Bankc

I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have said that. I don't know you or your situation. I apologize.

You know you're rich when being a millionaire means nothing to you. Your problem is, you've got too many rich friends, so you don't FEEL rich. Come on down to my side of the tracks if you want to feel that million! A million bucks buys you a lot more than you know. Especially the stuff that's easy to take for granted, like eating out at a restaurant when it's not a special occasion, paying someone else to cut your hair, or when buying a car, asking yourself how comfortable it would be to sleep in, just in case. I'm not proud of it, but I can rank brands of dog food by taste. It's hard to get by out there. And that million bucks buys you an awful lot of cushion when times get tough. But yeah, I understand. A million bucks isn't what it used to be. Not long ago, it seems like, that was a mansion! These days, it's half a small house in some cities. It's certainly not the gateway to a life a luxury that it once was. Still, for the purposes of this thread, it serves as shorthand for "person rich enough to start a business just for fun".

Sounds like you're talking about Ginghers. I bought my wife some of them several years back when she was into sewing. Great scissors. Really well made and SHARP! The only problem is, other than expense, they will rust like crazy! Not a good choice for on the lake, in my opinion. Plus, my wife would kill me if I took them, and confiscate them if I bought my own.

Yeah, I've definitely had some good luck getting to areas that other people can't in heavily pressured waters. There are several spots on a lake I frequent that have tons of timber you have to ride over in 1-3 feet of water. It makes it pretty much impossible to get a regular boat through because the timber would chew up a prop. And they're far enough away from the docks that most kayaks and canoes won't paddle that far to get to them. Also, our forests are so dense with shrubs and brush that you can't really walk to them. So even in these highly pressured lakes, there are spots that don't see hardly any other anglers, all year long. I can fish them because I can switch between my trolling motor and paddle on my kayak. That being said, they're not the greatest places to catch fish. They're really far from any deep water, exposed to birds, and the water is generally pretty stagnant. I can often catch one or two there, but there are usually better places in the lake, even with the fishing pressure. And these fish are hyper-sensitive to sound, unlike the rest of the lake. So there's a lot of pulling up to a spot, getting everything ready, and then sitting quietly for the next 10 minutes before casting.

I used to snell hooks when I wanted that cam action. The idea being that as the line was pulled tight, by going through the front of the eye on the hook, it would slightly kick out the hook to get better penetration. But, I've gotten away from that in recent years. Mostly due to just laziness. And I haven't noticed a big difference either way. I've certainly never had an issue with it sliding up into the eye enough to damage the knot. Maybe I'll do it again, now that I'm thinking about it. A good snell knot is a strong knot, so I have no worries about using it. And it's easy enough to tie. But the more I fish, the less I think about knots.

I'd pick the Zodias since it's a fast vs. extra fast. But either would be fine. I doubt it would make one fish of a difference, either way.

Good luck! My kayak came with a title, but I've never had to use it and don't know where it is anymore. I've read on various Oklahoma government websites where I'm required to have it registered and others say I'm not. I'm not sure anyone really knows for sure. As with so many things, it's not about the letter of the law, but the opinion of those enforcing it. Having talked to some lake patrol, they don't believe I am required to register it since it's just an electric trolling motor, so that's who I'm going with. They're the ones who would be enforcing it anyway. There's a city registration I have to use on city owned lakes because of the trolling motor, but to get that, I just put "kayak" on the form, instead of the title number. And, technically, I have the title number on a badge on the kayak, should I ever need it.

Yeah, the heat is good about that. When I was a kid, I used to wonder why my grandparents would sit out on the porch in the hot summer evenings in Texas and just stare out into the pasture and talk. They said it was because the breeze was so nice. But to me, the air conditioning was a whole lot nicer. Then, as I got older, I started to understand how the heat can really wear you out. And how sometimes just sitting on the hot porch at the end of a long day can really get your body ready for bed. It makes it easier to relax and sleep. Up until yesterday, this September has been ridiculously hot. This summer started off fairly mild, but it's hanging around a lot longer than it's supposed to. Thankfully, it's trying to cool off and might stay cool for a while.

You know your body better than anyone. So if it says you have the energy, then you have the energy. But play it conservatively. Don't push yourself into becoming uncomfortable. And if you do go, I'd definitely take precautions. Like probably wear some gloves and bring some hand sanitizer to treat any cuts or scrapes the moment they happen. Also, I would probably bring a lawn chair and some live bait to just fish from the dock. Make it easy on yourself. Don't risk over exerting yourself if you don't need to. At the very least, I can't see much harm in just going out there and pulling up a lawn chair and staring at the water for a little while. One of my favorite things about fishing is just relaxing in nature and taking in all of the sights, sounds and smells. A little sunshine can do wonders for your mood sometimes.

One of you rich millionaires needs to get off your duff and start a company that makes small fishing scissors out of CPM Magnacut steel. I've been doing a bit of research (for another hobby), and apparently this wonder steel is not only extremely stainless, but has better edge retention than all of the old carbon and stainless steels we've been using. It seems like a no-brainer. Now, there are some knives made of this stuff. They're pretty expensive, but apparently, highly regarded. They might be worth the price if you hate sharpening and need a pair to store in your boat. Still, knife blades are big and use up a lot of steel. Those tiny scissors, like the kind used in a Swiss Army knife or the plastic line cutters they sell, could be small. I'd probably upgrade the plastic bodies to 304 stainless, just to give them a more premium feel because you would have to charge considerably more. But I think you could still come in well below $100 and make a healthy profit. And I don't know about you, but $100 for some line cutters that actually worked AND would still work when your great grandchildren inherited them doesn't sound like such a terribly high cost. Plus, they're small. So they'd get lost easily. And you'd have repeat customers. So there's your get richer quicker scheme. All I ask is you send me a free prototype for the idea. In exchange, I'll say it was your idea.

I wouldn't want to guide if I was working for someone else (do guides even do this?). But if I ran my own company, I'd have no problem telling those few who just want to be mean to go stuff it! I'd drop them off at the dock the second I caught wind of that kind of behavior. And if they were bad enough, it wouldn't even be the dock we launched from. It took a lot of work, but I've finally convinced by bosses that the customer isn't always right and we don't need everyone's business. It took years of tracking data and tons of delicate conversations on my part to finally convince them that maybe 5% of our customers are the cause of 50% of our yearly losses. And they still don't fully trust in it. They'll still give a bad customer the benefit of the doubt for far too long. But they've at least started to learn how to tell customers "no" and "take your business elsewhere" when they get bad enough. It's a different world now, and everyone has to evolve with it. Most customers want your products or services. And even good customers will have bad days. But a select few don't want what you have to offer. They just want you to feel their pain. I certainly wouldn't want to rely on guiding as a primary source of income. The pay is too low and costs too high for something so unpredictable and seasonal. But, I could see it being a good job for someone to supplement another, steady income. Like maybe someone who's retired or a school teacher with summers off.

I'd avoid ceramic or anything particularly expensive, if I were you. I once put ceramic bearings in a baitcaster and discovered two things. The first is, they're loud! Not crazy loud, but loud enough to be annoying. And the second is, you don't need the highest quality bearings in a reel. They don't spin at 30,0000 RPMs, they don't spin 24/7/365, and they don't spin in temperatures north of 450°. Plus, no matter the reel and bearings, you're going to have to apply some breaks to avoid backlash. Which means no reel will be able to take advantage of high end bearings in real-world use. Yes, you want good enough bearings so that the bearings don't become your brakes. But beyond that, it doesn't matter. And pretty much any mid-priced bearing you can find will easily cover that. High end bearings might buy you an extra yard on your furthest casts. But 99 times out of 100, you need that extra yard to go into accuracy rather than distance. And if you ever really do need that extra yard, then there are other ways to get it.

Some people have a preferred brand. But not me. I go with anything other than Eagle Claw, because I've had too many of those rust out on me. Plus, they're never sharp out of the box. I've heard their Trokar line are better, but that brand has soured me too much to give them a try. Besides Owner, Gamakatsu, VMC, and Mustad, I also like Berkley Fusion19 and Bass Pro's and Academy's house brands. I haven't had a complaint among any of them.

If the bass tell me to, I will. I'll wait until they stop hitting something to bench it. If you've got something working, work it until it don't work no more! Besides, fish are dumb. If the fish can "learn" a lure, they will also "forget" that lure in a year or three. Their brains aren't big enough to remember things long-term without writing them down. So long as you don't drop mechanical pencils in the pond (because the wooden ones float and are too hard for them to use), you'll be fine. That's assuming, of course, that you're the only person fishing this pond. Because if a whole lot of other people are fishing it hard every day, then it doesn't matter what you do. They'll learn or unlearn those lures with or without you.

Do bring some gas money for the boat and offer to pay if it's his personal boat and he's paying for gas out of pocket.

Cable lag isn't an issue. That electrical signal in the cable travels at nearly the speed of light. The sonar signal in the water only travels the speed of sound (in water), so it's the bottle neck here. And even then, we're talking about 4859 feet per second. Or about 0.12 seconds of delay in 300 feet of water. The processor inside the sonar display is probably the biggest point of lag. Besides, the cable needs to be that specific length for the sonar to work it's best, due to the impedance of the wire. So if you're not needing the full 25 feet or whatever of cable, you're supposed to coil up the extra cable to keep the impedance the same. But generally, you want a transom mount for a console mounted graph and a trolling motor mount for a bow mounted graph. The idea being, that the trolling motor mount will show you what's directly below you when you fish from the bow, instead of what's directly below the back of the boat. And you want a transom mount for the console mounted graph because that's a good place to put it so it doesn't get knocked around when moving at faster speeds while driving the boat, which is when you'll be using the console mounted graph the most.

I've only hired a guide a few times in my life. And they all fished. But they didn't do nearly as much fishing as we did. After they got us on fish, and got our gear set up and all of that kind of stuff, when we got to the point where there wasn't really anything left for them to do, then they started fishing. And they usually fished off to the other side of the boat or whatever, so as not to disturb our fishing. So it was more of a kill time, feel less awkward than standing around type of thing than them trying to catch fish. Which was completely fine with us. The job of a guide is to put you on fish. It's not to be your sea-butler, and stand at attention in the corner of the boat and wait for you to bark demands. Just because you paid for their time and wisdom, doesn't mean you own them. So long as they put you on fish and allow you to have a fun and memorable trip, the rest is immaterial. But on the flip side, if they're catching all of the fish and having all of the fun, then that's not what you're paying them for. Like pretty much everything in life, there's a balance.

Yeah, if it's hanging up, it's not doing you much good. Though, sometimes going longer can help, as they usually only hang up on the lip if the point of the hook just reaches the lip so it can jam itself in place. Or shorter works too, so it doesn't reach the lip. Just something different. I don't purposefully keep a stock of treble hooks on hand, but I do have a few in random sizes that I've swapped out or bought for other reasons. So if I'm having a problem like that, I usually just pick one out of the pile that'll solve the issue, and not worry too much about it.

I count every bass. Then I multiply it by the air temperature. Divide that number by the dew point. Then add that number to the average depth depth of the lake divided by the wind speed. And finally add 7 for good luck. Judging by the stories I hear at the docks, I pretty sure everyone does it this way around here.

I agree. It's 2024. Why are we still doing this? Could you imagine if a basketball game was played where no one kept score, and then, after the end of the fourth quarter, someone tallied up all of the points? It's creating a worse product and sending a bad message. I mean, I get that at one time that was the only option to determine a winner. But we can do better now. And we should! To me, it would be a lot more exciting to go to a fishing tournament and have a camera on every boat. And then, back at the dock with the crowd, every angler was being broadcast live onto a different TV. Then you could follow any angler you wanted. And then have a main tent where the top 10 anglers were being broadcast on bigger TVs and an MC announced changes to the leader board in real time, which was also displayed. You could have a main screen that showed what was broadcasted, where it's nothing but hookset, reel in, weigh, and release. That would be fun, to me. And you could still have an awards ceremony at the end, without a weigh in. And get the remaining members of Foghat to play there, in between State Fairs, to get the crowd excited.

I just use unweighted EWG hooks for all toads. Usually a larger one, like maybe 4/0 or 5/0 in size. That seems to provide enough weight to ballast the toad to keep it upright, most of the time. It might not be "correct", but I've been catching fish like that for years now.

Yeah, water quality can have a huge effect on the bass. I've seen it many times. This is especially true in a small pond, where there's not near as much water to begin with, so there are less places for fish to go to escape the "bad" water. Decaying leaves can feed bacteria that absorb some, or a lot, of the oxygen in the water. And this can not only cause the fish to slow their metabolism and appetite, but can also stunt their growth or even kill them. But, that doesn't mean it's a total waste of time. All ponds have decaying matter in them. And most still support fish. And since it doesn't sound like you have any other options for fishing, I'd just try to focus on different techniques and places in the pond to fish to find out what the fish will bite on.

One thing I've learned about bass fishing is, all of these "rules" we make up are very flexible. They're "rules" because they tend to be right more often than wrong. But they're also wrong often enough that you shouldn't put too much faith in them. Typically, I'll start off throwing topwaters in the morning and keep fishing them until they stop working. And if I see activity on the surface, I'll usually throw a topwater. Or, if just nothing else is working or a topwater is about all I can pull cleanly pull through the weeds, I'll give them try. To me, cloudy days tend to affect the color of the topwater I choose more than whether or not I throw a topwater. On cloudy days, I tend to use white or natural colored topwaters. On sunny days, it's usually transparent, chrome, or black.

The biggest problem with buying online is fitment of the glasses. Your prescription should ensure that the glasses actually function properly and you can see well through them. But chances are good that the glasses you buy won't fit your face without some adjustment. So either you have to do that yourself, or you take it in somewhere to have that done. The other problem is sometimes you can't see the frames and/or lenses before you buy them. Otherwise, there's no problem with buying prescription sunglasses online.

It sounds to me like you're not generating enough force on the hook to penetrate the lip. Now, the cause of that, I can't tell you. But some things to check are: Make sure you're timing is good. Make sure the hook can easily puncture the soft plastic body. Make sure the hooks are sharp and sticky. Make sure you're generating enough force during the hookset. And if you're still having problems, look for anything in your gear that is absorbing the force away from the hook.