Fishing Rhino

Ten pounds plus.

Shad or Toad? I give the edge to the Toad, but that could change as conditions change. Play it safe. Get both. Green pumpkin/pearl, and green pumpkin chartreuse have worked equally well. Plan to try the chartreuse and black/red tomorrow. Hooks? Only one way to go as far as I'm concerned. http://www.ownerhooks.com/pages/products/hooks/basshooks.htm#5130W I had three toads torn up after sliding up the line three or four times. Cannot happen with the Owner twistlock. They are expensive, but for me, worth every penny. Zoom toad hooks are so so. They have the coil lock, but it does not have the centering pin, nor to my knowlege are they available in a keel weighted version.

Tried the Toad today, and hammered them. Destroyed three toads. The head tore apart after the bait got sent up the line three or four times. Cannot figure out how it got past the keel weight but it did with regularity. Off to buy another package or two, and some weighted Owner twistlock hooks. I prefer the Owner because they have a center wire which keep the coil properly aligned. Bad news for you. The baits may last a little longer. Great baits. The videos sold me. The fishing confirmed it. Thanks for a great product. Can't wait to see what this new super secret weapon is that you'll introduce in the future.

I bet you hated to go to work after that. Tough to leave when you catch one like that. Optimists know there are always bigger fish out there, just waiting for your next cast.

OK, the jigs aren't working as well. Since last Friday, jigs are not producing like they had been. On Monday, I tried a Rage Tail Shad in the shallows, and the bass were definitely there, and interested. However, a strike and a hookup are two entirely different things. Cast, backlash. Straighten out backlash. Take up slack line. Fish on. Had to fish the shad almost like a jig. Today I rigged with two Rage Tail Shad and a Rage Tail Toad, Pumpkin with a pearl belly. Bingo! The bass loved it. Caught many in the shallows, most of them dinkish in size. Also caught a few decent fish, one about 3 - 4 pounds. Time to go home. Drag the canoe onto the beach. Load it on the carrier. Lash down the rods and other gear, and head to my truck. Two people were fishing in the middle of the pond at the end where I launch. From behind me I heard a commotion. Oars clanging and clattering on an aluminum hull. I turned around. The two people in the boat had managed to swamp it. A guy and a girl, both 38, were in the boat. He needed to pee, so he stood up, and moved to the side of the boat. End of story, nearly his life. First thought, get all the gear out of the canoe and get 'em. Nope. There would be three people in the water. There is a 12 aluminum rowboat a hundred feet from the shore where I launch. Run to the house. Tell the lady to call the police and emergency team. Two people in the water. I'm going out to them in her rowboat. No oars. Grab my canoe paddle. Launch, paddle out to them, standing in the bow. Reach them and tell the man who is quite large to hang onto the stern, not the rail, or we'll all be in the water. Go to the stern to help him. No plug in the drain. Water is coming in. Block it with my thumb, while hanging on to the guy with my other hand. The girl who was totally calm, and in control wanted to stay with her boat and kick it to shore. Nope. It's not going anywhere. First we'll all get to shore. Then we can worry about the boat, and all the other gear that was floating around. The guy was clinging to the stern with one arm, clutching his chest with the other hand. Are you hurt? No, I don't want to lose my keys. Make a choice, your keys or your life. Which is most important to you? Eventually he was able to hand the keys and his money clip to me, and use both hands to hold on. The girl managed to climb into the boat. Then she wanted to help him get into the stern. Get back to the bow, NOW! Paddle. I'll hang onto your friend. He's going nowhere. For sure, we would have gone down stern first. Fortunately the water temp is now 67. We eventually reached the shallow water. Simultaneously with us reaching the shallow water, the ambulance and rescue vehicles, including the cops arrived on the scene. It was like a circus. They managed to launch their skiff and make their way to us. They hit several rocks in the process with the lower unity, but it stayed intact. They took the guy. Got him into the ambulance, then came back and towed us back to the dock. Then they went out and dragged the swamped rowboat back to shore. I asked where the satellite news crew was. I loaded my canoe, and drove away. As I reached the end of the laneway, a satellite van news truck was headed south on the dirt road, looking for the scene. I laughed as they went by, and headed home.

The hits were all tight to the emergent vegetation in about two feet of water. The vegetation around here is just coming back to life. A few lily pads have appeared, and there are new shoots on the vines. The water hyacinth, which are broken off a few inches below the water line, are covered with a mossy slime or algae. It is in these that the bass are holding, right up against the viney stuff. A photo of a typical section of the shoreline. Taken last fall. The hyacinth had already been going dormant. Much thicker and wider at their peak.

Bugs. That's an interesting thing about my favorite pond. I did not have a single problem last year with gnats, mosquitos or no see ums. Even on the sweaty days. Come to think of it, the only bugs I saw last year were dragonflies. There are bugs, because the flocks of swallows are feeding all day in the summer. Between them and the fish, mosquitos and bugs that hatch in the water don't have a chance. At night, the bats also do a tune on them.

It's a bonus.

I've fished the Strike King Red Eye, Lil Mr. Money (only available at WalMart), and their premier model with never a problem. Caught plenty of good fish on them last year. Hard to understand how they get bent, since the wire to the jig head lines up with the line when a fish is on. The one thing I do to the Strike King spinnerbaits is to close up the angle on the bend slightly, so the spinner is closer to the jig. Works better for me.

Fishing is a thinking person's game. Today, with bass moving about in the shallows, I figured it was a good time to try the Shad like a buzz bait. Retrieving it across the surface resulted in several hits, but no hookups. What to do, what to do. I put on my thinking cap, and speculated that the retrieve might be too fast. On the next cast, I produced a nice, easy to straighten out, minor backlash. Took all of fifteen seconds, give or take to pull all the loose coils from the spool and reel the slack back onto the spool. When the line got taut, I had a bass on the other end. I love it when a plan comes together. Well, whether by accident, or design, it matters not. I caught four more on the bait by replicating, timewise, the backlash technique. They liked it better being twitched and paused, just below the surface. It is truly better, at times, to be lucky than to be good.

I'm assuming you are experiencing the mold on the grout. Clean the grout with Clorox or grout cleaner, then apply a grout sealer. Grout is tough, because it's so porous. Check with those in the tile department at your local Home Depot, Lowes or floor and tile store.

Be sure to report back to let us know how you did.

That stuff is impervious to just about every chemical. A sharp chisel or scaper. If worse comes to worse, carefully grind it off with a sanding disc or belt sander. There may be chemicals which will remove it, but the only sure method I know of is physical removal, once it has hardened/set. That stuff will bond two pieces of wet wood. If I recall, it will actually set faster underwater. Air slows the process. Here's a product that might do the job. http://debondcorp.com/

Anyone who has spent any time on the water, knows there are those ninety degree days which are much worse on the water than on land. I've experienced several in my lobstering days. A wall of humidity limiting visibility to a mile or less. A glassy surface, and you are in an oven. The sun, the glare, and the non-evaporating sweat which leaves you as wet as if you'd fallen overboard. How to help stay focused? Here's what I did. Take that new, now sweat stained hat from your head. Dip it in the pond, lake, ocean. Fill it with water. Place on your head. Repeat as necessary. Cooling your head is the quickest way to cool your body, short of taking the plunge. I'll never forget one of those miserable days. We were catching plenty of lobsters. But even that did not alleviate the misery. It was that oppressive. My deckhand, Spencer, asked me to keep one of the six compartments of the holding tank empty. No problem since each compartment could hold over 300 pounds of lobster. Spencer was periodically dousing himself with the deck hose for relief. I was stuck in the sheltered hauling area with the exhaust of an 8/71 Jimmy diesel adding to the heat. When we were finished hauling, and the boat had been cleaned, Spencer removed the cover of the tank, and every stitch of clothing on his body, and clambered into the compartment that held only water. He squatted in the tank until he was jaw deep in 70 degree sea water. And there he stayed, with a satisfied grin on his face, for most of the trip home. You have to know Spencer, to appreciate how the heat affected him. He is a guy that never gets cold. He'll be outdoors in a tee shirt while everyone else is bundled up like eskimos.

I have no personal experience with Chadwick Pond but found this article about an ice fishing contest. A 4.6, and a 4.5 pound bass were caught in the pond. So, yes, it appears you may be on to something. http://www.hgazette.com/homepage/local_story_029155412.html/resources_printstory

The photographer did a great job.

I'll have to get some. I wonder if the barb shaft and eye is available by itself. Would be nice to use on some of the various weighted hooks, as well as some jigs. Perhaps small hooks straightened would make a suitable substitute. Straighten 'em, open the eye and clamp 'em on the weighted hooks and jigs. The cheapest generic hooks would do since it does not require great strength.

I have a net in my canoe. I rarely use it for bass. I'm sitting at nearly water level. No matter which side of the boat I land them, they are right beside me. No bending, reaching, or gymnastics to lip 'em. However, I always use it when I catch a large pickerel. The thought of lipping a 30" pickerel does not appeal to me. The big ones look like barracuda. And, you cannot hoist those monsters out on the line and rods I use. I slide the net under them for support, and lift them with both the net and the rod supporting them. It keeps their head out of the net. If they clamp down, and get a mouthful of net, it's like trying to untangle a nasty backlash. Before handling them, I always plunge the holding hand into the water. It greatly reduces the amount of slime handling removes from their body. I will use the net on big bass if they appear to be hooked in the thin lip tissue. I'll also use the net when a lure with more than one treble hook is involved. I hate treble hooks, but realize at times they are necessary evils. Lures with multi treble hooks and nets do not play nicely together.

Just use the hot nail trick. It works just fine, and solves the shaky head problem. I've got some of the ShakE head jigs with the ribbed shaft on the hook shank, and the other that points up at the hook tip. They will slide right up to the jig head and stay there nicely. I suspect that a hot needle will work just as well, and result in a smaller hole in the worm head. It should grip the rings even better with a needle rather than a nail hole.

Because they catch fish. Kelley I know that very well. I "fixed" 6 packets of worms in about ten minutes. I like 'em, so the next ones I buy will also get the fix.

It's only noticable when jigging or twitching on the retrieve, when there the line slack tight, slack tight. I have the 3500 size. Some may disagree, but I prefer the larger spool for fluoro or hybrid, since those lines are known for their memory. The smaller spools inherently produce tighter coils. With braided line, I prefer the smaller spools. One reason being they are more compact, and not as clunky in the confines of my canoe. They are lighter as well. I've got 'em, so I'll live with them. But should the time come when it's necessary to replace them it will be with a reel that has instant anti-reverse. The clicking is like a rattle in a car. It may be harmless, but it's also annoying. There is play/slop in the reel when you move the handle back and forth a bit on the BPS reel. There is none in the Shimano.

I appreciate all the "answers". However, I'm not about to scrap what I have, that I know works well, because of an inherent "problem" with the product. So, I gripped a six penny finish nail in a pair of hemostats/forceps, and heated the nail with a small torch. Slid the worm onto the nail to a depth of about 3/4", and voila, problem solved. The worm will now easily slide onto the barbed, or ridged keepers, and will also thread onto the coil type as well. Only a few seconds per worm to fix the problem. Still, it puzzles me that Strike King would market a product with such an obvious drawback. Surely they must know about it.

I've used both the *** chunk and the 4" Beaver Craw. Colors: Jigs, black with blue flash. Trailers, watermelon red. Both work fine, but I prefer the Beaver Craw. It's just an esthetic thing to my eye. The bass probably don't have a preference. It seems to me that a trailer on any lure seems to be more effective if it's a contrasting color to the lure. In the event that the fish is attracted to a certain color, you increase the odds in your favor by offering them two or more colors.

That is a slick setup Rhino! This maybe a dumb question but what are the wheels for in front of your seat? Not a dumb question at all. It is the carrier for the canoe. It has a "kickstand" to keep it upright until the canoe is strapped on. The kickstand is the top piece of tubing that goes across to the opposite side of the carrier. The entire unit can be folded. Since it fits nicely in the canoe, no need to take off the hand nuts to fold the wheels. Place it near the balance point under the canoe, secure it, flip up the kickstand, and roll it away like a baby carriage. It came from LL Bean, and works like a charm. Some of the places I fish do not have a launching ramp. So, I unload my canoe onto the carrier, and roll it through the woods to the shore. Some places, I can leave it by the water, in other places it gets locked up in the truck.

That can be useful. Especially on new (to me) waters. Definitely something to factor in. Thanks.