done

We have these in Lake Wylie. My friend catches them with Minnows. They are fun to fight, just dont try to pull a 4 ft gar into your jon boat. I know a dude who just pulled it out and dropped it into his crowded boat. I guess half the folks jumped out. LOL. From the description they gave me, I WISH I had some video of that.

I grew up in Buffalo, NY so I feel all the yankee's pain. Course, now that I am in NC and snow is but a fleeting memory, I try to go out every weekend. I also cope with the abundant fishing by calling my father in Buffalo and taunting him with our weather. LOL. Site tight fellas, it will be over before you know it and you will be back out there.

Good info bosn!! I wish I had heard from you before i painted my jon boat. The only real marine paint I found here that was not in obnoxious colors was from a dude downtown who makes his own. Was like $200/gallon. Came in 2 parts (paint and activator) and had to be sprayed on. Don't get me wrong, it is awesome stuff, but at $20 a gallon I could paint it over and over and over for the same price.

You hated IE7!? Man, I love it. Having the multiple tabs, and some of the other little gadgets is just awesome. I despise IE 6 now. You do need to grab the google toolbar and enable the search and popup blocker though. Course I also did not mind Vista, IF (and this is a huge IF), it is installed on proper hardware. This whole screw up MS did with putting the Vista ready sticker on PCs that could only run basic was such a monumental screwup, it is beyond words. A lot of the hate behind Vista comes from that screw up and I do not blame people. I reluctantly took a 64 bit Vista laptop at work and have been mostly very happy with the OS.

Welcome!!! You don't need MSn to post, just post to the forums here. You will likely ask questions others would benefit from and share your own experience with the community. You will find the guys on here are very willing to help you out when they can.

Are those Navionics maps recent? The ones they sell for Wylie (in the stores around here), I found out werebased on a 40+ yr old survey. There has been so much runoff from the construction around here that they are not really relevant anymore. Some of the holes on the map are off by +20 fit on depth.

This are some good points. To sort of hitchhike on this new lake notion. This past year I started hitting Lake Wylie in NC/SC border. While i have been used to hitting large farm ponds with a lot of vegetation, lake Wylie has little to none to offer. It has a TON of docks, inderwater structure, points, coves, etc. So I was forced to adjust and lean heavily on the guys on this board. So maybe a good way to look at it is Lake type. In Wylie I found Winter, Spring and Fall, coves were the winners. 7-11 ft of water seemed to be the sweet spot where I was going. I mainly used plastic worms. I suck as crankbaits and Top water was doing nothing for me. In Summer, they were all DEEP. Mainly off of points. I had to use the topo map I had but found it was not altogether accurate in depth once I got some electronics on my boat. Anyone may have some suggestions on this lake type, or other lake types that could offer some generic type answers to maybe guide folks in different lakes.

A lot of my clients have those. They are neat. I know bed bath and beyond sells a TON of varieties for the coffees. I got a 12 pot one a while back that has a built in grinder. I love it. One thing I would recommend ifyou brew a full pot in the morning. Go to Target or Walmart and get one of the Thermos brand coffee caraffes. As soon as your coffee is done brewing pour it in there. it will keep hot all day long and since it is not being cooked like it was on the burning, you can get a cup 4 hours after you brew it and have it taste like it is fresh brewed. BTW, I would ditto Glenns comment on the types. While I do like some Starbucks every now and then, finding a good local place is key. When I get sent to Columbia, SC on business, there is a place there called "immaculate consumption: that did its own roasting and stuff. Just great beans. Not sure if it is still there, been a bit since I was there but if you can find a place like that locally, go there. You will definitely get better coffee than mass produced.

LOL. I made the mistake already for Wii play. Lame. But I did get another remote out of it. I read a few reviews and also picked up Rapala's Fishing Frenzy. It was the only Wii game that got decent rating on reviews. I can give you all the run down on it after I play it some more. I really like pure fishing games. Not arcade. The Pc one I liked was In Fisherman. It didn't have no bonuses, none of that garbage. You got to set your line weight color, a TON of bait to choose from. Realistic fish size. Even had to work your bait a bit to attract big ones. And you had to deal with catching other species like catfish, or sunfish, sometimes. Just a good game, IMO. Anyhoo, going back to Wii, the sports are awesome though. We probably got 5 hours in, and now i can't lift my freaking arms over my head today. Did about 10 games of bowling, half a dozen tennis, baseball, and 5,000 holes of golf. Oh and I had a 7 yr old girl beat the snot out of me boxing, that was just sad. LOL.

I have seen some cool shows and read some material on this over the last couple of years. The gist is, yes it is overdue based on the geologic record. Geologicially speaking we could have one anytime. Course, since is it geologically speaking, that could be tonight or 4,000 yrs from now. Also, we generally do not know enough to really say whether the land raising, dropping, bulging, etc is even unusual much less a sign of an impending eruption. If it did erupt though, dang. Being in the park would be a good thing. You would be spared a ton of absolutely misery that at least 1/2 of the US would suffer. especially folks in the midwest. So I would not sweat it too much, but it really is fascinating though. Good links. I could not find them but discovery and national geographic had some really cool article on it before.

Took me forever but with 4 little ones in the house I needed a family safe console that gave them some small measure of exercise. I noticed that there are some fishing games for Wii, anyone try any of them, or would recommend any? Any otherr cool games for the system would guys woulds recommend? Especially for a family? (ages 7, 5, 3, 2), the 7, 5, and 3 yr old play obviouls the 2 yr old does not quite get the game thing.

See, I LOVE the cheese, but it is hard to choose between cheese, crust and, sauce. If either of them are crappy, the whole thing it ruined.

McAffee and Norton all offer good products, I liked MS' oferring as well but it will be discontinued soon. Personally I like the bug vendors, they have more of a budget to keep their virus definition files up to date. However, there are a lot of good smaller companies as well. One suggestion, get a Anti-Virus, and Anti-Spyware combination package. A lot of folks to one and not the other. In addition assuming you have a MS based operating system, always keep it up to date on patches. Nothing is 100% though.

Sad story. I wish I could say I was always as careful as I should be wearing a PFD but I would be fibbing. Very true about water changing too. Last time i was out we waived off a dude in a nice bass boat who was about to hit a 4x10 beam maybe 10 ft long floating almost completely submerged out on the main channel. They did not miss it by much. All it takes is a second for things to go from good to bad. I definitely feel for these guys families. There is no good time to get news like this, and even less to hear around the holidays.

I may have to give a Shimano a try next time around. They have certainly got some serious following with the folks on here. I got to test out my mitchell this weekend and it was freaking awesome. I actually casted with it much farther than I would even with my Abu Garcia. Did not make any sense to me how that was possible but I really was much more accurate and farther range.

To voice in with these guys. This particular thread is sort of like a job interview where you have the extreme advantage of hearing what is in your perspective employers heads. The guys in this thread are doing their best to do you a great service. They are being straight up, honest, and helping you out. If you can get a resume through this section of the site, IMO, you will do considerably better than you would do walking into some sponsor and asking for help. THOSE guys will be brutal! Really, I have spent a lot of time on a lot of boards online, the atmosphere on this board is the best I have seen to date. The moderators do their best at keeping it in line and not being so bad they become the gestapo. If you do feel you are being blasted, truthfully, talk to the moderator, OR if you can do so respectfully, call the guy on it. I bet 99 times out of a 100 they will respond and set the air straight between you.

I have a tracker 1436 jon, and I put a 8 hp 4 stroke on it. It rocks! Can get real good speed when it is just me, good speed with 2 full grown guys. 3 gal gas tank can keep me going at full throttle for 8+ hours continually, so basically, it keeps me more than a whole day. I would really not go any higher than 8. I would imagine even a 6 would get you some good speed. Depends on how much area you have to cover.

So after 2 months having work keep me from the lake, i finally got a full day trip on Wylie in Saturday. It was grey, foggy, and drizzle most of the day, about 45 - 52 degrees. I had to laugh because for most of the day I hit the areas a lot of folks hit in that section of the lake. After getting skinked for a few hours I finally tried coves and areas folks do not go to and in about 8-10 ft I consistently started picking up fish on the graph and in one cove in particular, I nailed a 4lb'er. At the end of the day, I did only grab 2 (2 lb and 4 lb) but after a couple months out of the lake, it was absolutely awesome. incidentally, got to the shore, most guys had been fishing deep all day, and getting skunked. So goes to show you, just because other folks may not try some things, does not mean that it won't work. I cannot remember who it was but I remember seeing a pro who won a big tourney at Wiley and his advice was to shake it up, and try things you normally would not if you are following standard practice and not getting any luck.

If we all go, we will have to rent. I can get 2 adults (counting myself) on mine before I max it out. I am definitely game for a trip though. Did any of you get a chance to hit Mid-State Marine?

man...being on how I live near Lake Wylie, really had me going there. LOL.

Alright, when it comes to reels I am really just getting into it. I had thought my first couple were alright (they were mainly Shakespears). Then I accidentally bought a Abu Garcia Cardinal reel. The difference in how this thing works compared to my others, night and day. Really smooth, easy to set drag, loved it. Became my favorite. Then I was over my mothers house fishing her Bass pond and borrowed my step-fathers rig as I forgot to bring mine. He had a Mitchell on that. it was even better than my Cardinal. Just loved it, so I went out and bought one. So all that being said, I obviously am just getting into this, I was curious, any specific brand names/models some of our more seasoned folks out there would recommend? I generally go open faced reels (I suck at bait casters, and get nothing but rats nests out of closed faced reels. I would love to hear some feedback on other reels out there though from folks who have really used them. Anyone?

LOL! Reminds me of a Ford Dealership in Charlotte. I had a friend who was a saleguy there. All the sales guys were getting their backsides kicked my this pretty little 20 yr old college girl. She'd work 3 days and sell more cars than any of the full timers. She sold almost exclusively to guys and was really good at playing on their egos to get them to buy the cool cars with all the options. When a girl knows how to play a guy (and to be honest frequently it is not that tought for them), they can get about anything they want.

We are gonna have to try a NC/Piedmont outing sometime guys. If I can ever get work to actually let me spend some time home.

totally agree man. Also, is it me or does the officiating seem exceptionally inept this year? I mean every year has bad calls, and will as long as humans are involved but this year they just seem to make some horrendous game changing calls. On top of that, this fart on the quarterback and get a roughing the passer flag is total garbage. I thought this was football. Allof a sudden the quarterback is some pansy made out of glass who you can never ever tough without a flag. At this rate, it will be more like two hand touch in a few years.

I used these for a brief period on my Jon. They did the job. I had issues initially with the clamp for the front one. It just did not fit my boat so I had to to some mods to it. Besudes that though they work if you got the spaces to clamp them to.