Five-Alive

Here is a link to the wild life blog from the Roanoke Times in Roanoke Virginia showing a picture of a guy with 2 treble hooks buried in his scalp, they say this was the result of 3 people fishing in a 15 foot boat - ouch!! http://blogs.roanoke.com/rtblogs/wildlife/2009/06/25/heres-a-shot-of-ralph-bartons-big-catch/

My dad and I were fishing Smith Mountain lake in the mid-eighties after some local flooding when we discovered a dead pig floating in the back of a cove.

I had an encounter with Mr. and Mrs. upside down spinning reel user just 2 weeks ago. My partner and I were fishing a club tournament on Buggs Island lake (Kerr Reservoir), the bite was tough and we had not put a fish in the boat in at least 2 hours. We were fishing down this bank and there is a couple fishing off of the dock, as we go around them to give them their space it unfolds like this, he grabs up a spinning reel, baits the hook and throws it out upside down, hands the rod to her, I hear her squeal so I look back her bobber is out of sight so he is yelling for her to set the hook, she proceeds to grab the rod, (upside down of course) he takes it out of her hand still upside down and proceeds to reel. The fish gets off and she is saying it is all your fault. 2 hours without a bite, maybe I should have put on my rally cap and flipped my rod over??

Maybe it is all in my mind but when my crank bait is making constant contact with the bottom, I tend to slow it down a bit, when it makes occasional contact with structure I tend to pause a bit and to me this seems to get me more strikes ......... again this may be just in my mind.

Shimano Saros or Stradic are both amazing reels. With Sradic coming out with a new version you may find a discounted price on the 2009 models somewhere.

For the money they are good rods for sure. I purchased a couple Berkley Bionix rods (a step up from the Lightning Rod) in January last year when the Wal-market had marked their fishing rods down before this years stuff arrived. I got a few of the 6'6" med. spinning rods, a 7 foot cranking rod and a 6'6" MH casting rod for $19.99 each and felt like I was ripping them off.

Here is an intersting article on line strngth/diameter http://www.gamefishin.com/wa/features/linetest.htm I can't find anything on 2 lb. test P-line but here are the specs on the 4 lb test in P-LINE Flourocarbon and Flouroclear 4 LB .007" DIA. (.18mm)

x3

I caught a pair of camo coveralls one time ......... glad they were empty. One time I hooked a plastic ball with a big slit in it, it was moving from side to side when I would raise my rod, I even had my partner standing by with the net and felt like an idiot when it finally surfaced.

Geez what a scale .............. looks like a dang Tarpon scale!!

cool picture, thanks for posting!!

The drop shot is actually very versatile and can definitely be used from shore. I mentioned in another thread that all I do is lengthen the distance between my hook and sinker when fishing from shore, that way I can still keep the bait off the bottom. We fish our city reservoir a lot and one day while fishing the drop shot some fish started breaking near us so I through the drop shot at them and bam ........ hooked up real quick. What started as slinging what I had in my hand at the time has turned out to be a very successful tool at the schooling bass, at least on this particular body of water. I also noticed the robo worm in the picture above, I use several different colors but the 4.5" robo worm is by far my favorite drop shot worm.

I have dry skin and can relate to fishing leading to my skin cracking open but getting to go fishing seems to outweigh and aches and pains that it causes. I do notice that the salted baits tend to dry my skin even more but haven't really thought that the salt was cutting me.

Although most of our tournaments are over by 3:00am, most of our club tournaments from May until September are at night, the boat traffic on Smith Mountain lake can be vicious during the day and the bite is normally pretty good at night. We also do pretty good striper fishing at night as well. Several of the guys I know fish after 2:00am and claim to do well.

Works for me. Just like when I am in the boat, I lengthen the depth of the sinker when casting versus vertical presentation.