Olebiker

I'm old enough to remember when the maximum horsepower for BASS tournaments was 85. They caught plenty of fish back then and burned a lot less gas. I would love to see this series really take off.

Leave it to a Yankee to refer to the size of a big bass by its length. I agree about Lindner, though. As a Southern boy it pains me to say this, but I think that, if he had stayed with tournament bass fishing, he would have been the superstar of BASS.

My friends and I dug a tunnel into a hillside behind our houses and, after getting back about ten feet, we excavated a big room. It was about ten feet across and three feet high. Thank goodness our fathers found out about it before it collapsed and killed us all. Sure was fun though.

Mine was memorable only because of how disappointing it was. This would have been about 1960. All my friends were getting 3 speed "English racer" bikes. I got up on Christmas morning to a Sears Roebuck J.C. Higgins tank of a bike with headlights, white-wall tires, a luggage rack, chrome fenders, streamers and a mud flap that said "Have Bike, Will Travel." By the time the weather got warm enough to ride it I had stripped it down to just the essentials and rode it to death.

I only measure the length of a bass to determine whether it is long enough to keep in a tournament. My largest bass was 9 pounds 6 ounces. I have no idea how long it was.

Hey, I was glad to get that. I was alone and without a tripod so I set the camera on top of a cooler which was sitting on the rear deck. I went to get the fish out of the livewell and she was so active she broke the aerator off with all that flopping around. I kept moving the boat around trying to get the sun in my face and get rid of any backlighting. By the time I got this photo the fish had been out of the water longer than I was comfortable with so I turned her loose. Better that I have an inferior picture than a dead bass.

Lake Jackson, just outside Tallahassee, has a history of going dry and then filling back up. It just about disappeared down a couple of sinkholes back in 1999. It took nine years for the lake to get back to a point where you could launch a bass boat and run safely. I got out yesterday morning for a few hours and caught, and released, three bass including this one. The battery in my scales was dead so I don't know how much it weighed. I caught her on a white Zoom Horny Toad off a group of lily pads. The other two fish came on a Devil's Horse. Water was about 60 degrees and unbelievably clear.

In the last few years of my Dad's life he really got into catching schooling hybrids on Taylorsville Lake in Kentucky. I never had the chance to fish for them with him, but last weekend I got into them where Dead Lakes runs into the Chipola River. I have to believe Dad was watching down and saying, "Well, do you see now why I liked them so much?"

I was fishing a club bass tournament yesterday morning on Dead Lakes near Wewahitchka, FL when I saw some schooling fish. I picked up a devil's Horse to throw at them. A bream fisherman told me not to bother since it was just an "ol' gar fish." It wasn't a gar at all, but a school of hybrids. That was fun. I understand now why my father liked fishing for them so much before he died.

I love checking out Doug Hannon's videos so I can make fun of them, especially the one about the "pending world record topwater bass." That boy has no shame.

It seems that Gander Mountain threatened legal action against the folks that posted their Black Friday ad, so it has been pulled.

Gander Mountain's Black Friday ad is on-line at: http://downloads.bfads.net/BFAds-Gander-Mountain-2009.pdf That Revo STX for $99.95 is awfully inviting.

I can do it online most of the time, but the picture on my license was almost 20 years old so they made me come in and get a new one.

You know how everyone dreads going to the state motor vehicle office to renew a driver's license. I am no different and was really not looking forward to it since I had to take a vision test and get a new picture taken. I had also received a notice telling me that I would have to bring a birth certificate and proof of my Social Security number. I walked in the door and was immediately called over to an open window. The lady was gracious, helpful and efficient. I was in and out of there in no time. She never asked for all that documentation. What a nice surprise!

I tried it last week and was really disappointed. I could only see the line if it was a bright, sunny day. If there was any overcast or low light situation it was less visible than regular Trilene.

I love the old line about Newfies that the only reason to own one is if you have small children and an open body of water nearby.

Check with some of the old guys are Northern Kentucky and see if you can beg some old Bombers from them. They were great trolling lures and you should be able to buy them for a lot less than a DD will cost you. You will lose lures.

Mike's well-earned badge:

I keep telling myself: Thou shalt not covet. . . That is just about the perfect bass boat.

Sounds like you've been listening to too much Goodie Mobb and OutKast.

I spent 20 years in retail management and would not wish that job on anyone, especially a man with a family. In my last job I got transferred from Louisville to Denver to Knoxville and, finally to Tallahassee. All of this was within five years. It darned near cost me my family. If you plan on trying retail, don't go to work for someone else. The money isn't worth it for the number of hours you have to put in. You can plan on working six days a week and, in the fourth quarter, seven days. Retail is a dead end since no one in any other business respects your experience in retail.

Here is a terrfic article on getting started in tournament fishing: http://ezinearticles.com/?Tournament-Bass-Fishing,-Is-it-for-You?&id=628703

That stuff really works well on fire ants, but I think its effectiveness has to do with how bad it smells. The ants commit suicide because they can't get away from the incredibly bad odor from that stuff. I used to use Amdro, but it seems that the fire ants just moved their colony a few feet away and kept on breeding.

I watched In-Fisherman Critical Concepts last night and they were fishing for bullseye snakeheads in South Florida. The fools were throwing them back.

Prayers in progress.