jbmaine

With all due respect," they met up to discuss their differences" sounds like the beginning of a news article that does not end well. I love a saying from the movie War Games " sometimes the only way to win is just not to play.

I had a boat roughly like yours. It's a pain, but your best bet is an anchor. Some mechanical means of deploying and retrieving it is a plus. Pulling up an anchor 20, 30, 40 times a day can get to your back.

Thanks, the hooks are none to sharp, I'll have to touch them up. For cheap money they're worth a shot. Jim

I was in wallmart and saw these for $ 2.50 a piece. I had heard of the Bomber name and thought why not. When I got home I looked them up on the Bomber web site and can't find them. Typed in the number code on each one and they all came up no match. Maybe made just for wall mart?

By the time I cut a hole in the ice big enough to launch the boat in, I'm too tired to fish.

A few things from the recent sales And today !!!!! Ordered it before the last price bump, picked it up in NH so no sales tax, used a couple bills worth of BPS gift cards I was awarded at work, and signed up for a BPS card which gave me another $ 95 off. All of which is going with this All of which I can't wait to use to catch something like this, or bigger

I sent you a message. Jim

I hear you on wanting Spring to come. Will you be fishing the river, Great Bay, or out side? Jim

You and I have fished the same waters, and I have caught a ton of stripers in this area, so maybe I can offer some insight. Your current setup should be fine for inshore stripers. As for lure size you don't need super large, heavy lures to catch stripers. I caught a 35+ inch striper on a fly rod, and the fly weighted practically nothing. If you want to present a large profile bait and stay in your rod weight size throw lures that trail feathers or bucktail. Stripers aren't the smartest fish out there so exactly " matching the hatch" isn't necessary. Jim

I thought of that but when these were made it looks like they heated the ends to give it a lot of memory. I found on this brand any way, what I'm doing works better

Hi All, I recently bought some nylon mesh sleeves for my spinning rods and noticed two issues. The bell mouth was a little small, causing me to really have to work it over the largest guide getting it on, and getting it off, the same guide would catch on the inside folded section of the bell mouth. I put a post in asking if anyone had been able to stretch these out. I got a few suggestions but nothing that would solve both issues. I thought about it for a couple of days , tried a few things out and finally came up with a solution. Here's a few pics to show what I did. Trying to get the sleeve on over the last guide. Guide catching on the inside fold My solution is to Pull the inside fold out coat it with a good amount of contact cement Pop the fold back in and slide the sleeve over a mandrel, in this case I found a beer bottle works well . I Let it sit for a few hours and when I took it off, the sleeve was stayed a larger dia., and the inside fold was glued to the sleeve, solving both my issues. I did find it helps to put the sleeve on the bottle for a while before gluing to pre stretch it, waxing the bottle helps, and you might need to tap around the edge of the sleeve with a piece of wood to break it free and get it started off the bottle. Thanks for looking Jim

I'm close to you in southern Maine so the waters you are talking about should be similar to my experience. I have found SM beds anywhere from 1-10+ ft. In all cases they were close to deeper waters, 15+ ft. or more. In all cases the beds were on a hard bottom, gravel, rocks. I have seen bed after bed on a hard bottom. Move another 20 ft. to a smooth, muddy bottom and no beds. In this picture all the light spots behind me were SM beds. Jim

The ones I'm having trouble with are the ones made for spinning rods. Once I get it over the guide it slides the rest of the way fine, the same thing getting it off. I'm thinking I'll call McCoys on Monday and see if they have any thoughts on this. If the bell mouth was a little bigger or they sealed it at the end of the inside fold they would work fine. Jim

I picked up some McCoy brand rod sleeves ( they call them shields). These are the nylon mesh kind. The end you start the rod in is bell mouthed with the end folded back inside. The casting ones work fine but the spinning ones are not quite big enough for the largest guide. I have to work it over the largest guide to get it on, and taking it off the inside fold catches on the largest guide. I was thinking of maybe trying to stretch the bell mouth to make it a bit larger. Possibly something like squeezing a tennis ball in the bell mouth and setting it in boiling water for a while to soften and stretch it out. Has anyone tried something like this or have any other thoughts on how to make the end a little larger. Thanks Jim

I'm curious as to why you excluded swim baits? I've found soft plastic swim baits to be extremely versatile. I'm partial to Strike King swim'n caffeine shad. With a weightless @ weighted swimbait hook you can hit the whole water column. You can fish them fast, slow, steady, pausing, bounce off the bottom, anyway that works. I've caught bass up to 30 ft. deep with them. Small fish are usually the big fishes goto for a nice meal. Jim

Dear Santer.......Please bring an early Spring!

Hi all, As I get older, and my memory gets sharper, NOT, I do a couple of things that help me when I'm doing maintenance on the boat, motor, trailer, etc. ( works for stuff around the house too.) When I have to take anything apart I will take pictures every step of the way. With the wonderful manuals available today, having good pictures to look at is the best way I know to make sure everything goes back together correctly, and in the right order. I have also learned to keep a tool list for repeat maintenance jobs. For example, if I am changing a water pump impeller I look at the tool list so I know what size wrenches, sockets, etc. I will need. This keeps me from lugging handfuls of tools trying to find the right one. Also jotting down part # for future reference saves time the next time around. Anyone else have any tips they want to share?

To me it's about using gear based on the average of what I expect to catch, and the baits I normally use. In the past I've mostly thrown weightless or lite weighted soft plastics and medium lite to medium rods worked fine. I want to start fishing heavier baits ( jigs, larger swim baits, etc) and picked up a MH and H rod to do so. I guess what I am trying to say is I use the lightest set ups I reasonably can for what I am throwing because that is the most enjoyable for me to use. I like the fight. Do I worry about breaking off a fish? I spent many years fly fishing and learned to let the rod and drag do the work. Do I worry about leaving a bait stuck in a fishes mouth? It happens on rare occasions . Try fishing in waters full of pickerel and never have it happen. If a fish is hung up in weeds, branches, I will make every effort to get it free. But ultimately if my overriding concern was to never hurt a fish, I wouldn't be out there in the first place trying to stick a hook in it. Jim

Thanks for this post, it brings back a lot of memories. When I was a little kid ( back in the 1950's ) I would sit on the end of the dock with a worm and bobber, and stare at the bobber waiting for the first twitch. As I got older I moved up to spoons ( dare devil ) and some kind of spinners. I still have the old tackle from when I was a kid. ( I'll never use it ) and every so often I take it out, just to reconnect to those happy days. Jim

I grew up in Rye N.H. Back then it was pretty rural, still had a couple of farms with milk cows, chickens, etc. I had the best of both worlds. We lived close enough to the ocean to smell the salt air, and had a camp on a lake in Maine. Spent every minute I could fishing until fall, then tramped thru the fields and marshes for duck, geese, and pheasant. I moved to Maine some 20 yrs ago, but still go to Rye to put flowers on the family cemetery plot. It's gotten so grown up and high scale now I have trouble recognizing most of it. Jim

I played trombone in our HS marching band. We must have been pretty good because every 4 yrs we were invited to the cherry blossom festival in D.C., and once every fall we were invited to Boston to play the halftime show at a Pats game. I remember one game the pats were playing the jets, and as we were finishing the jets were coming back on the field. Joe Namath ran past us and smiled at one of the majorettes and the poor girl fainted right on the spot on national television. Jim

So I am outside with the leaf blower cleaning the last of this years leaves out from around the house, and my wife comes out side and says " I just ran some stuff thru the clothes dryer that had a lot of lint. I cleaned the trap but was wondering, since you have the leaf blower out maybe you could use it to give the vent a good cleaning." So I go inside but can't get the leaf blower at a good angle. My wife says " could you try it from the outside?" I said " sure, just make sure the door on the dryer is closed" So I go out side to the vent, My wife gives me the thumbs up from the window, and I let her rip. A few seconds later I hear a pounding on the window, I look up and my wife is looking real mad and signaling me to come inside. She is standing there in a cloud of fine lint. Apparently when I turned the leaf blower on it blew the dryer door open as she was standing in front of it. I guess Mistake # one was using the leaf blower. I'm thinking mistake # two was laughing, and I'm pretty sure mistake # three was offering to use the leaf blower to get all the lint out of the house. I'd love to say I made this up but sadly it's all true. Jim

We use somewhat lite gear so pulling the fish in usually involves some sort of fight. I don't know if it's worse on the fish to waterski them in at Mach 1 or fight and tire them out. In all honesty if our number one concern was not to hurt fish we wouldn't spend all this time, effort, and money to stick a hook in them in the first place. I also agree with everyone that LM usually don't fight as well as other species of fish I caught. ( such as 3 lb Salmon in a fast moving river on a 5 wt. fly rod.) but bass fishing is something my wife can participate in and bass fishing waters are close to us. Jim

I've seen the same thing. Last year we went into a small cove. Another boat was already in there so we hung back until they fished it and came up with zip. As they moved out we moved in. Threw a swim'n caffeine shad right where they used to be. Big hit and miss. Tossed it right back and hooked a 4 lb LM. The look on their faces was something to see. I never hesitate to rethrow a coffee/ caffeine bait again and again until the hook sticks. Jim