Sphynx

My honest suggestion is not to try to remember every contingency all at once, you'll drive yourself ballistic, pick a couple of rigs and learn them inside and out, personally I'd recommend Texas rigging, Carolina Rigging, Ned Rigging, and either shakeyhead or dropshot depending on hard/soft bottom for most of your fishing, that's an awful full plate for a years worth of fishing trips to make any sense out of...if you focus on too many techniques at once your absolutely going to have a tough time identifying when a thing does and doesn't work

Afghanistan, I consider it a constant reminder that temperance is a good thing, and that rash decisions have consequences lol.

Yeah, Summer/Winter are super low probability endeavors out on the Columbia River for a shore guy, you get maybe an hour if your lucky during the worst of them up near the shore, morning for summer, evening for winter, and you better have whatever they want because you aren't getting a second chance that day, still, it provides a couple of opportunities for gear maintenance and such that help me make the very most of the other 250ish days a year, so it's not all bad.

Wow, that's certainly something to keep an eye on for the future, never had any bass spines in me, but I still have enough shrapnel and bullet fragments in me that every so often a bit of metal pops out of nowhere when an odd little bump/itch shows up in the locations the metal is (hands/throat) so I can confirm that the body does eventually find a way of pushing foreign objects out of it...been poked plenty of times by bass, I'll be sure in future to keep a closer eye on instances of this!

From a technical standpoint of finding repeated success I am of a mind with @A-Jay that middle of the column baits are often the most difficult to be consistent with, fortunately the fish will let you know in a hurry whether or not your doing it right, or if you need to pay more attention. I think that walking small bodied frogs, poppers and stick baits is a very difficult thing to do well, as is properly balancing a jerkbait to suspend, it has the obnoxious habit of moving the goal posts based on water temperatures, I think sooner or later I will have to simply take a few days to figure out at what temperatures things change, and get jerkbaits set up for each range that suspend and label them in their own box for the temp range and solve it that way...frighteningly expensive solution though.

This is my question too, are you pairing your line to your hook? Do you use a bait that gets out of the way enough to allow the hook to penetrate the lip? Try to find either a thinner bait, or try a hook with a bit larger gap with your current bait.

Wear it to your next bass tournament, might get a few offers, or at least a few looks of admiration from fans of his baits, but I don't think they will be preserving Mr. Yamamoto's autograph in the Smithsonian any time soon.

Fishing related ways to use your time productively include practice with pitching/flipping to targets in your yard or nearby park, equipment maintenance and organization (sharpen/replace hooks/rings, check skirts andother bits forrust/dry rot,) research into spring/spawn/post thaw fishing, research your specific bodies of water (what sort of water is it, what vegetation specifically grows in them, bait population and variety) Google earth/maps, and for the more adventurous, suit up and take advantage of the ice to explore the banks you can't get to easily to see if they are worth the effort (ice safety applies here). Other non-fishing hobbies? I enjoy playing guitar, recently picked up a Fender acoustic on sale for $170, add a pack of picks, a strap, and a stand your out maybe just over $225, but I don't know what you consider "inexpensive" so I could be way off, but none of my other hobbies qualify as inexpensive, so I will leave them out.

I find I prefer channels with people who are not building a YouTube brand as a primary source of income, I also like to keep at least one channel for the major regions of the country to see what differences exist, might come in handy one day. My favorite is probably Debo's fishing overall, but that includes entertainment factor, for educational I think that Bassresource is at the top, I also like to watch Alex Rudd, and Realistic Fishing, the Googan's are an interesting bunch, but I don't really enjoy their content very often, it's as much (or more) about pushing the brand and marketing as any other aspect, and that gets tiresome after so long, there are also only so many times you can watch them flip out over "monster" fish that are lucky to tip 3lb on the scale, I have nothing at all against what they do, wish them all the luck in the world in fact, it's just not for me, other notably enjoyable channels for me include BassGeek, and Marling Baits, on the Fly fishing side of things Mad River Outfitters are fantastic, so is theslideinn, for trout/salmon species Addicted is hard to beat as well. Probably forgetting a few, but that's life in the big city eh?

For me the biggest producer was a Strike King KVD 1.5 in the bluegill color, silent. No idea how much the official weight was but it was a smallmouth over 3lb, I need to remember to start bringing my scale.

Have some, haven't had any opportunity to use them just yet, if they are as good as the plasma tails it ought to be great...the thing for me with zoom is the affordability, hard to argue with the pricing.

Shaq himself has said that Rodman was the only guy who could guard him.

We talking any style of worm? Straight tail or curly tail only? Any other limitations? Since None are currently listed, here's my top 5. 5) Zoom Ol Monster - Black/blue or Green Pumpkin 4) Gary Yamamoto Senko, same colors as above 3) Zoom Finesse Worm, same as above 2) Biospawn Plasmatail - Green Pumpkin 1) Zoom Trick Worm, Green Pumpkin. I throw #1 and #2 probably 75% of the time I'm fishing any sort of worm...the Senko gets a bit of play, but the others are more siyuational...all five of these are in my box available at any given time.

Not a huge fan of it, that being said, if that's what will get me bit, I will do it. I usually don't get entire days to fish in the first place, so I will usually only have to suffer through a couple of hours of it at most. A couple hours of painful slow finesse stuff that catches a few fish is infinitely more interesting to me than burning the bank with a crankbait or a swim jig not getting bit.

A lot of what you put in your first aid kit will be dependent upon what you feel proficient in using as far as medical gear, if you don't know how to apply a tourniquet, don't use it (this particular item I recommend still bringing, as someone else may happen along/be there who can use it properly) it's not terribly helpful having a kit getting cluttered up with stuff you can't use, so make sure whatever you include you know how to use, another thing I can't advise highly enough is to clearly label everything in your kit, you get hypothermia, lose enough blood to pass out, or break your hands/arms and can't use your kit, or go unconscious for any other reason, your only real hope is that someone else happens along and can navigate the kit in time to help you, it will also help you find things more quickly in less serious scenarios, possibly preventing an injury or use of the kit from ending your day early, or otherwise minimizing things that could ruin an otherwise good day

Depends a lot on the person in question, and you can easily figure on needing to be able to do it at 50%, as there is a good chance your not going to have a great angle, might have to use your non dominant hand and have lots of pain involved to boot. It's easy to try to pack a small hospital in a kit, but the trick is to keep it organized, and to keep it manageable and realistic, doc used to organize our personal kits with colored tape, red for trauma, green for dehydration stuff, etcetera, it was a great, simplistic system that was easily remembered under high amounts of stress...obviously it is to be hoped that you don't find yourself trying to get a hook out or stop the bleeding while someone else is trying to shoot you, but it's worth keeping @mcipinkie post In mind that just because you can manhandle a thick wire hook in an ideal situation with your clippers, you may not be in an ideal place or configuration when it matters.

I'm positive that otters predate bass, with the exception of areas featuring gators I am pretty sure otters are either apex predators or not far off it, the big question to me is more about what effect they have on bass populations, I have not done the research but I expect it isn't that big a deal, bass are unbelievably well adapted to survive in so many diverse environments that they consistently make top marks on invasive species lists, they are a very, very effective example of evolution, and hard to get rid of, it's one of the reasons they are so popular as a game fish, I also doubt the otters are getting any really big bass as long as that big fishis healthy, those fish are elusive, crazy elusive, and it would seem reasonable to me that an otter would find much better rates of success grabbing a bunch of buck bass who haven't figured otters out yet than chasing after a wary old lunker who's been playing the game for years successfully, it's probably a lot like the argument that the salmon and trout guys make, sure bass munch the odd trout if it can get the chance, bet they'd gulp an otter that was appropriately sized too, but I overall expect that they coexist pretty well all told.

Poppers, whopper plopper or a cigar style for topwater, swim jig or a bladed jig for subsurface would be my suggestions.

Gotta love the old squarebill! Congratulations!

Well, other than here, there is a fairly good number of videos on YouTube about it, you can go as far down the rabbit hole there as you want to, I don't think it has a bottom. I'm not sure about books, I have never sought any out on the topic but I do know that perusing the related threads and articles written here and YouTube videos would keep you busy for a 40 hour work week for at least a few years, definitely agree with that as a goal, it's a far more important one than figuring out specific techniques.

Not super picky myself, something shad, something in the baby bass/sunfish family, and something translucent, and something with some flash. One of these will work, there are plenty of options in each category and since I rarely fish the same place very much at this point, I find that versatility is more important than getting really dialed in on a specific color that works great on a given fishery.

I avoid most commercially prepared aid kits, they tend to be boo-boo kits and feature mostly bandaids and comfort medication (pain relief etc) and most of these things are of no interest to me, I like to prepare my own focusing on the sorts of aid that is likely going to be a serious problem, blood loss anf breaks due to a slip/trip/fall, so Israeli bandages, tourniquet, chitosan bandages, antiseptic for disinfecting punctures from hooks (usually rubbing alcohol and neosporin) and splint materials, then my aid kit moves on to the next largest concern to me, which is hypothermia, I like to keep a warm, wool or synthetic material blanket, a change of clothes, and a couple of fire starting methods, as well as a couple of those cheap Walmart poncho deals for keeping bad weather off me while I work. You could go full 18W aid bag, but this kit gives me confidence that if I get into a serious jam, I can get myself back out. Put the whole thing in a zip sealed, clear fronted mylar bag and water ingress is no real concern.

Lol, oh how true it is, I don't lose nearly as much gear anymore, part of that is accepting that in a new area, throwing expensive baits into unknown water is asking for trouble, I like to use a C-rig or a $1 Walmart spinnerbait to explore the bottom of a new area, the c-rig will tell you pretty quickly what sort of bottom composition your working with, and the spinnerbait is pretty good at finding structure and grass, sure you'll lose a couple rigs/spinnerbaits, but it keeps the cost down and avoids the recital of my very extensive collection of oaths.

I think people are using the term loosely more often than not, or else theymean in a practical sense...there are some baits that are much more difficult to properly present than others, lots of guys struggle with walking frogs and cigar style baits, or might have to refer to the forums or some other document for help remembering under which conditions/line/rod/reel speed etc to throw a bait on, "mastering" a technique to me in a practical sense is it becoming a confidence bait, you are so familiar with it you are writing your own rules on when and how to use it, rather than following someone else's example...not because you just up and said "I'm doing my own thing" but because you have used it enough that you know intrinsically what has and hasn't been working, you know the conditions to fish it under as well as you know what size t-shirt you wear, I also think that if you aren't consistently catching fish on it, you aren't there yet, I can tie on a spinnerbait, fish it 24/7/365 and catch plenty of fish (have done, too) but that doesn't make me a master of it, if I walk out to a fishery, assess what's going on due to observation of both what the conditions are telling me, and what any electronics I have are confirming, and it becomes obvious that a white spinnerbait with double willowleaf blades in silver fished at xyz depth is where I'm starting, and you start nailing fish after a couple of fine tuning adjustments, you have probably mastered that bait for all intents and practical purposes.

Well...let's see... 1) Double Digit LMB, have a trip planned prespawn that will provide my window for this. 5lb smallmouth, most of my year will be spent trying to crack this goal. 2) I want to buy my own kayak this year, I have my eye on one I think ought to perform to my needs, but I'm not ready to pull the trigger just yet until I get a chance to do some more research. 3) Electronics - this is almost a 2A) or a 2.1) really, goes part and parcel with the kayak, but I want to learn one of the electronics systems available. 4) Ongoing tackle management/organization, this year was an extremely expensive year for acquisition, unbelievably so, other than a few stragglers that were out of stock or whatever, I am going to kick the bait monkey in the coconuts and use what I have, not go buying a bunch of new stuff (this does not apply to restocking baits that get lost/destroyed, they will be replaced)...this is a goal every year, I don't know if I will ever be happy with any benchmark of time spent looking for stuff, always room for improvement here. Otherwise I have the usual goals, more time fishing etc, but those 4 are enough to keep me busy and limited enough to stay focused on.