J Francho

I was good until 7:08, then I got a little weird. Man, that's a job.

If you really want to learn, check out my friend Jay's site: http://www.jhpvideotutorials.com/. He and I were doing this stuff back in '03, way before many even heard of this stuff. But he took it to a different level. The dude is LEGIT.

Just spritz the little guy with some glycerin water.

Actually, more than one picture I posted was a tone mapped HDRI. Some pictures are not possible without the technology. For Wednesday, an 11 image (1/3 stop brackets) LDRI tone mapped in Photomatix from a 96 bit HDRI. You have to see this picture printed on White House's metallic paper to truly appreciate it. Chimney Bluffs State Park.

This is what he's talking about. You southerners have no idea what these are, LOL. They are for ice fishing. You drop them down the hole, and slowly jig them. They swim in a radius much larger than the 4" hole in the ice. Ice fishing version of a "search bait." And yes, they work when the water is soft, too.

That lake is loaded with beasts. This is the first year in a while that our club has made a decent showing. Local tournaments, with local sticks have produced 22+ lb. bags. If I could spend a week there, I'd like to see what I could come up with.

Remove the front treble from a small Rapala Original Minnow, and connect to the line tie. Tie to the now empty loop. Cast, twitch, catch all species of fish. Something we used to do when rock bass were on beds in spring. You'd catch the occasional out of season smallie off beds as well. :-X

Gary, do some youtube searches of marlin from a kayak. You'll be impressed. Can't be any worse than a freaking pontoon, LOL.

Number 8 of 10 in the FCS Points Series is in the books. Conditions couldn't have been better for a tournament - overcast, intermittent light sprinkles, moderate temps, and a very slight breeze from North-Northwest, and occasionally right out of the West. Water temps ranged in the low 60s. Every boat caught a limit, and weights were all respectable. Surprisingly few smallies were brought to the weigh in, but there were a a few really nice largemouth that were willing to go on a "boat ride." The results: 3rd place: Perry D and John F. brought in five fish, all very consistent in size for 13 lbs. 10 oz. Crank baits, Senkos, flick shake worms, and soft jerk baits did the damage. 2nd place and Lunker: Bill L. and Gary F. brought in a nice bag, anchored by a beautiful 6 lb. 3 oz. largemouth. A little birdy told me Bill caught it on a jig. Total weight was 15 lbs. 12 oz. 1st place: Brutus finally puts a notch in his belt for his first win, along with partner Felix. Felix got so excited about a huge smallie, he spilled the beans about some homemade hand pour creature they were using. "Those things smell bad, man!" They caught Billy and Gary by just 2 oz., with a total weight of 15 lbs. 14 oz. Very nice work by all. No bag under 10 lbs. Some pics: Billy's beast. Web and Jason with some nice fish. Perry, holding my fish up, LOL. Billy with one of the few smallies brought in, and the massive lunker. It says "Champ" but should say "Cayuga." We aren't going to hear the end of this win. Congrats Brutus! My day: Things started off very slow in the morning. Despite bass surface feeding all around us, no topwater bite to be had at all. I decided to move to just sub surface with a pointer. This ended with a 40" ~15 ish pound northern pike, one of my top three this year. That bait went back in the bag, and I went to my tried and true craw baits. It got murdered by panfish, and a few were donated to the toothy creatures. This actually was our pattern: fish through the pike and pickerel, and catch a bass. Seemed like we'd get a pike, and then a bass or two. I caught most of the pike in the first half of the day, and Perry handled the bass. Finally at 11:42 AM, I caught my first keeper bass, on a flick-shake worm. All the rest of my bass would come on this bait, and despite Perry's decent crankbait bit of the morning, his wacky senkos ruled the afternoon for him. All in all, we caught somewhere around 30 bass, a dozen pickerel, and two nice northerns. Not a bad day of fishing, and hey, we took 3rd in a tournament. Ton of fun!

Jim (CASTMASTER) and I fished the Joe Kressler Memorial this past Saturday. Wow, what an interesting lake. I'd really like to spend some more time on it, figuring out some structure spots. Roadbeds, foundations, trees, etc. The launch at the General Store is decent, and the owner Jerry will dump you in, and park your truck. Now that's service! Nine teams showed up for this event, including smallmouth Sean, Jim, and I. Sean partnered with Salt City member, Brent. it was a tough day on the water, but we all did manage to catch some fish. Here's the results. 3rd Place: NYBASS member Sean and Brent bringing in five for 5.34 lbs. I think I saw Sean throwing a musky bait on 100 lb. braid, LOL. 2nd Place went to Ed Lee Sr. and Jr. with 7.84 lbs. If you look at previous years' events, their names come up frequently. 1st place and lunker went to Art Kirk with 9.74 lbs., including a scant 3 lb. kicker for lunker bonus. Jim and I watched Art methodically work docks all day long, sometimes returning to areas he had already fished. This guy was on a mission, and didn't waver. Talked to him afterward, real nice guy. Said he never put the jig down. Nice work. Some pics: Art's lunker. Art's bag. Congrats Art, you earned it! These guys were money.\ My day: Oooof! Tough to say the least. I had about three honest bites, one was a pickerel, and I dropped the other two. Jim dropped a fish, but landed two keepers, and that was really it. Those two came in a flurry, and we thought we were going to save the day, with an hour or so to go, but it never happened. No matter, I'll be here next year, what a great, well run event. I headed out of there, hoping for a better showing on Cayuga the next day. Report to come.....

Tuesday is Lighthouse Day.

I'm in, but from a kayak.

http://www.chatillon.com/Our%20Products/Chatillon%20Weighing%20Scales/fish%26game_product/IN_fishscale.html

Nose hook it with a 1/0 Gam. Finesse Wide Gap hook. Issue solved.

Looks like duckweed to me. Hollow Frog, T-rigs with loose sinker, jig, or bubba shot.

Could just be the wrong hook set for the hook. Faster rods load up differently. What bait hook, and what line? Unless its a real sketchy bite, with lots of "drive by" hits, I'll swing as soon as I detect a bite.

Its probably the braid/no backer issue. No reason to send it to Shimano, its user error.

I'm here. Rolling my eyes, but here.

2010 GMC Sierra

He didn't say what he caught...

Those are some FAT bass, man. Did you get any weights on them?

I tried some corrosion resistant dry formula. The problem is how do you flush the inevitable grime out. With straight oil, a few drops cleans the gunk out.

Pink doesn't work. Neither does orange.

Not a bad fish at all, Dwight. You should have been up there when my club had a two day T. We couldn't keep the dang things off our jigs, LOL.

Noel Good's site is a good start: http://www.wnybass.com/opentournaments/ As is Hank Timmerman's tournament spreadsheet: http://www.hanktimmermann.com/