Fishes in trees

I wouldn't leave it floating in the water for a long period of time, that's just me. It just seems to me that you are asking for issues should you do that. Now if you had a slip with a lift on it, that is a different story. I don't have a problem leaving it in the water for a few days, like on a trip or something like that.

I was in my mid 30's when my dad died of an aneurism at age 59. Basically one morning he woke up, wasn't feeling well, tried to drink a cup of coffee, blood vessel in his brain broke, blood squirted everywhere, he be dead. To this day, more than anything, I'm ticked. He was basically afraid of getting old and in many ways he stopped taking care of himself. He was a long time functioning alcoholic. He wasn't a joiner. He wasn't a member of any civic organization. Mid 30's thru early 40's I had some troubling times, fairly severe depression etc. One of the things that pulled me out of it was realizing I was becoming my father, drinking way too much and too often and I wasn't happy about that. I realized that was a pretty selfish way to live. I have no clue where I inherited the fishing gene, going back several generations on both sides of my family, none of the men were particularly into fishing or even into being outdoors for that matter. A classic case of go figure. So, to address the question of whether or not I miss my dad, the kindest answer I can give is yeah, kinda, I guess.

A couple of medium priced suggestions. 7'4" BPS Extreme MH. 7' Bucoo MH Trap Caster. For a little more money try t ye 7'4" Fenwick Aetos Med action.

I've got one. The US Reel Hibdon 800 SX. I got it from Cabelas for $40. For now, it is on the traveling team. In my opinion, the jury is still out on this reel. Casting in the back yard, using a practice plug, it casts ok, distance is ok. On the water, throwing a spinnerbait, distance suffers some. Then you brain fart, try to power it to get more distance and back lashes happen. . . often . . . Similar results when I'm using a wake bait, like a medium sized Minus 1. The level wind works, for the most part. Basically, I am finding it difficult to get this reel "tuned in" so that I can cast without thinking about it. I am really trying to judge this reel on its own and not compare it to my other spinnerbait reel (Calcutta 200 TEGT) It doesn't compare well to the Calcutta, except it is a little lighter. This has been a weird year for fishing. I haven't got to go nearly as often as I would have liked, and I don't see that changing any time soon. Every time I've used this reel so far, I remind myself that I've spent $40 for dumber stuff. I am not ready to quit on it yet, but that time might be coming, in which case I'll have another catfish reel.

Always remember to run the line through the level wind prior to tying onto the spool. Just a helpful hint.

What is your issue with the Spirex? I've got several of them and they have always worked good for me. Just wanna know.

I got a 10' roll of tool box lining material at Home Depot a few years ago. It is fairly thin stuff, but it does provide some cushioning and scratch protection. You can go lo-tech and cut it into appropriate size sheets and use rubber bands or some other type of elastic fastener to cushion it around your reels. Or you can get slicker, bust out the hot glue gun and some velcro and create some custom fitted reel covers. Expect a few mistakes until you get your pattern down. If you could ever find nylon faced 1/8 inch neoprene sheets, those would be ideal. Those are hard to find, and cost-prohibitive in my world. I made a few, but with my current rod storage system they are unnecessary.

I carry every tool i might need in by boat and there is probably a back up tool in my fishing truck. Needle nose pliers, vice grips, Leatherman multi-tool, scissors, line pick, mini bolt cutters, side cutters and a church key. In my truck I've got tools where I can loosen or tighten every nut, screw or bolt on my truck or boat. I carry a waterproof marine tool box with a smaller amount of tools that can cover every issue I've encountered on the water so far. I do regular maintenance in my barn, so far my most serious on water emergencies have been shear pins on the trolling motor and line wrapped around the trolling motor prop. Once I caught a trot line with my gas motor prop and that was a pain to get untangled.

I got a 7'4" med action Aetos rod this spring. It has become my primary square bill rod. I like it. I don't think that I am throwing that much farther with the new rod, but throwing similar distances to what I was getting with my older rod (7'4" med action BPS Extreme) is just easier. Hard to explain, but I like it more,

The price difference in inflatable life jackets has to do with how they inflate. The least expensive ones manually inflate, i.e. you have to pull a cord to get them to inflate. The next step up are auto- inflation models. These have a clay bobbin inside the inflation mechanism. The idea being that when you hit the water, in a few seconds the clay bobbin melts in the inflation process begins. Current top of the line models have what is called HIT inflation. Not being an expert, the idea is that the vest has to be under water for a few seconds and then water pressure sets off the inflation process. I've had a couple of different inflatable life jackets. A clay bobbin type auto inflatation model and the HIT model. Once, just once I had the auto inflate go off in my fishing truck after being worn all day in extremely humid conditions. I didn't see that as a very big deal, just one of those things that happens once in a blue moon. I get the HIT model mostly because it was an impulse buy, i.e. it was on sale, I had spare money, I liked the idea of having a back up inflatable life jacket, etc. I wear mine all the time, except when I forget to put it on. I try to be conscious about it, but nobody bats 1000.

To echo Bluebasser 86, for lightweight summer rain gear, it is tough to beat Frogg Toggs. I've got a set of Guide Wear and a lighter duty set of gore tex as well, but they are a little heavy for summer. Can't beat Frogg Toggs for summer rains.

Flipping jigs with an offset hood for weedless rigging are available. Not necessarily flipping jigs per se, but heavier jigs that work for flipping/pitching. Brewer Sliders makes them in half ounce and 3/8 oz sizes. The hook is a little light, but they work good. Chompers make a jig with a screw in spring and a stout 5/0 hood in 3/8 and half ounce sizes. They could make a heavier one also, I'm not sure. If you look up Fin-tech lures, they make a number of different styles of tx rigged jigs. There used to be a company in Olathe, Ks called Critterbait that made tx rigged jigs. I don't know if they went broke or just quit trying to sell their baits. Trying to market your baits without a decent advertising budget is a challenge. There are lots of different companies out there that make variations of a tx-rigged jig. Finding them in heavier sizes, 1/2 oz & up can sometimes by a challenge. I have some Legacy-loc jigs that are great soft plastic tx rig jig heads. I remember the name, but I haven't any clue where I got them or what company makes them now. Really, you can make any jig a tx-rig jig by using a hitch hiker spring. Yank out the fiber weed guard with pliers, then just clip the spring through the hook eye, thread the bait on the spring and then tx rig the bait. For me, either way is a compromise. I feel like I land more fish and get better hook ups with open hook jigs, but I feel that I get bit more on tx rigged jigs. I tend to switch back and forth, fish one way for a while and they the other, but I'm not committed to either.

I like a half ounce over a 3/8, just because I can throw it farther. I think distance and covering the water matters when you are throwing a buzz bait.

Just holding the reel on the handle, grip it in different places on the handle until it feels "best". Then I use black electricians tape (or colored), stretched pretty tightly to attach the reel to the handle. Once it is attached, if you don't like it, cut off all the tape and try again. Make sure you line up the reel with the guides. You will feel pretty stupid if you get the reel taped on and it isn't lined up with the guides. If you don't like the way that the electricians tape feels, cover the vinyl tape with bicycle handlebar wrap, or a rod wrap or tennis racket wrap. This is how you adjust the thickness of the handle to fit your hand. If you want the reel off the handle a little bit, you can use any number of materials to shim it. Whatever you use will be covered by tape.

You live in KC. Did you check out Rogers in Liberty to see what they had in the way of inexpensive/portable depth finders. They will normally meet or beat any catalog price. Plus they are local for you.

I don't know how to do pictures and basically every installation is different. On my Explorer Sport, (the 2 door model) ,for the front strap I removed the hand hold that helps you get into the back seat, threaded the hanger on to the screw and then replaced the hand hold. For the rear hanger, there is a channel along the roof line that accepts the push pins that hold up the roof liner trim. I eyeballed where that channel should continue and screwed a fairly large lag screw, with an eye on it rather than a hex head into the channel. Then I stretched the back part of the system between the two eye bolts. I know I did a doofus job of explaining, but my installation works, it will hold 25 or so rods and has held up for going on 10 years now. If you put your mind on it you will figure out how to adapt the installation to your vehicle.

I use a 6'10" Falcon Bucoo MH bait casting rod for throwing wacky rigged senkos. I generally throw them using 14 lb fluorocarbon and a Calcutta 200 TEGT reel. A wacky rigged senko weighs roughly 3/8 ounce. I find I can pitch to any target within 50 or 60 feet with this rig. If I wanted to take a wind up I could push it farther, but I generally don't need to.

Back when I was fishing out of other people's boats and a pond boat similar to yours, I had a Bottom Line Fishing Buddy, very similar to the Hummingbird. (Bottom Line was bought out by Hummingbird) For portability and ease of operation purposes, that is the unit I'd go with. My unit was powered by 3 C cell batteries and it would eat them. I never got more than two trips out of a set of batteries, and generally less than that. My guess though, is that any portable depth finder system is adept at eating batteries.

Brand Loyalty? What is that? I can't recall that any brand has shown any loyalty to me, either by giving me complementary products or reduced rate products or any stuff like that. Should that happen, I might change my attitude to brand loyalty. p.s. - even the North American Fishing Club, which in their numerous solicitations to me, practically promised that I would become an official fishing gear tester, never actually came through on that point. That was disappointing.

I'm sorry, but I don't keep stats on that kind of stuff. If I did I would probably have more deep seated self esteem issues than I've already got. My approach to fishing miscues has always been to shut up, make sure no one is seriously hurt or nothing is seriously broken and then move on.

I've done the Fishing for Freedom project the past couple of years. The one I've participated in is sponsored by the Leavenworth Bass Club, and fishes out of Long Shoal Marina on Truman Lake. It is one of the more centrally located marinas on Truman Lake, with excellent facilities The next one is scheduled for October, 2013 on the Sunday prior to Columbus Day. There is still plenty of time to sign up, which one would do by going to the Leavenworth Bass Club web site and clicking on the Fishing for Freedom web site. I'm not a member of this club, but I think that this is a good project that they sponsor. I've had fun the past couple of years that I participated. Weather could have been better last year, it was chilly in the morning. I'm signed up to participate again this fall, I'm pretty certain that anyone who signs up will have a good time. Plus you'll get to take some vet fishing. This is something for anyone who lives within driving distance of Truman Lake to consider, if you can get the time off. All it takes is gas & motel money. Meals for Saturday & Sunday are covered by the Leavenworth Bass Club,

Do-able? Probably. . . Safely? . . That's your call, everyone as an "acceptable level of risk" for most everything they do. Most of the time, we don't even think about it, but it is somewhere in the back of our minds. I think that the truck bed extender, mentioned by Team Dougherty earlier would make the whole process relatively secure. In Missouri, to be legal with the set up you're talking about, you would have to hang a "safety flag" from the overhanging boat. Don't ask me how a dusty red rag qualifies as a safety flag, but it does. I've learned my lesson with ratchet straps, i.e. be certain that you don't leave the tail ends flopping around too much, I was lucky, all I did was break the straps, nothing expensive fell off the trailer.

I am a sucker for buying hooks. I go into a fishing tackle store at least once a week and if I don't buy anything else, more often than not I'll get another package of hooks, something I don't already have. Once day at WalMart, going through the close out aisle I found some see-thru pencil cases. They are designed to fit the rings inside your note book. Anyway I bought a dozen of these (75 cents ea.) and I keep hooks in them, sorted according to style, tx rig hooks, wacky hooks, drop shot hooks, frog hooks and so forth. I keep them all in the step bin in my boat where they are easy to get to.

And now, for the next step in your fishing evolution, get a reel that says SHIMANO on the side of it. Like a Curado or a Calais or something that says Calcutta on the side of it. Just saying. . .

This is going to happen every so often. To make it happen less often, try the following. Lose the snap swivel. Tie a loop knot instead. When casting, don't try to go for maximum distance. Instead, try to stop the bait in the air using your finger on the spool and let the line straighten out before the lure lands. After a while, that maneuver just becomes reflex and you don't have to think about it any more.