Turkey sandwich

In ear monitoring just seems like a nightmare between feedback, delay, and just overall feel. Everything about them would seem to make playing feel totally inorganic.

That has to make playing music rough. A good friend that I grew up playing with has been a touring jazz musician for the better part of the past 10 years. He had a stroke at 28 and had partial hearing loss in one ear. Luckily, he's since recovered. That has make hearing the rest of the band a nightmare. As for me... knee surgery (medial meniscus) that left a lot of scar tissue and complications, two hernia repairs, torn labrum (left shoulder) repaired twice without surgery, 7 herniated/degenerated discs in cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine with L5-S1 being fused. From the disc injuries, I also have some pretty funky nerve problems that pop up from time to time where I can't feel limbs. Almost 2 years out of back surgery, I'm starting to feel improvement, but I still have good days and bad days. It's really frustrating dealing with the back and neck injuries after taking care of myself as an athlete for so long, all because a girl stopped paying attention on the road and rear ended me.

great fish!

or that weird Live song where the chorus is "kick a baby down the hall". What were they thinking?

I just recently broke my 7'1 MHXF Rage and I'm shedding a tear. I've paired it with braid for the past few years and absolutely loved it as a jig rod because the combo of braid and the XF tip made it easy to feel and figure out basically everything I was coming into contact with regardless of weeds, rocks, current, etc. Mind you, I fished largely without electronics up until the last few years, so that feel, for me at least, is huge. It looks like I'll likely replace it with a LTB in the same weight and action. I also have a 6'8 MLXF Avid X. Obviously a much lighter weight, but also a much different action. The flex in that rod often goes much deeper into the blank, even with the XF tip. I can still feel the bottom well with it, but not nearly as well as with the bigger, stiffer blank. The trade off is that I can fish small treble hooked baits with it like X-Pops without much fear of fish shaking the trebles. Still, I do prefer their Fast for a lot of other presentations where I don't need to process as much, or need a little more flex through the blank to improve my casting distance with lighter weights.

For me, it depends on the kind of water I'm fishing, but I will always have some kind of jig tied on and it will likely be getting wet anytime I think it'll produce. Typically, I'll be fishing some kind of jig or T-rig variation 1/2 the time I'm on the water.

Indeed. The thing is, I've had enough really good trips that I've been past due for something wonky to happen. Las weekend, all of the wonky happened, lol.

Thanks. I just got off the phone with them. Evidently mine was made in 2004 (somehow... I was pretty sure this model didn't exist back then), so they'll credit me it's full value minus a $55 charge towards and St. Croix rod. I'm likely going to have them swap it for an Avid X or LTB. This is actually a really good idea. Kinda like a luggage tag for fishing gear. Thanks. With any luck I'm back out in a few weeks, don't have a roaring chocolate milk river, and can make up for last week. Two straight days of watching fish follow/rise and refuse was infuriating. I would be way less upset had they been 3 productive days.

welcome to the dark side. You just described every quality braid I've ever fished.

The Orra winch is made for deep cranking. I just picked up a Revo Winch (currently on sale all over and can be had with ridiculous discounts) and I've been very pleasantly surprised. It casts an absolute mile. While I haven't throw anything running 15'+ on it yet, it's smooth and feels great. If you aren't going to buy a new reel, the Orra is ideal. I have a BB1 that I like for shallower crankbaits in a 6.3:1 ( I think) ratio. The Revo Winch just feels like a much better, more consistently handling reel (thus far).

Well, on day two of fishing this weekend, I realized that I couldn't find my deep crankbaits box, meaning it's somewhere in or around either the Susquehanna River or Harvey's Lake. If you're a Good Samaritan and stumble across a Plano Deep box loaded with DT10s, DT14s, DT16s, and several XDs you can obviously reach me here to return it. If not, you're welcome, lol. In addition to losing well over $100 worth of tackle, and enduring three of the most frustrating days on the water I can remember, snapped a solid 4" off the tip of my jig rod, and had a "water resistant" phone die after a brief swim in Pine Creek while trying to cast dry flies in 20 mph winds. The phone was especially excruciating because it came after snapping off a big brown and watching close to a dozen more refuse my flies at the surface. This weekend sucked and is the most expensive and least fruitful fishing weekend I can remember, but at least I spent 3 days on the water and not working, coaching, or any of the other 10,000 things I've been busy with every weekend so far this year. BTW, have any of you guys broken a Rage since they've been discontinued? What has St. Croix's replacement policy been? Discounted upgrade? Anyone else make a contribution to the fishing gods recently that would make me feel less angry? lol

Great day, congrats!

There's a whole lot of science, and you can be really specific, but generally, amber colored lenses are considered your best all around option.

This is super interesting. That fish was EVERYWHERE. I would be curious to see what else could be made of the data over longer periods of time, in relation to size, gender, etc.

Cheers! Wrestling is one of the best things a kid can take up. Great to see him having some success on the mats! Keep him interested!

I use 30lb 832 for this and it works really well, as would any quality braid. It takes a little getting used o fishing braid versus mono, but it's much, much more manageable because of it's limpness and lack of memory.

Welcome to the forum!

^ That's a really good summary.

I'm going to be one of the guys that suggests braid because of it's lack of memory, and it's resilience while dealing with backlashes. Also, a good, consistent casting reel will make casting much, much more manageable.

Man, that's a great day of walleye fishing... if only you were walleye fishing.

There's a lot to see, depending upon what you have in mind. Where in PA are you? Pine Creek Gorge is a good stretch for a multi-day trip and also has excellent trout fishing most of the year. If the Adirondacks are in driving range, I can make a bunch of specific suggestions.

That is a pig.

If it isn't a faulty knot, it's almost definitely the guides. Also, as a note, a traditional clinch knot is not a great choice most of the time because it will slip, especially with smaller diameter line. For most of my leader to lure connections I prefer a Trilene knot. It's very similar, super fast, and a whole lot stronger... and you hardly waste any leader.

Great fish! With any luck I finally make it to the North Branch this weekend.

River smallmouth fishermen just get no love, man. So, I like a few different approaches. Some of it depends where in the spawning process I'm finding the bass, but I generally will throw finesse jig and craw combos, football/shaky/swinging heads tipped with something like a craw or madtom/sculpin imitation near beds/where beds should be and between them and the closest change in cover or best available structure. This on it's own can be killer and you don't need to stalk the fish, just kinda cover water slowly/moderately. I do also like having white/pink/methiolate/etc tied on for bed fishing because it makes it so much easier to see the bait. Generally, I prefer fishing the first way most of the time if I'm catching smaller males on the beds because I know the larger females are going to be near that cover or change in structure resting and feeding up for their next round of spawning. This is an excellent way to catch fat smallmouth.