DanielG

I'ts December 21st. The ice just formed for good outside my front door on the lake where I live. It will progressively get 3-4 ft thick over the next several weeks. It will leave around mid April. It's beautiful here. They stock the lake with trout and salmon in the fall. Those fish will grow and be ready to catch in the spring, deep. Then the bass will run a little later on. Southern Maine. We have it good. Northern Maine on the other hand, on the Canadian border will have thicker Ice that will form earlier and last longer. We Southerners feel mighty lucky to be living in the warmer climate. It was 6 degrees yesterday.

I've got a Dobyns 705 with a 1500 shimano spinning reel on it. I use it when I feel like fishing with a spinning reel. I've got a Dobyns 735 mh glass with a Curado DC for when I feel like using a bait casting reel. (I really do like this glass rod though). I use both for lots of different stuff at different times. I just like casting a lot. That's it. Probably all the equipment I'll ever own. I could pretty much get what I want. If I did I'd just grab one or another because I like to cast with a casting system or spinning system but heck... I've already got both. As you can see, I'm a real aficionado. Very particular. Super knowledgable. A real expert. Oh heck, I admit it. I really don't know that much about what I'm doing. I'm just casting and hope a fish is where my lure lands. I do catch fish, sometimes often, but I guess I don't really need to. I pretty much just like fishing. The bait monkey never actually had me. He chatters a lot though.

Yes, but whenever it happens it's because it traveled in a camper or from someones terrarium collection to the wild. We've had anacondas too. But they don't get up here otherwise and they don't get very far into the winter for sure. We do have noseeums though. Teeny black flies. I've heard of guys fishing up in northern Maine in June and having to get in the water up to their necks and hold onto the canoe side just to survive. I've seen a guy I work with come back to work with millions of black dots on his skin from the bites after a long fishing trip. In the rest of Maine they are a minor problem though. Very thankful for that.

Every once and awhile I get out a chatterbait and throw it or troll with it awhile. I never, ever catch anything on it. I just like the idea of it and the vibration on the rod tip....

Thanks, that's nice to know but it happens in the early spring and right through the summer when my Garmin says the water is 71 degrees. But, the lake is deep. My swimbaits and cranks only got to maybe 8-10 feet at the most. That bladder thing is interesting though. They become very lively once on the deck.

Good point. Never thought of that. I'll think of that in the spring. Thnx.

I live on a lake that's nearly 5 miles long, up to 90 ft deep. The bass run about 1 1/2 to 3 lbs. Sometimes larger but mostly that. 1 1/5 - 2 is usually the size on a typical day. I think a 5 pounder was the largest I've heard of here. But, later in the summer, after they grow a bit, the crappies are plentiful and even though I never weigh them, they average the size of the ones held up in the OP's pictures. I call them 'dinner plate' sized. When I was a kid, crappies didn't exist, at least here. I had started fishing again here a few years ago after not having fished since I was a teenager. I caught my first crappy and had never seen one before. One weird thing about this fish, is that after they hit and they come to the surface, they lay flat on the water, hardly fight, and it's like reeling in a mat of weeds. Wonder if that's the case everywhere.

Whenever I see this on the side of a Toyota pickup truck all I can think of is those license plates that say something with missing letters. Like "GDGuy" for "Good Guy" for instance. TRD just doesn't cut it for me.

6 degrees here in Maine this morning but the lake still has no ice on it. It will be 3-4 feet thick in a few weeks though. Then people will drill holes in the ice, stand in the frigid wind with wind chill temps maybe 0 to 20 below, and hope to pull a fish through a hole by a string. I lived on a large lake all my life but never understood the ice fishing thing..... Of course some of them have shacks and fish using little gas heaters, beer, and bourbon....

Our inexpensive solution: I had a cell before I retired. Since then I don't want to be connected to everyone all the time. The wife and I have one tracphone. It's an LG (walmart) smart phone that costs about $25. You purchase minutes on it and it works everywhere. We purchase about 800 minutes each year for $100 (cheaper for this plan) We keep it plugged in, in the car's cubby that has the charging port, and leave it there as we can call via the car's audio system. I can call places or the kids when we travel as we have a small camper, or I can call ahead to pick up a pizza. Cost: It averages $8 per month. To show how little we use it, the minutes roll over each year and we've racked up about 4000 of them. We've toured every continental 48 states, except ND and have never had connection issues where there are cell towers.

I've had this unit for a year and used it a lot this summer. I troll and sometimes stop to cast with it on. I've never seen this issue before. I don't know if it's something about your setup that's different from mine or not. It could be something like that but mine just works well with none of these things happening.

A couple of Nailstar fingernail polish hardeners.....something no fisherman or woman should be without. So, is that "what the heck" look still on your face? I'm planning on joining a couple of them to work as a UV clearcoat hardener for fishing lures. Happy Holidays everyone!? I've already told my wife.... she did have that 'what the heck' face look.

Actually two things here. One is that I worded it wrong. Secondly is that I think your comment is anecdotal. Here is the statement that resulted from and extensive harvard injury control research study. Victims use guns in less than 1% of contact crimes, and women never use guns to protect themselves against sexual assault (in more than 300 cases). Victims using a gun were no less likely to be injured after taking protective action than victims using other forms of protective action. Compared to other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization Surveys provide little evidence that self-defense gun use is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss. And the link to it

Both my daughters are violinists. Suzuki method for 11 years each. They're in their 30's now. A personal instrument that you can play through adulthood is a great thing. Most other stuff ends with high school graduation. Hogan's Heroes. "I see nothiiiiing!"

Interesting statistics. Of the huge number of people killed in the US by guns each year only 0.9% are killed by people defending themselves. That's not much use of a gun for self defense. The statistics I read said that the people who carry a gun have almost not chance of using it in self defense usually because of the circumstances of the offense. They will get shot or robbed or die with the gun holstered.

I too did the card reader thing in college back in the mid 70's. My first computer was a Radio Shack Model 1 in 1978. It had 16k of memory and saved a program (which you had to type in yourself) on a Radio Shack cassette tape recorder. I did a lot of basic programming with it and typed in programs from a magazine just for that computer called Micro 80. My first word processor was one you had to make yourself. Sort of stupid because a printer would cost you an arm and a leg so no one had one at the time. Then I moved up to Apple II's then eventually a Mac in 1984 where I've been ever since... Mac's that is. Fun fact: A friend and I bought first available hard drives back then, for the early Mac because the sale price for buying two was $500 each for a 40 meg drive. That's megs, not gigs. It really was the wild west of technology days. Lotsafun though.

Probably why I have a gaming keyboard. I love the feel of the actual switches and clickity click of the keys. Chicklet keys they have today, like on laptops without the tactile feel are not my thing. My daughters, on the other hand, love them. Their fingers barely seem to glance over the chicklets at a mile a minute. Sometimes I think it might be the difference between my big thick fingers and their slight narrow ones. Anyone remember IBM Selectric typewriters? The ones with the rotating ball in it? Now, that was a keyboard.

Seems to be vintage I see on ebay they're going for about $80-$100. If you fish with it and lose it that would be an expensive fish!

And yaknow, I gave up my smartphone upon retirement. It's wonderful not to be in constant contact with everyone. Just like the old days.... er.. a few years ago. I too have an antenna. Most of the good stuff can be found on local stations too. I do have that system to look at all the other stuff but often I'm looking at ABC....

I'm and old dinosaur too but I'm very much into technology. Mentioned in the first post: Harmony Hub - turns a smartphone into a universal remote letting you change channels and a bunch of other stuff. Amazon Fire stick- lets you get stuff like amazon movies, Netflix, hulu, etc... a lot of entertainment providers Amazon Echo- Can be used to voice control a bunch of stuff. For me: Kodi - is a program that runs on computer devices (I have a Mac mini connected to my tv) that lets you look at any movie or tv show past and present. Not exactly ethical but it does work and work well. So, You can look at movies made in 1938 or what is in the movies this weekend. A bit of a learning curve to set up and use but once you do it's the ultimate entertainment source. VPN (Very Private Network) Lets you do things without anyone being able to trace it. i.e. The signal is routed to Switzerland then back to a fake location near the you. Hope this helps.

I've been in Maine 65 years. Still love it. I'm ready for snow in the fall and ready for summer when it arrives. But I can't imagine having the same season all the time. It would be so monotonous. And no, going from 80 degrees to 50 degrees is still the same season around here. If your temperatures are like that it's not really winter. It's would just be a hot or cool day in the summer in Maine. We'd still be in our shorts either way. I am one who says they love winter and I do mean it. Nothing like a howling blizzard outside leading to a foot or so of snow with a fire going inside. A bad winter is when it half rains, half snows, and the real winter never quite clicks. Yuck. All in all, I think it's where you come from. Thats why when most people visit an area alway say "it's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there". I've traveled by camper in all 48 continental states. I've seen some wonderful places but I couldn't imagine living in them. That being said.... Michigan (next to Wisconsin) is more amazingly wonderful than most people imagine....A surprise state for travelers. It was for me anyway. Also being said..... Florida is good to go see Mickey Mouse. (Yes he did diss Florida, sorry). ?

Ha... I posted this thread (above) a few days ago. Now it's filled with comments from people who swear that their pink or orange and brown lures catch the most fish so lure color is in the eye of the bass beholder. On this thread lots of people seem to have a different take on it... Maybe it was the way I presented it. Funny though how maybe different times of the day or when something was posted can garner different reactions. Either way, I think the audience reaction to a post is just as interesting as the bass reaction to a lure!

That is a unique idea that looks like it should work really good.

Not automated but definitely cord cutting. I use kodi for all my video entertainment (ya, I admit it with a little shame but not much). I have a VPN to hide the ip address. I also have an antenna for local stuff. Between the two I get everything, yes everything. I recently automated a bunch of lights in the house. Eufy had a sale on plugs and bulbs so I have a mixture of stuff. Grouping and naming them is fun and turning them on/off and dimming them is kinda cool. I'm using the echo units for voice control. I've been thinking of changing the name of my echo to 'computer' instead of 'Alexa' so it would seem more like on the Star Trek Generations series but at this point it would be like changing the name of your kid so probably not. I've also got some lights on motion detection like the bathroom and one in the bedroom so we don't have to do anything, just walk in. It goes off about 60 seconds after we leave and if it's daylight they don't turn on. With all the low power consumption LED lights now it makes it viable. This happens when I walk into the bathroom at night. The patterns and colors change. It's sort of a nightlight about 12" in diameter. Lotsafun... I agree with you about the video refrigerators and such. Amazon has a voice controlled microwave oven. Yes it starts it but heck you've got to go over there to put something in it so why not push the button too??? I just wish they'd concentrate on the AI algorithms more so that the units would converse more intelligently. Google is better with info and Amazon better with functionality but neither Google or Amazon are that good at it. But they could be if they wanted to. As far as privacy goes. I closely watch my passwords for the bank and such but should they be listening to what I talk about in the house, I wish they wouldn't but if they did they'd find it useless. Right now they do keep track of every place we've been online and what we purchase and such. So, if they know I set a timer for the turkey in the oven, so what?

Why is it so many gun owners tell me they have run ins or near run ins with people and seem ready for a fight if need be. And when I say 'ready for a fight' it's not just I'll fight if I have to, but I'm eager if given the opportunity. Almost wishing for it. Other people I know don't talk this way. I knew one guy who would put himself in the middle of a conflict between two other people just in case it would escalate and he'd get a chance to act legally. He eventually ended up getting his ass kicked but it could have gone the other way too.