G3-Basser

Watching the boat launch itself about 10 feet short of the water while backing down the ramp. Luckily the boat and outboard were fine...the transducer was not so lucky. This is when I learned not to let your fishing partner mess with the winch. -J

Before you set fire to it, send me the LSU stuff. I'm a '91 grad and I bleed purple and gold. Best thing I have is an LSU hat that I got David Toms to autograph. I'm just about to take a job at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, so I'll be back in tiger (and crawfish) country once again. Seriously, the best thing to do is just pass it along to the young folks. I"m always giving away baits to help newbies populate their tackle and to make room for some new stuff. -J

I feel your pain. Sunday I decided to clean up my boat a bit. I went to replace a cup holder and came prepared with a "factory replacement". ANyway, I start on the broken cup holder and find that it is riveted in place and the back of the rivets are under carpet. Nice clean install, but sucks for me to replace. I drill out the rivets and try to line up the new cup holder. The holes don't quite line up. Grrrrr. I manage to get two screws in and it seems to be a tight fit. Next aggravation....go to install another cup holder...drilled some pilot holes and started screwing things together. As I'm doing the second screw, the head of the screw shears off. Fabulous. I can't get this thing to come out or go in any further. Luckily, it holds the cup holder on and it doesn't look hideous (unless you know where to look). Next....I decided to vacuum out the boat. I break out the house vacuum, b/c it's got a lot of suction and I'm wanting to get the cracks between the carpet and the gunwale clean. My minivac won't do that. So, all is well until I can't reach a spot b/c the hose is too short. I lift the vacuum into the boat, but it's collected some grass on it and it begins to deposit this all over my freshly vacuumed carpet. I then decide that wet grass will wipe off of vinyl easier than it will vacuum, so I put the vacuum on my boat seat. I fired up the vacuum and hear some bad sounds coming from my seat. The vacuum rollers had instantly burned a nice hole into my boat seat. GRRRRR. This was the real pisser of the day! Next....Wife calls me in to help install a shelf. I hammer in the spreading wall mount and tighten....remove the screw and begin to mount the shelf bracket. My wife gets her side tightened, but mine just keeps slipping....screw won't go in and won't back out. After 20 min of fighting it, the pliers come out and I managed to rip the mount out of the wall leaving a nice hole. Luckily, the shelf had a couple other holes in it, so I was able to slide over a few inches and place another mount. The 2nd mount attempted to hose me, but I realized what had happened and avoided disaster the second time. Needless to say, I did not attempt to install my new fish finder. I will save that for another, hopefully less cursed, day. -J

Don't feel bad; it happens. I have no pic of my PB either. That morning I had actually handed the camera to my dad to bring with us. BUT, he ended up setting it down to pick up some drinks or something. NUTS!!!! At least I had a witness though. Congrats. -J

This is not meant to sound like a smart *ss answer, but I will fish whichever ones are cheaper. I picked up alot of Gammy's the other day in red that were $.75 a pack less than the black ones. I do notice that when fishing the red hooks in bright sunlight and clear water, that they will give off a little flash. This could work to your advantage (or disadvantage), but I haven't realized any difference in catch rate. -J

Beautiful fish!!! Congrats! -J

Well, most of these strategies have been mentioned before, but b/c I'm such a lillypad lover, I had to post. The thick stuff: topwater frogs, either hollow or the "horny toad" varieties, pitch a jig or tube to open pockets or rig a huge 10-12 in worm texas rig with a 1/8 weight. Run the worm across the top of the pads and then drop it into holes or off the edges. Hits will come on the fall. Thinner stuff: Swim a jig b/c it doesn't get snagged on the stalks, run a spinner bait through or use a senko or soft jerkbait to fish below the surface. I rarely get skunked if I have a patch of lillypads to throw at. Good luck, J

Very nice. Love the color too. -J

Geez, was that the worst netting attempt you've ever seen???!!!! Was he trying to club it into submission??? His azz would be swimming home after that knuckle head move. -J

I second your fillet method GMAN. -J

I pulled a 7in worm out of a bass' vent hole (not sure if that's what it's called, but I'm talking about its bum) recently. The worm was about 3/4 out and looked like hell. I gently pulled on it and it came right out. The bass was in great shape, about 2 lbs, and I released it without incident. The certainly cannot digest a typical plastic worm and this guy was lucky that he could pass it. I suspect that most just regurg them later. -J

OUCH! That really sucks. At least it doesn't sound like there was any permanent damage and you were able to work on that insurance deductible a bit. -J

5 lb 2 oz in my avatar pic. I was hoping to score big this year, but Spring really stunk for me. I've caught some decent fish (4-5 lbs), but no monsters. -J

Congrats. Today I was running a double colorado blade right under the surface and had a gar totally blast it. Miraculously, the gar stayed hooked up for several seconds and then shook loose. Had several other gar nips on the spinnerbait, but the bass bait of the day was the shakey head rig. Got a 4lber on that! -J

My PB fish was caught on a tube (8.75 lbs) and I"ve caught several fish over 6.5 lbs on them. I usually cast it to surface cover, twitch very quickly keeping it above the cover, then kill it and let it tumble down. Unless I detect a strike on the fall, I will let the tube sit still for a while and then drag it a bit. Sometimes the fish will bite it and you won't feel it until you try to move the tube. If no fish, I'll then hop or drag it to the boat. I used to use a lead head with a weed guard. Those are a pain in the arse to rig, so I switched to fishing it texas rigged. I'll usually use a very small weight, unless flipping or punching through weed mats. The bigger tubes are fairly easy to cast even with a bait caster, just don't try anything heroic against the wind. -J