J Francho

To get back to the original question, get your wife some Blue Lizard sunblock, a nice long sleeve Columbia fishing shirt, and a pair of zip off slacks. It ain't pretty, but it really works protecting against the sun. She won't look half bad, either. I don't burn, and in fact being mostly Native American, get pretty dark, but I don't like what constant exposure to the sun does to my skin. I also do not tolerate being cold at all. Anything below 70° gets uncomfortable. So I usually dress for the weather. Here are a couple of shots of me from recent fashion shows, LOL. Summer Winter:

I got a late start, hanging with my almost two year old in the early morning - time well spent with the beast! I made it to the launch, and there were a ton of trailers at the north launch. DOH! There was a Good Ole Boys paper tx. on Port Bay today - should have went to East Bay, since I knew with calm waters, many would make the run to Little Sodus or Sodus Bay. I launched, and pretty much resorted to inspect bedding areas, and explore the deeper ledges. Found my GPS/graph was not working - hopefully its just a loose wire somewhere. I basically stayed out of the way (which was difficult) of the guys in the tx., letting them fish over, through, on top of me, LOL. These were a very nice bunch of guys, very friendly! Their "paper weigh-in" was at 1 PM, so I figured that was a good time for a break, and check out the process. They used pre printed sheets, with weight conversions from the NYDEC website. They did use seperate conversions for SMB and LMB, but the only issue I see here is that you can catch pre and post spawn fish here. The guy that toughs it out in the Lake could possibly be penalized by the list, while the guy getting post spawn fish could benefit. It didn't seem to matter that much, as the weights had a bit of separation at the money level. i believe the winning weight was a bit less than 16 lbs. BTW, this was a points tx. for them, so turn out was very high. Congrats to the winners, and by my accounts, it was a well run tx. They put on a nice show at the "weigh-in" despite not seeing a single fish, with large banners, photo ops, and lots of smiles and atta-boys. Looks like a fun club. A cool thing was Jeff Edgerton, from a local forum, coming over an introducing himself to me. We had a good chat, laughed at the fact that we both caught three fish by that time, all on drop shot, LOL. It was great to meet you in person, Jeff. Add another good guy from the interwebs to the list of new friends. I also chatted with a few other people I'd met a few weeks back, while they were pre fishing for this tx. Anyway, as I said, I only had three fish by midday, and decided to head out and look for more. I played around with a double fluke rig, fishing the deeper outside weed lines very slowly, for two fish. I love the looks of this rig. The shallows, BTW were completely covered with green slime. It seems early for this, but with the higher temps, and all the high dollar cottages and their treated lawns has me thinking that recent rains washed a ton of nutrients into the bay, and the bloom is the result. Burnie and I noticed, on our trip, one particular place, where the water was greener right at the rock wall than the lush Kentucky Bluegrass growing in their yard. I've seen it come and go like this years past as well, time will tell. As I was crossing the bay, I came upon a HUGE bait ball. I saw some bait crashing around at the surface, and figured there were brown trout in the area. Then, I actually spotted a LMB rolling on the bait! Even though I was in 20+ FOW, I put on a DT10 in parrot, and started chucking and winding the outside edges of the ball. This resulted in three small LMB in about 5 minutes. Its kind of cool when you see something like that, react, and get rewarded, though I wish the fish were bigger. If I was in a bass boat, I would have never noticed this opportunity. Score 1 for the yak. My last few fish were dink males, that were coming back to beds in the late afternoon. Either the fishing pressure had them off their nests, or they finally decided to make their move. Quite a few of them were very busy, cleaning, and moving. Some were real heart breakers, too, never committing to the bait, simply lipping the tips of the bait and moving it. I even tried gently dropping a Spro BBZ-1 Shad right on a couple of nests, but that only managed to scare them off completely. That stupid shad looks so good, just sitting upright, with its tail wagging, I really want this pattern to work, but it hasn't yet. So, I caught about a dozen bass. I really figured with the full moon, overcast skies, that the 2nd wave of bedders would be there, but it was somewhat disappointing, but all in all a good day.

Unless its the Gold Series reel, its a proprietary, nutless handle, similar to (or exactly like) handles found on many Floogers, and you're stuck with what is there. The Gold Series uses a standard handle and retainer nut connection, though I'm not sure anything BPS offers would be an upgraded over the swept handle.

A frog will call the bass that you can't see out. Follow up missed strikes with a Senko, or similar.

10" Power Worm.

Just because you don't have threadfin shad doesn't mean that you don't have similar forage. Take a look at pictures of alewife, gizzard, and American shad. Surely you have one or all of those in your waters. As far as "matching the forage" goes, I'll do some research to find the primary and secondary forage in the lake, but I'm not married to a crayfish imitator on a cray fish lake, or just blue baits on alewife water. Its just a start, and from there, depending on the forage base, you can determine predator location by adding that info to what you know about current, structure, and cover. In summary, its just another piece of the puzzle, not the big picture.

I'll drop shot just about any soft plastic, big or small, but a few of my favorite finesse sized baits are: Gulp! Alive Minnow Gulp! Nightcrawler Berkley 4" Power Worm Berkley Hand Pour Finesse Worm GYCB Kut Tail Worms GYCB Shad Shaped Worm

Yellow perch it is. Probably been hanging out shallow in the weeds to get so dark.

Never used the LC swimbaits, but the Live LVR, Pointer, and Sammy are duds. The segmenting actually seems to inhibit bait movement. Suffice it to say, I think its not the number of segments, but the connection, and the shape that influences the movement.

I use 1/0 and 2/0 Gammy Wide Gap Finesse, #2 and 1/0 Drop/Split Shot, Owner Mosquito and Down Shot hooks. I adjust the hook for the sink rate, and cover. Each bait is a little different.

One of my fishing partners uses Fluoroclear for leaders when fishing steelhead. He did so well with it, he decided it would his cranking line for bass. I've never seen anyone chuck so many Lucky Crafts to the lake gods in my life, LOL. He broke off on fish, weeds, on the cast, rocks, everything! He eventually gave up and switched to Triple Fish FC. Personally, I like CXX. I'm currently testing out Berkley 100% FC, and I'm REALLY liking the stuff.

Not sure why buying extra spools would cost more than a rod and reel? I have extra spools for both spinning and baitcasting gear. I fish as a non boater in my club. By using the extra spools, I effectively carry well over a dozen setups, but only four or five combos. A tip for spinning reels: check your "free" spare spool. If it is a single felt washer setup as opposed to the three felt washer setup in many mid level and higher reels, then use the spare with braid, and the main spool with mono, copoly, fluoro. The reasoning would be that you are using the drag with braid to protect the reel gears and the rod, while with the light line, you want the precision drag to protect from breakoffs.

They are baits, handmade by Lauri Rapala's grandson. I'd expect nothing less.

Anyway....I don't use the word "rape" to describe anything fishing. When I do well, I usually say, "We smoked them!"

Non floating worms can be AWESOME shaky head worms too. I know. I refer to that as a jigworm. Different bait.

Actually, the consistency thing is something that really irks me. $15-20 for a Lucky Craft or Megabass seems perfectly reasonable to me, but $7-10 for a Rapala feels like an absolute ripoff. Problem is, when they work, they work - therefore, I have to have some Rapalas in my tackle bag. It just irritates me that somewhere around 30% don't work right out of the box.

Tell ya what then.... Next time you finish a project at work and your boss tells you that you did a good job, make sure you say, "Yes sir, I sure raped that one!!" Take a pic of the look on his face and try and explain to him that he took it out of context. You should seen the looks on customers' faces when I ask for "canary rape" at the pet store.

That pretty much nails it. I know if I lose my Pointer in Aurora Black, its backup copy will work EXACTLY the same. I cannot say the same for some other well known baits.

Depending on the context, the word rape could be a noun or a transitive verb, with definitions ranging from a seed, a sex crime, a robbery, to literally "carrying away." I don't think we're referring to seeds or sex crimes when using the word in the context of fishing. :

I fish a team format (as a non boater) in my club, and it really depends on the boat and the boater. A couple of the guys have fish and skis, and there just isn't room up there. We weigh in the best five fish, regardless who caught, and all fees, winnings, and points are shared. I usually have a long phone conversation with my boater before the tournament to discuss where we'll be fishing, what tactics we will be using, and any other details. For fun fishing, I would merely bring it up with your friend, but expect some interference at first, in the form of friendly smack talk. I generally word in such a way that it sounds like I am trying to learn something, like "hey, I'd like to try my hand at running the trolling motor..." If your friend doesn't want to adjust, then you'll just have to deal or find another fishing partner. There are several other formats, where non boaters and boaters compete in different divisions, and I've even heard where the nons are lumped in. That sounds like a tough deal for the nons. As far as what you can do, if you feel like you're being back boated....first, consider the tournament format; communicate with your boater; learn how to fish a Caroline rig. I recently fished Oneida for fun with two friends, father and son, with Jr. and I up front, and Sr. in the back. He threw a C-rig most of the day, and smoked us numbers wise. Most of his fish were in the 3-4 lb. range. Jr. and I pretty much bed fished, and had first crack at sight fishing, and managed to catch quality, though we had great numbers as well.

If it actually floats, its a killer shaky worm. If it sinks, its a killer drop shot worm. On a tough day, it would be killer on a light Mojo rig.

Depending on water temp, you are going to find fish in all stages - pre, spawn, and post spawn. I'd be prepared for anything. Super Flukes on both inside and outside weed edges, pegged creature baits for any bedder, with a Senko or Drop shot 3-4" worm as a follow up to the creatures, spinnerbaits and rattletraps for the secondary weed line (usually coontail around here), football jigs just past the weeds in that 10-14 FOW range, Fat Ikas and Senkos skipped under docks.... Just try a few different patterns, and establish which fish are actively feeding, and that should play out all over the lake.

Stick to pumpkinseeds (Lepomis auratus). If you want more than one, the tank needs to have a footprint of at least 6 sq. ft., more like 9 sq. ft. That means 75-125 gal. "long" style tank.

I dont understand this...I just use spool tension because to me they seem to do the same thing....I cant tell the difference what each other is for. I just stated what each is for, what so confusing? Visit Reel Mech's link for more in depth info. The spool tension is just that - spool tension. Its constant. Depending on the brake design, it may or may not be constant. In the case of centrifugal brakes, the resistance is greatest when spool speed is greatest. In the case of some of the better magnetic systems, such as Daiwa's Mag - V/Z systems, resistance from the brakes is greatest at startup, and tapers off throughout the duration of the cast.

And then you have these.... Rebel Craws Koppers All of then catch fish.