bigbill

It's our American free trade system that allows it. After losing my job in '83, again in '84, again in '85 due to cheaper machine tools from overseas no one cared but I seen this happening down the road for sure. Then I found a great job with sisRioter companies in every country over the world that has manufacturing capabilities too. We do all the engineering in the USA. Then most of it goes overseas to be manufactured. It's the American way, it's our free enterprise system. If we didn't import our goods here we wouldn't have any cars, no appliasces, no tv's, no music, no fancy electronics, nothing. Think about it hardly anything is made here. The car manufacturers from Japan moved here. There hiring more Americans than the American car companies. There is a big shift in manufacturing going on. We have gotten fat, dumb and lazy and the Mexicans are taking the lower paid jobs. It's like we're importing people who want to work. Now we're does that leave the Americans who want to work? Remember me in '83, in'84 and In '85??? Out of work right.

I got away from electric can opener I purchased the kitchen aid hand can opener for the whole family, along with a kitchen aid mixer and a keurig coffee maker for everyone too. I want my kids to have good stuff plus dad gets great coffee to with the fresh cakes too. Don't forget about the fresh pasta too. My wife wears out vaccumnes too I purchased her a Dyson the pet hair one since the Dyson no more wearing them out. I ordered the Chinese baitcaster reel. I got the right handed crank. I'm amberdexterious anyway from working under car dashboards. I can use either left or right hand reels. For $35 delivered we will hammer it this fall. Most of our fishing stuff is marked made in China anyway. All my rods are made in China. I mainly use Finor spinning reels from Florida. My other reels are okuma spinning reels.(Japan) My baitcasters are Mitchell, Shakespear & okuma. I have to go were the best value, quality and price is. I like trying and testing new products I done this for the engineering group I worked for over 20years in the r&d test lab. We would develop it here in the USA then send it to a sister company overseas to be manufactured there. Then we took there first products that they manufactured to our designs here to life test them to see if there up to our standards. China is one of our sister companies. My company has been into overseas manufacturing since the late 1800's. It's surely paying off in profite today. My engineering group is one of the top ten in the country. You know when our sister company in Japan came to see us. The Japanese people want the latest and greatest technology available today no matter what the cost but it better be dependable and reliable. We need to manufacturer the best product out there. We also have the most modern test labs in the country for testing electronics too. Other companies send there stuff to be tested to us. I know all about quality and testing for it.

In America the bigger companies I worked for laid off there quality control / inspection departments. They had the cnc machine operators doing there own inspection on there parts. This has been going on for many years now. Colt firearms is one of them. There quality has been iffy since the '80's because of it. Once you get rid of your quality control department there goes your product down hill. I've seen this in every big well known company here. Ok I'll order a baitcasting reel for $29. I really don't need it now so I can wait a month.

I would suggest as the bite slows down to either change your lure color or upside your lure to the next bigger one. The bigger bass will hit the larger lures.

Good quality flies are harder to find. The last flies I purchased while on vacation was the Dragon flies at the kittery trading post in kittery,Maine. These look like real Dragon flies too. Not knowing how to fly fish at the time I used a bobber with a leader to cast it out. I counted 9 strikes as I reeled it in. I called them up right away and ordered more. There blue in color and come in two sizes small and medium. I never seen these flies anywhere else.

I been using the split shot rig with plastic worms ever since 1974 in lakes. We would use a very large sewing needle to put a number 2 smelled hook thru the worm were the lump is at we would fold the smelled hook leader in half then put it in the eye of the needle and pull it slowly thru the worm. Once the loop of the leader came out of the worm we would pull that till the straight part of the hook was into the body of the worm. I like the split shot rigged worm this way. Using any size split shot will vary the fall. I have had awesome success using this in lakes from shore were they drop off into moving channel. The bass seem to be sitting on the edge of the moving water waiting to ambushing anything they can to eat. We have a lot of rivers they dammed well over 200 years ago. Now we have many lakes between these dams on one river. The bass fishing is hardly touches. Thanks to my uncle George and my cousin Butchie they were on top of using this new stuff probably because they read field n stream and outdoor life all the time. These were the internet in the book form.

I just spent about 3k this year so far playing catch up on stuff I should bought as I used my supply up and I'm buying up the older colored crankbaits that are being discontinued too.. every time I put on one of these older colors I catch fish. I'm putting together a $250 order for trailer hooks, rattles for all the plastic, copolymere line, spinner bait skirts etc. The town just purchased the water shed land with the lake that's never been open for fishing. I hope they have electric motors only. I want to be ready the minute they open it up. Plus my back property line borders the water shed property. I never had fishing so close. But this is also bear country too. I also shop sales and clearances too. If I save $$ I can buy more. Plus I keep my kids supplied with plenty of fishing stuff too.

My son just bought me one of those screw on tapered rod tips. I think it's a great idea.

I did say it this spring, late spring means early fall. Where having cool 70 degree days and cooler nights. Is the hot dog days of summer over? It surely feels like it. It's time to dust off my cooler weather equipment already. I'm hoping after all the rain things settle down now and we can do some serious fishing if the weather stays on a steady pattern. What do you think?

Like I said before I will use one fishing trip to clear a path thru the weeds like a small channel. Then I fish that cleared spot with topwater and shallow crankbaits. It seems to be really productive too.

I've read there are times of the year were they work better. But I'm not sure about that. I throw a variety of different lures till one of them works. I never pay attention to the time of the year I just go to my next lure looking for a pattern and presentation that catches fish at that time. I believe it may say in the articles listed here about early spring to summer to fall what lures to use for success. I believe spring and fall we use the same lures. During the hot summer weather were suppose to go deeper with plastics. I do experiment in one fishing hole I found. There seems to be bass always there. One day a senko works, another day a plastic worm works, another day a spinner bait works and another day a crankbait works. There's always fish the three and what ever I throw in that spot works.

I fish in weeds all the time. I use weedless rigged worms and plastics. I use the mister twister top props, mepps timber doodles, the eagle claw hooks with most of my senko' s and creature type baits. I hardly ever had a problem with weeds to date.

Awesome trip. Everyone should do this trip while your still young. When I was in my late teens my co-worker always told me if I love the outdoors so much I should move to Alaska and live out my dream. I regret I didn't do that now at 62yo. I always felt I was born 300 years too late. I love being outdoors with nature in the wilds more than anything else.

My son just married a fisherwoman. We took her fishing a while back when she told us that she fished with her dad. She put on a torpedo and I explained my one, two, three, pop n pause to her. She did it perfect on the first cast and caught a bass. The girl can do it all and I welcomed her into the family. Now I need to find an awesome picnic area with good fishing so the whole family can go. I hope to get them all fishing.

A good day of fishing,, Let's see if I'm still on this side of the green it's a good thing. I get out before the sun comes up to witness two fawns being splashed by two freshwater otters as they try to get a drink. That's a good thing. But watching the sky start to light up then seeing the ball of fire come up its a good thing. But seeing a bass inhale my topwater lure its a good day to be alive and fishing. Topwater action you have to live it.

I stand corrected, sorry what I'm seeing is the smaller tackle discount, outlets, and clearance places offering more and more braided lines. I'm wondering if this is a beginning of a trend from the bottom going up to the bigger suppliers.

I often wonder why we have to tie on most spinnerbaits? Does having a closed loop hurt the spinner bait action I think not. It'd so hard for me to cut off a tied spinner bait and tie on another one. As I get older it's harder to do. Right now I purchase all the closed loop spinnerbaits from MANN'S Classic and STRIKE KINGS MINI Spinnerbaits. I'm a snap swivel guy too figuring if I have a hard time in the light tying a spinner bait for sure I can't do it in the darker, low light conditions. I can't talk for everyone but us higher number in population still is us baby boomers. Plus all you younger guys/gals will get older too and this will become a problem. The new fishing lines are so clear I can just about see them in the light too. Any thoughts or comments?? While I'm on a roll with things that erk me why do so many topwater poppers come without split rings? I can't even put a snap swivel on them the loop is sunken in like a soup bowel so it's even harder to tie on to it. Are the lure designers thinking about us the end product users?? After working for the past 21 years for one of the top ten engineering groups in the country it makes me wonder. I did teach the engineers to keep there designs simple because someone has to repair it too. The end product user to them was number one. The bottom line is why make things so hard on us? How does cutting and retying cut into our fishing Time? Being disabled and my fishing time is limited on certain days every minute counts. Even when we rent a boat time matters too. The hours and even the minutes seem to fly by. I want to switch lures as fast as possible. I never see any fishing site nor bait manufacturer that has a suggestion or product feedback section? I would like to think they just never thought of it? The baby Booker population does have high number of fisherman but all of us as a whole should have some feedback to the manufacturers? If some products were made easier to use it could sway the sales. It's a win, win for all of us. I often wonder why most of us don't take the time to post a review about a lure on a manufacturer's website. If we're having awesome success with it why not let all of us know about it? Plus if we have success with it and everyone knows about it the sales of it will pick up too. We all win. I see great things bring said about lures here but the reviews are slim to none at the manufacturers site? Why? This has been an awesome sport for me and I'd like to give something back.

I'm seeing more and more braided line being offered and less copolymer and mono being offered has the braided line become the front runner? Does the braided line still wear out the eyes on the rod and the guides on the reels? I changed from the rubber band mono on most of my rod setups to copolymer and I love it because of its direct connection on the hook sets. Yet it's still forgiving in most cases. It's also easy on the wear on my equipment. I'm not saying that braid doesn't have its purpose it's just not for me all the time. How many rod setups do you use braided line for?

I prefer to use a copolymer line because of less stretch and it's ability we're it can take more abuse. Excalibur Silver Thread is my choice of line because of there test they did. Too bad there results of there testing is no longer posted but they sold me on it. I would suggest a stiff rod for crankbaits. I would go up one size larger on the rear hook too. Plus keep your hooks really sharp too. I have seen hooks go dull from hitting rocks and structure very quickly.

I find that looking for the Mann's classic spinnerbaits was tough to find. Bass Pro Sops doesn't offer then. I found very few places that has them and some were out of white or chartreuse in the 1/4oz size. This tells me there still popular. I want to break my norm of using cranks most of the time and try to get away of using the 1/8 & 3/16 oz spinnerbaits and use the 3/8 to 3/4oz spinnerbaits so I can get out of the shallows and into the deeper water. Since I know we're the deeper holes are. Besides the Mann's spinnerbaits I may grab some of the other spinnerbaits mentioned above. One problem I have my success has only been with the Colorado blades and the Indiana blades. The single Colorado blade and the double Colorado/Indiana blades have been the most successful in a single color skirt too the blue glimmer or the hot chartreuse colors. The gold blades seem to also have the most success. I don't have any success with the willow blades yet. Every time I see Mr Spinner bait Jimmy Houston using the white and chartreuse mixed color shirts plus the willow blades and having the success he has wha t am I doing wrong? Sorry I use only the smaller spinnerbaits from shore but I don't fully understand them yet. I'm the only one using them with success from shore from what I see. I know I adjust them to run perfectly vertical with the trailer plastics. I'm very careful to install the new skirt all the way around even too There has to be more to using spinnerbaits then just opening up a new packaged one and tying it on. They never work right out of the package for me anyway. Is there a time of year when spinnerbaits don't work? Or do we need to upsize or down size to continue to play the spinnerbait game all year?

I think a few years ago when the red hook craze hit most of us jumped on it. Probably anything that could increase our catch we would welcome it. Do you think there is an advantage in using red hooks as a trailer hook on spinnerbaits, worm hooks and crankbaits? What are your real thoughts on this? I think the tornie guys can answer this too? Advantage using red hooks YES or NO ????

That's what is happening, thanks, no problem. Do what you have to do to keep one of the greatest bass fishing forums on the net up and running.

Save every fish. I don't like to kill any fish. I would save any fish at any cost. It's a life vs money, money means nothing. I don't take fish home that much but maybe a few each year to feed my abandon kittens/cats that I take home and adopt.

Exactly with a smaller lure we need to use a more suttle approach. We can't hammer it the way we do with the larger lures. I also use a 5'6" crankbait setup for the smaller lures. With using 6lb test it can cast the lighter lures. This is my approach to using the lighter tackle. I'm thinking using the heavier line on a larger crankbait setup could affect this smaller lighter lure action too. This could be why it's not producing fish the way it should.

I fish a decent sized body of water that probably 6 times bigger than the ponds I fish maybe more. This place is stocked with trout. But I never see any trout being caught. On one overcast I seen a very large and long fish ambushing fish near the cattails. It was making big circle turns. Now the feeder stream runs to a lake were great northern pike were stocked to control the white perch population. I'm thinking a pike got washed into this place that's down stream during the winter runoff. And it's main diet is the stocked trout. I been throwing the larger minnowbaits when I see it near the cattails but no hookup yet. I guess I'm going to throw my pike/muskie lures next. What do you think? I'm guessing that no one knows this pike is in there.