Vorlin

Not to be too picky but I noticed a small error in the original. Light's ability to penetrates air, clouds, water, etc. depends on it's wavelength, yes... but it's the longer wavelengths, or lower frequencies, that penetrate best. This is why the last color you can see in the sky at dusk is red and the first color to disappear is blue. The sunlight has to come across the atmosphere at an angle, making it travel through a lot more air than it does when it's coming straight down. Blue light can not penetrate all that air very well but red does. It's part of my original trade... I was a radio tech in the Navy. We had to know the math for what frequencies to use when and what would or wouldn't penetrate cloud cover. Submarine radios are the craziest... the wavelengths are so long that it's measured in cycles per minute, not second, but those frequencies penetrates even the earth itself. Vorlin

Actually the deciding factor was when the state run park that I caught it in didn't have a scale... yet they're supposed to give citations. Go figure. > I had to transport the fish to an official weigh in and that pretty much finished any chance of releasing it. Yea, I did mention it to the attendant... they need a digital camera, scale, tape measure and all the paperwork for a citation right there. They could take the pic, do the weigh & measure and then you can get it released quickly while they make a certificate. I prefer to eat the 1-2 lb bass since there are so many of them and release anyting smaller than 13" or larger than 3 lb. As it was, I was VERY careful to ensure that I didn't waste any of this filet. If the fish had to die, I wasn't about to let it go to waste. Vorlin

Hey that's the same fish!!! ROFL Here's the pic, see what you think. I got this one at Ni Reservoir:

New job meant new car so I'm mobile again... working 6 PM - 4 AM, 4 days per week and that means I've only been off work for 90 minutes when the sun is rising, plus I'm awake at sunrise on all 3 days that I'm off. This has me out 3x per week for 4 hrs each plus usually one full day... so figure around 20 hrs per week. I've also found that even though it's harder on me, fishing at night and sometimes in the rain can be far more productive than the traditional "good fishing weather" days. Vorlin

Congrats!!! Yesterday was indeed a good day for fishing! I also got my new PB yesterday. Vorlin

Ok, so I have a Chihuahua... it's still bigger than my dog!! ROFL It was an odd day... at first no bass hitting. Then, a dink... then, a couple of decent keeper bass (each one a good dinner for one person by itself) and they were hitting wacky 4" senkos on a FAST retrieve??? I was retrieving quickly after thinking I was out of the strike zone and one tried to ****** the senko in a topwater strike, so I paused and then moved it again and he nailed it topwater!! If there is a goofy, bass-ackward way to do someting, I'll find it! In the heat of the day it had gone dead... so I went to the beaver huts to check for a little fun crappie action. Action was so hot that I tested myself to see how fast I could boat a dozen. I hit the stopwatch and boated 12, plus around 7 that got off, in 12 min 39 seconds. But the last one wasn't a crappie... it was a 9" dink bass that hit the crappie jig! So, I tossed the senko again. First one was a super dark colored, nearly black, 9" dink bass. Then things seemed to go dead... so I did a fan pattern around the banks in that area. Considering all of the ways I've seen 4" wacky rig senkos hit, I devised a retrieve to combine all of them. Cast, wait 30 seconds on slack line... pulse back halfway to the boat to swim the seko with kicking "frog legs"... let it fall and wait 30 seconds by my watch and then pulse back to the boat. On the 3rd cast, I had finished the 2nd 30 second wait period and started to pulse back again. On the second pulse, she hit: When she hit, I thought I was snagged on a tree... When she moved, I looked at the dog and cursed that I had caught another snapping turtle by the way it felt... When she did a short tail walk, I nearly soiled my shorts... When boating her, she felt like 12 lbs... The chain stringer barely made it around the nearest gill slit and the fit made me nervous, so I lifter her back out of the water and put her in a cooler filled with water (and the act of doing that broke the clasp on the stringer)... 3 witnesses at the boat ramp exclaimed she was a "Giant"... The state attendant at the park said she was easily a citation... One guy at the boat ramp said that she "dwarfed" another guy's 5 lb catch the day before, he estimated her at 11-13 lbs... A fist does fit in her mouth, and my hands are not small since I used to drill concrete for a living with a 2 handed roto-hammer... When I got her to an official station, she came in at 21 inches and ONLY 5 lb 2 oz ?!?!?!??!?!? :-/ :'( :-/ Even the person weighing the fish didn't believe it. So, we got another scale and it was the same result... I didn't measure the girth. My room mate took a pic with me holding the dog in one hand and the fish in the other. I'll have a jpg of it later today and will be posting it. Vorlin / Scott

Isn't that the truth! I caught a new PB yesterday that was literally bigger than my dog... I have a Chihuahua. When she hit, I thought I was snagged on a tree... When she moved, I looked at the dog and cursed that I had caught another snapping turtle by the way it felt... When she did a short tail walk, I nearly soiled my shorts... When boating her, she felt like 12 lbs... The chain stringer barely made it around the nearest gill slit and the fit made me nervous, so I lifter her back out of the water and put her in a cooler filled with water (and the act of doing that broke the clasp on the stringer)... 3 witnesses at the boat ramp exclaimed she was a "Giant"... The state attendant at the park said she was easily a citation... One guy at the boat ramp said that she "dwarfed" another guy's 5 lb catch the day before, he estimated her at 11-13 lbs... A fist does fit in her mouth, and my hands are not small since I used to drill concrete for a living with a 2 handed roto-hammer... When I got her to an official station, she came in at 21 inches and ONLY 5 lb 2 oz ?!?!?!??!?!?!? :-/ :'( :-/ Even the person weighing the fish didn't believe it. So, we got another scale and it was the same result... I didn't measure the girth. Estimation formulas aren't even close in a case like this... and many fish seem to be filled with air! They look like monsters but don't weigh half as much as you'd think by looking at them. I'll post a pic shortly. Vorlin / Scott

7 packs of 3" Senkos in Pumkin with Grn & Blk Flake. 3 packs of #2 Gama baitholder hooks to rig the Senkos "wacky" with. 5 packs of Treetop Lures 1.5" Tuggy Grb in Cotton Candy "TLS15TG-0133" (it's by "Spike It") Use the change to buy a BIG cooler for all the fish!!! Vorlin

I think it is more about how it is fished most often. slowly and on the bottom. Huh?!?! Bottom???? Uh-uh... not me. I put together my own technique quite by accident. I was fishing a Crappie Magnet one day when the conditions changed and chartreuse stopped working. So, I grabbed a color that had been recommended to me called "Cotton Candy"... It's a little 1" paddle tail from Treetop Lures. They call it a 1.5" Tubby Grub and it has nothing at all to do with crappie magnets. I put it on the little 1/32 oz shad dart that came with the crappie magnet and never looked back. I throw it anywhere it won't get hung up, especially the shallows parallel to the bank. I swim it with little 3" jerks at a faily brisk retrieve and the fish just try to kill it! In my last 3 outings alone: 10 LMB, 1 White Perch, 3 Ring Perch, 1 Breem PLUS: I lost count of the SMB, Sunny's, Bluegill and Crappie by the truck load! All off of the same little jig! (EDIT: I just learned that "Treetop Lures" is one of the brands under "Spike It" Outdoors... turns out that it's not some little one man shop after all...) Other than that, I use 3" Senkos in Pumpkin with Blk & Grn flake rigged wacky (on a #2 Gamagatsu bait holder hook, NOT a worm hook) and I swim it back slowly with 3" pulses to make the ends "flap". For slow fishing I use a finesse worm, one of Shaw Grigsby's line rigged texas style on a Gama worm hook, again the color is pumpkin. I'm trying to expand my repetoire.... I just invested $30 in Fat Ika's and am currently browsing the forums to see how they're best fished. However, it's HARD to make myself use someting else when I'm too busy reeling in fish to have time to change the lure! Vorlin

Last year I went looking for a light/med duty spinning reel. The folks at the local tackle shop know me well and so I was able to go behind the counter and pull out every single reel I wanted to check out. After 2 hours of comparing, I was emberassed and stunned to have settled for an Eagle Claw GUN-20 over many other reels that were twice the price. Now, that reel has caught many fish, served well and even went off of a dock into 7 feet of clear water... and is still as smooth as a baby's behind. Recently, I went looking for a long, ultra-light rod for Crappie. After looking at several, the counter-person said "try this" and handed me some yellow thing. It was perfect! I put a new GUN-20 on it and the balance was frighteningly excellent. She gave the tip the slightest touch with the back of her finger nail and I felt it as if it were amplified right down the rod to my fingers. The tip is so flexible that the first 24" can almost be bent in half. Then I braced for the price, it had to be out of my budget... $12 ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Oh no... it was another Eagle Claw product! But... but... but... they make cheap stuff for kids, don't they?!?!? Dazed, confused and almost ready to become a convert due to the performance of these rigs! The new crappie rod and a new GUN-20 for it, plus a couple of jigs, came to a staggering $48, TAX INCLUDED! I'm not saying to buy them... I'm saying to ask your local shop to hand you one and check it out for yourself. Then look at the price. They may not be the best out there but you can get something very nice for chump change... and that leaves more money for Senkos!!!!! Vorlin

Well, I'm not sure that they're tips as much as lessons learned... I was trying for bass off of a dock that I know well when I happened to glance down and see a whole mess of panfish all around the dock in the crystal clear water. I was fishing the bass rig slowly with a senko and figured that I could try a jig along the dock while letting the senko sit between small moves. I use a 1/32 oz jig on a #6 or #8 hook and it's balanced a lot like a shad dart... which is what they used for the "Crappie Magnet". I dulled down from bright chartreuse to a blackish head with transparent chartreuse tail and found that the blugill were hitting the less bright lure much harder in the clear water. I was simply tossing it out about ten feet and then swimming it back with 3" taps and a slow reeling action. Then, my senko line jumped while I had the jig in the water. I droped the jig down and checked the bass rig... missed. Oh well... Now, my jig was on the bottom... around 7 feet. I was feeling as if it didn't matter so I jsut swam it back the same old way I was doing before when a bright silver flash darted out from under the dock and tried to hit the jig hard enough to break it in half! Crappie! Right there under my feet! Over the next couple of hours I must have hauled in over 40 of them. For nearly a dozen casts, I had one every single cast. So, I tried the good old crappie bobber and jig combo with the same jig... and got NOTHING. Not a nibble, not a fish, absolutely nothing! Thinking that the fish had turned off, I tried the swim action again without a lot of hope... and for the next six casts it was a fish on every cast! Observation: Out of 40 or so fish, only 2 were the darker males. Most every fish I caught was a female who was holding under the structure / dock. That's the story, and here are a few observations / lessons from it. These are NOT rules or any such thing carved in stone but merely things that worked better than my usual techniques on this day: 1) Ever wonder why the fish always go under the boat? That's because it's COVER. Your boat, your tube, your dock, even your backside can be a place that fish try to hide. Never forget to look right under your nose, literally. Many fish aren't the least bit scared of you... and may try to hide under you. 2) Around here, some form of chartreuse is the way to go. Bright neon in muddy water and subdued two-tones in clear water. 3) Get a crappie magnet from Wal-mart for $2 and study it... the thing WORKS. It's a 1/32 oz shad dart on a #8 hook with a tiny little jig and the thing catches crappie like mad. When rigging a jig, remember that balance for a horizontal fall and keep it light... 1/32 or 1/16 is plenty for crappie. 4) Up until that day, my #1 crappie technique was a jig on a bobber. Not anymore. The 3" taps and slow retrieve so completely out-fished the bobber that it was a sad joke. Now, that could change from one day to the next but it's an important point to remember because if your bobber isn't taking hits then you have to remember that you could still be on fish! If you think that they're around even though you aren't taking hits, try the both techniques and see if either one or the other is what the fish want. 5) The odd thing is that the pole I used for the crappie was an old 6' graphite rod that had been broken so many times that there were only 4 feet and 2 eyes left on it. That's right... I had no tip! I had NO light action! I could have been using a steel rod for all the fish cared that day! Just when you think you know what you're doing, you have a day like this! Vorlin

Lot on my plate recently... dad's health, slow at work, budgetary considerations, lack of action on the water is getting nder my skin because catching fish relaxes me but trying to catch fish only runs up the blood pressure. All that, some more and I was recently privelaged to be named to the devalopment team of VistaOz, a project that is making all of Australia incredibly realistic for MS Flight Simulator. (FYI VistaOz is at http://vistaoz.org/ and I go by Vorlin there as well...) This show is a fun idea for me and who knows, if it takes off I'd love to make it a job! The idea isn't as much like Denny's show as it is "***** Eye", because a few pros / guides will be prepping someone for a trip or tourney and then the "student" goes out for their big day to see if what they learned can help them do better than they would have without the tutilage. The "student" can be videoed from a discreet distance during the tourney and be hot mic'd, the pros critique what they see on that recording, as the student sits and watches with them, and we all see how he or she does at the end. Ugh... 1 AM and work tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow (later today) I can get some hours in that I actually get paid for! Vorlin / Scott

Life took me away for a bit but I jsut read the above. Thanks for the idea! I'm trying to get in touch with Andy (he has a small show already) to see a few things. We may be able to try something with this in the spring! Scott / Vorlin

This area is big time smallmouth country. They are definitely ambushers and because of this they love current that carries their pray past rocks and other obstructions that they hide behind. They also tend to frequent SHALLOW water far more than LMB. The deepest areas of the best SMB fishing river around here are only about 6 ft and most of the river runs between 18 inches and 4 feet. This is where the fish are... and if you're going after them then you need to be in a boat that can handle current, rocks and very shallow water. Most in this area use a canoe or kayak. Trouble is that the canoes that are truly capable of handling being beaten around harshly weigh too much for one person to easily load/unload and carry more than a few steps because htey're made of thick, touch plastics. (harshly beating the boat is unavoidable in this kind of water). This leaves a kayak, a kayak and a kayak. You'll need to get inventive when it comes to a stringer or live well and make sure that all your equipment A) floats, and will stay in their respective containers when, not if, you dump yourself in the water at some point. Kayaks can be great to fish from but you need to think ahead. Don't drag too much gear out with you, have a plan for what to do with any keepers and make sure that your gear won't get lost. And, lastly, pack some extra clothes (2 sets) in watertight bags... you'll be glad that you did. Scott / Vorlin

I did 2 1/2 years of sea duty in the Navy and can tell you that things get really spooky, really fast. It's not that unusual, and that's why we use instruments and have redundant instruments and take along cracker-jack box instruments to back those up too (hey, I've heard of worse things than cracker jack toys getting someone out of a jam). If you break it down, this could be easily explained... 1) You were focused on staying over the school so you weren't tracking your landmarks. This is how you got disoriented to begin with. 2) You asked a guy who didn't seem familiar with the lake... and his choice of words: "on THIS SIDE of the lake", is very telling. What "side" did he think he was on? Did he put in on the other "side", before coming in through the creek himself? Maybe he didn't put in on Orange and simply didn't understand that once he went through the creek he had changed lakes entirely, not merely changed sides of one lake. 3) You found the ramp well enough but somehow lost the other boat. Those bay jobs have a lot of "sail", meaning side area that gets hit by the wind. This will shove them around very quickly in any sort of breeze. He may have intentionally went around a strip of land of gotten blown by one... or maybe he got blown far enough that you may have seen his boat but thought that it couldn't have been him. All in all there are believable, logical reasons for it all. Is it still spooky? You bet your rear end it is! Especially when you're in the middle of it. Once I had my skin crawl in a way that it had never done before, or since, in my life. We were way out in the middle of the Carribean, hundreds of miles from anywhere. It was a peaceful, beautiful, quiet, summer dawn with the sun just coming over the horizon. Those of you who have been out there at that time of day know what I mean and why it makes the skin crawl. They call it "Dead Calm" for a reason... not even the tiniest breeze, mirrored water, no sign of life anywhere. It's the eeriest feeling in the world, bar none. You would think that it's a natural, peaceful thing... but it gives you the creeps in a way that's the most unnatural thing I've ever experienced. *** Any compass will do.... even a peanut butter jar lid with a needle that's magnetized and a scrap of paper will be far better than nothing. And yea, there are sailors who have used such a rig, or worse, to find thier way. (Put water in the lid, lay the paper in it and lay a magnetized needle on the paper... it rotates to align itself with the eaths magnetic poles. It's an old boy scout trick and it's a good thing to have when all else goes downhill on you.) So how were the crappie!? Any pics? Scott / Vorlin

I had known about, and forgotten about, the production services.. thanks for the reiminder! Scott

In my mind, Guide = Pro. A guide is someone who can take a novice out and almost ensure that they have a successful trip, they get a fee and they're worth every dime. Touring pros know competition. Guides know teaching. Both know fishing. Many, but not all, of the episodes would feature the "student" working up to, and competing in, a tourney of some sort. It could be a local BASS club with 20 boats one week and a big ProAm the next... whatever the person being taught wants to work toward. I've been contacted by some folks already and if it all can be coordinated then there may be a decent shot at an episode. The big thing right now is getting pros (touring pros or guides) who would be willing to have some fun with this for a pilot or two to see what the finished product looks like. THings are moving slowly due to damands on my resources. In addition to this, I have my full time job and I'm working on a little invention that could do quite well. It's not anything earth shattering, just an easier and faster way to do a repetitive task. It could, however, proove to be quite popular. As a result, I'm doing a lot of learning about resin casting, mould making and the like. Striper season is getting hot though... although I wish I was catching strippers instead like someone in another thread was talking about doing! ;D Scott / Vorlin

When I graduated Naval 'A' school, we got no choice at all. We were all sent off to advanced training schools that were picked by someone else. When we graduated 'C' school it was very different. There were only 4 of us (it was an 11 month series of specialty schools, very few were sent). They brought us into a room and laid out all the available slots that needed our specialty and left us to figure it out ourselves. There were like 5 slots and 4 of us, and we basically carved up the country in a way that everyone was satisfied. If I had to do a dream sheet, these are the things that would guide my decision: 1) Make sure you can get a MAC flight locally so you can go standby for personal travel on the cheap. This allows you to experience other places you didn't get sent to or go visit family. 2) I'd pick all places that were cool in some way and that I figured I'd never get to otherwise. Hawaii, Alaska and don't forget US territories that may be considered stateside duty like perhaps the Marianas, Puerto Rico and others. Don't forget that Minnesota has incredible fishing and you'll learn to ice fish as well. Upstate NY is good outdoorsman country and don't discount Arkansas or Alabama... lots and lots of forest and lakes. Don't do Guam... it's a big prison island except for those who love open water scuba diving. Just make sure that you can get away at times... this means there has to be a military cargo hub nearby if you want to try MAC flights. Whatever you do, make sure that it's DIFFERENT from what you'll be doing with the rest of your life. This is your chance to travel on the government's dime... make the most of it. Vorlin

Also you might try a scent... not to make them bite any more than they are but rather to get YOUR smell and taste off the bait. It's more than proved that a fish will hold a scented bait just a *little* longer than an unscented one... you still have to set the hook, but you have a little more time before they spit. Little = 2-10 seconds Don't count on more bites and you won't start a feeding frenzy... the idea is to get them to hold it in their mouth a little longer while they decide to spit or not. That's your window, where you set the hook. Make it as large as you can. That is, after you get a better rod for the work you're doing! See the above replies... Vorlin

Target audience: All of the above, but a little more of a different group each episode. National distribution would be lovely but at the moment I'm just looking into what it would take to get it off the ground... as well as a few other projects I have going at the moment. The reason the target audience can change is because the idea of the show is to take someone to the next level or up a couple of levels. You take someone who has never fished a tourney and they get a week's worth of detailed training from some pros and then they go fish the tourney... filmed from a discreet distance... and the pros eval their performance. Or take a local tourney person and do the same for them just before their first regional or national event. Non boaters and boaters both... because each demands different tactics and approaches. The non-boater definitely has to be more flexible and ready to take advantage of the fact that they get the fish that the boater "woke up" and made alert, but didn't bite. How would you approach that? Use a spinner to your boater's crank bait? Maybe play a plastic into that nice spot while it's at 9 or 10 o'clock and let your bail stay open, only reeling in once you're at 7 o'clock or the line takes off? Remind your boater that parallelling hte bank is good for him... while you troll a spinnerbait 15 feet off the bank and parallel the whole time? All of the above? None of the above? Each pro has a technique... and the viewers get lessons from each pro, each episode. 3-5 pros, one fisherman who needs lessons quick... per episode. It's an idea... let's see if anything can come of it. Vorlin

Hi Marcia, I understand that, but I was wondering if the exposure from a show would be more valuable to the sponsor than an in-person appearance that takes the same amount of time for the pro to do. If the exposure is more valuable, maybe it could be counted as an appearance? Also, how might such exposure allow the pro to get more sponsors? In the end, *if* the show were to be widely viewed then it *could* produce enough new sponsors that it's worth it to the pro to do the show for free because of the resultant exposure. IE: Kevin VanDam could be sponsored for the rest of his life without ever catching another fish because he's had such exposure that his name alone will sell... fish or no fish. There are so many possibilities, and so few things that are known for certain... That's why I'm still probing around and getting a feel for what can be done, under what conditions and then see where that leaves things. Vorlin

I've now come up with 4 designs and think I can source springs cheaper if I go with a different size... so it looks as if I may end up pouring my own hard plastic, at least to get a refined prototype. Plaster, Dremel, a dream and a whole lot of cursing as I make mistakes with the Dremel and need to re-start a mould over and over again! (see my icon!) Vorlin

All, I'm working on a project and have found that there are parts of a balsa bobber that would be perfect for what I need. I'm referring to the long balsa bobbers witha point on one end, a fat middle and a spring around a pointy plastic end where you slip your line through. I don't think these are slip bobbers, but I could be wrong. What I need are the plastic ends and springs, minus the rest of the bobber. I need a few dozen of these setups. I've googled around a bit with various search terms without success... was wondering if anyone here may know a source. I'll also go sign up on TU and try there as well. Thanks, Vorlin / Scott

This reminds me that I need to get my boss to email me the pic from our company fishing trip where I caught my PB... it wasn't measured but everyone agreed that it was the 2nd largest fish of the trip. The largest was a 10lb striper that was around 24". Several people mentioned that mine probably went 22"-23" and 9 to 9 1/2 lbs. There is a pic, and thanks for reminding me to get it! It was caught on live spot in the Chesapeke Bay on a charter trip. I'll post the pic as soon as I get it. Vorlin

I use a slightly different tactic... I use a flash grenade and tell them to get their a**es in the boat. This way I don't have to expend the effort to cast. ;D Vorlin