SirSnookalot

Yep still trending down.

I lasted 10 minutes this morning bass fishing, go later in the day. Have had an excellent few months of bass fishing, it's time for something else. My biggest peacock was caught during the freeze of 09, may give them a shot today. A bluebird day is shaping which might good for them.

This time of the year with the cooler weather and less humidity my hands get slippery, I'm using a duolcok. Once the weather warms up I'l be back to tieing direct to my lure.

I've been freezing my buns off, too cold for me. Caught a snook on my first cast yesterday morning, got right in my car and drove home. Snook was almost jet black, never saw one quite that dark before.

I may fish 300+ but I don't do it like I used too. I would cover the keys up to Hobe Sound for inshore fishing, go all kinds of places to do freshwater and get off shore couple of times I week. I stay pretty local now.

There are lures that come with circle hooks instead of trebles, I've never tried them.

I did see the movie yesterday, it was intense. I would have liked to seen more time spent after Kyle's 4 th tour dealing with PTSD before his death. As far as the book embellishment goes, Jesse Ventura did win a defamation of character suit, in a court of law it was proved the incident never happened. The 2009 story about the car jackers, no record of a Pentagon call, no record of police being on the scene and no dead bodies were found. No record I've seen of him findings WMD's, claimed to be biological stored in drums from France. In the movie he did find conventional weapons in the floor of a home. Another sketchy story is Katrina and Bush sending military snipers to shoot looters, Kyle claimed to have killed 30. Claimed to be a bounty on his head for $180k with posters of him being circulated. There was a bounty on all American snipers, 20-$80,000, not only him. To Kyle's credit a charity fund was started for veterans using the funds from his book about 3 million dollars, so far it's reported $50,000 has been donated. Sure he was a hero, along with every other person that served in the military past and present.

I wouldn't complicate it so much.

I made 2 casts today at 6:30 am, does that count, lol? Scored a nice snook on my first cast, tossed again and decided it was too chilly, I went home.

Coastal areas may have some problems, the brunt of the storm is projected to be at high tide. There could flooding and power outages. The warm waters of the ocean for this time of year is making this storm similar to a hurricane, but with snow instead of rain and freezing temperatures. Glad I'm not there.

Usually #4 & #6 I like 4x. At times I use a siwash anywhere from a #2 to a 4/0.

I like shallow running jerkbaits for the places I fish, my favorite is discontinued and I only have 5 left. I have caught more bass and peacocks on a Blaze minnow. Another shallow lure I like is Rapala flat rap mainly used for peacocks. The only complaint I have is durability, fishing for peas I hit bridges and culverts a lot breaking off the lip, open water no problem. I break the lips on xraps too but I like them as well.

Only a few lures come to mind that I change hooks right away (split rings too), 2 I use in freshwater and 1 I use in salt. Other than that stock hooks are fine. I use nothing but 4x Eagle Claw in freshwater and VMC 4x for salt. I have used Eagle Claw circle hooks for amberjack, no problem on them not being strong enough.

7 days a week year round. Fish saltwater in the morning and freshwater in the afternoon. I could count on 2 hands the times I missed last year.

To my knowledge I've never had a reel that I could put as much line on as the specs indicate, I believe those specs are to the top and I spool 1/8-1/4 from the lip. I have backing on only 1 reel I use for bass, it does hold a lot of line but when I was re spooling didn't have enough braid on hand so I put backing on. Otherwise I go straight braid without backing, when I do need to add line the remaining braid is my backing. Only the initial spool up costs a little more.

We don't have redfish here but I've caught enough of them to be able to compare them to snook. There are quite a bit of similarities as far as lures go, just about anything works. The key is whether they are feeding or not, there can be a ton of snook around and it's easy to go hitless, or get a strike on nearly every cast. I've used every lure mentioned and some not, don't ever overlook a spoon. If I were to make a short list of lures this is what I'd be using, gold spoon redfish, silver spoon snook, bucktails, jerk shad on a jig head (might be my #1 pick), twitchbait like a mirrorlure and topwater. Biggest snook I ever saw was caught off the beach at Juno on a Yozuri magnum, every bit of 40# +, my biggest was 35# caught on the jettie at the Boynton inlet on a jerk shad, med redbone cardinal 802, have had jacks spool me on the same set up.

I'm going to see the movie today. As I understand it not everything in the book is factual.

Saw an episode of Henry Waszczuk fishing the flats. He demonstrated how he tied an improved clinch with braid, I tried it and being using it ever since. All that's done is making 2 wraps on the final step instead of one, what a difference it made.

Before moving to Florida I bought a home in Ajijic, Mexico, backed out before closing as my wife wanted to be near the grandchildren. One is in college and the other is getting ready to go, so much for them, lol. I'm looking at Costa Rica or Panama, be an interesting adventure.

Inshore saltwater is a place where I don't want to back reel. There are some pretty fast fish here that run and they don't have to be big, like a bonefish. Even a snook which is far from the most formidable to land, when they reach 15-20 they can strip out some line. Then ya got the bruisers, permit, jacks, tarpon, you have all you can handle to land them, getting them on fly rod is pretty good challenge. It might be fun with bass as the speed and the power aren't like the inshore species. One thing I do wonder, how many times I catch a bass and it's swimming back at me, I have to reel in line not back reel.

Just imagine a 10# bonefish.

It's doable and will be fine for occasional use.

We had this topic a couple of months ago. It might be fun to back reel for bass, although I don't do it, I would never consider it for fish that make a blazing run.

Bass size spinning reel I'd use nothing heavier than 8# mono, but I'm a braid user. I use 10# on my pond set ups and 15# when fishing areas of heavier vegetation.

For the most part a swivel breaking would be an anomaly IMO, the snap could be an issue but again remote. I personal use a good grade swivel whether BB or power but people I fish with may not. I fish with people that use Walmart snap swivels in salt water, have yet to see a failure both the swivel or the snap, many of these guys never even tie fresh knots. I use the smallest swivel that I can as long as it doesn't go thru the top guide of the rod. Even small swivels can be strong, 1 of the ones I use in freshwater is very tiny has 90# of strength, don't see too many freshwater fish that will break it. They happen to be Chinese off Ebay, cheap and work great, I'd buy them again. I do have larger ones as I use those with rods that have a larger top guide. It isn't a strength issue as long as I use my drag properly. Fishing with all kinds of swivels for both fresh and salt for eons I've come to the determination that they do help with line twist, but it's not perfection. My results are pretty much the same whether I use a Sampo or Spro or a cheaper BB. Same goes for the power swivel, don't find the additional expense has yielded better results. I prefer to tie line to leader, except when I think I need a swivel.