SirSnookalot

Forget the year, but the U.S. Senior Open was played at Oakland Hills in Birmingham Mich. I lived close by and was lucky enough to have tickets everyday. One of the most memorable days for me was following Nicklaus, Trevino and Chi Chi in a Wed practice round. There was nothing but playing to the crowd, signing autographs and an overall friendlyness. Trevino and Chi and Chi are 2 of the most approachable and Nicklaus wasn't standoffish a bit. You think you see great shots during the tournament, doesn't compare to practice rounds when they are preparing themselves for the " bad break". Buried under the lip of a trap or snookered within inches behind a tree, practicing putts downhill and breaking that are off the stimp meter. I'd rather be at the practice round and watch the tourney on tv.

The Jacks were here for 3 days, weather got calm and they are gone, last seen was Friday morning. The nature of Jacks is to swim at a pretty healthy speed looking for bait, when they find they turn the speed up to warp. They are not really as easy to catch as many think, they get so involved chasing bait, quite often they swim past your lure, if you get one they're isn't much like it. There are great fighting fish and then there are Jacks, in their own class. You're right about snook, harsh weather is best with a 2-4' groundswell, especially when there is little bait around like now. The snook was released, and I personally don't keep fish. Jacks and Cudas never go to waste, someone is always around to take them. Jacks don't taste too bad, and cuda are exceptionally a good eating fish. One of the guys is a cook at a County Club, he takes the fish and serves them to the members, we have orientals serving the fish in their restaurants. Ya never know what you are really eating unless you catch it yourself.

The only thing unique about Mike Iconelli is his flamboyant showmanship. He has done nothing that hasn't been done before him in the annuls of fishing for money. Hardly a competitor of any type of event that hasn't had a break go against them, as the pendulum swings good breaks happen too. People comment on his passion, a quality possessed by many just worn differently. I really so no reason for this man to be emulated or idolized, he is nothing special, certainly not the Tiger Woods of the fishing world. Comparing his talent, passion, work ethic and accomplishments to Tiger Woods or KVD, he doesn't even come in as an honorable mention. A couple of years back Dustin Johnson had a bad break at the PGA Championship when he soled his club in the " sand trap", took his penality without a whimper ( never saying what could have or should have been), this is a man I admire. As much as I love watching Tiger play, he isn't the man Jack Nicklaus was, Jack was more gracious in losing than in winning and always complimented the winner and never made an excuse for losing. A class act is one that wins or loses with class.

Never really thought about that, I know they do freshwater, but won't reproduce. All the same I'll take a pass, not worth the risk.

Two wrongs don't make a right, so I will not provoke anyone by throwing at their boat or threatening them. I take the " I'm better than you approach", I shame them. I may say in a sarcastic tone " Am I in your way?", generally they just move out. Sometimes, especially when the fish are on, I'll be snook fishing from the shore and boaters will be trying to fish my water, this pissses me off. Being the 3rd greatest snook fisherman I ever met, I'll catch a slot close to where they are fishing, while they are fishless.........they get the point that they don't know jack sheet about fishing and quietly move out being embarrassed that an old man from shore can outfish them while they're fishing in 140K contender.

7'6 med spinning rod, 4000 reel, 15# braid.........can handle about anything inshore of freshwater that I run across. No longer married to any brand, good quality and it all works for me.

Really no different than buying a Bentley or some exotic car, when a Chevy can get you there in the same comfort. I can see how some feel, it was reported on TV yesterday that 146 million people in the U.S. live at or below the poverty line. But if one can afford it, I see no reason to question it.

Started the day with a nice, not long but fairly heavy too big to flip snook, we picked it by dropping a lure on a second rod, lipping the fish and picking it using 2 rods. I do need a photographer that can hold the phone steady....lol Jacks came in 7-8 pounders, totally wasted me for the day, fish are too strong for an old man.

"In an insane society, the sane man must appear insane." ...........Spock, Star Trek "To be sane in an insane world is total insanity"..........SirSnook, Bass Resource

K_Mac for prez......He gets what's going on. The difference between insanity and eccentricity is the size of ones wallet. The appraised value means little, it's a collector's item and as such has no limit on what price it will fetch. I have no idea who bid, but I think it's safe to assume the bidder will not go into bankruptcy over this purchase. Taking in to account our tax code, it's not unreasonable to think that the bidder has made hefty benevolent contributions, tax deductible of course. I guess Sfitr has a point, our national treasure is is affected.

Fishing is all about personal preference. My first thought about equipment is where am I fishing: shore or boat, conditions: heavy cover or open water. My personal preference for ALL BASS FISHING is nothing ever heavier than a spinning 7' 8/17 rod, 15# braid. I can throw just about any kind of lure or soft plastic on that set up, with the exception of heavier swimbaits. I would never throw heavy swimbaits for bass because I don't care to fish with a heavy rod. Call me stupid if you will but I want to use a heavy rod for heavy fish and a light rod for light fish, makes sense to me. I know people like a heavier rod to pull fish out of cover, I avoid those conditions if possible, I do not want to catch a 5# fish with 10# of weeds.

Yep, painters or masking tape, same thing I believe...........do not use duct tape.

I have never owned any St Croix product, I don't think a triumph is too expensive. Personally I would never bother with a warranty if the rod value was l00 or less, except an over the counter exchange. I don't feel it's worth the effort of to pack it up and ship it back. I don't know but do they pay the shipping both ways and send a tube for free? If the answer is no I wouldn't bother with it.

Being in the scrap business for 35 years I've seen everything in that video, except that penny sorting operation, amazing. Back around 73 or 74 copper was about $1.60 lb, inflation adjusted maybe the same value as today, we saw lots of pennies being melted, I never bought them. I did think it was illegal to deface currency. Some may find this interesting. Xray film 1976 and before were loaded with silver ( not the case anymore), hospitals and labs kept these films quite a few years before they could purge them out. We bought tons and tons of them, these films were worth around 5.50 lb, silver was worth upwards of $50 an ounce back then, this was the hottest ticket around that hardly anyone knew about. We put silver extraction machines in to gather up the silver from the fixing solution, printers got a lot of this stuff too but the value was way less. At the time I thought we were smart, we took no cash from the smelters, in lieu we took the money in the form of silver ingot and sat on them. What goes up will always come down, and silver did to the point where we had little or no profit, so in hind site we outsmarted ourselves, but that's what being a speculator is all about. I held my ingots for over 20 years, sold them not that long ago. We did the same thing in the gold business, I bought old eyeglass frames, dental gold, computer gold foil, etc. When I see the ads to buy gold today I refer to it as the "Scrap business with a tie"..........lol

A QB can influence wins in the short term, over the long haul it's a total team effort. Many teams have done well without a top line QB. Joe Kapp with Vikings, not great at all but the Vikings won a lot of games and were tough, no SB. 72 Dolphins, Griese goes down and an older veteran, Earl Morrall, guides them to the perfect season, team effort and depth are the key ingrediants for success. But there is always exceptions, Jets would never have won a SB without Joe Namath, one of the most charismatic players, his team loved playing for him.

I do very little trolling, most of my fish caught are done by casting with artificial lures. People target what's available in the area they live, once I moved down here and discovered what I could catch, it captivated me. Majority of my fishing is inshore on foot, if you feel snook, redfish, bonefish, jacks and tarpon kinda dull and boring, saltwater isn't for you. I still get out and bass fish nearly every day for a few hours, I still enjoy it, but not like the other. @Francho, lots of guys kayak out in the ocean for sails and amberjack (2nd photo). I caught it by sling jigging, that one may only be 30#, they go over a 100. I'm too old for a kayak, that rotund guy in the photo is my fishing bud Larry, he's 81, but we are in a boat......lol.

Never used this service but have fished these waters both charter and our boat many dozens of times. For us it was driving distance so never needed lodging. Been years since I've fished there, I live out of the area now. http://www.mitchellsbaycharters.com/fishing.html

I've yet to have a problem with the alberto, it's a seldom used knot for me as I use it to target only one species. I did use it about a month ago and left the leader tied on and was catching some pretty hard fighting fish, the knot came thru with flying colors. I don't think a leader is a weak spot, unless it's a light one. If I were to fish with 20# braid and a 15# leader, my effective line strength would be 15#. As a rule I double my line test for leaders are 10#braid/20#leader for freshwater and 15/30 &20/40 for salt, this has worked well for me. The overwhelming amount of my fishing is throwing moving baits, gonna get line wrapped around hooks for sure, a mono leader is much easier to unravel than braid, for that reason alone leaders make sense to me...........I never fish without one.

HAHA !! What's a football...........you mean of those bait sized fish? How would like to catch a few of these Winter fish instead? or one of thee Summer fish and catching thses everyday Right Now!

I don't want to rub it in ( like helll I don't, lol) but I plan on fishing everyday, this is my favorite time of year down here.

I don't know who is going to win the game and I'm not critical of Tebow, winning is winning. I would never bet against Tom Brady (unless he was playing against GB or playing with a crutch under one shoulder), he's proven to be one of the finest QB's ever. QB playing the best this year, no one even close to Arron Rodgers.

This is a typical trolley rig, very commonly used down here off piers, there are variations. I'm no expert as I'm not a bait fisherman and never have fished off a pier. When I hear guys talking using them I was curious how it was set up. The yellow item is a bead, just used as a buffer. I do remember my Michigan days as kid fishing with my dad, we used 3 way swivels quite a bit with live bait. http://www.google.co...=1t:429,r:9,s:8

Every thing works fine, like anything it takes a little time to get used to it, visually the new forum is great to my eye.

Lund's explanation sounds a little like a " trolley rig", google it and you will probably get a visual. I have used flies many times, I make no distinction between inshore salt and freshwater fishing, pretty much identical tactics. Often times I use a " drop fly rig, for tarpon and snook, soft or hard jerkbait at bottom of leader, run a second leader off the main leader and attach a fly. I've done it for bass too using smaller baits and flies. On a real flat day with the wind at my back I can cast a fly far enough to find fish(I've got some flies with ball bearings for eyes, weight helps), have caught some nice snook in the surf. The reality is I think I'm better off using light bucktail, that kind of a jig is really nothing more than a fly with weight. I have tried the split shot and the casting bubble with no real success.

Fishing my ponds I need a lure that doesn't dive deep, and I lost my favorite one that I've caught more fish on than all the other ones put together( it's discontinued). Been using an original Rapala in it's place and doing good with it.