BayouSlide

Makes an excellent trailer for spinnerbaits and swim jigs as well.

I normally carry a wide variety of lures and have taken at least one fish on nearly every type. Fish mostly muddy lakes, bayous and canals, seldom in water over 8 ft. deep, most often under 4 ft. Too close to list only three, so I've listed five, six under least productive. Considering all that, in no particular order: Most productive (most fish): Chatterbaits Crankbaits Underspin swimbaits Spinnerbaits Plastic worms (especially on shakey head) Least productive (fewest fish): Top waters (a handful of fish) Buzzbaits (though one 5#) Big swimbaits (though PB of over 6#) Wacky rig (one) Ned rig (none) Punching (none)

A smaller gator in a canal recently kept chasing my buzzbait...was making a wake much bigger than the buzzbait's ?

Interesting exercise I guess, but when I go out I take every type of bait I think will work on that water. Plastics will always be a portion of that mix, but I would never rely totally on them. I like the challenge of trying new techniques as much as the next guy, but find bass fishing difficult enough even with a full quiver of arrows. ?

Worked all day yesterday in oppressive heat at my big fish lake for one bite...but that one bite was a 5 pounder that hit a shad Jackhammer with Zako trailer on a woody flat. So much for matching the hatch: no shad in this lake but this isn't the first fish I got on that lure combination here ??

Good info above. If you're looking for more, do a Google search for Mike Iaconelli Gilly and you will find a ton of info, including this: HOW TO Rig the NEW Berkley PowerBait Gilly - YouTube

Having been born in upstate New York near the Canadian border – and having resided in three other states since then – I can speak with confidence that thankfully New York state has always been one of the handful that is an outlier on gun laws. Regulations will continue differ widely state by state, with a handful being the most extreme. Little to worry about for the rest of us. If someone isn't happy with any regulations on any matter in a certain state, we always have the freedom to move to a state more to our liking.

That's exactly what happened during the last AWB. Won't happen on a federal level this time, but more likely state by state in certain states, and I don't happen to live in one of those states.

I used rope, heavy eye hooks and heavy wooden rods—picture a trapeze—to create two hanging points. With a ladder it was simple to push the bow of the canoe onto one and swing the other under the stern.

Yes, agreed it's hard to get excited about products shipping out a mere week or so after order. If they want to trigger some "real" excitement, shipping out product the same day I order would do it for me. ?

A heron catches some breakfast in Bayou Magazille yesterday.

Yup, definitely ahead of the times on this. I caught LM, SM, chain pickerel and northern pike on this one from a rowboat in Lake Champlain when I was in high school back in the late sixties ?? Only had two lures (we called 'em plugs): this one and a Creek Chub Wounded Minnow double prop top water in the same colors. Both caught fish, still have both of 'em. Life was much simplier back then ?

Tricksie and Max, a couple of working dogs at rest.

After some knot failures I gave up on the Trilene knot and began using the Palomar exclusively: knot failures disappeared. YMMV

Sadly, this and other similar incidents is a reminder that we need to drive defensively on the water, not just the highways. Perhaps it is even more important on the water where danger can come unexpectedly from any direction.

Nope, don't like fighting weekend crowds let alone holiday weekend crowds ?

Spending a summer month on Lake Champlain (near where I was born) with my boat. Plan on doing so once my new camping van finally is ready. Will have to stock up on green pumpkin plastics and smallmouth lures before I leave the bayous. Will finally have some use for that dropshot terminal tackle I've collected. ??

Same here. But sometimes I will use a Suicide Shad. Those two cover it: no skirt with either.

I'm guessing some of the problems people may be having is from not pushing directly down on the top of the switch, i.e. when their heel is on the deck and they are trying to activate with just a tap from their toes. I always lift my foot so it goes directly downward on the switch.

Mine works fine, no problems. Needs a healthy tap to activate but that's just the way the stomp buttons work.

With you on the EVA grips, the end grip on the Fury was EVA and it was one of things I disliked. Shame that your Academy doesn't carry the Lowriders, which I consider nearly unbeatable quality at that price point. Fortunately my local Academies carry the Lowriders and Tatulas, one even had some Kadens until I bought 'em out. Everything else is low end. Took the opportunity during recent sales to upgrade the weaker links in my rod collection with those three brands.

Completely agree. I owned a Fury 705 CB and found it to be nothing special: when it lost a guide insert, I got rid of it. Much more impressed with the Lowriders and now own several. Know this is going against the grain as the Fury gets plenty of love on this board while the Falcon Lowrider is a best kept secret for some reason.

Normally a wild pig, if it's been exposed to people, takes off. They have a super sense of smell but bad eyesight so, sometimes, a younger one will stare at you from the brush to try to figure out who or what you are if the wind is in your face. My two German Shorthaired Pointers ran down this boar down and pinned it, one on the muzzle and one on a hindquarter with the pig trying to get at the dogs. It was like watching a wolf pack. I ran up to it and shot it in the neck at 3 feet with birdshot and killed it. My dogs have run into 3 pigs and were only injured once, by a 110# or so sow...my younger dog got his chest hide sliced open and my older female got a tooth puncture in the hind leg. The sow didn't have tusks but her teeth were razor sharp. That time I had to kick the pig in the rear to get it off the dogs so I could kill it when it turned towards me. Unfortunately the damp brushy areas that hold woodcock are also ideal pig habitat: I've had my dogs on point at a patch of brush and have a woodcock fly out on one side and a pig run out the other. This photo is the skull of the pig in the picture.

Definitely will affect where I fish. One area I like to fish requires burning a full tank of non-ethanol boat fuel (10 gallons) to get there and back: that's not even counting the cost of gas for the 2 1/2 hour round trip for my SUV. With the cost of non-ethanol gas, I'm thinking my trips there will be few and far between. I'll settle for places closer by or a lake I like that's an hour and a half away...but the only time I start the boat motor there is to get it back on the trailer at day's end.

IMO, pros should know better, and be a good model for the non-pros.