Lund Explorer

Not sure if this has been up here before, but the new season has started. 1st little one hatched just a couple days ago. http://www.wvec.com/marketplace/microsite-content/eagle-cam.html

Welcome to the site StJoe! Wow, you've already got open water down there don't ya?

Welcome Steve, you're really going to like all the info. on this site. From a Mecosta Co. Steve

While there's fish along those shorelines, you've started to open a whole new world when you turn around. That you got to put your own knowledge to good use makes it even better. I'm happy to hear that you sepnt some of that time on the water looking at what structure or the cover on it that held those fish. Its just another key to the whole answer we all keep searching for regardless of how long we've been at it. I would think that those bass, and the shad were up in there trying to find warmer water. Shad feeding on plankton and bass feeding on them. Early season up here usually includes a lot of bass just cruising and not really locked onto any specific spot. It will be during post-spawn and summer where you'll find them locked on to structure/cover. Finding them then will be the hard part, but once you do, you should be able to find other spots that repeat the pattern. My guess is that you'll be having more of those days in the very near future. As far as any fears about bringing another fisherman, or woman on the boat, I sure wouldn't worry about it. There will always be days were you either put on the clinic, or when you are the one to get "schooled". It just part of the game. Some day you may get into tournament fishing and you will quickly see how humble you can become. The point is to always go forward with your head held high, whether you have a good day or bad. Hey, and before I forget..... Good Luck!

Very, very smart dog. And that young lady has a real talent as well. I'm surprised one of our Lone Star members hasn't countered with Skidboot yet, so as a fan of ACD's I'll beat them to it with this:

Was that the bunny that Octomom used?

Congrats for your day on the water! I read your postings before I had logged in, so when I finally did I thought I might see a lure still stuck in the jaw of that bass. What'd ya git em on?

While in the end its going to be your choice, asking for advice around here means you are going to get just that. When someone says "watch out for the soft spot", what they are telling you in a nice way is that it has already happened to them. That why somebody can quote a price for that kind of repair, because they've already shelled out that kind of money. I won't repeat that same advice though, because I think you may want to consider something else. Take Your Time....... You've still got a month or so before you can float anything you buy. Spend some time looking at other used boat sites besides craigslist. Boat-trader.com, local marina websites, and don't forget the local banks have repo lots or have companies that auction their stuff. When you're buying a boat, the only thing that needs to go fast, is the boat itself. Good Luck

You're killing me Glenn....... I wish I was on the fence, but I'm stuck behind it. This self-employed stuff were I have to be here every Monday to do client payrolls has me completely stuck. I've got a local competitor wanting to know if I'm ready to retire yet as his daughter is getting out of school with her accounting degree. It's reading stuff like this that makes me think it is time to jump off the endless tax season hay ride. Of course I might make it next year, I think I have a bar tab to take care of.

If you're going to eat bear, you've got to bone it all out, and remove 100% of the fat and tendon. Every bit of it is hand work with a knife. And make sure you cook it well done. I'll butcher the spelling of it without spellcheck, but those critters are famous for triganosis.

FRo a story on Fox Sports this morning, the following excerpt: Consider the best-known open wheel racers, and how they fared in NASCAR's second-tier series. Sam Hornish Jr. ran in nine Nationwide races before making his Sprint Cup debut in 2008. His order of finish: 36th, 43rd, 31st, 35th, 15th, 25th, 43rd, 25th, 31st. Juan Pablo Montoya ran 11th, 28th and 34th at the end of the 2006 season. Here's the link if you want to read the whole thing. http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/kriegel-danica-a-smashing-success-022710 My take on all this..... Give the Gal a break. She has already flew around an almost flat track or two in an open wheel race car, so she ain't no coward. I haven't had the chance to watch all of those races, but from what I've seen, she is improving. Several times yesterday she was moving up in the pack. Maybe not running in the top ten, but hey, Junior does the same thing in the cup series. They even were discussing the fact that they have gotten the cockpit adjusted to fit her yet, this takes time. I think that given a few more races, you'll see her move up. She may never be a big time contender, but she should cash money. Finally, for anyone who may have looked at other parts of this forum, there is this thing called sponsorships. And the girl does draw sponsor money, which is at least half the battle. I guess us guys should just feel sorry for the guys that finished in a worse position than her, or Pam Martin-Wells, or Michelle Wie. Ouch, beaten by a, a, a, a girl!

Raul is pretty close to right here.... If you want to eat it, you gotta catch it. There is quite a shortage of armadillo up in this neck of the woods, but I've had the normal squirrel, rabbit, venison. Bear Meat is good if cooked right. Elk, and Caribou are tasty, but I wasn't too fond of Antelope. If you get the chance, Raccoon, Muskrat, Beaver, and Porcupine are all interesting. I've never tried an on-line store, but i do know of a couple of local game ranches that run retail meat markets. You might want to look in your area for one or more of those type outlets.

When I'm just out fishing, it has to be that first part of the day when the sky to the east starts to brighten up, and all of nature starts to wake up around me. When I'm in a tournament, its those rare times when you haul a sack full of hawgs up to the weighin stand. All that muttering noise behind me is almost better than the cash.

Not that I actually work for Uncle Sam, far from it, but you guys are coming to the wrong conclusions. You are supposed to start reporting that income at $1. It's the tournament organizer that isn't required to report it on Form 1099 until it exceeds $600 for the entire calendar year. You could cash money several times during the year under that threshhold but still get a form if the total for the year goes over that amount. Note to all those TD's and other club officers out there. If you ever get your club audited, the IRS will check to see if these forms were filed. The penalty can go from $50 per/form to as high as the amount of tax that could have collected starting at 15%.

If these scientists are going to have a do-over, it would be nice to think that they would go back a little farther than 100 years or so. Maybe they could figure out what the climate was like back about the time Ol' Eric the Red and his band of vikings settled into Greenland. And maybe more importantly, what caused the climate back then. I don't think it was too many cars driving on the roads, but something warmed it up.

Ditto for me, but it was this mornings coffee! I wonder if poor Rhino ever got a splinter after that from eating scrambled eggs? ;D

Yeah, I did. I cant shoot it, and it can kill someone. I cant friggin throw away aluminum cans or plastic anymore, so forgive me for not wanting to throw away ammo. I can take it apart, toss it, but I was curious if there is an accepted practice for disposing ammunition in civilian society. When I was in the military, we had special sand filled boxes to drop ammo in if it wasn't serviceable. Alot of police depts use the same system. Since I'm not an armorer, I don't know whats the PROPER way to dispose of it. I'm sorry if you don't think its a valid question, but I tend to take firearms safety seriously. At the end of the day, I will bring it to my range, and let them dispose of it for me. Take it to your local gun club and drop it off. Most likely someone there hand loads that caliber and can either replace the bullet or use the brass. We have a dedicated little group in our club that likes to take those and toss them on the ground on the ranges. Especially the misfired cheapo assualt rifle rounds. They even drop live rounds all the way down the range. Makes for all kinds of fun when you drive over one with the riding lawn mower. While it is very long odds to actually hit the primer with a mower blade, I can tell you that hitting a 22.250 on that spot makes a really loud BOOM! Anyhow, at least most clubs have a spent brass and/or dud bucket on each range. That would be were I'd put it.

Lots of reasons to file a Schedule C with your tax return showing the income and expenses you incur while tournament fishing. Besides income reported on Form 1099-Misc, all income derived from your fishing venture needs to be included on the Schedule C. This includes prize money, other noncash prizes, and anything you may receive from a sponsor (free tackle or expense reimbursement). Just like the requirement to include all forms of income, you are allowed to report all expenses related to it. This can include direct expenses paid during the year, and also can include depreciation for such items as your boat, electronics, and fishing tackle. Note #1 - If your tournament fishing is not a full time profession then it will be considered a "Hobby" by the IRS. Hobby losses are not deductible for income tax purposes. Hobby income (if it exceed expenses) has to be included in income. BUT..... if you have been filing hobby returns for a number of years, you should be able to avoid any SE (Self-Employment or Social Security) tax from that income as it will be considered to be passive in nature. Note #2 - If your tournament fishing is wholly or part of a full time fishing type business, then profits/losses should be included as such on the front of the Form 1040, and profits will subject to SE taxes. My suggestion for the hobby folks would be, that regardless of whether you have received a Form 1099 or not, that you prepare a Schedule C to be included with your tax return. While you may not write off those losses, you do want to establish a history of this passive activity. Many people fish mostly small time tournaments, but on occasion will enter a large charity or big bass type tournament were there is always a chance that the hobby all of a sudden has a huge payday. If you have established the fact that your venture is truly a hobby, you won't be subject to additional 15% SE tax. Food for thought, it could happen to any of us.

Do we have to throw them away, or just bury them in a drawer with all those other Heddon baits? My old Silver/Blueback Tadpolly is sort of lonesome these days. It was the lure responsible for my first two 5lb+ LM. Argh, in 1967.

Lund Explorer, - I hear you, - you made some good points and I do not want to make a big deal out of this. I have the highest respect for tournament fisherman's ability to travel to vastly different locations and still locate and catch quality bass day in and day out. I really like KVD and even picked him to win in the BR contest. There's no doubt that he still had to make all the right decisions regarding where how and when to fish to win. The other anglers in the same area did not have the same success KVD had. I wish that Timmy Horton had not even mentioned the information regarding where the previous 10 years worth of tournament bass were released, whether it's true or not. As for the idea that the practice of tournament fishing in the immediate area where tournament caught bass are released, goes on all the time does not change my opinion that the practice undermines the spirit of the competition and good sportsmanship. As for rec fisherman going to the release site and loading up, well that might be the same as taking fish off beds. We can debate this from a couple of different perspectives, and we may not ever agree and that's OK. A-Jay Note to myself..... Don't type until you've had your coffee. Just so everyone knows, I don't think any of the classic fishermen did anything wrong. My point was that it is a practice that everyone does around here as well. I do have an issue with seeding, but I know that didn't go on in Beeswax Creek, and didn't mean that it did. I think that was just the grumpy old tax man coming out in me. I hope you'll all understand that.

The USA guys get all kinds of practice when they play against the Red Wings!

Ehgads A-Jay, south of the 45th Parallel this practice goes on all the time. Not only with tournament fisherman but with the locals as well. I don't know how many times I've seen a Sunday morning where a half dozen rowboats aren't sitting in front of a weigh-in site. The other practice on some of the lakes/rivers I've fished is seeding. The Grand River is famous for a few of the locals that will fish the entire week before a big tournament where they will release everything they catch on a sunken tree or dock. A pair of fisherman catching up to 70+ legal bass all over the place and dropping them in one concentrated spot to me is cheating, but the tournament directors don't seem to think so. And I got to see just how irate these guys can get when I happened to stumble on one of these spots completely by accident one day. It seems that rule #1 for these guys is to make sure they draw a really low blast off number. But really, the best reason to employ some kind of spread out release of T-Fish are the meat fishermen that pound these release sites just after a tournament. 100% C&R doesn't work if a bunch of these displaced bass end up swimming in hot grease a day or two later. One club I used to fish with got a DNR permit (yeah you did need one sometimes) for a couple of anglers to load their boats up with an over-limit of fish to release back in various spots after the weigh-in.

Hey Goose, What's that funny green/brown stuff? Looks like something I saw a few months ago.

What is Blue & White and sleeps two? In Michigan, it is a Consumer's Energy truck! Two years in a row, we suffer a power outage at the start of the Daytona 500. Last year, it started around lap #50 and the power came back on about 6pm. This year's was on lap #2, and it didn't come back until 11:30pm! Next year, I'm going to the bar @ Noon!

Matt Fly.... Bingo.