Scott F

That Olympus looks like a nice camera. If you like photography, you need to be able to take a variety of different pictures. The only problem with waterproof cameras is the lack of a good zoom lens. That limits the kind of outdoor photography you can do. The extreme wide angle lens is what makes the GoPro a bad choice for everything except close up photos and close up videos. With a $500 budget, I'd get 2 cameras. One water proof, and one like the Nikon L830 that has a 30X optical zoom. That way you are covered if you want to get a shot of that eagle up in the tree or the big fish your partner got in the front of the boat in the rain. I have a Canon with a 24X zoom I got a few years ago and use it for everything except when It's raining or I'm wading when I carry my waterproof Olympus.

I have the same plug on my charger wires that I have on my trolling motor. I just unplug the motor and plug the charger in. If you don't have a permanently installed charger, this could not be any simpler or safer.

No, it's called economy of scale. If you were making almost anything, the cost of the machine, design and labor is fixed. If you only made a few, you still have to cover the initial cost so it costs a lot for each one. Once you make millions of them, the cost per item drops a lot.

Lead is being outlawed in places because it is toxic to wildlife. There are not a lot of other metals that have the density to make good replacements for lead. Tungsten has the right qualities but it melts at high temperatures so it is harder to mold and the metal is more expensive. The demand at this point is small so it costs a lot more to make make and sell.

If you set the hook with braid the same way you set the hook with a stretchy line like mono, it can dig in.

How do you know you had EXACTLY, one gallon of water?

Just because the scale shows grams, ounces or tenths of a pound, does not mean it is accurate. Accuracy is when you weigh a 5 pound weight, it reads 5.0lbs not 4.8. The only digital scale I ever owned was off 3oz at 5lbs and 7oz off at 10lb. Todays scales are more accurate than they used to be, but the only way to know for sure is to check them against certified weights.

The cold water period, as defined by In-Fisherman is one of the 10 calendar periods. It happens in the fall just before the water freezes, and right after ice out up until the water reaches the mid 40's. The pre-spawn period is when the water goes from the middle 40s to the middle 50's when the spawn period starts. Fish behavior is different in each period. The techniques used and locations are different during the cold water period, pre-spawn, spawn, post spawn etc.

Are you talking about the pre-spawn period or the cold water period? They aren't the same thing. Different tactics depending which you are fishing.

This statement is inaccurate. I work for a company that manufactures scales used in grocery stores. I bought a Chatillion scale 25 years ago and tested it using weights certified by Weights and Measures. It is as accurate as any digital scale. It's only drawback compared to a digital is that you can only read it to an eighth of a pound (2 oz). They also cost double what a Rapala scale sells for.

Fly fishing is almost a different sport. You have to enjoy the challenges using a fly rod presents. Getting a fly to lay out perfectly is a skill more difficult to learn than casting a baitcaster. Everything about it is more challenging. Many guys I know, like tying the flies almost more than fishing them. I learned to fly fish for smallmouth as a kid. We only used poppers back then. When I joined the Smallmouth Alliance, a lot of our members were fly fishermen and showed me a lot more about fly fishing. It was actually because of them that I gave up fishing the "long rod". At this point in my life, I'm looking for less challenges than more. Fly fishing to me is just a much harder way to catch fish than is required. If you are looking to learn a new skill that can be personally rewarding and have the time and money to invest, give it a go.

You are talking about a blade bait like a Silver Buddy and not a chatterbait right? Depends on the size of the blade. I'd use the largest you can but small enough that they won't hook each other.

All braid, all the time for me. No leaders (except steel for pike and musky). 8lb on my spinning reels, 20lb on baitcasters. 65lb on my musky rods. No problems with line digging in or break offs due to line abrasion.

The original poster was talking about fishing rivers.

Do a google search on the float-n-fly.

I fish when I can, but the bites don't REALLY start where I fish until the water hits 50 degrees. It's like somebody threw a switch that tells the bass to feed.

I don't like pulling fish out of the slop. You get a 2 pound fish and 4 pounds of weeds. Just not much fun for me.

They might be prey fish when they are very small, but they get too large to be food for bass (up to 5 feet long!). When they are small, 6 inches, they leave the ocean and swim up rivers in search of freshwater. They can travel hundreds of miles can spend 25 years in fresh water before returning to the sea. They are not abundant any where I've ever fished. I caught a few while bass fishing back in the 60's in the St. Lawrence River.

I never venture into the woods alone.

There's a show in that probably 90% of you guys can't get where you live called John Gillespie's Waters and Woods. He does 52 shows a year, new content every week. He films during the week, generally somewhere in Wisconsin and the show then airs on Saturday. The content is always fresh. He doesn't always show stuff I'm interested in, like now in the winter, the shows are about ice fishing. But as I posted recently, he did a show about brown trout fishing on Lake Michigan. I learned enough to go where he was fishing and got some big browns. A lot of guys get irritated by him because he goes a little nuts when somebody catches a big fish, but it's all in fun and he's a genuinely nice guy. If you are a multi-species angler, it will help you get more fish.

That's what being in a fishing club brings to you. If you are active, go to meetings and events, and participate on the forums, these opportunities will be there. Without my (and now your) club, that trip wouldn't have happened.

It's not exactly rocket science. The guy on TV told us the harbor he was in, which is pretty large, and what baits were working. The officers on the Coast Guard boat told us the location where most guys were getting fish. We could see all the boats were in one general area. Without having to get too close to anybody else, we marked fish and started casting. Anybody could do what we did. I was just surprised there weren't a lot more boats there. The Packers were playing so that probably kept more guys from getting out.

Match fishing tournaments are to kids derby's as Major League Baseball is to T-ball.

Grossman, Orton and most recently Josh McCown didn't improve after leaving the Bears. I can't remember anybody who made the pro bowl after leaving Chicago.

In my state, any fish not hooked in the mouth, must be returned to the water immediately. As far as I understand, foul hooked fish are also not allowed to be counted in tournaments either. So as to wether it "counts" or not depends on who is keeping score.