desmobob

Dryer sheets never worked for me but it could be that using large numbers of them, like BigAngus, is the key. I have had fair luck with peppermint oil, but my go-to is still TomCat bait blocks in all the compartments, nooks and crannies. Especially the crannies. Don't forget the darn crannies... (I didn't even think it was a real word. It is... I just looked it up!) These bait blocks are in a boat that has its cover tightly in place and is also wrapped in a tarp, so I believe it's pet-safe.

Lake George is my home lake and I grew up fishing there. There are certainly plenty of smallmouths, but within a few years of fishing Lake Champlain, I caught many larger than my typical "season's best" were in L. George. But that said, it is one of the nicest lakes you'll ever be on. Just beautiful and worth visiting to fish or even just to relax/vacation. This is the view of the northern part of the 32-mile-long lake, taken from Black Mountain in Dresden: The southern half is studded with islands. The water is clear and cold and most all the shoreline is rocky. There's also good cold-water fishing opportunities there for lake trout and landlocked salmon.

My feelings also. Limp braids lighter than 20lb. is where things can start to become troublesome with spinning gear. Even on BFS casting gear, the smaller diameter lines are more likely to dig in on the spool and cause trouble some times. When it's not breezy out, the tiny diameter stuff sure casts a mile, though. ? The rods I like would very likely be considered too light by most and a ML rod would be more practical. I do think the lightest head weights are the most effective. 1/20 is my choice and I purchased a bunch of Z-Man Shroomz that size when they first hit the market. With other brands, the slightly heavier 1/16oz. would be my choice.

Trash panda...

St. Lawrence for smallmouths or Lake Champlain for either or both, depending on where on its 120-mile length you fish. I like your avatar. I raced in WERA C and D Production and Superbike in the mid 1980s (Yamaha RZ350 and FJ600; mid-Atlantic region).

The FG is my favorite but I struggle to tie it in really light lines. I often give up and use an Alberto; my second-favorite braid-to-leader knot.

I prefer the 1/20 oz. Shroomz heads for open hook and Owner Ultrahead Finesse heads for weedless and like to use light (or even ultralight) spinning gear or BFS baitcasting gear, 8-12lb. braid and a 6lb. fluoro or mono leader. I have a couple of St. Croix's Trout series and Panfish series spinning rods that I like as an affordable choice. My BFS rods are mostly JDM stuff from Major Craft, Daiwa, Tsurinoya, and Kuying.

When I started bass fishing with traditional bass gear after a lifetime of fly fishing and light spin fishing, it took me a long time to learn to do those vigorous hook sets to get large, heavy hooks into tough bass mouths, to bend aside the thick, stiff weed guards on most jigs, and, to a lesser extent, drive the hook through plastic baits when T-rigged, etc. I believe you do have to put some muscle into it to get good hook sets in many situations. I don't think I'm ever in danger of hook-setting myself overboard, but there are times I do intend to cross a bass' eyes...?

Where I live, carpenter ants are a non-stop problem. I used to use Dursban but it's long since banned. My real favorite for indoor use was always anhydrous silica, but as safe as it is, it's really hard to find in stores around here. Drione dust is a favorite brand that is very effective, and available by mail order, I believe..

Wow... seven of 'em! I probably shouldn't mention it but... isn't it bad luck to have an uneven number? ?

I... cough, cough... know this guy... cough, cough... who has caught bass on virtually every kind of lure imaginable from deer hair bugs and streamers on fly rods to every kind of lure/presentation imaginable on baitcasting and spinning gear except a Zara Spook. ?

I have a good selection of Red Eye Shads and they sure work well! Truth is, I previously had a bunch of Bill Lewis Rat-L-Traps and Cotton Cordell Super Spots and they sure worked well, too, but I read so much good stuff about Red Eye Shads, I started buying them instead. If budget was my first priority, I'd fish Super Spots happily. Of those three brands, I do believe the RES are probably the best of the bunch. I think those are the only three brands of lipless cranks I've tried.

I installed Chrome and was able to import my bookmarks and favorites but not my passwords, for some reason. I followed procedures I found on line and the .csv file my passwords were saved in on my desktop shows up but cannot be selected when I attempt to import it on Chrome's "import bookmarks and settings" set-up. I have two Google accounts; one for my PC's Gmail e-mail address and an icloud.com one I established for my MacBook. I set Chrome to synch with the iCloud.com account after logging in with it, but it always shows it synching to the gmail.com account as I attempt the procedure. I unsynch all accounts and start over and the same thing happens. I don't know if that's the problem or not. I'll mess with it more in the future. I have a low threshold for computing frustration and I hit it a little while ago. ?

Thanks very much for staying with me on this very basic stuff... I appreciate it. If it's easier to point me toward another site that might have all the information I need on this, feel free to direct me somewhere else so you can get back to doing what you do! I rarely use Google (switched to DuckDuckGo! as a search engine years ago) but I do have a back-up gmail e-mail account. I can download Chrome and try it while keeping Safari as a "back up" or in case I have trouble with Chrome, right? I'm sorry to keep dragging this on. I'm really not much of a computer person but I really am considering changing browsers. Safari is troublesome. I have this forum on my "fishing" tab group. Sometimes when I click back to it from other sites, there is a Safari message bar telling me BassResource.com was using too many resources and was reloaded.

I forgot about all the log in data/passwords that Safari handles for me... Do they pass into Chrome easily as well? I think it would be a nightmare for me if they didn't.

Opera, Chrome, Firefox... I'm a 60-year-old with limited computing skills, and would probably be at least somewhat frustrated changing browsers and learning a new one. Is the transition to an "aftermarket" browser difficult? I have a TON of bookmarks and favorites that I worry would be hard to transfer.

Yikes! I thought it was one of those deals where if one was killed by a vehicle, killed for management or safety reasons by proper authorities etc., it could be documented as such and sold. I still have a tiny piece left from a fly tying kit my mother gave me as a birthday gift when I was around 10 years old. That would have been in 1971... don't call the Feds on me! ?

That wasn't the real issue. New displays and most LCDs work fine. The issue was that early graphs had a lot of latency. When you're fishing vertically, having real-time information is important so ice fishermen relied on flashers (and many still use them) because of the instant readout. Most modern graphs are fast enough that ice fishermen use them. They have the advantage of showing several seconds of history on the scrolling display.

Polar bear hair was always well-loved by fly tyers... there's nothing like it! It's very expensive and hard to find today. Somebody should start a polar bear ranch...

A flasher is a type of old-school, real-time sonar. https://marcumtech.com/explore-m-series-flashers/ A lot of guys used them in their boats back before LCD graphs came out.

RIP Mr. Martens. I hope he's in a place where the fish are always biting, knots never slip, line never breaks and you never ding your prop. I really enjoy watching his videos... you can feel the passion he had for fishing.

I love ice fishing. Some guys put out tip-ups and then sit around waiting for a flag to go up. I like to fish for lake trout for sport and yellow perch for the frying pan. I prefer to jig and use a Garmin Striker Plus 5 to see what's going on down there. I can stay out of the wind and warm in my little portable flip-over shelter, that also serves as a sled to carry my gear.

The really weird part is, I turned on Activity Monitor to look at resources used with the tab preference set each way. I switched the tab setting in Safari preferences back to "separate" and the pages are still loading quickly. Bizarre, but things are back to working as expected, so I'm happy.

I use a MacBook Pro to view the forums. I am NOT a "computer person." It seems like after the last couple of updates, my Safari browser slowed down tremendously. As I searched the web for solutions, I saw one that seemed very easy to try but seemed like a long shot. It worked! The tip was simply to change the Safari tab preference from "separate" to "compact." I can't imagine why it makes a difference, but it did for me. The person who posted the tip said their resource usage with Safari went from 100% to near idle. I don't know how to look at that so see what my actual numbers are, but I know Safari is loading pages like I'd expect it to, instead of dragging along like back in the dial-up days. If Safari has slowed down for you, this may be the quick and easy fix you're looking for...

The darn airlines and their ever-changing baggage rules really make things a PITA. In the good ol' days you could carry on pretty much any length tubes and they'd stow them in a closet in the cabin. When I went to Mexico in 2012 I duct-taped my 4-pc travel fly rod tubes to my carry on bag so it was "one carry on piece" as per the rules at the time. No problem from NY to LA and LA to Loretto and back again. I was amazed how many folks were flying back to LA with coolers full of fish! I would probably opt for a large, rigid checked case for rods these days.