tyrius.

all of us with a freaking conscience Not me. I just listen to the radio!

Vet is not short for veteran. It is short for veterinarian (you know the ANIMAL doctor).

The only other hobby I have time for is making beer and I do that in the winter when it's too cold to fish. I've got 2 kids under 3 years old so I don't have a lot of free time.

Cabela's has their 1lb spools on sale for $65. That's $40 off the normal price. http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/item-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat21404-cat21406-cat21436&id=0046976119280a&navCount=5&podId=0046976&parentId=cat21436&masterpathid=&navAction=push&catalogCode=OG&rid=&parentType=index&indexId=cat21436&hasJS=true

First and foremost, by definition a country can not commit treason upon itself. By seceding from the union the southern states were in rebellion from the nation that they helped to found. You said that they didn't ask for a war, which is strange considering the Confederacy fired the first shots in beginning the battle of Fort Sumter. This battle began the war which clearly falls under the Constitution's definition of treason. What the case really was about was that the southern states lost a key vote and decided to be cry babies and take their ball and go home. They were put down and the nation was brought back together.

Not the ponds I fish the most! Those were created by bulldozers and rainwater.

The movie is really nothing like what happened. The movie is based upon a graphic novel, not actual history.

And nearly every single male pig gets, shall we say, CUT at a VERY young age. Where do you think those Rocky Mountain Oysters come from?

I've seen some crazy stuff posted on message boards, but this one may just be the craziest! The US federal gov't reacted to protect the nation when the southern states voted to seceed. The southern states committed treason by seceeding.

Exaggerate much? I'd like to get into this more but aren't we delving a little far into the political arena?

My father in law lives on an association managed lake and they just printed out piece of paper, laminated them, and then the people fishing clip these onto their clothes somewhere visible. Easy and you don't really need to buy anything special for them.

I've found that the only time they don't work is when they are tied to the end of my line! Ug, I can't catch a fish on a rattling bait to save my life!

Thanks for the info. Looks like I will be going with something else then.

But what about the AS69MLXF? The AS68MXF is rated down to 3/16's which is just a bit heavier than the 1/8 I want to be able to throw.

I'm looking to replace my old POS spinning rod with one (hopefully) new avid on sale. The main fishing that I do is on small ponds with mainly weed cover. I've got a MH BC setup for weighted worms and jigs and a M BC setup for cranks. I need a weightless plastic rod and also would like it to be able to throw the small rapala's (J-7's and such) that weigh 1/8 oz. Would the AS66MLF be too soft for plastics? Would the AS69MLXF work for the small cranks? Do the medium light rods just not have enough backbone for good plastics hooksets? Thanks for the info!!

I just bought a Citica/Extreme combo from BPS for $140. Just a bit higher than your combo criteria, but a $120 reel and a $100 rod for $140 is a good deal in my book. Haven't fished it yet, but just holding it I can tell it will be better than what I have because anything is better than nothing! 8-) I also bought the BPS Crankin Stick when it was on sale for $30. That one replaced an ugly stick and it is VASTLY superior to that! You can definately feel the cbaits coming through the water with this rod.

Or it could just be that you are talking about different specie/strain of bass. Florida strain largies will not survive in the same cold waters as the nortern strain will. http://www.agfc.com/pdfs/fisheries/mgmtplans/largemouth_bass_management_plan.pdf

I was intrigued with the chatterfrog so I bought one. Made five casts and on the fifth retrieve it felt very strange. Got the bait back to shore and I only had the blade left. The jig was gone. Haven't purchased another one and don't really plan to.

It isn't necessarily markup. The cost to produce hybrids is more than a regular vehicle. That is why they cost more. You are correct that one would have to drive a hybrid for years before the gas savings becomes greater than the vehicle cost. However, someone has to pay for the innovation. There are obviously many people willing to make that investment. If you live around an area where you can get E85 you can get one of those as a tow vehicle. This will burn 85% ethanol and 15% gas. Long term alternatives are to continue working on the hybrid/electric vehicles. These will travel around 40 miles on battery and then use gas to charge the batteries and continue to power the car. Look up Chevy's Volt. They still use gas, but VERY little and they would not require the entire fuel distribution of the US to be retooled.

I heard this morning that the reporter did not quote Shula very accurately. Shule did not say that he wanted to have an asterisk on the record. The reporter asked him what he would think if one was placed there and he said he wouldn't have a problem with it. He didn't say that there should be one. reporters! >

Just because one country is able to make it work does not mean that it is feasible for other countries. As Raul mentioned Brazil uses nearly 100% ethanol to power their cars. They can do this because of their natural resources and small size. Hydrogen power is good if one has an easy way to come up with the hydrogen needed for the fuel. The current method is to use electricity to split water molecules into Hydrogen and Oxygen. This takes a lot of electricity. Iceland gets this electricity from hydro-electric plants and geothermal. Both methods are renewable. Here in the states we get a big percentage of our electricity from coal or natural gas. Not renewable. So moving to hydrogen power for our cars is really just moving our problem from one fossil fuel to another. That is just the production problem. GM has had the fuel cell car as their dream for many years (about a decade). They have spent over a billion dollars on this and still have many problems. How do you safely store it in the car? The current Sequel is still just a concept car that last year cost about a million bucks to produce. Setting up the infrastructure to deliver the hydrogen (convert gas stations) throughout the US would run in the tens of billions of dollars. How do you transport and store the lightest, smallest gas molecules on the planet? There is little doubt that this technology should continue to be explored, but it is far from being ready to be deployed. Iceland isn't planning on being oil free until 2050! GM is still actively working on the hydrogen car and are banking on it to bring the company back to the forefront. They missed the hybrid boat. But right now, the individual consumer should be buying hybrids, driving less, and altering their driving styles to get better mileage.

6' ML Spinning Ugly Stick!! Bought it when I was in junior high (seems like forever ago) and will be replacing it this winter. I may actually be sad when I replace it, I have caught LOADS of fish with that rod and have TONS of good memories beating the bank with it.

Just a point of clarification. OPEC is a cartel of oil producing countries, not companies. Those countries are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Exxon-Mobile, BP, etc are not part of this cartel and do not operate under it's direction. We can't do much about it legally because those countries are not governed by our monopoly laws. If Exxon-Mobile were to ask for admission into OPEC I have a strong suspicion that the US gov't would have a rather large problem with that.

That is correct. The economy will grow and then will go into a recession, then it will grow again. It's really not a question of if. It's a question of when. The federal reserve has made preventing a recession their number one concern (this is from Greenspan to Bernacke). They are not too concerned with protecting the value of the dollar. As such, they are lowering interest rates to promote consumer and industrial spending and to attempt to prop up the housing market. These rate reductions are having the anticipated impact on the value of the dollar which makes foreign goods more expensive which causes energy prices to rise precipitously. It is my opinion that the longer the recession is pushed off the harsher it is going to be. I'd almost like to see the fed raise interest rates and start protecting the dollar and just bear our way through the recession to come.

Ethanol is a good source of energy for certain locations. Brazil can do this very cheap because they have the climate to grow huge sugar cane fields which is then fermented into ethanol to use to fuel their cars. The US is exploring ethanol. We can't grow sugar cane like Brazil can so we are currently working with corn. This is not a long term solution as it is a physical impossibility for us to grow enough corn to make a significant difference in our oil consumption. Corn just doesn't have the necessary sugars to make it feasible. Also, transporting ethanol via pipelines does not work without significant improvements to the pipes, significant monitoring and cleaning. Basically zero water can be allowed in. Right now ethanol is only transported via semi truck, using more energy in the transport and making it unfeasible for areas of the US that do not grow significant amounts of corn. We have other options for ethanol production, switch grass, wood pulp, etc. However the technology is not there to be able to make this a viable option and we're still stuck with the transport issues. To get this we would have to grow more soybeans, which would decrease the amount of corn grown which would decrease the amount of ethanol available to be produced. These options are definately feasible in the US for small scale applications. However, they will not satisfy the entire US demand.