Raul

5-6 months of use, how many times in a fishing trip he twitches with the twitching bar ? That A spring that it has on the non handle sideplate that attatches the bar to the frame......never had good experiences with that A sping.

There are no bad dogs, there are bad owners. If you neglect the proper training any dog can be a stick of dynamite, yeah, including those you think don 't bite like labradors. But the media loves Pittbull attacks, that 's what you see which leads you to believe that Pittbulls are vicious people killers, stereotype = ignorance.

At all times, better safe than sorry. In a big stable bass boat it may not be necessary while you are moving around with your TM on, in a small bathtub like a 12 ft jonboat I 'd rather see you with a PFD at all times. It doesn 't need to be a monster life jacket with enough bouyancy to keep a whale floating, suspenders are good enough, but when you crank up the gas engine please put it on. One of my uncles drowned in Avandaro while canoeing at the lake, the canoe flipped over and stuck him on the head knocking him out, he was not wearing a PFD. If you think that wearing a steamy hot PFD in the middle of the summer ( come on down here and you will know what HOT means ) is uncomfortable there are inflatable PFDs that are quite comfortable like suspenders. Your most precious possesions are your life and your health.

I 've heard of people that can "smell" colors, apparently they have one of those once in a million neurological connection between their sense of smell and sight.

The whole Pittbull deal has been taken completely out of proportion by the media, ANY mid to large size dog can be a threat specially if you are INVADING IT 'S TERRITORY. I 'm a vet, I know that I can be attacked by an animal anytime specially when I do house calls in the middle of the night, reason why I hate house calls and I prefer not to do them ( and to avoid them I charge 10 times more ), unless the animal is practically dying like with it 's guts spilled all over the street I prefer to attend dogs in my clinic because this is MY TERRITORY, not their 's. I do take care of several pits, never had a problem with them; rotts, they are a different story, most are nice but I attend one that 's a real mean SOB. Chows ? I hate those and akitas, completely "inexpressive", you never know what they are going to do, shapeis ? some are nice, most just go bezerk when you approach them. I 've only been bit once by a mid sized dog and it was a frigging dalmatian; I 've been bit more times than I can remember by Chihuahuas, maltipoodles, poodlesaurious, malticockis, cockipoodles, cockisaurious n 'such than by large breeds. So next time you hear: " Don 't bite" My arse ! Any dog can and will bite and it don 't need to be a Pitt. Think about that the next time you enter in any dog 's territory. Which doesn 't mean that you have to be scared crapless everytime you enter somebody 's home.

Drift parachute may help.

Airborne..... you are not wearing a PFD. :-? > In my book that 's a NO-NO, you should ALWAYS wear a PFD a least when the boat is in motion.

You 're not going to convince me Chris, I don 't like braid at all, I 've used it and nope, I don 't like it a little bit. Gimme Trilene Big Game !

Fan out the weedguard to separate the bristles, it will remain weedless but it won 't bother while hooksetting.

For the $80 budget Shimano Compre. For the $60 budget Shimano Clarus ( Clarus rods are slightly heavier than Compres and less sensitive )

The location and the topography around the lake is also important, there 's a lake about an hour drive from my home located at the lower part of the Sierra de Guanajuato, the lake is in practical terms always windy, if wind doesn 't blow from the dam to the upper end then it blows from the upper end towards the dam, but there are mountains ( not hills but real mountains ) all over that area that act like a wind tunnel and the lake is in the middle of them On extremely rare ocassions you see that lake like glass, and when that happens you don 't catch a thing, it 's such a rare occurence that when it happens bass turn ultra spooky, lure and line shy.

Golly molly ! ya better obey the monkey specially is he 's packing "heat".

Reason why I don 't carry a camera: When the camera goes I don 't catch anything worth taking a picture, I 'm not superstitious, but I bet that camera has some sort of jinx to it, maybe I should replace it but I can 't tell if the camera is jinxed or if carrying the camera is what jinxes the trip, or the big mommas know I 'm carrying the camera and don 't wanna bite or the presence of the camera makes me or my partner do something stupid.

We have two options to justify his lack of presence in the thread: 1.- He is fishing for them big momma kaliforny bass therefore he 's been busy and hasn 't jumped in. 2.- He has humbled us enough in the past and he 's giving us a break.

I 'm on a slump now, bad karma for the past 2 years and broke my 10 year streak of at least one 10+ pound fish a year, the closest I was to 10 pounds the past year was 9.86 lbs. The truth is that it hasn 't been bad karma, I haven 't fished enough and my trips haven 't been on a regular basis.

Brag boyz while you can !! Fish Chris is coming to humble y 'all away. ;D

I'm surprised to hear a Floridian say the topwaters don't work in winter. I use them year round including winter. Toss a popper into a cut. Twitch it a few times. they'll hit it. WINTER ..... in FLORIDA ?!? , that 's a new one. :-? Oh well, winter does have a completely different meaning for us boyz down in the south, winter means that we don 't have to turn the A/C all day long, we can turn it off at night because it gets "cold". ;D

yes that is the dry weight with nothing it in. as for the structural integrity of the boat, i feel that there are enough ribs in the boat to compensate for the loss of the seats. it is not like we are going to be hitting things at high speeds with the sides of the boat. the other boat i did have was not a jon boat, and did not have any ribs. the sides and bottom were flat, and we pretty much tortured it without any structural problems or anything like that. You CAN 'T TAKE OUT THE SEATS, it 's the flotation device of the boat. 135 pounds is pretty light for a 14 fter, my 12 ft weights 145 pounds and I cartop it everywhere.

Bass do migrate, the territoriality concept also applies under certain circumstances and during certain times of the year, if bass were "territorial only" animals then where do the big mommas go ? think of it, you catch a big fish in one location today it should be there tomorrow however very few times you catch the same animal in the same location. I think that if given the opportunity to roam around the fish will move around. I also know they are territorial and establish a home if they can 't move to another location, I 've seen it happen in small pond fish, they are limited to the size of the pond and the bigger fish take residence in the most advantageous places, you can catch them in the same location over and over again until they die or are displaced by a more agressive fish. If the circumstances are right the fish will move many times miles from their supposedly usual hangout places, food availabilty, competition, age, size are factors that make the animal change location because the system in which they live is not static but dynamic. If the lake is conected ( fed ) to a stream or river that always has water running in it the fish will move up and down the stream or river and back and forth from the lake.

I believe that as long as the sound has some cadence to it it doesn 't affect, sudden unexpected loud noises ( like my compadre throwing the anchor or my nephew having a fist fight with the cooler taking a Coke out of it ) are more likely to affect in the immediate term. Yup my fishing partners ( compadre and nephew ) shure are that kind of loud guys.

I think that it has more to do with the mood and the surroundings the fish are in than on how much noise you are making, there are days and conditions in which the fish can be real spooky other times they don 't care at all. But one thing I 'm pretty shure about is that my compadre will scare the crap out of any fish in a 10, 000 mile radius every time he "throws" the anchor, dang, a cow falling in the water from a cliff makes less noise than my compadre throwing that 10 pound anchor.

"Only" 14.2 .... that 's funny ! ;D

I don 't believe in any of that "LUCK", "MOJO", "SUPERSTITION" or whatever crap you want to call it; I 'm an advocate of:There 's no such thing as luck, you are the master of your own destiny. However.......I don 't have the slightest idea why whenever I take my camera I don 't catch anything worth taking a picture. :-?, something is just not right.

Boat ----> a hole in the water where you sink your money into.

Back then when I started fishing and dinosaurs ruled the earth, when there was no innernet, no graphite, no nuthin for you to get any kind of information and there were tons and tons of secretz.... Well not really cuz I ain 't THAT old in years, but yes information and baits were quite scarce specially because I live in Mexico where for one reason or the other tackle and information was hard to find, ocassionally I stepped on a F & S magazine or an OutdoorLife Magazine at the magazine section of Sanborns but still, there wasn 't much to choose from, my dad was anything but a fisherman so I missed that part of the learning curve. With a few baits my dad bought me, with the help of the few articles I read and by experimenting on my own I taught myself how to fish. I learned by steps, first in-line spinners, then jerkbaits, then spinner baits, then crankbaits and last soft plastics and jigs, the way I taught myself was by forcing me to fish with only one kind of lure until I was able to catch fish consistently with that particular type of lure before stepping into the next, with the help of a family friend and with the help of my uncle who allowed me to fish their irrigation ponds stuffed with dumb bass that have never seen a lure is how I learned through trial and error how to work a bait properly thus catching fish consistenly with that particular type of bait. As time went through the fish got smarter and so did I. Being a veterinarian and being a fish hobbyist ( for 37 years now ) helped me to understand how the animal behaves and reacts, add to that my keen sense of observation, my priviledged memmory, my methodical ( yet nervous ) personality, my stubborness ( a mule is pale comparison ) and that huge end extreme confidence that never leaves me has helped me become a better, more proficient and consistent angler. I know I 'm going to catch fish, it 's just a matter of how many and how big. And still, I just can 't seem to catch a cold with a buzzbait, don 't know if it 's me or the dang fish don 't like it.