Jigfishn10

Was that at Houghtons? There's an area behind the snack shack that was over managed for a few years and had virtually no weeds in the area. I was slinging a rippin rap not log ago and found that the area has a nice weed growth this year. I'll be hitting that spot a few times this year. It was a great producing spot for years and then 5 or so years ago the pattern died.

Yep, when the bite is tough, I downsize as well. We'll be in the dog daze of fishing soon if not already, so smaller tends to be better. When the bite gets really bad, I love to target bluegills. Sure beats a day at work. A dead sticked 4" Senko type bait is a really good technique in times like these. It's painful as all heck, but your patience will be rewarded.

This year I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to coach my son's little league team. He wanted to quit baseball last year because he had an awful coach for the past 2 years. Now he enjoyed baseball so much that we spend at least 4 days out of the week doing some type of baseball activity. Either playing catch, going down to the batting cages for some hitting, I got him a training stick and about 3 dozen training balls and we have BP at home or he can hit off a tee. It's great to watch his enthusiasm for the sport now. Nothing like playing catch with your son though.

slonezp, a lot of us in the trades have had the same bluntness and rudeness sent our way. As a matter of fact, we often say that we get treated as second class citizens by our superiors, design teams and representatives of the very owners we're working for. I've seen peeps in the trades treat non-skilled laborers, temp laborers and apprentices with the same demeanor. Outside of our "community", they don't understand how we talk/treat peeps. I just learned that I needed to adapt/adjust my demeanor to the audience that I'm interacting with. What your doing is not wrong, it just may be time to adjust your presentation...so to speak.

Good operators are worth their weight in gold. I have a new appreciation for what they do. Here's a couple of pics from my project I did in Boston for Verizon Wireless. It's their 4th Destination Store on Boylston Street. It's located where the 2nd marathon bomb went off: The crane is about 40' away and he's picking a piece of glass that is 2" thick, 12' wide and 10' high. Total weight was 2,262 lbs: He now lifting it over a barricade that is 16' high. The lifting device is an electric power sucker. We're praying at this point that we're not going to get a power outage: He's up an over the barricade and is relying on hand signals at this point because he can't see where this glass is going. There is only 6' between the barricade and the building. The glass sits in an upper and lower steel channel that is 3" wide so his margin for error is pretty slim. 1 piece of glass costs about $12,000 so the whole operation was pretty nerve racking: 11 more to go...LOL Again, I have a whole new appreciation for what those guys do. 1 hiccup, burp or fart and he breaks the glass or takes out a bunch of workman. That hot dog vid was awesome to watch!

Anyone have these? I just picked up 2. I bring them to work and my home in ME. I'm kicking myself for not getting the waterproof ones, but it's all good in the hood. They sound great for the money. Give em a try!

1/3 oz Little Cleo caught my first spoon trout last fall. Thanks to the fine folks here, I learned how to fish them correctly. Had a blast catching trout and bass last fall. Largest bass of the season came on a Cleo.

Hit Houghton's on the way back from work and managed 2 LMB in the 1-2 hours I was there. 1 1/4 lber on a Rapala Rippin Rap and a 1 1/2 lber on a Yozuri 3DB Popper Ghost Shad. Left because of the beach crowd. Heading to ME tomorrow to launch the Zodiac and to tube for stripes. Have a great 4th of July, Guys! John

You as well, good luck! I'm hoping to get the Zodiak in the water up in ME and fish for stripes as well!

You know, some of my better days on topwater came when there was no surface activity, so don't count that out. In my book, if the water is topwater type water from a calmness perspective, then I'm giving the dog a walk!My best luck with spinnerbaits have been with gold blades. Don't know why, but gold blades always did it for me there.

Hey ewizza, for some reason I do well in this pond with moving baits. Sometimes lipless crankbaits other times a spinnerbait, spoons get it done as well as jerkbait - early and late in the season. Browns and watermelon green often produce, but loud orange and chartreuse often work as well. I don't beat myself up over color as much as I focus on presentation. Just my fishing style I guess. Lipped cranks can be tough in this pond. I used to have success with them but digging into some of the weed clumps and pond snot can be a real buzz kill for me. I'd rather keep my lures and my body moving about the pond than pulling weeds off every hook and lip. Again, that's just my preference. Walking and popping bait really excel here in the past for me. I haven't topwatered yet this year as my outings have been few and far between, but I do enjoy the top water bite on this body of water. Long casts to the second weedline or breakline is needed this time of year. If any fish are shallow, they're usually on the smaller side of small. I have heard of some nice catches frogging the lillys, but again, I heard it, I never witnessed. I fish there a lot on my way home, so take that with a grain of salt. It certainly doesn't hurt to try. Hope this helps and I wish you luck my friend!

I took the day off to attend my daughter's middle school graduation ceremonies today. Afterwards, I thought it would be a good idea to get my 3rd fish outing in for the season, so I hit Houghtons for a bit. It started off well enough, the bass were liking my gold/chrome rippin rap on an erratic retrieve but so did this 1 particular pickerel. It had all 3 trebles in its mouth. I grabbed the fish by the back and under the gills so I could perform a little surgery. Well my patient was a little impatient and started thrashing around a bit causing enough chaos to bury the rear treble hook in the tip of my finger. So now I have 1 hand holding a thrashing fish with a lure in its mouth and a free hand which wasn't so free anymore....OUCH! First time in 20 years I buried a hook in my hand. I guess thankfully, the rear hook was a #8 hook otherwise I think I would have been in a different level of pain. Stay safe my friends!

Totally agree, I had the opportunity to fish with grampa1114, Rhino and Tate in the past and have had a great time fishing with them. I Tx fished in the past in MA and NH, but by far my more memorable outings were with the folks I met on here! Rhino, my work schedule has been crazy busy, but I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I'll be PM'ing you soon!

Everything is going up...well not everything, my paycheck has been stable for 3 years...So I have that going for me!

Being in the construction field for the past 25 years, most of that time running work, I've had all walks of life on the project. Some peeps respond better when you yell at them, some respond when you tell them what to do and offer no more info than just the task at hand, some want to know why they are doing something a particular way and want the extra info. It's just the way it is in my profession. We are currently experiencing a skilled labor shortage, most trades are just not replenishing the skilled work force with younger blood. This is more prevalent with the non-union trades but it is affecting the union side as well. The Union side at least has more financial upside potential. Getting in and staying busy is another matter...around here anyway. When you do get younger help on the job, they're not as productive and make way more mistakes. When cell phones came out we had lost productivity to excessive phone use - peeps talking to their friends and not paying attention to their work. Now it's even worse because of texting and social media. If you give them something that is physically demanding, you may not see them the next day or at all for that matter or they may drag their feet and take way longer than it should. What do you do? Yell at them and have them quit? Send them home or have them assigned to another project? Make them stay, work with them and try to make them productive? The first 2 options is just enabling them. The last option seems like a better option but now the work scope is costing more than you can cover the work for. The pay rate for a young kid now isn't worth it to them to stay in the trades. I've heard many times that they would do better on unemployment than to work hard in construction. To each his own. I worked at a hardware store part time when times were tough and I needed that extra cash to keep afloat. Making minimum wage and having a customer berate me because of what I was doing didn't really go over to well with me. I stuck it out, but I can see how peeps in retail, restaurant or any other customer service type field could wear a person down. Dealing with the general public just isn't worth the pay check. The general public is very hard on these peeps. I never thought of it until I experienced it.

Sorry I haven't been following Raider, but I've been really busy on a jobsite dealing with a bunch of dumb@$$ electricians! Oh wait a minute...sorry...no offense!

What a crappy thing that coordinator did to you. I tip my hat to you for working with the kids. Maintaining interest in the kids after losing all those games is tough. My son's team last year was in the same boat - he was 9 and in the same league your coaching in. They lost every game due to a coach who was part time at best and player interest was really bad. We used to go to the field crossing our fingers hoping enough kids would show up to field a team. The league let him go 3/4 of the way into the season. When another parent and I took over, we lost out first game as new coaches by 1 or 2 runs. We won the 2nd game and beat the #1 team in the league. What made it so special was that team was undefeated. Prior to the game we had heard that other teams felt bad for us because we were so pathetic. so we got the kids together for practices to work on fundamental baseball. I never saw a group of kids so happy after that win. It was such a relief to them and gave them confidence. Needless to say we didn't have to cross our fingers on game days anymore.

I couldn't help but to quote and that statement.

You maybe right, I don't recall it being that way growing up in sports. It's always been split in 2 leagues. There's a huge difference in ability between a 12 y/o player and a 10 y/o player. At the end of each season the league requests new and existing managers to sign up for the next year and are notified of upcoming tryouts for the American League for next season so we can scout the kids. Most of the kids tryout so you can rate each kid. Those who don't tryout will automatically drop to the National League. All kids get drafted in both leagues and because participation is way down, all kids play.

9 teams x 12 kids per team (on average)

This year I was a Little League Manager for the first time. I've been a coach before, but under someone elses agenda. I coached 10-11-12 year olds and our league is split up in 2; Major American League and Major National League. The American League is for kids who are well skilled, have adapted to the expanded rules from instructional league and is generally more competitive because of the skill level. The National league is for the kids who need more more instruction but play the same rules as their American League counterparts, usually by the end of the season the games become very competitive. Playoffs is when really good ball is played. Generally, the National League will have more 10 year olds coming up from instructional along with 11 & 12 year olds who generally haven't had as much playing experience - generally the kids have just started playing within the past few years. I coached National League as my 10 Y/O son had just jumped from instructional league. What got my attention was the kids who should have played American League but stayed down. I asked the opposing coaches why the kid wasn't playing up in the league above. At least 3 times I heard the coach saying that the kid didn't want to play because it was "too competitive". Yet, the 3 kids were tearing our league up. My neighbor had her 12 year old in our league, not the best ball player, but certainly skilled enough to play in the upper league. Again, she mentioned that she didn't think he would have fun because it was too competitive. As a kid growig up playing sports, being competitive and playing against kids older was a way to get better and advance to the next level, so I ask: Are we losing our competitive spirit?

http://www.eregulations.com/newhampshire/fishing/freshwater2011/know-the-difference-salmon-and-brown-trout/ I also read that trout have 12 or less rays on the anal fin and salmon have 13 plus. This one appears to be a trout. Thanks for your help guys, I really thought LL Salmon, I guess I was wrong.

1962? Did you read that between episodes of the Cisco Kid? Pancho ~

I ran a little late on my wedding day...I went fishing prior

Glad to have you aboard Pradopower. I wish you luck on your next trip out!