bigbill

To me down sizing is in my ritual of lures I start off with. I throw a variety of different lures, colors and sizes. The really small lure for down sizing is my micro or mini strike king spinner bait. On the mini I use a normal 5" skirt trying to bulk up the width. Sometimes a short wider spinner bait looks like a thanksgiving dinner. Other than that I try to keep my cranks to 2" long anyway.

I use the rebel crawfish crankbait and match the color of your lure to the color of your crayfish. The bass can't resist this lure. Crawfish hide in the rocks, under structure like 2"x10" in the water. Here's a hint to one of my hot spots. They redid the low bridge and dropped some of the 2x10's in the 10' deep water making a hiding place for crawfish. When the ice is on I also see guys put dead falls and old Christmas trees on the ice. When the ice melts we have structure close to shore.

I do believe they can hear as well as feel vibrations. They can send out distress calls too. I know there are times when there vision is limited to certain colors. And there are times they can see colors like we do. So far I've seen all the animals talk so why not the fish too. Even black bears hoot from mountaintop to mountaintop, why? Because they can't dial 1 800 collect. There looking for a mate. It's different than a owls hoot and if you mimic it perfectly I can call bears into my camp at 1am. It's three short hoots followed by one long one. When the sow gets separated from the cubs she hoots for them. I can hear the hootin from different directions at night. That's how they talk and get together. I find a lot of people who don't know this. When night fishing I hear these hoots all night till dawn. There were bear sightings near where I fish for bass. For that week early in the am just before dawn I heard the hootin. Then it stopped I believe they relocated it. I had one 100feet from me near where my car was parked in the dark. I just stayed fishing and by dawn it was gone. I'm fishing with my buddy and his six friends anyway at night(357). I'm never alone. The beavers swim in front of me in the day lite slapping there tails. The deer , does with fawns freeze and look at me or others play with otters if I don't make any quick moves. I freeze and watch them too. If the does tail goes up that's the danger warning white flag and there gone.

I do like the new Indian. But I always wanted to restore an old harley. But the bandit is a touring bike we sit sprite on. I need to test drive a cruiser first. I'm worried about the vibration.

Just five? I use five from shore four spinning and one casting in the past. With rods I range from med/lt to xhvy/x fast.

After beating back my prostate cancer for now, only time will tell I'm thinking about a new ride in the springtime. I'm torn between a cruiser or a rocket. My last motorcycle was a '99 1200cc Suzuki Bandit. The bandits engine is a reworked Suzuki GSXR 1100 engine that's detuned. I retuned it as close to the GSXR 1100 power as close as I could get. The new bandit is 1250cc with fuel injection.My old bandit was one awesome ride. She had plenty of speed that could hang with any rocket yet enough bottom end torque to lift the front wheel at anytime. The bike was so smooth even at 150+mph it felt like the bike wasn't running. I found out that I love speed. I parted with the bike because of speed. Now I'm torn between a new 1250cc Suzuki Bandit or a new Indian cruiser? Do I want smoothness and speed over an old school designed cruiser? I'm giving up smoothness for the big vee twin vibration. Going slow or keeping up with the rockets? The speed thing started with me with my dirtbike days. Going threw the woods down the straights at 100mph on a 79 husqvarna 390cr was a rush. I found the '86 husqvarna 400 liquid WRX to be just as fast at 120mph threw the woods. My new '99 husqvarna 610te dual-sport was still a rush to ride. Then came the bandit. Maybe at 63yo it's time to slow down. I don't feel ready to putt yet. Bill The new single rear shock dirtbikes of today suffer from frame and swing arm flex. The older husqvarna dirtbikes with the twin Olin gas shocks never had the flex problem. It makes me wonder who will be the one who goes back to the twin rear shock setup first. Then it will be a new discovery but the older engineers got it right without a CAD system. Now they use the stress option on the CAD system and built it all close to the edge of failure to save weight but give up safety and handling. I repaired many cracked frames on the newer bikes but I never repaired an older husqvarna frame. Funny the Swedish Olin gas shocks were looked down upon years ago when the single shock came out. Now there state of the art now. Go figure. If you weren't on a husqvarna bike in the old days you weren't going to win. Right out of the crate it was race ready with all the top of the line quality goodies.

Stitch, We have lots of fishing to do in our future yet. This is just a bump in the road, a pit stop in our lives. You will beat this I'm sure. Just focus on the future. Our souls and faith in our creator is stronger than any illness on the planet so let's whoop this thing. It sounds like you have an awesome support group too. Keep on moving forward. God bless, bigbill

Thanks for the advice. Bill

I'm not sure how we ever survived the holidays at grandma's house. We had a five course meal non stop food being served from home made soup with the greens to the turkey, the salads, the pasta, and the deserts. Grandma's holidays are never forgotten. The meal prep takes days of shopping and getting everything ready and cooked for a two hour meal if that. Ever wonder about that? Someone gets up at 5am to put the turkey in the oven.

We have home made pasta, meatballs, sausage, pork with home made sauce too. Plus the salad, Turkey and home made cookies, pies, nuts, mints etc. It will be one of my off diet days but everything in moderation. I live for the family gatherings, the great food and friends. The spread we have on Christmas eve is unmatched by any holiday dinner. Tis the season to celebrate the holidays I wish we had more of them. I'm not sure how my two new kittens are going to be with the smells of the holidays. Every pet gets the good eats too. What ever is left on the bones goes to them. I'm not sure if I'll survive the smells of the turkey cooking. Instead of using the imported hand operated pasta maker I purchased every family household a kitchen aid with the pasta making attachments. Dad doesn't have to crank the handle anymore. Plus I purchased everyone a keurig coffee maker too. When we eat at each other's houses dad gets great homemade pasta and the perfect cup of coffee.

A split shot rigged black worm is still the number one bass bait ever. I noticed it resembles the freshwater eels that are near the shoreline at night in the dark. I believe this is why the bass are near the shoreline in the dark. I remember when creme worms came in black and natural colors first. Then purple and red were offered too soon after. The rigged worms with the hooks and props where a hit too. We didn't have much in the choices of plastics in the old days. We only watched Jerry McKinnis too. Besides Gadda bout Gaddis with his float plane. We thought they were hot stuff as kids. Bass are predators. There like my kittens/cats. Anything is a toy to practice with at first. Then it becomes food. I think all predators practice this when there little by honing there skills on killing things to eat. I think being a mouse or minnow is a hard life. With mice being on land or water your sought after as food. Have you ever let a plastic mouse fall off a fallen log or branch? It's over in a flash. My little kittens are laser dot trained killers. At just three months old they can SWAT one fly one pass with there paws. The bass are no different. The split shot rig with a 6" black creme plastic worm is bass fishing at its finest but it's also the slowest style of bass fishing too. We would fish like this by anchoring the boat after the weeds drop off out of site in the deeper water. Then we cast towards the weedline. Let it sit for five minutes, then repeat till the worm is back to the boat then repeat. At the sametime we watch the line for movement. I like to use two rod setups when split shorting worms. I throw crankbaits, inline spinners and spinnerbaits with my second rod setup while watching the line on the worm setup. It's a good time to grab a sandwich too. A split shot rigged black worm works at any body of water. Even in the back wash in rivers too. Along side the channels too.

I am burned out by getting up at 3:30am fishing 24/7 for three months straight from the pre spawn till the start of the hotter weather. Then it's off and on till I recoup. But by this time of the season it's normally out fishing by 8am or 12pm doing the fishing second and third shift. Till the ice is on. I missed most of the fishing season but I'm looking forward to next season. Right now the hunt is still on for a new PB or a new state record LMB. This time of the year and month it's plastic swim baits. I feel the afternoons is a better time to go. I feel the fish are sunning themselves too trying to warm up. Plus its time to look back at the past season and plan for the next season. When I see the paths of the snapping turtles heading into the swampy muddy area looking to bury themselves in the mud for the winter you know one season is coming to a close. Turkey day is near and it's time to dust off the ice fishing sled and check the equipment for the ice fishing season is fast approaching. I've seen it go from 3" of ice to 21" of ice in a little over a week of arctic air. My point is the fishing season only ends if you let it end. Bill

I sent some of the manufacturers of fishing equipment an email asking for some decals for my tackle boxes, Jeep and my boat(purchase in the spring). It's free advertisement for them. I could put them with the resource decals I already have on my jeep. I received one, "1" lonely decal from some. The Plano company was the first one to respond with a few decals. That's really great since I use nothing but Plano tackle boxes and storage boxes too. I have over 17 Plano tackle boxes full of tackle. I received "1" only "one" YUM decal. I figured by having decals I'm giving back to the manufacturers for my awesome time fishing while using there products. I wish there was an assortment of decals we could purchase. My resource decals look awesome. Even Mr Barone of tackle the storm thought so too. I figure if I get one young fisherman per outing to come to this site our decals are working.

In fishing the fisherman and the fish are athletes. After all the fish are fighting for there lives. Since fighting is a sport than the fish are athletes too. If you don't think fishing is a sport in the spring I say get up everyday at 3:30am to go fishing in the dark for three months everyday rain, snow or shine no other sport has decaded people like fishing. I think the pro tournament fisherman are way under paid when we compare them to other sports and there athletes. Maybe that's why some of them won't call it a sport it would cost them more. Let's face it, it's not a job so it has to be a sport. It surely is a big money making industry.

Poor Bobby......

I never wore out a drag disc yet? Am I doing something wrong. I set the drag a tad tighter than loose. I really never actually hear it working. Do the drag plates wear or does the better quality plates work better because of more friction? Can you grease them or run them dry?

We stuff the turkey and In the oven it goes. We do a special stuffing. Dry Stuffing bread mix, we add ground sausage, cranberries, mushrooms, celery, carrots, onions, real Cabot butter & seasoning. I can smell that bird with the fixins already. Now I'm hungry... Our tradition on thanksgiving morning was going bird hunting. We haven't done it in the past few years.

Awesome pics only a fisherman or a hunter can shoot pics like this. Thanks bigbill I was just telling my misses we haven't had duck for dinner in decades.

Some of the lures from china surely look like the bps brands. There getting more and more expensive lately. My Chinese baitcaster is $30 now. The spool has two ball bearings. It works ok. I threw a jig a country mile using braid with no birds nest. I still think they had a joint venture withy someone and went out on there own or copied someone's reel.

I leaned my lesson while trying to cast a castiac 9'' trout lure with a medium action rod. Lets say it never got casted out. I purchased a saltwater setup for throwing it. I like my 6' rods too but the 7' rods cast farther with less effort.

I purchased the better quality drag plates for my us reel 230/240 super caster spinning reels and the ceramic bearings and the better quality drag plate for my us reel 800x hibdon super caster baitcaster.

What happens when it's a bass biting frenzy going on. When I hook each bass does it pass gas under the stress and send out a miss message to the other bass telling them the soups on. At this time my lure becomes an amusement ride and there lined up for a ride. It's that intense of a bite. Now I'll have to watch for bubbles behind my lures too. I know that fish talk somehow as mammals do too. I had a sunfish hooked while reeling it in a big bass came across from the opposite side of the pond to eat it. I was about 4' above the shore watching this live action unfold. I'm playing with one of my two kittens on a string in one room. I had no clue as to where the other kitten was at. The kitten looks at the door opening and says something I can't hear by its expressions. Right after it does this the other kitten runs into the room to play too. Some how they talk and we can't hear them. I seen my three feral cats outside and as I let one in the house he turns and makes the same quiet gesture to call his brothers in too. Seeing this over and over has me thinking they all can talk to each other some how, in some way? Your going to realize that all gods creations can talk to each other.

I try to stay within the rods limitations and specs. Within the lure weight and the line test. I have been purchasing new rods going by the lure weight. But as we go up in the lure weight specs the upper section of the rod becomes stiffer. We limit the rods performance to certain lures only. I been carrying 5 rod setups for over a decade++ now. People just don't get it. The lure and line test is very important on the action of the lure, the rate of fall, plus using the correct action and power rod for that lure. My buddies would make fun of me with 5 different rod setups but it works. Valley Sports, that's a good price on the stainless primus stove made in Sweden. These are a high quality stove. I need to look more at your site online.

Bass always go for craws. Rebel big claw crawfish crankbait. Rebel wee craw Bomber model A redapplecraw craw #05 Bomber shallow A redapplecraw craw. Bomber model A citrus. Mann's classic spinnerbaits, white skirt Colorado/Indiana blades, chartreuse skirt Colorado/ Indiana blades both 1/4oz. Strike king micro & mini spinnerbaits. Mepps inline spinners #3Anglia silver/Brown bucktail, or silver /Gray tail.

I just purchased the 6' med/lt spinning rod along with a med action rod and a med/ heavy action rod. I notice the upper tip section is the main difference between rods actions. I'm new to this action and power thing. I'm looking for more hook setting power.