Fishing Rhino

The canoe survived quite well. It's made of a high impact plastic. The curve of the bow (part of the keel) is what made contact with her hood. It's probably the stronges part of the canoe, structurally. The canoe was undamaged. Her hood had a nice groove and some scuffs as a result.

No, it did not come loose. It's secured with ratchet straps. Her hood was just a bit higher than my tail gate. Her hood curves downward at the front, while the bow (facing aft) curves upward. She wedged her hood beneath the canoe.

I'm on the way to the pond this morning. I stop at the end of our street and check for oncoming traffic. There is a stop sign. As I'm about to proceed, I feel a slight thump, and the truck moves a little. Looking in the rear view mirror, my canoe is sitting on the hood of a Lincoln Navigator with the bow almost to the windshield. My canoe does extend beyond the tail gate, but I put a bright yellow tee shirt over the bow, which still leaves enough to flap around. So, here sits the woman, with the bright yellow tee shirt staring her in the face. No damage to the canoe. It just rode up onto her hood, leaving a nice groove in the process. I asked her if she wanted to exchange pertinant information to file an accident report with the police and the registry. She declined. Wait 'til she gets the estimate for the repair on the hood. I have no idea where she was looking, or if she was on a cell phone, but she certainly was not paying attention.

Interesting water surface in the background. Does that happen much in California? Do you realize there are programs that can "unedit" photos posted on the 'net? If you are trying to hide the background so as to not give away a location, there are ways to get around the edit. I don't know what they are, but I recall someone posting a picture with the background altered, and another poster used the program, unedited the photo and posted it. The original poster was none too pleased.

Sounds like a simple fix to me. Sleep during the day, and fish at night. At least for that pond. :D Were you shore bound during the weekend? If so, my above comment might have some merit. Perhaps the fish had been away from the shore during the daytime, moving into the shallower water in the evening.

You can buff it. Be careful if you do. If you use too aggressive a compound and too much pressure, you can buff through to the flake, if you have any. Once you reach the flake, the color will come off and you'll have dull silver flakes. I'd start by trying a cleaner glaze, and hand rubbing a small area. If that doesn't do the job, try a swirl remover, and buff lightly. When I'm buffing my molds, I use a spray bottle and water to keep misting the area I'm working. It provides lubrication and reduces heat buildup. The other benefit is that as you work with the compound, it breaks down into ever finer particles, which will produce the ultimate shine, like that produced by a glaze or swirl remover. Go slowly and use light pressure. High rpms will do the job faster, but if you are not experienced, you can create excessive heat. Keep it slow, the pressure light and spritz frequently. One more thing. Use a high quality buffing pad, and keep it clean. Using small amounts of compound and misting the surface will usually eliminate buildup on the pad. Any automotive paint shop should carry quality pads. I use the yellow 3M pad. They will also carry the star wheel tools for cleaning the pad. You will need a good quality, variable speed buffer. You should be able to rent one that has a threaded shaft. With a threaded shaft, you can get a two sided buffer, and flip it over from time to time. You will do a better job of cleaning the pad when you turn it over, since it will be rotating against the way the fibers are laid over. I prefer to clean it with the star wheel when the built up side is toward the buffer for that reason. My guess is that the boat was parked with that side facing the sun, and the UV rays have dulled the finish. The first rule is do not damage the finish. Start off very lightly. If you're not comfortable, or inexperienced with buffing, get some quotes from those who do that type of work. While it may cost you a few or many bucks, if you damage the finish, you'll end up spending many times what you would save by doing the job yourself.

Do you tend to find them on the inside or outside of the bend, or both? I know the current tends to scour the outside of the bends, while leaving deposits on the inside. The inside of the bend, depending on the contour, may have swirling eddies and currents which run counter to the flow of water, which allows for more settling of anything, including spat, and sediments.

California. Never had the pleasure of fishing there, but it does have the reputation of large numbers of large bass. And the photo of the minnow on the large bait notwithstanding, I do not dispute that on average, larger baits will produce larger fish. However, there are days when even the larger fish prefer smaller baits. It probably happens more often with smallmouth bass than largemouth. That's just an observation, not established fact on my part. I recall a day in May, back in the 1960s, when Devol was a smallmouth pond, catching five pound smallies like they were bluegills on either a number one or two, Mepps plain spinner with a gold blade. Back then, my philosophy was small baits will catch all size fishes, while large baits would not. But, back then, I was not specifically targeting larger fish. Just wanted to hook something, anything.

I haven't, but the daughter of a fellow I know does it off a dock in my favorite pond. She does quite well, better when the surface is not calm. It helps that there is a nice rock pile in front of their dock. Not so sure you're not as methodical or intellectual. Seems like you experiment as well, and try things in different ways. I cannot tell you how many times I've hooked a fish, when my "official retrieve" was over and was just cranking it back for another cast, expecting nothing.

I don't know how they like currents. Don't know if they are found in rivers. The problem with a current would be spawning. In saltwater, the shellfish have to deal with currents. Each has its own way of either moving or staying put. Mussels anchor themselves to objects with a byssal thread. Various clams bury into the bottom. Scallops are free swimming, but will settle into pockets if they want to stay put when the tide is running. In saltwater, you have four periods of slack tide each day. Actually it's a fraction less than that because each tide change takes just over six hours. In saltwater, the critters can spawn at these times if need be, or when a weak current is flowing to stir up the reproductive materials discharged into the water. In a fresh water river, the flow is constant and always in the same direction. Just don't know if that works for freshwater shellfish or not.

As a general rule, that may be reasonably accurate. But, one good catch does not mean it will work day in and day out. I've caught a passel of nice largemouth, from three to five pounds plus, on a four inch finesse worm on a ShakE2 jig head. They slowed on hitting the jigs the size of sparrows, that I had been tossing. Before the finesse worm, I was catching them on Rage Tail craws and space monkey rigged on a weighted hook in five to six feet of water. They lost interest in those, and tuned in on the finesse worm. Some days they prefer a three inch senko type to the four and five inch versions. A bit of advice. Don't get locked into the bigger baits produce bigger fish. Some guys have posted pics of dinks caught on wake baits. Ya never know. Congrats on your catch. If they keep hitting it, keep pitching it. If they lose interest, throw 'em a change up. Smaller may be what they want.

When you go out fishing, is your goal to catch as many fish as possible, or larger fish? Do you ever have a "throw away" day, catchwise to develop new skills, or learn more about the water you fish, or even new waters? Have you ever caught a fish on a bait that has been sitting longer than you would normally leave it because you were straightening out a backlash, or occupied in some other way? If so, did you write it off as a fluke, or try to duplicate it, to see if it works again? If you go to a new place, and struggle, do you write it off because you can go to your honey hole and pull em in one after another? I had a bit of success last week on a Cape pond, using the drop shot technique. The first thing I did after rigging the pole was to suspend the bait three or four feet below the surface to see what action resulted from little twitches, jerks, and jiggling the rod. The wildest action was obtained by jiggling the rod, and simultaneously raising and lowering the bait about a foot. Having seen the various actions imparted by my input made it a simple matter to switch back and forth until I found what the fish wanted. Much easier, and a lot less time consuming than experimenting with the drop shot in twenty to thirty feet of water where I had no idea what it was doing. While I did not catch a fraction of what I would have from my honey hole, I'm anxious to go back, armed with what I learned, and using markers, set them out along a depth line, and then work shallower or deeper water, following the contour as revealed by the floats. There are a couple of other things I want to try as well. I've posted before, that I enjoy fishing and enjoy solving puzzles. Both have a lot in common. I've solved a lot of the puzzles about my honey hole in the past year. It's time to put the lessons learned to work on different puzzles. No, I'm not abandoning the pond that has provided me with spectacular fishing. I'm prospecting for others to broaden my horizons. Thinkin' learnin' and catchin'. There is a reason that catchin' is at the end of that list. Working on the first two, will produce more of the last.

If you're talking about mussels/clams, they are filter feeders. They help keep the water clear. All they need is a bottom that they can dig into, and a food source in the water column. Not sure how sensitive they are temp wise. I suppose the ph might be a critical factor. They are more common than I realized.

Nice color. Watermelon Red/Black flake?

True that..... Have you guys not ever pulled up to a good spot of fish (whether it be structure, break line, or cover), and caught them on basically anything you threw? Changing and catching bass on different lures dosn't prove anything other than the bass may have got accustomed to him throwing another one. Ive fished brush piles on drops before, caught a few keeprs on a jig and the bite stop. Throw right back with something else and immediately get bit... I don't think so much that what I threw mattered, its how I threw it and from what angle. Its not necessarily the lure if you hit it right. The wrong lure with the right presentation is much better than the right lure with the wrong presentation. Im not going to say that I have never seen a day where a lure or color seem to matter, but its far lower on the list of my priorities than finding the good fish to begin with. I think TommyBass has done a bit of fishing. If Greg was casting those same lures randomly, would he have done as well? As a long-time fly-fisher my other thought was the kind of mayflies emerging. Mud produces MUCH less food in rivers (and often lakes) than cobble. the more surface area the substrate offers the better. There are burrowing mays, and one species will burrow in silt, others in gravel. But the vast majority of mayflies live on larger substrate though -cobbles and boulders. The hard bottomed areas, whatever they were, likely were the source of the activity along those stretches. Put those two together: food production concentrating activity and angle of presentation and you've probably got a big chunk of that scenario. Man, did that just open my eyes to at least one of the reasons my favorite pond produces so many fish, and so many good ones. There is a shelf around the perimeter of the pond that varies from sand, to gravel, to cobble, to stones, to boulders. Most of the perimeter has emergent vegetation. The loosestrife which I detest, but likely has a period where it is beneficial to the fish, the hyacinth, reeds, and a few beds of lily pads. There are also three places that have the very tall, eight to ten feet, grass with the tufts on the top. Similar to cat tails, but taller without the hot dog top. Away from this shelf, the pond is predominately a silt/muddy bottom with very little vegetation, save for a few areas of cobble. The only fish that seem to inhabit that area of the pond, as a matter of course, are dense schools of white perch, and crappie.

I would submit that we are all "still learning". When we think we have nothing left to learn, we deceive ourselves.

That size pickerel is common in the early spring and from early October on. They start to bite again after the heat of the summer. If you notice in that photo, the trees are still in the budding stage. Not all have their leaves. My best from the pond was years ago, 36 inches. Large enough to make a Northern Pike fisherman proud.

On his shoulders? Consider this. I hope to fish with you some day, and I might even make the drive to do it. I've also been accused of having my head ensconced elsewhere on or in my anatomy.

I agree about it being priceless. When I saw the article, I couldn't get to the computer fast enough. So tell us Muddy, was racism involved?

See the last post on this page. http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1248792236/60#60

Went to a pond on the Cape with a friend yesterday. Clear water, visibility to 18 feet. Small and largemouth bass. Mostly sand, maximum depth 30 feet. Been getting interested in giving drop shotting a try, but not sure how it would work in my regular pond. Haven't had to change a whole lot to keep 'em biting. But a new pond, with no idea of where to find them, was an interesting opportunity to give it a shot. I had changed the spool on one of my rigs to a spool filled with ten pound fluoro. Tied on a number 1 Owner drop shot hook, using a palomar knot, leaving about three feet of tag end for the drop shot sinker. Right or wrong, I'd rather be too high that too low with the bait. A fish sees ahead and upward, but not too well below itself. I set the sinker about two feet below the bait. We dropped the lines just before noon, in 20 - 25 feet of water. In a matter of minutes, my friend had caught a nice smallie with vibrant blotchy coloration. A few minutes later, I felt a tug, which turned out to be a two pound smallmouth. A few minutes later, another two pounder. Wow, this is simple. Or so I thought. We caught a few more smaller bass, and then nothing for a half hour or so. Move to another area. Nothing. Maybe a few nibbles, but that was it. In the middle of the afternoon, I caught a three pound largemouth in 27 feet of water on the drop shot. We tried several different strategies, jigs, wacky worms, shaky head jigs, with only an occasional fish to show for our efforts. But, it was a beautiful day. A nice cloud cover, a light breeze which powered a nice slow drift, and a peaceful quiet pond in the middle of Cape Cod, in the middle of the summer. Hard to find on the Cape at vacation time. Looking forward to going back there again. Armed with a tiny bit of knowlege, and that there is an adjoining pond with a shallow inlet between them which is supposed to have better fishing, I expect we should do a bit better. Nothing to brag about, other than a great day on a quiet scenic pond, with no other anglers.

There sure are plenty of them flying around in tandem. The Blue Angels have nothing on them when it comes to precision flying. Mid-air refueling comes as close as anything aviation has.

Try finessing them. A shaky (I like the ShakE2 jig heads) jig head rigged with a four inch finesse worm might do it. You can "tickle" it along the bottom, bounce it, or whatever comes to mind. Don't be hesitant to change your retrieve. Bass don't know how to read "the book". Try some smaller jigs, or tubes. They could also be looking for a slower, easier "prey". The drop shotting is a good idea as well. When they are not biting what you are offering, make a significant change. Go to an entirely different bait.

Boy, does this question pose a dilemna for me. Frequently I use both. http://www.extremelures.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=165 By the way, I've also used a Flappin Hog on these hooks. Rig it so the ball on the hook becomes a head for the flappin hog, with the nose of the hog tight to the ball, and the hook protruding from the hog almost at the end of its body. Tried it a couple of days ago, and the bass loved it. It also works well with finesse worms rigged the same way. As an aside, the brush guard is more of a pain. It's in the way for rigging certain ways, and at times, has to be bent out of the way to unhook a fish. By the time it has caught a dozen or so fish, the guard is usually gone. Zappu makes a similar hook, and sells them with or w/o the brush guard.

Sounds like what I call "muck" in my home pond. If it's a dark color from nearly black to brown, maroon or purplish, its probably filamentous algae. Mats of it on the bottom will actually trap gasses beneath and float to the surface. At times, the gas accumulates in a small pocket, when enough forms, it will lift a bit of it from the bottom, and the gas bubble will protrude above the surface of the water, looking like a small cypress knee. Try a fluke type of bait rigged weedless. I've been using the Strike King Caffein Shad, and it goes through the stuff cleanly, most of the time. It casts well too. Forget about anything with treble hooks, or most bottom fishing baits. You will likely find that stuff in the same area every year. About 30% of the bottom I fish has filamentous algae. It's even there, on the bottom, in the winter. Though the mid and top water stuff settles. At least that's how it works around here.