J Francho

As real as professional wrestling in America! ;D

Pretty little rat

Small spots, no red spots, pink bands, and they just don't look like Salmo to me - look more Oncorhynchus. My son's 1st brown:

Near there, but closer to the deeper water. You're on an "intercept mission" so be willing to move around and search.

Check it out, but I'd be fishing close to the spawning grounds, i.e. near creeks.

My experience is pike fishing is more about location than baits. As far as finding the biggest pike, once you've located pike, then it becomes about bait selection. You'll get bit on spoons, but anything bites a spoon this time of year. It represents the snack size bait that is in shallow right now. Big pike should be on the tops of primary breaks in 10-12 FOW. They feed heavily, but turn on and off like a light switch this time of year. Crummy weather usually means good pike fishing, and if it gets windy, they'll come up onto rocky shoals and feed. As the water temps drop, they go deeper, to their winter haunts. My best fall baits are big diving cranks, big jerkbaits, big inline bucktails, and big jigs with a plastic swimbait trailer. See the trend there?

Larry Dahlberg already did it. Something like a Curado on a flipping stick with 65# braid. That's Larry Dahlberg, certainly not your average fisherman. How many takes required to land it and how big? I've caught many tarpon on spinning gear, 4000 reel, med 8/17 rod or mh 10/20, 15 or 20# braid, but not in the 150# category, too much fish for that equipment. Neither is Jose. The point is someone already did it.

I don't think any of those were browns. :-?

Nope, but they do transmit vital info about bottom composition, which can be crucial to getting bit when fishing in 40 FOW.

Larry Dahlberg already did it. Something like a Curado on a flipping stick with 65# braid.

I use these: http://chotaoutdoorgear.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=21_27&products_id=33&osCsid=937cfc2eb5ab5ee3b370fb197732a5de As far as hand warmers go, you want them on the underside of your wrist, to be the most effective. Back of the hand works, but the wrist method warms the blood pumping into your fingers.

Hope you got what you needed. This one is gone!

Siamese Stinkeye.

Probably dying batteries. A Chatillon spring scale never has such issues Seriously though, the fish in your avatar is a 5ish fish. The fish above is not. Start taking length and girth measurements. It takes a 19 to 20" fish to come close to five pounds. Keep catching man!

I agree, except in the case of the Gam. Drop Shot/Split Shot hooks and the Wide Gap Finesse hooks. If Owner put a bent eye and lost the green coating on the wacky hooks, I'd be all over them. The Wacky hooks don't perform as well the Gam. WGF hooks when snelled, and I suspect its the lack of the bend in the eye. The green paint just bugs me, LOL.

Take a look at your regs, I don't know about VA,but in NY you can only have two hooks on a leader. Some states only allow one. Besides, the BEAUTY of the drop shot rig is the connection between hook, line, and rod. Using a snelled bait ruins this concept.

That is the best part of the story! Great report.

Sabiki rigs aren't legal in most freshwater.

I'll be honest, I use a drop shot rig quite a bit, but it never occurred to me to try a fly. I did a quick google on it, and came u[p with this: http://proxy.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/members/insider/bmmarchive/story?page=b_fea_bm_0501_drop_shot_fly Hopefully someone that has actually tried it can comment, or you can try it and report back.

If they're that good, they just turn pro.

NCAA rules prohibit that kind of thing.

I knew this wouldn't go through, but wrote a ton letters protesting it anyway. Good to know there was some common sense applied here. A lead ban would literally kill the tackle industry and completely change fishing as we know it.

Get dysentery while carrying Larry Dahlberg's gear while on one of his wolf fish expeditions.

After cleaning, it will be pretty obvious. It won't spin smoothly.

Any boat I'd be in would have a USCG inspection sticker, including my kayaks. I'm not really worried about it. That sticker wards off most officers.