Jar11591

@bowhunter63 it’s this Yankee’s favorite breakfast!

My 12 year old AutoCraft just finally stopped taking a charge this year. Used as the primary 12V for 4 years, and as a back up for the last 8 or or so. Ive gotten a dud Crown, and a dud Exide. EverStart is currently my back up 12V, with another Crown that has served as primary 12V for the last 3 years or so. 3 years is now my max that I’ll have a battery serve as the primary. After 3 years it gets relegated to back up status. It will serve as a back up until it stops accepting a charge, then I recycle.

Usually a bacon egg and cheese sandwich on the way to the lake, always some black coffee and water, and usually a granola bar or something mid morning.

A Lew’s Tournament Pro Speed Spool on a 7’3” Fenwick Methods

Aside from spots along the bank that are visible to the eye, I use my rudimentary electronics to find off shore spots.

Culprit ribbon tails are my favorite summer time soft plastic. I throw em up to 12” but my most used size is 7.5”. A Texas rigged ribbontail is how my dad taught me how to fish and it’ll always be a mainstay in the tackle box

Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes

Incredible. What a day.

I’ll cast it and always let it sit for 15-20 seconds. Then I’ll give it a tiny little twitch. 50% of my strikes come on this twitch. If nothing on that, I mix up the retrieve. A few pops at a steady pace, then a few erratic ones, or vice versa. A lot of the times it will be obvious what retrieve is working better and you can narrow your it down to that one.

Aside from the one looked at me sideways when I showed him the fishing license that I purchased online and printed out (which is what they tell you to do), and the knucklehead who came flying at me on a jet ski like a jackass to check my license and totally burning the fishing spot, my other interactions have been short. Those 2 knuckleheads don’t speak for all of them. Every job has its idiots.

Oh man, that stinks. I think he was the last surviving member of the Allman Brothers Band, right? One of my all time favorite bands, and Betts was a brilliant guitar player. Back in the 60s my dad got into a Allman Brothers concert by telling the door man that he was Dickie’s cousin, and it actually worked.

Yes. I always have one tied on. During the summer months it’s one of my top baits. When the cover is really gnarly, is when I’ll usually opt for a Texas rig. It’s one of the most versatile, tried and true, and effective presentations. It’s a staple in many bass angler’s repertoire.

North Country Monster! With a gut like that and 22”, that fish should be every bit of 6.5lb.

For fluorocarbon leader than will never be touching the spool, the only thing I really care about is strength. No point in messing with malleable, low-memory fluorocarbon if it’s never going to see spool. I use Yo-Zuri HD Carbon leader material. Strong, wirey, and perfect for fishing around wood and rock.

Never heard of it, but I’ll check it out. I like movies like that. A River Runs Through It is one of my all time favorites. My dad played it for me when I was just a wee lad, maybe 7 or 8. I was already hopelessly addicted to fishing at that point.

@Dwight Hottle don’t blame you. I laughed so hard I cried when I discovered it in the middle of the night.

The River2Sea Spitting Wa 70 is a larger sized frog. Weighs about an ounce. This is it next to a Booyah Pad Crasher and Pad Crasher Jr for comparison: The Wa is longer, wider, heavier, and has much larger hooks than a normal sized frog. I’ve had some success with it.

Nasty little effers. I’m a magnet for em. I’ve found 5 embedded in me in the last 2-3 years, including one right on the tip of the junk. That was no fun. Funny, but not fun. I’m no longer landscaping full time so hopefully I stop picking them up.

I would say similar to @Pat Brown, I don’t always put down a bait when I should. I could catch 5-6 on a popper at sunrise, and then 5 hours later I’m still throwing a popper without having had a bite in the last several. But at the same time, I’ve gotten on midday topwater bites that I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten on if I didn’t keep throwing it long after I should have stopped.

April means ice out and the couple weeks proceeding around here. During this time jigs and spinnerbaits do most of the damage for me.

@ol'crickety it’s certainly possible they were carp, but the sustained endurance the fish had didn’t feel like the typical carp runs. But carp could certainly fit the bill in terms of size though. Fish I can rule out are bass, walleye, panfish, bullhead, perch, gar and pickerel. That leaves sturgeon, pike, muskie, bowfin, and carp. If they were pike, they would have been absolutely massive.

This is one story that always come to my mind when I think crazy happenings while fishing: About a decade ago, I was staying on a famous fishing lake in northern NY, a short distance from the Canadian border, for a week long fishing trip. One morning at sunrise I was down at the dock waiting for my fishing buddies so we could take the boat out and slay some smallmouth like we’d been doing for the last few days. I was making a some casts in the weedy, murky, slate colored water with a wacky senko. After my bait hits the water on one cast, I get the unmistakable line jump of a strike, so I reel down and set the hook on something heavy. After some brutal head shakes, this beast starts swimming straight at me and I can’t reel down fast enough. The fish swims under the dock, parallel with it, and my drag is screaming. I still can’t see what ever this thing due to the stained water. I have no control over this fish, I was just along for the ride. It continued darting back and forth under the dock at unbelievable speed and peeled drag off my spinning reel like a T-Rex. Predictably my 8lb nylon line breaks either from sustained pressure or scraping the dock. I sat there stunned at what I might have hooked, but not surprised at the outcome. But that isn’t the crazy part of the story. This next part is still hard to believe, even though I’m the one it happened to. After my line broke on the giant mystery fish, I tied another hook on and rigged up another senko as soon as my adrenaline settled a bit and my hands stopped shaking. I make another cast and I’m immediately greeted with another strike. I reel down, set the hook, and I kid you not, THE EXACT SAME SCENARIO PLAYS OUT MOMENT FOR MOMENT, INCLUDING THE OUTCOME. Same heavy weight, lightning speed, brute force, took the same path under the dock, until my line breaks after the drags screaming run. Same exact situations play out back to back. I have no idea what those 2 fish could have been, but they were certainly not bass. The thing that really makes the story is that this lake almost every fresh water fish imaginable, including lake sturgeon, Muskie, and bowfin. So it’s very exciting to think about what I could have hooked into, but man that back to back heart break losing 2 monsters will stay with me.

@LrgmouthShad Im the same way. The only “working” I do of a spinnerbait is ripping it out of weeds. But other than that, it’s a straight retrieve. That’s what gets me bit. I remember years ago watching a video of KVD talking about spinnerbaits and he said something along the lines of “you won’t catch fish on a spinnerbait with a straight retrieve”. Well I’m no KVD, but I do alright with the old rusty gate tied on. So in my opinion KVD couldn’t have been more wrong on that front. 🤷🏻‍♂️ that’s why time on the water and actually fishing is the most important thing when it comes to honing your craft.

The fact that MLB is rolling with these uniforms, and also denying that there is any issue with them, is insane. Rob Manfraud is such a joke of a commissioner. 2029 can’t come soon enough.

@TnRiver46 I’ll have to check the show out. The book is great. @fin I suspect the “gore” rating is for animal carcasses being prepared or something along those lines. Don’t want people being traumatized seeing a terrifying raw chicken leg