Lund Explorer

You can make any tranducer portable by purchasing a suction cup mount. The 565/570's resolution should be enough to sell you on the unit. And IBTM... These clamp on deals work too. http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/pod/horizontal-pod.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/pod-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat21276-cat21402&rid=&indexId=cat21402&navAction=push&masterpathid=&navCount=1&parentType=index&parentId=cat21402&id=0000844

Wow, you guys have got to start reading the news after visiting here. There's been several big write-ups on the fights between the miners and the greenies lately. Burley can probably tell it better, but the last one i saw dealt with topping off a mountain <?> or something like that.

If you own water front property, click on the link to Pond Boss to see about getting yourself a dock mounted fish feeder. If you don't own water front, cruise the shorelines looking for somebody that has one. Purina makes a great fish chow for bluegills.

Darn good question Jaymc. Catt is prettyy close to dead on, like normal. Now I'll throw a couple of curves into my answer. Most important, you have to determine WHY those bass have moved into the weed cover. During cold front conditions, bass that were hanging on the edge will become more negative, and will move just into it. Those are tought fish to catch. I usually will peg a 3/8 sinker to either a craw or paddle tail worm and toss it just a foot or two in from the edge. Deadstick the bait for 30 seconds or so before making another cast. You've just got to take your your time with that bait right on their nose. The other reason they move into these weedss beds are to find cooler water (yup, even up here) during the heat of the day. That is a great time to look for holes to flip baits to. They're just like little edges right in the middle of the weedbed. And, usually these holes are caused by some change on the bottom, like a large boulder, stump, or some other feature. These fish will be more active, so keep moving and flipping. Also, from my experience, you'll want to do either of these types of fishing with a long heavy rod, heavy line, and be prepared to really put the winch to them. Some of those curly leaf cabbage plants are down right tough!

You've got to remember where the snow is falling from. Up in the cloud tops, it is a lot colder than on the ground. Think about how hail drops from the sky when in its in the 70's - 80's.

Goose, you should get the diehard award of the year. Most of the guys I know simply spend that time of year getting our ice fishing gear ready. A couple of questions though. Who do you get the bass up out of the water and onto the ice? I assume you then just need to skid them along it until they reach you. But how do you release them?

I'm not going to suggest any specific bait, or the weight of a jig/jighead. Needless to say, everyone would need to match these to the river and current they are facing. You should also match your bait to the size and coloration of the crawdads that those smallies are feeding on. Making casts that quarter upstream, the bait should make light bottom contact while moving along at about the speed of the current. This way, the bass should assume it is a crawdad that either broken free, or has been driven from their cover. As far as how to hold boat position, a number of ways could work. My choice would either be with an electric trolling motor (this is one of the few places a minnkota power drive comesin handy), or with a river anchor. My favorite anchor when fishing rivers is a length of logging chain. On a side note - Its nice to see that someone took the time to use the "search" option to find a discussion on a subject. That is what we are supposed to do, right?

Just because I'm in a somewhat better mood, I edited my post to remove the term cheating. I'll settle for the term "fair chase".

Still Need To Be Careful! A lot of us have been out on the ice, but it still isn't safe in some places. Awfully sad story here. http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=117198

Sorry folks, I voted NO! If you want to void out a legal catch based on this supposed fact that live bait is cheating, then you need to add a whole lot of other restrictions as well. First would be that any fish should only come from a public body of water, in the fish's native region, and where no stocking has occurred. There should also be no artificial feeding, or the stocking of prey for the bass to feed on. Finally, no fish caught during a vulnerable time, such as while on a spawning bed should be counted. Every one of these things allows for a supposed unnatural advantage to a fisherman. Simple logic says that if one thing should be excluded, then all of them should be.

You just can't keep those Dakotan's down. True Story: Years ago (Mid-70's) a woman who lived in the village of Fertile ND traveled into the neighboring State of Minnesota just south of Grand Forks. The poor lady got into a fatal traffic accident in the town of Climax MN. The Grand Forks Herald reported the news with the headline of "Fertile Woman Dies in Climax"! The story was picked up and was actually shown on Saturday Night Live.

Must be nice to able to fish that shallow. My favorite trout lake is Higgins Lake, and we start at around 80' and can go down deeper than 100'. Of course we're after lake trout, and they like to hug bottom way down there. Makes using braided line an absolute must.

I'm not sure how far you are from Houghton Lake, but check out Lyman's Shanty Rentals. They even have an overnight version.

I got to hold a very beautiful little girl this year. She is the first Great-Grandchild for this old man. For the decade, I'm not sure if any of us can compete with Glenn's accomplishment..... Bass Resource!

Howdy fellow Michigander! Just another 3-4 months and we'll be back on soft water. In the meantime, this forum is a great place to pick up plenty of ideas.

Hey IDbasser, that's a nice looking trout there. Back here in Michigan, I've been stuck fishing for gills and crappie, but not much luck in the size dept. I did get one northern about 29" last Sunday, but inland pike are just too slimy for my tastes. Our good trout lakes are still two-three weeks away from having safe ice. Then the deep jigging can start. How deep is that lake you're fishing?

My favorite is a Swedish Pimple. Many other jigging spoons will work, like Hopkins Spoons, Kastmasters, or any other fluttering spoon. Larger teardrops can work as well. Maybe even one of my favorite steelhead baits which is a small pinkie jig. Any of these will take a variety of baits to sweeten them up.

Just another option to a tiller extension, is to use a connector rod that attaches to your main outboard. This way, you can use your steering wheel. Cabelas has them. Look under Boating / Outboard Accessories.

Doesn't really matter how thick it is, it needs to be clear "blue" ice to hold weight. 2" - 4" of good ice will hold up almost any person. But it depends on how much other weight is sitting on top of it as well. That foggy frozen slush, grey/white in color just doesn't cut it. Back in younger days, better known as "Young and Dumb", it only took about 2" of clear new ice to get me on the lake. Spongy enough that water would slowly fill the depression around the hole. Back in those days, anything that took more than two whacks with a sharp spud was supposedly safe. These days, I really don't like to go out until there is a solid 4". Hopefully there will still be something left after Christmas Eve's little storm.

9/11 has to be the biggest event of not only the decade but sine Dec. 7th. That said, I wonder why no one else thought about the very first day of the decade? Y2K..... What A Flop!

'What event, invention, or fad will the decade be remembered by?' This is a Fad that has reemerged. Therefore I included it into my list. Seems like all the youths have resorted back to a Hippie/Hobo look. I guess thats whats "IN" ;D ;D ;D I wonder when my Leisure Suits are coming back! ;D

Being a twin, it wasn't like the other 364 days were all that easy. Christmas though always held its own little troubles so to speak. Especially when you parents and both sets of grandparents were all firm believers in equal rights for both of us. Sometimes a lack of communication between all these folks didn't help much either. My tenth Christmas was a case in point. Christmas Eve always found us heading south to visit Dad's side of the family. There was always something anti-climactic about watching your brother open a present when you knew that next gift you got was the exact same thing. That year it did hold a little excitement though as we both got new electric train sets. The next morning, we had our own celebration at home before heading out in the other direction to Mom's family. We eagerly (?) opened up gifts at home though it seemed like we didn't get the normal "haul" of goodies. When we arrived at the second set of grandparent's, a slight problem came up in the kitchen. My Mother had decided to tell Grandma what we had gotten the night before. Yup, to make this long story a little bit shorter. We each got a 2nd train set! It wasn't until we were heading home that night that we got let in on the whole secret. The reason the mornings pickings seemed a little slim was, you guessed it. Now what do two boys do with SIX, count 'em SIX train sets?

The grown men in the family started my fishing addiction, but they all had different species. My Dad was an avid golfer so fishing was mostly through the ice for him. Of the two Uncles I fished with as a child, one was big into fly fishing for trout while the other enjoyed trolling for pike. When I finally got serious about bass fishing, the internet wasn't even thought of. Magazines like Bassmaster and In-Fisherman was my source of information.

And birds, amongst other critters. I remember one night when the side door to our garage was left open. As I was getting ready to hitch up the boat the next morning, I discovered that a racoon had made a visit. The remains of a chewed plastic bag that just the day before had held almost 100 brand new 7" power worms was almost completely empty. At the time, I was more upset that the critter had decided to dine on a favorite color, than on his chances of survival. Just another good reason to keep an old coffee can in the boat. Great place to throw used baits and all the other junk like old line, etc.

I found it rather confusing. Michigan was something like the third/fourth slide, but the number 49 shows when you scroll on top of the picture. So is it #3 or #4, or is it #49. Seeing a picture of Rich Rod's Wolverines makes me thing it is the latter of those choices.