senile1

My Dad passed away yesterday morning. Some of you may have seen a couple of posts (listed below) I have made in the last year about his Alzheimer's disease. He was just diagnosed a year ago; however, he was also diagnosed with mini-strokes that contributed to his dementia. We think that a stroke took him though we are not sure. He passed peacefully in his sleep. He still knew who we all were so I feel this is in some way a blessing because he didn't have to endure the worst years of Alzheimer's.

Where I live, water is typically frozen hard by the time we have single digits and lower. However, lakes of a few thousand acres will sometimes have some open water if the temps haven't been consistently that low. The problem is breaking through the ice to get to that water. And of course you have your powerplant lakes.

Nice ending to your story! I am glad everything worked out. Unfortunately, FishForDollars (Jack?) passed away a few years back. I only knew him through the forums but some of the members knew him personally and they will vouch for what a good man he was. I think @Catt and Jack did some fishing together if I am not mistaken.

Nice pics. Love that sunset!

And there's another Arizona football! Nice fish.

Nice work A-Jay! I don't know that I have seen that many "tank" smallmouth on one page.

As I get older I learn more and more to not worry about what I cannot control. I think bass fishing will be around for a while, more or less. As for information sources I have used books, magazines, this forum, YouTube, other anglers, etc. As I have progressed as a bass angler I discover that all of these sources provide less and less information that is new to me, though I still find the occasional helpful nugget. More and more, any improvements are made by thinking about the environment and the conditions I face on a body of water and adjusting my presentation and the location I am fishing.

I can only speculate as to why others would buy a high end rod because I am not a mind reader. I bought my first high end rod at a lower price on Ebay, out of curiosity. Like a few have stated, once I bought that rod I realized the incremental improvement in sensitivity for jigs and soft plastics was definitely worth it to me. I own a few and I can afford them. I highly suspect they have allowed me to catch a few bass that I would have never had any awareness had bitten. And I think because I can feel the bottom better, I hang up less. Like a lot of anglers I did not buy them before because I couldn't imagine the small improvement over a mid-range rod would make a difference. I was wrong.

Oh man. That is an absolute beast! I wish your scale had been functioning.

I would probably use it to help replenish any lures, line, hooks, weights, etc. that I have used up.

Welcome to BR!

Nice first post and nice, solid fish in that pic! Welcome.

Thanks for the update on the boat, Clayton. Looking forward to future updates.

Are you saying that fish . . . . "got small."

What a blast! Even on a cold day that activity will keep the fire burning.

I started using Mike Siebert's jigs about 11 years ago or so before they became the "it" jig on this board. At that time he didn't have all the different styles but he had a well built jig at a very nice price. I still use Mike's jigs almost exclusively and the Gridiron style football head is my football head of choice. Having said that, there are lots of good quality jigs out there though I think you would be hard pressed to find a better price for the same quality as Siebert's. And I think the anglers that make their own are definitely able to create exactly what appeals to them in a jig.

I had a similar situation a year ago. I made the post below about a 23.5 inch fish I had caught that was only 4 lb 10z. It had a huge mouth and long body but was skinny as a rail. I no longer use this photo hosting service so the pic is no longer visible. If I don't weigh it on a scale I don't make any definitive claims to weight. As for the subject of this thread, I am a DD virgin. In the future I plan to take a few trips to areas where my chances are better so hopefully that will change.

I'm sure those cats gave you a fight. Those are some beasts!

You have some room in that tin boat! Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

Kent, you hit the nail on the head as to why this is such a difficult decision. I can afford to pay for my own health insurance currently, but considering that retiring now would give me 8 years of paying for my own insurance is a concern. I am quite healthy but I don't know what could happen to my health during those intervening years, and I suspect healthcare will continue its current trend upward in costs. This is definitely something where I have to determine approximate costs under different scenarios and play it safe.

Thank goodness for bass fishing. While I haven’t been able to get out as much as I would like, fishing has been good for most of the year and it really keeps me centered. I have had very little time to participate in the forum, but I always find interesting material when I do check it out. Thanks to Glenn, the staff, and all of you for making this forum the best of its kind. Senile1 is worried about senility. At the beginning of the year, we placed my Dad in a nursing home due to Alzheimer’s disease. At the end of May, he fell and broke his hip and his health has declined rather quickly since then. In early October my Mom joined my Dad in the nursing home as she has Alzheimer’s as well. My parents live 6 to 7 hours from me so I have spent a lot of time traveling to their location to get their things in order when I wasn’t working. This, in addition to a busy work schedule, has led to my poor participation in the Bass Resource forum. Considering that both of my parents have Alzheimer’s I am faced with a greater likelihood of contracting the disease myself. Now at age 57, I am 20 and 22 years younger than my Mom and Dad, respectively, and I am faced with a big decision. If I only have 20 years of sanity left, I probably should retire now and start enjoying myself fishing as often as I can. If I have longer, maybe I should work until 60 as I had planned and then retire. Either way, we appear to have enough saved to retire comfortably, unless my wife or I were to contract some disease that is going to cost us multi-millions of dollars. I’m not seeking any advice as I have all the information I need to make a decision. And I know there are many who have worse circumstances so I am not seeking a pity party. I guess I just wanted to talk about this with the forum members so you know why I am rarely on here. Thanks for reading, and thanks for your understanding. Fish on! Ed

In my opinion, you should find something out there that uses the skills you now have, or uses skills that you would enjoy acquiring. Good luck in that endeavor. You asked for us to tell you about our jobs/careers. I can tell you about my career but the skills piece is paramount. If you don't have the skills you can't do my job, or even start on the path to it, and you can't acquire these skills in a short period of time. I'm sure you are aware that you have to make the choice that you are going take a certain path and all that it entails (stress, etc). And that applies to most any job that pays well. You will have to dedicate time to acquire the skills necessary to get your foot in the door. Then, to continue receiving raises you have to continuously improve those skills, and acquire new ones. It is not easy to choose, which is why 95 percent of us work in a career that maybe provides satisfaction in some ways, but is not what we would be doing if we didn't have to provide for our families. As for my career, I am a Senior Network Engineer specializing in Cisco converged networks and call center programming. My job pays very well, has good benefits, good vacation time, and the company understands that time with family is important. It can be very stressful at times though. While I have the freedom to set my work hours I have customers whose entire corporate networks depend on the work I do and the buck stops with me. I have to satisfy them, so to avoid disrupting their operations a lot of network events have to be performed after business hours, or during slower periods which tend to be weekends and nights. Simpler activities are performed by lower level engineers. Complex activities are performed by me. When it is slow I will work 40 - 48 hours a week, but when it is busy I don't get to walk away and forget about it every day as a project can last for months and the day can end on a huge problem that needs to be resolved and can't wait until tomorrow. As for the path to my position, I didn't start at this level. I have a bachelor's degree in business administration with two majors. I was in middle management for a trucking company but changed careers at age 39. At that point I started studying and obtained my A+ and MCSE IT certifications which was enough to get me in the door at my current employer, but I took a tremendous drop in pay from my previous position because of my lack of experience in the field. I then acquired my Cisco certifications: CCNA, CCNP Routing and Switching, CCNP Voice, CCNP Collaboration, CICCEP, etc. Many of these certs are 4 or 5 tests that are not easy when you obtain them the first time. Then they have to be renewed every 3 years by taking a single test. These certifications would be the equivalent of a Masters degree in networking at a university. I have been in this field for 17 years now. I provide all of this to you to point out that you don't get to high pay without a great deal of effort. On my career path, if you acquire the minimum skills you can start out above the $17/hour figure you mentioned. But you have to have a minimum set of skills first. From there, if you are willing to study in your off-hours you can make a great deal more. Unfortunately, very few people get a job that pays well with good benefits and raises without making some sacrifices. Unless you know someone who is going to give you a leg up, you will have some work in front of you.

At Table Rock Lake, targeting mid-water column suspended bass in the heat of summer is a common occurrence. The bass suspend over the tops of trees at 30 - 45 feet deep in 70 to 100 feet deep water, and if feeding on bait fish as Tom states in his post, one can catch quite a few. I have had trips where the targeting of these fish was the difference between catching some bass and not catching much of anything at all. The rule of thumb is that suspended bass are typically inactive and in most of the lakes I fish this rule holds true. However, in deep clear mountain reservoirs with submerged trees the tops of the trees can almost be viewed as the lake floor for some suspended bass in specific seasons. Getting back to the question of the OP, I prefer a spoon for fish in these situations though I have caught them on the dropshot as well.

That's an awesome fish!

Nice fish! We all have a dry spell with the big ones now and then.