senile1

All of the waters are now liquid on the north side of Kansas City. The ice melted about a week to two weeks ago, depending on the body of water.

Good point . . . . and by the way, who are you? I liked the last incarnation of your screen name.

Sadly, you guys missed the point and the spirit of the original post completely. I would encourage you to re-read my original post, especially the last few lines. No where did I "berate" or "disparage the character" of anyone, past, present or returned. Would you mind explaining this comment further? If it's in response to anything I wrote, you severely misinterpreted something. I understood your post completely, Flechero, and I should have clarified that I wasn't responding to your original post. My response was made to the remarks below, which were made by others. I also saw a couple of comments in the Cajun1977 thread that were in the same vein so I was replying to all of those. In fact, I thought that your response in the Cajun1977 thread was appropriate.

Glenn, thanks for interjecting some humor into this. Guys, I apologize if I came across as hardcore on this. It just seems that we as human beings find all kinds of ways to differentiate ourselves and place ourselves above others by being a member of some group, whether it is a religious group, a political party, a certain race, or a group subscribing to a certain belief system. I like being a member here and I like communicating with all of you, but I'm wary of falling into the trap of thinking poorly of someone who isn't a member of our "little" group here.

I agree 100 percent. So now we're going to disparage the character of everyone who deletes their profile just because the site is programmed to display "ex-member" next to their name. Contrary to what some of you may think, there are awesome people in this world who aren't members of bassresource.com and I'm sure there are people who have deleted their profiles who are decent people as well. I don't think we should perpetuate this "ex-member" stereotype any longer.

I don't want to accuse anyone of flippin' the bird to the site when I have no facts, nor his side of the story. Maybe he just got tired of most of the threads and decided the forum wasn't for him. I never noticed that Cajun butted heads with anyone. If BassResource.com doesn't want the ex-member designation popping up beside someone's name after they have left that can be changed.

Nice post, Hydrillagorrila2!

Did I miss something? In the Humminbird Sidescan thread, under the Boats section, I see that Cajun1977 is now an ex-member. Another long-time poster has left the fold. What's the deal?

Releasing all bass will destroy the fishing in some waters. Keeping all bass will destroy the fishing in others. Each body of water is different. Selective harvest is essential and must be tailored to each body of water you fish. There's nothing wrong with eating some fish and if you are abiding by the laws no one has a right to rain on your parade. Just remember, though, that you can abide by the laws and still destroy a fishery. I don't think that's what most of us want to do. We hope the laws protect the fishery, but in some cases they don't.

The book, Largemouth Bass, written by the In-Fisherman staff, states that Pike and Muskies do affect where the bass hang out. The book was released in 1991 but I still think much of its information holds true. According to it, bass will bunch up in cover more when Pike and Musky are present. They are less likely to roam open water. I'm thinking if one of these predators moved up into the cover the bass are going to want to move.

I think there was a time in Missouri where the limit was 12 bass, if I am not mistaken, but that was before the modern era of bass tournaments.

You can influence someone's behavior without telling them what to do or imposing your beliefs on them. I discussed a method to do this in my earlier post on this thread.

Roostertails and Catt have excellent points. So what do you do? You don't tell him to stop and you don't preach to him. You introduce yourself to him as you would any individual deserving of respect and you get to know him. As you get to know him you talk about fishing and the biology of fish, bass in particular. Eventually, in this discussion, you can talk about how the male protects the nest, how they will bite almost anything at this time of year, and how this behavior protects the eggs on the nest so that future generations of bass can grow and thrive. You can talk about the concept of selective harvest as well. In other words, you talk to him just like you would talk to one of your buddies and you carry on a regular conversation. It doesn't have to be all about fishing. Hopefully, he can put 2 and 2 together. Who knows? You may develop a good friendship. The point is, he should never know that you're trying to change his behavior. To him you should appear to be just a friendly guy who loves to talk about bass.

As for the 1997 Stratos, if it is in good shape, that is a steal at that price. Related but slightly off-topic: I just recently bought a Stratos with a 2000 200 HP Ficht. The Intruder is not a Ficht. The problem with the Fichts was in the model years 1999 - 2000, but if the recall work has been performed on the fuel injection retainers the problem should be corrected. There were a few other problems with the Fichts as well. but if you find one now that runs well you have probably found a good motor.

Thanks, Ronnie. I would love to be there but I can't take vacation days on such short notice. You guys be careful and catch some hawgs.

Dude, that's too bad. But what a day! Wow! It sounds like your friend handles the situation properly. When you get a place like that you don't want to overdo it. Four or five times a year sounds about right.

The layoffs where I work (Sprint) are taking place today and tomorrow. I just found out that I'll still be a working man tomorrow. I believe my wife is in the clear too. It's a little late to plan a Guntersville trip but I am extremely thankful that we both made the cut. You guys are going to have a great time with lots of stories to tell. Long Mike, I'm glad you were able to make it. Kudos to RW, Mike, and CJ!

You must be flying higher than a kite, hydrillagorilla. After that day, you won't want to fish anywhere else.

Awesome, unbelievable day, hydrillagorilla!

Roger, thanks for the response. Your points make sense and, as you stated, there is no "Goldie-Locks" scenario. I am looking at this picture with a horizontal fishing mentality, rather than vertical. I am assuming that none of this water is very deep until after we proceed past the weedline and near the main river/creek channel. I believe the spatterdock stalk generally doesn't exceed approximately six feet and, in the stained lakes that I fish, I don't see pad type vegetation beyond four to five feet. This line of thinking led me to the conclusion that, whether I'm fishing outside the weedline or in the vegetation, these fish are shallow fish. Based on that, if I start fishing closer to the bank first, I will be disturbing any fish that are between those fish and my boat. The area between the bank and the outside edge is small, however, so I would suspect that pulling fish off the weedline will spook a few fish as well, but hopefully not as many. I will be catching these weedline fish in slightly deeper water and pulling them away from the vegetation where the shallowest fish lie. Obviously, I'm making some depth assumptions that, if incorrect, could change my plan.

I visit the General Bass, the Fishing Tackle, and the Rods, Reels, Lines, Leaders, and Knots forums the most. If I had any smallmouth waters within 100 miles of me, I would probably visit it quite a bit too. Once in awhile I look at Everything Else.

I was wondering the same thing.

Senile1, I noticed that you've elected to work the shallowest bass, last. I have a question: If you catch a bass or two along the outside weedline, do you think it's possible that the commotion might alarm the bass among the pads near the surface? On the flipside, do you believe that taking a bass or two off the surface would frighten the bass lying in deeper water along the weedline? Roger Roger, this is a conundrum on this one, at least for me. I thought about the things you mentioned before I made my post. Theoretically, I think both are possibilities; however, I think the fish buried up in the vegetation would be less likely to be affected by commotion on the outside of the weedline. When flipping we pull our boats right up to the mat with our trolling motors and still catch fish from only a few feet away. The cover seems to make the fish less likely to spook. This may be faulty thinking but it was why I chose to pick the weedline fish off first. I do think that going after the shallowest bass first would spook the bass on the weedline because this weedline doesn't appear to be very deep to me, so when I'm reeling these fish in I will be pulling them through the fish on the weedline. You always have some very intelligent answers to fishing questions so I would be interested in your thoughts on this.

Excellent post, LBH.

. . . or a Gamakatsu Skip Gap hook.