Choporoz

Got a few this morning, but no pics. Next year.

Cheaper than Geecrack

I am opposite. I'm ok dragging a jig with braid when there is little slack. But if I am working cover, I feel much more with fluoro.

I do. Every waking minute of every day. There's a constant risk calculus taking place in my head, usually subconscious. Your's, too. It wouldn't be much of a life if safety was always the only consideration.

As @AlabamaSpothunterdescribed, having technique-specific rods doesn't necessarily mean that was the goal. Every rod purchase had an intended or imagined use. Few of those purchases were entirely satisfactory. So a rod might get pigeonholed and another rod may be acquired that I hope will be perfect for a number of things....but it will inevitably be disappointing doing one or more of those things. I have lots of rods that I use for narrow list of techniques. I didn't set out with that intent.

Rage Bug. Everything else added together is a distant second.

Mayo

It is easiest to eliminate water when it is calm. Bait balls over active bass always makes for 'nervous water'. Feeding Crappie can do it, too, but not sustained like bass in my experience.

If you trap them, feel free to bring them a few miles up 49. Duke Power won't let me and my neighbors cut some of our trees and I would welcome a few more beavers. Bonus: More laydowns!

Looks like Barlows is getting out of these, too. Lurepartsonline still has them. Put a pair of Owner trebles and your choice of clip or fast snap and you're tossing these without the fear I feel with MB or Steelshad tied on. I have used higher end blade baits (especially vaults) with some success. But honestly, the slight edge in bites I feel is way offset by fishing them cautiously. Blade baits have to spend a lot of time contacting bottom, rocks, wood, etc. I lose them at a higher rate than any other lure. I won't fish them as well if I'm worried about losing them.

Unfortunately, my source recently cut way back on production. I did get some from Besotted that I have yet to throw, but they look good. Getting bodies from Barlows and putting them together was always fairly economical. If you are fouling a specific size or even specific bait quite a bit, play with the different holes on top. Sometimes a blade will foul continuously on one hole, but be fine with another. 90%+ of the time, I am casting out and short hopping off the bottom all the way back. Once in a great while, I retrieve over sparse remaining grass, and occasionally drop it straight through bait schools...mainly just too impatient to change to propper spoon.

Plans for three days of 20# bags this weekend destroyed by emergency babysitting duty for granddaughter. Turned out to be a good tradeoff. I did get out for 90 minutes in the cold wind Friday. Spent an hour looking for bait schools before I gave up and flipped a couple normally reliable brush piles with only one hammer-handle pickerel to show for it.

I use 12# Suffix Elite for PopRs and never thought it'd be better to go with lighter line, except maybe for casting distance. I'm happy with the action

Packers are in a weird spot. Need one win against Saints, Vikes or Bears. Probably won't be any better if they win all 3. Strange to be shooting for a 5 seed with some incentive to bench starters for last 2 games.

Blade baits, jigs and spoons

I put a horizontal Rage Bug on a chatterbait 100% of the time. No trailer on spinnerbaits

I fished for a couple weeks last July with an expired license. I have also fished on trips to other states a couple times before remembering to buy a license. And I think I am pretty attuned to it. Easy to imagine how it can happen where I would have trouble calling it cheating. Not defending him. Don't care about him. Just defending against premature internet outrage.

My initial response is to strongly agree with the sentimental posts above. But sentimentality aside, what are the cons of 2 vs fishing solo? (This from someone who fishes solo by choice 90% of the time)

+1 What grinds my gears is that it was not a business decision in any sense of trying to improve the company. (My interpretation is from several years ago, so my feelings may not exactly be facts. But it appeared to be about shareholder profit taking. Not shareholders who had a stake in future success of a company, but hostile invasion for immediate profit. I describe myself as a free market capitalist, but everything about this stunk.) Now, I had largely soured on BPS before, so my judgment was already trending down. Going into BPS had become lousy experience before that; aggressive vacation hawkers hounding you, increasingly limited selections, totally indifferent or ignorant sales people. And online wasn't much better. The BPS web experience was horrible. The searches were weak, the mobile user interfaces sucked, and the pricing was never competitive. I stopped in a BPS last year while on the road, thinking I needed something or other despite myself, and nothing had changed.

@WRB, Tom, why do you say Havasu is a poor choice?....just curious -- I have never been. It appears that big kayak trails have had good events there - 85"+ to cash a check in one I looked at. Looks wide, but enough ramps and launches to spread out competitors somewhat-- unless everybody is going upriver

I bought Tokyo and Jika rigs years ago. Liked Jika and totally forgot about the Tokyos. Don't think I ever threw one, because I couldn't fathom how it might be better than jika

Found massive bait school yesterday - over a hundred yards square. Over 24 foot of water, but Garmin said 5' because the bait was so thick. Had to play with a number of spoons to get right size and rate of fall. Funny thing is that smaller spoons got best bass. Even though the bait was massive - snagged this 8" gizzard retrieving my spoon

Have some in my spoon box, but never had a lot of luck, so they usually stay there. Yesterday would have been a good test. I got on massive bait schools with bass under them. I played around with a variety of spoons before I got them, but neglected the tail spinners. I'll try next weekend.

At 60 I fished a lot of kayak tournaments. I'll be 63 soon and there's a good chance I'm done. Part of that is because I do have a boat now, but last couple tournaments got to be more grind than fun, even though I am still successful