VolFan

I have heard that ‘den with dog tags and collars’ story here too - I think that one’s the same as the ‘diver sees catfish the size of Volkswagens’ below every TVA dam!

We have plenty of coyotes in Charlotte, and I am in the city near South Park Mall if you need a reference point. People freak out when the coyotes are seen in the neighborhood but they’re always around. On the greenway about a mile or so from my house we saw what was easily the biggest coyote I have ever seen. He/she was healthy and significantly bigger than my lab. We have plenty of people in the neighborhood with free range chickens- owls and hawks get those regularly. Don’t know that I’ve heard of a coyote getting them.

Never forget that they’re sunfish. They reproduce by volume. You can have 10 10 lbers or 50 2 lbers but not both. Also, they’re decent table fare.

Krylon and masking tape? Again, won’t last as long as doing it the oven/airbrush ways.

This is a great and timely message. Never underestimate the value of just checking in on someone.

Yeah this shouldn’t be happening with a normal car with normal maintenance. I drive a 2006 4Runner with 180,000 miles on it. I will replace the tranny when it needs it. You have a 2009 Focus - it a good reliable car. Maybe not as reliable as a Toyota 😀… You’ve just gotta make a decision on if the cost is wortH it vs getting a newer car. $15k will get you into a much newer Corolla or Camry here with manageable miles.

Either will be fine as long as your drag is set within a normal level. 7 lbs is still needlessly weak for a split ring.

Thanks y’all - this is both helpful and not. I’m probably going with the Echomap but that extra $3-400 is tough.

I currently have a 4” Striker and want to upgrade- what is the major difference between a 7” Striker vs a 7” Echomap? I’d probably do a 9” Striker if I went that route. I will never do FFS so that is not a consideration.

Depending on where you are, those like like a school of white perch/hybrids/spots feeding actively. It would be white perch here in Charlotte.

I fish the lake between Norman and Lake Wylie near Charlotte - Mountain Island. It is more riverine than either with a few coves and backwaters. It seems to have settled into a balance with more spots in the riverine/rocky sections and more largemouth in the backwaters. With fish currently schooling on shad in open water and on breaks, those fish have been a mix of spots and largemouths, with the mixes leaning toward whatever type of water you’re closest to. The spots are fun to catch, and we catch a ton. They also make great catfish bait and raptor food. We catch more largemouth in our largemouth spots, including a few bigger ones (5+) that my wife somehow always seems to get. The spots seem to school by size and when you find a school of the bigger ones it is an absolute hoot. Bigger in this sense is about 3 lbs. As any good biologist knows - it’s usually habitat that drives a species’ success. There’s plenty of habitat for both and plenty of food for both in those spaces.

Kastmasters - 1/8 and 1/4 oz in silver always worked for me. Krocodiles in the sizes around 2 inches as well. Both are great for almost anything that swims.

Again? Were they ever good? They are the Cleveland of Michigan.

That is a CHONK!

It’s funny you post that picture - either a big deer or a small cow slept in the tiger lilies right next to our house last night. I’d assume it was a big doe that eats a lot of our plants.

I use at least one tree and a rock. Evergreens are easier in winter. Must be a Tennessee thing.

This is really my mindset. I think the aficionado stuff is great but I really have a few combos that I really like catching fish on that can cover most of the ways I fish. The vast majority of days I could take a MH bait caster and a M spinning rod and not want for anything other than a net man. also - winter seems to have arrived.

They’re definitely not nothing - they’ve been really impressive. As someone who saw a national championship season in person in college - it doesn’t matter how you win, just win. I can’t wait for Saturday. Hoosiers get an Ohio state university and we get Georgia.

Within an hour of Knoxville you have Douglas, Cherokee, Norris, Melton Hill, Fort Loudon, Tellico, and Watts Barr reservoirs. You have the Clinch, Tennessee, Little Tennessee, French Broad, Houston, and a few other smaller rivers. Cheap living, tons of great golf courses. It depends on what you want to do when you go to the city but there’s almost nowhere in the US that has the diversity of freshwater fishing as around Knoxville. Also the greatest university in the history of education. And we saved the Texans butts at the Alamo.

@Deephaven I missed the tag on this original post - what do you like to do?

@Deephaven - Hard to tell you what you should like about it unless you tell me what you like 😀. The outdoors opportunities with lakes and public hunting areas are significant all within an hour or so drive and that goes from cold water trout to striper to musky to all of the normal freshwater fish. Great hiking, four seasons, great smaller towns around it. There’s a few fun downtown areas with theaters and restaurants if that’s your thing. There’s the university with educational and sports opportunities if you want to learn something and/or paint your face. It is a manageable size of a city to get around in as well. It just depends on what you want.

Chattanooga and Knoxville are both really cool cities. Maybe not quite Charleston but really great. You could do much worse than any of the lakes surrounding them. There’s also Huntsville, AL.

@Glenn I can’t decide if Geno is great or a bust. Great drive to tie it but some boneheaded stuff in there too…he sure threw a few pretty balls on it though.

UConn in the top 5 (or really top 10…) totally invalidated that list for me… but at least they got #1 right.

Did you try it before you took it apart?