Chris. I especially like the blackbirds. At the right of the Pintail picture is what looks like a plover. Killdeer maybe?

Just Google bass fishing videos. There are numerous non-You Tube results, including this site, as has already been mentioned.

I hate long handles and avoid buying them, although short-handled rods seem to be getting fewer and fewer. I've cut off a couple of inches on a few rods. I don't know why they make handles so long; I can easily make two-handed casts with handles that I consider short. Don't forget that the longer the handle, the shorter the effective length of the rod is. As far as I'm concerned a 6'6" rod with a handle six inches too long for me is in effect a 6' rod.

There is no best. Just about every type of lure will work. Just match your lure to the conditions and you can catch them on anything if you're fishing where the fish are.

I also own a President and have been pleased with it. The thing that jumps off the page at me is that the BPS has considerably more recovery in inches per turn, suggesting an oversize spool. That extra recovery per turn might be important to some people, possibly in either a negative or positive way.

I look at reviews, but don't take most of them seriously. For example, user reviews on lures. If they say something like "this lure is great, I caught four nice ones the first time I used it", that's meaningless to me because all lures catch fish. On the other hand, if a number of reviewers say something like the lip breaks off, then I take that more seriously. I haven't looked at Tackle Tour in quite some time, but back in the days when I checked it out occasionally, I wondered if there ever was a sub-standard fishing product.

I don't have numbness or tingling, but my fingertips are very sensitive to the cold. I hate fishing with gloves so I just don't fish in the cold, except for a short outing from shore. It's always amazed me how the ice fishermen do it.

I've owned that exact same rod for 15+ years and have been very pleased with it. Now I'm sure that it has undergone some changes since I bought mine, but I'd certainly consider another one if the need arose.

Obviously, injuries are the hardest on the players. But this season has more injuries, or so it seems. It ruins the game for the fans. I wanted to see how far the Bears could go with a healthy Cutler, or the Packers with Rodgers, or the Colts with Reggie Wayne, their best receiver, and so on and so forth. Oh well, it's part of the game but it definitely detracts from this fan's experience and can drastically alter the playoff picture.

All it means for sure is that the 2000 is bigger than the 1500. As has been stated, there is no standard. I've mainly used Daiwa spinning in their 2500 size. This year I bought a Pflueger President #6935 which seems very similar in size to the Daiwa 2500s. So there's a 25 and a 35 about equal if my observations are correct.

Zoom is widely considered to be a good line of plastics and is clearly your confidence bait. But I can assure you that many other brands of plastics do very well too. Is it possible you're giving up on these too soon and going back to Zoom because of that confidence factor?

Were those different lures that caught fish in the same areas also topwaters? If they were, then I don't know what to say, but if they weren't there's a good possibility that they weren't willing to come up to the surface.

Original Rapalas always seemed to me to have disproportionately small hooks. Now I know why.

Just Google titanium wire leaders if that's your idea of higher quality.

I'm a Syracuse fan and we hated to see Carter-Williams go, but there was no chance he'd stay. I can't imagine a better NBA debut than his.

I use 6'6" rods with M power and F action as general purpose rods. I find them very versatile.

In the lake that I've fished the most over the years, pickerel would be found anywhere bass would and they take any lure. It's a crapshoot. We'd make our casts and it would be equally likely for bass and pickerel. I've always thought that pickerel fight better than largemouth.