Shad_Master

Several years ago I was job hunting and came across an ad for a job in my field - the ad said the requirements for the job were an advanced degree, 5-6 years of experience, familiarity with a lot of different processes and such - or fluent in Spanish. To keep your spirits up, consider this: Reasons why English is so hard to learn: 1) The bandage was wound around the wound. 2) The farm was used to produce produce. 3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. 4) We must polish the Polish furniture. 5) He could lead if he would get the lead out. 6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. 7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present his present. 8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum. 9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. 10) I did not object to the object. 11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid. 12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row. 13) They were too close to the door to close it. 14) The buck does funny things when the does are present. 15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line. 16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow. 17) The wind is too strong to wind the sail. 18) Upon seeing a tear in the painting I shed a tear. 19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests. 20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friends? Let's fact it English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple or pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinepig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Keep studying!!!

As for the telescoping rod - try looking in the golf department of Wal-Mart - you can pick up a golf ball retriever for about $10 that will telescope out to about 20' - just slice the round plastic head and slide your line through it - works great and fits right in the rod locker.

One of the more popular lures in this area is the Lake Fork Ring Fry - in my experience it is a little more fishable than Senkos in wind. I usually T-rig 'em weightless or with 1/16 oz. if I have to. But there are lots of options. A nail weight in the butt gives 'em a different action and can often draw strikes when fish are finicky. You can defintely C-rig 'em. They are also good for shakey head applications. Try both the regular ring fries and the baby version which is a little more slender but has the same action.

"Pickin up paw-paws, puttin em in a pocket"

I don't know him personally and apparently lots of people think he is great guy - he may truly. I only know that if I came across on TV the way he does, I would hope that some of the people who like me would point it out to me and tell me to knock it off.

I don't have a picture of it, but an even worse sight is to look out your side view mirror and see your boat passing you on a hill - this happened to a buddy and me when we were in high school - long drive home that day.

Hang in there Grandpa - prayers are with you

I had a similar situation a few years back with my grandson - he was in the hospital with a serious staff infection and had to have surgery on his finger to get it all out - I stayed the night with him and early the next morning he asked "what's a Vocodin?" - I explained that it is a pain pill and asked him if he was in pain - he said "no, but that makes sense - the doctor told me I could have a Vicodin if I needed one and I though that was a male enhancement...I couldn't figure out what that had to with my finger".

Okay, thought you might be on to something there - I have said all along "the boy can catch fish" - just seems to me like he gets too whacked out about things and doesn't make himself a good image for professional fishing. The back-to-back episodes of Ultimate Match Fishing and then a Bassmaster re-run was too much for me not to blow off some steam.

Autism is something I know about - are you saying that Aaron has an autistic condition? If so, that might explain some things, but I have never seen this or heard anything about it.

If yov ever read Tom Mann's book - "Think Like a Fish" - there is a whole chapter in there about the fishing monkey - never put 2 & 2 together before - Tom was a master bait seller - the bait monkey - there has to be a connection.

Around here Senkos are still common on the water, but a good alternative is a Lake Fork Ring Fry. These can be fished weightless as well and because of all the ridges they tend to put off more vibration in the water and attract more attention. Also, you can try putting a small nail weight in the butt of the lure and it will have a different action that will sometimes attract the basss when it backs up on 'em.

I do both and my choice has to do with water clarity - if the water is clear to lightly stained, I will swim a jig - if the water is stained to muddy, I throw a chatter bait. Also, chatter baits are a good search bait when fishing grassy banks. If there are fish in the area, they will react to the chatter bait. But they are wood magnets and will get hung up if you throw them around brush piles, etc.

When I started this thread I pointed out that he is a really good fisherman and not ever having had a personal encounter with him I can only defer to what you guys that do know him say about him personally. I just find his "whinning" to be unnecessary and not a good image for professional fishing. In my own club, we are in a situation right now where some of the "better" fishermen "took their spot" or didn't fish it the way they wanted them to. All this just seems so unnecessary. Maybe others on tour do the same thing and it doesn't get recorded and played back, but I can only recall one of two times where others seem to complain as much as he does. One of them involved Gerald Swindle and I was very disappointed in him at the time. Aaron seems to do it a lot. It would seem that getting in his head is easier than getting into a $1 movie. Is there some connection between that and the number of 2nd places he has recorded?

No, it was a clean break - even got a chance to see the fish swimming away with the hook and part of the leader in his jaw - SIGH!

I am not a regular visitor to this part of the forum, so if this question has been previously address - please point me in the right direction and stand in line to deliver 20 strokes with a wet noodle. What do you use for your C-rig leader? My current set up is 20# braid for the main line with either 12# or 15# flouro carbon or hybrid line. Yesterday I had an experience too painfull to relate here that included having my leader break off right at the boat :'( Just wondering what might have worked better.

Do you know what they call people who graduate from medical school with a "C" average? Doctor! Suck it up and get your degree!

Started off yesterday with watching Ultimate Match Fishing - he complained when he lost the coin toss and then had a minor freak out when he ran to his first spot and there was somebody fishing in the area - finally Joe Thomas asked the guy if they could fish around his and the gay said "year". Then he whined about the "over-the-line" calls (this is common on the show, but he has to whine about it). Then this morning watched the Guntersville tournament - same thing, wanted to fish a spot and there were boats all over it - said to the guys "do you know I'm leading this tournament?" - "I'm fishing for $100 K!" Then called one of the other guys a "liar" when he said he was pre-fishing for a tournament the next week. The boy can catch fish - I give him that - but what a terrible spokesman for professional fishing.

Thanks for sharing that - I just found out that I am going to a conference in Memphis in October - can't wait 'til I can hit Beale Street again.

Several years ago I fished a club tournament with my son (probably 12 years old at the time) - his job was to hold the rope while I backed the trailer down to launch the boat - he was holding the rope alright, only he forgot to hook it to the boat - the boat slipped off the trailer and began to float out in the launch area while he just stood there with a blank look on his face - the other guys helped haul it back, but my son was the target of lots of jokes that day.

I have become real proficient at getting hung up - but never mastered the art of juggling the standard plug knocker along with the rod/reel while trying to hold the boat in position - so this year, I discovered an alternative - I picked up a "golf ball retriever" from Wal-Mart (about the same cost as a plug knocker at BPS, etc.) - it extends out either 10' or 12' (can't remember) and has a circular plastic ring on the business end - I cut a slit in the ring and can slide my line through it and then extend down to the lure and knock it loose and (usually) reel right up through the ring - then the retriever collapses down to about 4' and fits right in the rod locker.

Another pattern I lucked into a year or so ago, was when fishing deep, I would notice my line moving without any noticable bite - I began to figure out that these were blue gills and wold just let 'em run with it - after a second or two I would see the line change directions and then feel the bite - this was a bass taking the lure from the blue gill. Started working that parttern and stuck some pretty good sized bass. As irritating as they are, blue gills can give you some clues as to what's going on beneath the surface if you let 'em.

I buy those pre-rigged worms at Wally World - take the worm off and either throw it away or use it on a drop-shot and hook flukes on both of the hooks - works great - never thought about using senkos this way until this tread though - might work - will have to try it.

I hit on a pattern two years ago that held up all season long - there was a very shallow stretch of bank that was clogged with blue gills - I would go out every evening about 1/2 hour before sundown and throw Senko's out toward the channel and feel for the BG bites - about 10 min before sundown the BG bite would stop (almost like somebody flipped a switch) about 5 min later the Bass would start hitting and this would keep up until it was time leave. The bite would still be on the early AM but would give out after the sun came up. This pattern eventually went away, but I have started to see the same thing happening on other parts of the lake.

My favorite of all time was the little boy with a gap in his front teeth reading a note from the Tooth Fairy that said, "This time I only took the one under your pillow -- next time I going to take them all".