Fishing Rhino

Who do we pity, you or Mike D.? Or...................is it merely a situation where you deserve each other?

I only drink one kind of beer,.....................root.

Why would you want to do that when a bit of chaffing gear at each of those places protects the insulation. Preventing the damage is better than repairing the damage.

Regarding trailer lights, two suggestions. 1. Dielectric grease in all plug connections from the main plug at the vehicle to the plugs at the lights. Connections are a common cause of problems. 2. Put chaffing gear at all points where wiring passes through the trailer frame if your trailer does not have grommets or some form of protection where the wiring passes through the frame. If the insulation gets damaged at these areas, you're looking at replacing the entire harness. I'd suggest using dielectric grease on all the bulbs, but most of the lights are sealed. If yours is not sealed, use dielectric grease on all the bulbs. It won't stop them from burning out, but when they do, it will make changing them a whole lot easier. It will also prevent corrosion at the connection. Corrosion can block the flow of current thus rendering a bulb useless.

I'm not sold on the LEDs. Ever notice how many of them are out on traffic lights, or truck lights? Granted, the lights still work and do their job even if half the diodes aren't working be it on taillights or traffic lights. How many times have you seen a traffic light prior to the use of LEDs for them burned out and not working? I cannot recall ever seeing a traffic light where one of the signals was not working. I suspect they might have had more than one bulb in them, but I'm not sure. I've seen traffic lights get "stuck" or fouled up in some other way, but the problem was in the timing mechanism of the light system, not in the failure of an individual signal to light up.

Nothing lasts forever.

What, no flapper doodles?

All natural. What does that really mean in the overall scheme of things? In my opinion, not very much. There are many poisonous plants and fungi (mushrooms/toadstools) which are all natural, but can kill you or make you very ill. Would you make a salad from poison ivy/sumac/oak greens? All viruses and bacteria are quite natural, but can be deadly, or beneficial, and in some cases necessary for good health. Crude oil and coal are all natural products. Yet the "all natural" green community views them as anything but beneficial.

A 200 HP Mercury Optimax runs about 15,000 dollars. If you want the 250 on a Z-8 it will cost you another five grand. Three grand more for the 225 HP engine. Half the price of the boat with 200 HP is for the engine. Why is it most folks feel they are underpaid, and most things are overpriced? Unless you know what the profit margin is on a boat, or anything else for that matter, you have nothing other than guesswork to say anything is overpriced. I can tell you this much about any fiberglass products that are laid up by hand. They will cost much more per pound than items such as bathtubs or shower stalls which are "laid up" with chopper guns. In addition, when I started doing fiberglass fabrication in 1994 I could buy a five gallon pail of black or white gel coat for around 70 dollars. Today, the same product, from the same distributor costs about 260 dollars. Polyester resin which was about nine dollars per gallon is over thirty dollars per gallon. I'd hazard a guess that the cost of labor has also increased significantly in the past 18 years. Unless you have access to the books of these companies building bass boats, statements about them being overpriced is only an opinion. Nothing more, nothing less.

Like this. Maybe in less than ten years.

It's why I often get to the ramp as the sky is beginning to get light in the east. I don't have to wait in line, and when I do something stupid, no one is there to be amused by my own doofusness.

Then we'd be posting pictures like this.

It's all in perspective. I can remember when bread was 12 cents a loaf. I can also remember my parents saying they could remember when bread was two cents a loaf. At that rate, two or three generations prior to that, the stores must have been paying people to take the bread off their hands.

Here's the mug shot.

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen anglers leave their bait dangling in the water while they are busy with something else. Nothing good can come from that practice. If a good fish grabs the bait, one of two things is likely to happen. The rod and reels end up on the bottom, or the fish breaks the rod. It's not likely to happen, but it is possible. Disregard Murphy's Law at your own peril.

There is a simple answer. Cars are made out of parts stamped from metal, or molded from plastic. Cars continually get lighter and more efficient. Boats need to be built to withstand conditions in which most people will never use them. While boats can be built on an assembly line of sorts, most of the process in building boats involves intensive hand labor. Parts are assembled and welded together by robots in auto manufacturing. If you want a "fair" comparison, check out the prices of automobiles which are built individually by skilled labor. Ferrari, Lamoborghini, etc., come to mind. Boats hulls and components are not stamped out or vacuum formed like hot tubs. The most hostile environment for any conveyance is the marine environment. When a plastic stamped out canoe or kayak, with no means of propulsion can be sold for thousand dollars or more, consider this. Take the Nitro Z-8. The basic Z-8 with no options goes for a tad over 30 grand. The standard 200 HP Mercury Optimax Pro XS sells for more than 15,000 dollars. That means the rest of the rig, boat, trailer and all components costs the customer about 15,000 dollars. If you really think the prices are outrageous, answer this question. Why have so many of the top names been merged into conglomerates in order to survive, let alone thrive? A more reasonable comparison would be to compare the price of a bass boat to the price of custom cars or motorcycles that are custom produced by Chip Foose or the custom chopper shops. Heck, a paint job on those cars which is comparable to the metalflake gel coat finish on bass boats will set you back more than the cost of a complete bass boat package.

Fully charge your battery, and then have it tested. If you have an Interstate dealer in your area they will put a load test on it at no cost to you. Some of the auto parts stores like NAPA, Auto Zone, Auto Palace etc., will probably test it as well. Check with them first.

Arrrgh matey, there be dangerous waters ahead.

Here's a way to try the Space Monkey. Worked great for me a couple of years ago. When the lily pad beds start to come to life, and a few make their way to the surface, mark the perimeter of the bed with some marker buoys. rig the bait on a keel weighted hook. My preference is the Owner brand because they come with twistlocks to hold the nose of the bait to the eye. I like them because they have a centering pin. I also rigged it weedless. I was fishing in about five feet of water. I'd cast from the perimeter into the middle of the bed, then count to ten, one thousand one, one thousand two, and so forth. You can go high tech and use your watch, provided it has a second hand. Then, I'd slowly drag the monkey back to the boat. I could feel it scratching around the roots of the pad stems. The bass could not resist the critters crawling around in their territory. It works really well when most of the leaves are below the surface, and at varying depths. Once the beds are fully developed, the leaves are too thick to be able to fish it this way. I'm guessing any pad beds you have on the Potomac's feeder streams/coves are about in this condition. In two or three weeks the beds around here should be ready to fish like this. Pay careful attention to the beds. You might be lucky to get a few days of this type of fishing.

Big O weighed them all, and Bassin Sargent took the pictures.

I'm not so sure about that. Pickwick was just fine in spite of the heavy rains that shut down Nashville and parts of I-40 in Tennessee. Anytime you catch a 6 pound + smallmouth, a five pound spot, and a four and a half pound smallmouth on three successive casts, you won't hear me complain. If memory serves, the Pickwick Road Trip was in early May. And, lest I forget, I caught my first drum at Pickwick. I had no idea what it was.

When you replace the transom saver, get the one that has the spring in it. I'm almost glad someone swiped mine. 00 mod picked up a transom saver for me on his way down on Friday. It was the spring loaded version. I compress the spring to the halfway point of its compression. Should the motor jump some, it should keep the fork over the back roller, rather than pulling it free, and allowing it to drop.

OK guys. I'm back from the Road Trip, and rarin' to go. What's next?

Try a different bait. If you're fishing a crankbait mid water, try dragging a plastic bait along the bottom. I'd suggest a wacky Senko on a weighted jig head like a Buckeye Flick It, a Jackall Wacky jig head or an Inichi. Start with the lighter (1/16 ounce jig heads or 3/32 ounce) weighted hooks. If you're fishing in vegetation, use the versions that have a weed guard. My never fail favorite all around color is Watermelon with black/red flakes. Most of the time I'll use four or five inch long worms but will try the three inch and six inch worms, just in case. I'm not familiar with the places you're fishing, but it sounds like you need to make some type of change, be it depth, type of bottom, type of bait, presentation, etc. I don't fish tournaments, but if I did, I'd target the areas where I'm likely to catch larger fish. I'd rather catch four or five fish that can go in the livewell than fifty that cannot. It's not easy to leave biting fish, but you've got to change something.

Nah, not all boats are money pits. I've got a five hundred dollar square stern canoe and a three hundred dollar trolling motor, plus two batteries. Altogether I've got about a thousand dollars "invested". Been out on that boat at least 200 times in the past two years with the only expense being to recharge the batteries. That amounts to five dollars per trip. The batteries are still good, so I've probably got another year out of them. Registration is forty dollars for two years. Now, if you want to talk about my bass boat, that's another story. But even then, the only expenses I've had has been an average of three gallons of fuel per day's fishing, sometimes less. Most of the ponds I fish are very small. The biggest expense is towing the thing to and from the fishing holes.