Lund Explorer

Snow Blower for Rent. ;D Just kidding.... But when you guys finish digging out your own driveways and sidewalks, remember to watch out for the older folks in your neighborhood. Even up here where we're used to moving snow piles around, we have older folks suffering heart attacks from trying to clean up after storms. A quick phone call to make sure they have help, or to see if the need anything (food or medicine) until they can get out would be a big help.

You may also want to start looking at that echo to try to determine what type of bottom you're on top of. Besides looking for small depth changes, or a sunken brush pile, a change in bottom content will create an "edge" that fish will hang on. A quality sonar will give you that information as well.

Probably best to leave the bassin' gear to home and shift over to pike or walleyes. You may get into a few bass with Tip-Ups & Minnows, or perhaps a jigging Rapala, but bass get pretty lazy under the ice. If you ever get the chance to sit inside a spear house you can watch them slowly swim along the bottom. But it is very hard to get them to bite.

Remember to include Momma, Trains, Prison, and your Pickup Truck! ;D

Up here, Jack is either straight or mixed with coke. Unless you go to a certain bowling alley that mixes it with Apple Pucker. 50/50 makes what they call an Apple Jack. After the first five or six, they actually start going down fairly easy. My choice though is the other Jack, Yukon Jack. There is something completely wrong about thinking of drinking @ 5am.

No Pics yet..... No Safe Ice. I have had the chance to sharpen the blades on my auger, put new line on the bluegill rods, the battery for the fishfinder is on the trickle charger. Everything else is in the ice box just waiting. Friday night, we got down to -6 and got a good looking start. Last night only got down to 32 with what the weather man so eloquently called a wintry mix. Right now we need a couple of really cold clear nights, a no more snow. BTW, most of my jigs come from a company called K & E Lures. Its a local home grown company.

Hmmmm, An Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile. There's no way that I can see using that acronym and Mike's confession in the same sentence unless I want to get a warning from Glenn and the Mods. I'll pass. ;D

Morning Glenn, Well it sure looks like at least one person from Lubbock TX knows a little about deep frying. Those were all good tips. A few things I might add would include the following: 1. Make sure to keep your oil at the right temp. The big commerical fryers are gas fired and can handle quite a load of frozen food. But if you have one of the smaller home models, you'll want to do a little practice with it first. When your oil is at the proper temp. (at least 350), anything you drop into it should immediately flash cook the outside of the food. This not only reduces the amount of breading that will fall off, but stops the oil from soaking into the food. French Fries are a good cheap frozen food to practice with, but be aware that even thawed food like fish will cool down your oil as well. With a little practice you'll be able to figure out how fast you can add food into the fryer before you have to stop and wait for the oil temp to recover. 2. Keep your oil clean! The only thing worse than a piece of fish that is staturating with oil, is one that comes out dark, and tastes like you cooked it over a campfire. There are two keys to maintaining good oil. First, don't overcook your food, as overcooked food will transfer a burned taste to the oil. Secondly, make sure to strain your oil after each use to remove any breading or small floaters. If these things are left in the oil, they will only continue to cook/burn, which shortens the life of your oil. 3. Season any new oil. When you get to the point that you plan to refill the fryer with brand new oil, safe a little of the old oil (if it isn't burned) to help season the new stuff. Brand new oil will cook just as fast as older oil, but your food will look much lighter in color. That can lead to overcooking in new oil. 4. Talk to a Pro! We all are advised on here to listen to the pros about the best ways to fish. Same goes with cooking. Might not be a bad idea to stop by the local watering hole to buy their cook a couple of tall and frosties in exchange to a tour of the kitchen. Or, as you are a lot closer to the Fraternal Order of Eagles Aerie #1, than I am, maybe volunteering to help out at a local non-profit's fish fry could help. 5. Safety. Probably can't say enough about it. Know the flash point of the oil you are using and keep the temp below that mark. Don't do like one gal did at our local Eagles club and try to hurry the process of heating your oil by cranking the heat up past 375. Keep plenty of baking soda or some other fire retardant handy. If the worst happens, don't try to move the fryer, smother it. Don't drop food from altitude! Either use the basket, or simply lay the food into the oil before you let go of it. Have a burn kit handy just in case. 6. Oh Kerri.... Can't you just talk the better half into doing all of this? ;D

I wonder where Jessica is?

Glenn, We as the members/users of this website have many opportunities to read great articles, view very informative videos, and to also share and learn through this forum. And it would take a month of Sundays to explore all of the links collected here. I think all of us can agree that this site has helped to improve our lives. But we also need to keep in the back of our minds, that as the owner of this site, you need to make sure to make the bills. All of the time and effort expended in this venture can't come free. As a business owner myself, I can fully understand and respect your decisions. I surely hope that the rest understand it as well. I think we'd all be better off just enjoying what it is that we do here, and leave the business decisions up to you. Thank you again for providing us with a great website.

I think it would be a good idea to say that to Chris as well. I'm sure its taken quite a bit of effort to put into writing all of the things that he has. I for one have done the copy and paste to many of his writings so that I could print them out to read away from the computer. Now you could say they have become the bathroom reader, but they have also given me the inspiration to double my crankbaiting efforts in the future. He deserves a lot of credit for his efforts.

I understand what you are saying. I think its going to common in any sort of fishfinder whether its a flasher or LCD. You might be able to get that signal toned down, but it is a matter of trying to set the gain down that far. Most of my ice fishing is one for bluegill and crappie, though I do go after walleyes as well. I think about it this way. When I'm after bluegill or crappie, I'm using a small lure for a relatively small fish. For these times it is pretty easy to set the gain down as I described above. But I have seen what you are talking about when I'm wallete fishing. Most of that fishing is done with a jigging rapala, jigging spoon, or with a rather large minnow on a live bait rig. At these times, I have a hard time getting just a plain green/organge/green signal for the bait. What I do get, is a smallish red signal. About the best way to see if a walleye or other bigger fish is nearby is to raise the bait to see if a signal stays at the depth I was fishing at. Also, it depends on the depth you are fishing if this is really a big issue. The cone is rather small at shallower depths. So even if that big fish is on the outside of the cone, it is still within range to see that larger bait and react to it. Hope this helps.

My favorite was told to me years ago by a friend, who told me that when he first heard the story, he thought of me. Yeah, I couldn't figure it out either. It was a December day when a small sparrow found himself sitting high atop a tree just as a huge snow storm started to blow in. As the tree was completely devoid of any leaves, the sparrow had no protection from the ice cold wind or the heavy wet snow. Finally after two days, the storm passed, the clouds began to clear out, and the sun shone. While feeling what little heat the sun gave off, the sparrow knew that he was in trouble. Nearly frozen solid and starving, he had pretty much given up all hope. At about this time, a horse wandered under the tree. As he moved under the sparrow, he let loose of a fairly good sized "road apple" and continued to move away. The sparrow, sitting high on his perch spied this latest development, and was know faced with a possibly life changing (perhaps life saving) decision. Finally he swallowed his pride and flew, though it was more like fell, from his perch and landed squarely in the pile. Still nice and warm, the sparrow enjoy the first sensation of heat he had felt days. He decided to take a little taste, and finding that it warmed him even more, ate his fill. Soon he flew back to his perch. Knowing that he was finally warm and that he wouldn't be passing away after all, he sang a little song. Feeling a little chill starting to return, the sparrow flew back to from the tree. Once there, he gorged himself. He was so stuffed, that he could barely lift off the ground when he flew back into the tree. It was amazing, the sparrow was so overjoyed with the knowledge that he would live to see another day, he broke into song once again. About this time, a hawk circling high above was in trouble. Two days of being grounded by the storm had him searching for a meal. All of a sudden, he heard a little song. Well, it didn't take long before he spied the sparrow sitting in the tree. He locked onto the hapless little bird, and on the first high speed dive, snatched the sparrow by the neck, killing him instantly. The moral of the story: If you are full of crap, keep your mouth shut!

X2.... or more inches. >

Gov. Granholm is getting close to just that: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9237583

I'm afraid Twenty-Ten is going to force to me to face up to a couple of hard choices. I got out of tournament fishing a couple of years ago when my long time partner got sick. Now, another friend of mine is going to be looking for a new partner as his old one is moving out of state (@#$%& Economy). So I've already got that proposal bounced off me. Then our middle son who is graduating college (the 2nd time) this spring, is bugging me to get into chasing Ol'Marble Eyes in tournaments all summer. Nothing wrong with tournament fishing, but I really don't know if I want to get back into that game right now. I'm still getting used to the idea that fishing doesn't have to be strictly regulated. Anyhow, if I can get out of that mess, 2010 will find me putting newer electronics on the boat. I just bought a new Lowrance HDS-5x, so now everything is in color. Next toys on the list are a couple of new b/c combos to replace some of the old stuff. Not sure yet whether I'm going to stick with Abu, or shift over to Shimanos. Finally when I get on the water, I really need to get back onto crankbaits a little more. I'd also like to find out where A-Jay is slamming all of the smallmouths he keeps posting on here.

Sounds like fun, but we're going to have to do that where you are. It's snowing here this morning! And while I'm at it, California? Have you even tried to get into bed yet? I can proudly say that I got a whopping 4 1/2 hours in the sack before Uncle Arthur made his nightly visit. Maybe you've met Arthur before..... His last name is Itis.

I'm going to bounce around in my reply here. To start, your final comment that your time is limited on the ice. I know exactly what you mean when you said that. As a person who makes a large portion of their income preparing tax returns (during ice fishing season), my time on the ice is also restricted. But I used the reverse logic as the reason to spend my money on one of these things. With so few days to be on the ice, I wanted to maximize my chances when I could get out. Now, with regards to flashers. They do have a slight learning curve if you have never used one. A flasher unit will do somethings an LCD can't, and an LCD does other things better. The biggest issue when on the ice deals with "the picture" being updated faster, while not having to deal with the historical picture that scrolls across the screen of an LCD. The concept of a flasher's picture is that you are looking at a series of brief images set on something that looks like the dial of a clock. The surface is always set at "Noon". As an example, if your flasher is set for 20' and you are currently over 10' of water, you will see a broad band sitting in the 6 o'clock position. 15' of water would put you at 9 o'clock, and so on. If your unit is set to shallow, say in 30', you won't get the bottom echo at all, and you will need to set the flasher to a deeper setting. With the deeper setting (say 40'), now the 10' reading would come in at 1/4 of the dial, or 3 o'clock. You always want to set the flasher at the minimum depth you can get away with. It allows you to see the most detail. Now let's go back to that 20' setting, and set up in that 10' of water. Your dial shows a bottom echo that isn't going to move or change. You may even see a second echo further down the dial that you can disregard for now as it is only a secondary echo. What you watch for are the brief flashes that show up between Noon and 6. When I first get on the ice, I set my gain button on my unit to the day's conditions. To do this, I will drop my teardrop w/waxworm on it dow towards bottom. You will be able to watch the echo from this slowly move down the dial. Then I adjust the gain until my bait shows up as a small orange echo with a touch of green on either side. Now, if the waxworm is missing, the signal will change to only a green band. This adjustment can be done with a variety of baits such as perch minnows, or larger baits for walleyes, lake trout, or pike. A brief item on signals. Just like any other fishfinder, the signal is sent out in a cone shape. On a Vexilar, the flasher reads the strength of each signal and shows them in color based on that strength. So, a fish near the outside of the cone shows up as the weakest signal (green) while targets closer show up as either orange, or red (strongest). Note that your gain setting will also have an effect on these readings. Once you have the gain set on the unit, you're ready to do the catching part. Like I said before hand, I usually start my day on the ice by drilling a series of holes. These either spread down a drop line from shallow to deep, or broadly across a flat. Once all the hole are drilled, the gain is set, its time to start looking for fish. I do this by moving from hole to hole, looking for solid echos somewhere between Noon and where ever bottom shows up. Sometimes you'll see bright red echos (those are fish) and can immediately drop down your line. Other times, you may see just a brief glimmer of green. If you wait at the hole, the signal may strengthen as the fish moves deeper into the cone's signal under the hole. A typical days will have me cover a number of holes. Once I find a hole with fish, I will stay put to see if I can get them to bite. As fish typically move around a bit, some holes can dry up. When this happens, I just repeat my search of the holes looking for one with a school moving under it. Back to that double echo off bottom. With time, you can read that echo to tell what type of bottom you are fishing over based on the echo. It's kind of like seeing a bottom echo for the first time on a color LCD -vs- the B&W's version called "grey-scale". Yeah, all of this takes a little time to learn, and I got most of my education by trial and error. To see some of this (and much more) you can go to Vexilar's website. They have a bunch of videos that show off their features. Disclaimer: Just in case anyone was wondering, no I don't work @ Vexilar. They are not a client. I'm not even married to the owner's daughter. I've just become a very big fan of their product.

Only option #1 works. This employee brought it up because they knew it was a mistake. The other employees supposedly know it was an error, and most likely figure you are going to fix it. If not, they would be up in your office complaining. Best case - The employee accepts it, and life goes on. Worst case - The employee gets mad and leaves. In this economy, they may be fairly easy to replace. One of the very hardest parts of being "The Boss" is dealing with employees. A fair employer (and you must be if the issue is bothering you) wants to try to do what is right for all of their workers, while still making a livable earning themselves. In good times, employees should be rewarded for their extra efforts. In hard times, everyone needs to shoulder part of that burden. The best reason for any employee to get a raise is because they took on more responsibility or learned extra skills your company needs. Fair employees understand these concepts. It really sounds to me like all of your employees are fair minded. And I figure they are waiting to make sure that you will be fair about this as well. So my suggestion is to go with option number one, with just a slight change. Maybe add a bonus check to each of the other employees to cover the mistake. Maybe holding an employee meeting to explain the error and how you are planning to deal with it. But before that meeting, try to figure out a set of goals the employees could meet to get that $.75 raise. Of course all of this is just an opinion.

Trying to get my heart started......... I've been up for a 1/2 hour or so, though I really don't want to be. Coffee, more coffee. I can't be held accoutable for anything I type until I've at least had my second cup of go juice.

Not that it really matters I guess, but I think Tebow is going to get his wish with a national championship. The guy is already blessed. If he had come out last year, the Lions would have drafted him. The Lucky Little Snot! ;D

Well Farmpond, you've still got a few days to go sit on Santa's lap. And when you do, make sure to tell him the only thing you want this year is a brand new Vexilar. If you're afraid that you'll be in bold print on the naughty list, then you'll have to pull out the plastic. Yeah, the Vexilar IS that good. I bought my first FL-8 back in 1991 and would never think of going onto the ice without it. It was hard to believe, but after a little while, I could tell if there was a wax worm still on my tear drop. Also, as fish would start to enter into the cone, they would show up as a light green bar. If my bait was not at the same level, I could move it to that depth. then as the signal started to go from green, to orange, and finally to red..... Bang there would be the bite. On days with a tougher bite, I learned that you could judge the mood of the fish by the jigging action you put on the bait as the fish neared it. Imagine seeing a fish move from light green to red and then back to light green before fading away. that would tell me that whatever action I was using didn't work. The next fish to move under the hole would get a diffrenet action until I found the one that would trigger strikes. And suspended fish? No problem with a Vexilar. No more using a weight to set depth or find bottom with. No more adjusting a bobber until you find them. My normal day of ice fishing starts with me drilling a series of holes, and then moving from the first through to the end of the line until I see fish. Have you seen the thread over on Gen'l about live bait being cheating? Well when the guys first saw me using my Vexilar, that was the same comment I got. If you are serious about ice fishing and catching, then I can't imagine you'd be sorry for the investment. I'd seriously look at picking up a new FL-12.

I would agree with everyone here that the catching doesn't turn them off. But I have seen a school shut down when you start releasing them. At least with schooling smallies, one or two tossed back or lost will kill the bite.

Just to bring a little clarity into this subject, the following link shows the ballistic charts for Federal Slug Ammo. http://www.federalpremium.com/products/compare/slug_compare.aspx You will notice that the max range shown on this chart is 125yds. The most important things I would concentrate on are the bullet drop as the range increases, and more humanely, the foot pounds of energy drop as the slug moves down range. These shells, sighted in at 100yds shows the path of the slug dropping approx. 4" drop from the top of it's arc to the 125yd mark. Any guess as to how high you would have to aim to lob the slug out to 200yds? In the military, we called it plunging fire. These shells also show a drop of foot pound energy of about 36% by the time they get down to 125yds. There is still enough energy to produce a clean quick kill, but I highly doubt that is the case at the advertised range of 200yds. I also am rather dubious of the "3-4 Group" statement when the closest slug of any of the three shots in each group is approx. 3 1/2" from the bullseye. One shot barely scores on a 10" ring which is what I'd call a miss. All in all to anyone, unless your name is Crockett, I would suggest limiting yourself to a shorter range until you have done a lot of practice or practical shooting with any shotgun using slugs.

The choice of a shotgun for a first gun for deer hunting is probably a fairly choice. There's a pretty good selection of choices, from single shots, to pump guns, and auto loaders. Depending on your budget, you can choose from a smooth bore with standard ammo, to the newer style rifled barrels that use the more accurate sabot shells. You may also want to take this opportunity to look into seeing if you could find a shotgun with interchangeable barrels so the weapon could be used for ducks or upland game as well. Now I'm sure not going to try to start an ugly argument here with Catt or anyone else, and the following link from Ithaca Arms backs up the claim. http://www.ithacagun.com/deerslayer3.html But I've got my doubts. As a certified range official with over 20 years experience hasn't shown me anyone yet who gets those kinds of results. I think you'd be better off scaling back your expectations from such claims. Even with a rifled barrel w/scope and sabot loads, I've found that the average hunter can see good results out to half that range. Better accuracy, which is paramount when the goal is more than just "cutting paper", tells me that you can expect that range to get down to a more manageable 50-75 yards. With practice.