bulldog1935

If you haven't tried it, sourdough makes killer pizza. once there was a BBQ grill in this chimney pit, now it's a 600-degree pizza oven

you may not have noticed I agreed with you about them being exotic you must have never tied cottonwood seed flies to target carp on a 4/5-wt in a cottonwood seed fall.

George Washington imported many, simply for gamefish, and fished for them with "coarse" tackle. We of course have other, native cyprinids. This is a native redhorse sucker, which are great game in our cold tailwater - we call them Guadalupe redfish. This one took a swinging caddis during a hatch.

Thanks, I'll just hike/wade to here (caught 7 endemic bass in the frame of this photo)

also boat width. Werner used to have a very good selection guide on their website, but that ended when chairs went up and SUP's were added. If you're paddling right, starting in core muscles, you'll probably get by with the shortest paddle for your configuration. The example I used above, though, my little razor Kestrel still needs the short mid-blade touring paddle (along with thigh straps), because it oversteers and tips with my big Coryvreckan paddle.

I went back to a straight shaft, and ended up with a larger glass blade (Coryvreckan) at the same weight as my all-carbon bent-shaft touring Werner (Camano). The main reason for bent shaft is indexed hand position, always placing your hands in the most efficient paddling position. I made my own indexed-position grips with closed-cell foam and shrink-tube - of course I had my bent shaft for reference.

at least 9 mo/yr in south Texas. this deep, though I'll hold up the bag to cross shoulder-deep and get to the confluence of the Guadalupe forks I'm pretty much the board shorts type, and only care for shoes that drain through the soles. Though in coast sun, I wear long quick-dry nylon pants, like Simms Lightweights. Unfortunately, the best hike/wet-wade shoes I've ever bought have all been discontinued, and I bought up a few pairs when they closed out. Keen Hood River boots and New Balance OTB Abyss II (claim to have been designed for Navy Seals) Many of my kayak friends swear by Soft Science also NRS workboot looks pretty rugged. I tried a pair of canyoneering boots, and sent them back because they were just too big to fit in a kayak footwell. Neoprene socks with wading boots are always a good answer. Also note with the lace-up type wet-wading boots above, you still need lycra scuba socks to keep sand from your soles - I've seen my buddies take off tennis shoes to bloody feet. Sandals collect gravel in all the worst places. good support is important for hike/wade, which rules out neoprene booties (which don't drain, anyway) and most water tennies - even rules out my favorite kayak shoes, Astral Hiyak - the review won me a $250 Moosejaw gift certificate, which I turned into a tent-cot.

purt near, of course Mad's snappy answer to that one begins with C. The photo has exactly reversed parallax error from the cheese shots everyone takes grinning Way behind their fish with arms extended and Short-focal-length lens. The way you recognize a big bass is look at its jaw structure and fins. This is a sight-fished 10-lb bass that measured 27+" They don't get distended bellies eating nickel-size crayfish and dime-size minnows in wild rivers, but eating shad in a reservoir this would be an 18-lb fish not really showing off, just going after my cats whisker Different fish, different day, different river, this was the state record endemic bass, except that I released her rather than killing her for the liver biopsy then required to verify her pure species. Our endemic bass retreat into the aquifer to survive our droughts - this girl came from a bat cave vent, and got this size eating the baby bats that fell in. A 15" endemic Guadalupe bass is a lunker.

will do - I'm showing him this Sunday, with a fly rod trip to the Sabinal sendero and Frio confluence - all sight-fishing 5-lb bass. um, and I guess big thumbs Also a 100-mi drive to get there, and so close to Mexico, the only other vehicles we'll see will be INS.

My buddy Josh, who worked through college rigging kayaks at Jerry B's in Corpus, and is the most organized kayak fisherman I know, put together this spreadsheet of all kayaks in the market - it's pretty complete, and includes use recommendations and search filters.

Will never understand why people want to insult nature with their ghetto blasters. They should stay in their cars with the windows rolled up. Especially on the water, the noise carries so far, combined with the fact the people who do this have abhorrent taste in music. It's bad enough when people bring them to the flats on their kayaks, but the worst of all was certainly Quartz Creek on Kenai.

Toadstool Waterhole - you can't get there from here, it's in the sendero only answer a rhetorical question if you have a really good answer

You're going to get the best cast distance with light braid, and your reel has the shallow spool for it. Per Jun at japan Tackle, PE#1 (0.165 mm = 0.006") is the finest line diameter you want to use on baitcaster. The Japanese X-braids are up to 22-lb in that size, Sufix 832 is 6-lb.

what he said

just for fun, sight-fishing long-nosed gar on fly rod. Takes a sharp hook for hook-up, and you only get a few, but it's a blast to watch them shoot 8-10' across the surface to attack your fly. If you do hook up, they make astounding aerials.

In the Pedernales headwaters one day, fly fishing for endemic bass (Texas brook trout), hooked a samsonite-size black buffalo - on a Tonka Queen cane rod w/ 1917 Hardy St. George. The fish porpoised continuously for 10 minutes, well into the backing, charged back in, still porpoising, and porpoised back out to the backing again before happily coming unhooked. It was a heck of a ride. Of course no photo of the fish, here's a photo of the rod w/ Texas brook trout. I've since sold both rod and reel, but did well in all, buying, fishing, and selling. And quite honestly, there's no such thing as a trash fish - try skipjack herring or even long-nose gar on a fly rod.

you see this much more with Tatsu (and other low memory fluorocarbons). Everyone posts that Tatsu is limp, but it's quite opposite - it's stiff and springy, and is going to be worse in larger diameters. Tatsu, Blue, both 10-lb, and 20-lb braid - taped down and held vertically

the spool is only a few mm deep - same can be said for spinning reels with braid-specific spools.

if you've never tried manual bail technique, you should eliminate that problem. Keep your free hand close to the bail, even feather the line with your fingertips (like thumbing a baitcaster). Close the bail with that free hand (never crank auto-close); turn with the rod to take up all slack before you begin retrieve. Wind knots are caused by loose line at the beginning of your retrieve. I spool braid to this extreme and have never cast a wind knot:

no, neither is this

no, I would guess a casting flaw in just the wrong place - statistical bad luck

not at all, but I'm sure its been thinned and cut out to extremes in design. The two stay fractures that are visible in the photo, the one on the right looks like progressive crack growth, covering about 1/4 of that cross section. The one on the left is final tearing (the chevrons). I'd still think the one on the top that you can't see went first. Reading the fingerprints of fracture has been my career - done it about 5000 times, and taught it in seminars. Creating stress-risers to shave weight is all too common - there's one on Shimano bicycle deraillers that has followed their design since the 70s. Not every one is going to break, but every one has reduced damage- and critical-flaw-tolerance that can kick them over the edge.

? I can't turn around without using it these days. As much as I hated differential equations, most recently used it to tie two different leftover quality braid pieces (about 50 yds) for backing this finesse braid.

Comparing spool capacity, line diameter is more important than line test. Here's a really good spool capacity calculator. The Advanced capacity calculator allows estimating capacity when stacking lines of two different diameters.

I don't know, I've seen so many broken alloy feet on 1930s Medalists, a broken reel foot doesn't seem crazy at all. What does seem crazy is how far the manufacturer went to lighten that already light metal reel foot. Looks like it started cracking at stress risers, where the thickness changes from too thin to thick.