Fishes in trees

A tribute to your ingenuity, to be sure. However, in my opinion, IT PADDLES CROOKED, a significant portion of each paddling stroke is just to get to boat going straight again before you get any forward motion. This video is made when there was little or no wind. It would be interesting to see how this contraption handles in wind. IT IS TOO SMALL! Yes there is such a thing as too small. You have little to no gear in the boat and only one rod & reel - and you're pretty much at max capacity. Part of the point of a boat is to get on the water with options. Put any more gear in that contraption and paddling will only get more difficult. I used to have a Water Scamp ( an 8' pond boat, sold in the midwest during the 80's ). At least in that boat I had room for a batter7 & trolling motor, tackle box, several rods and a Coleman "Oscar" size cooler to keep a few beers & waters in. I could car top that boat on my Datsun 200 SX and the seats would fit in the back seat of the vehicle. I think it is possible to go too small & too cheap in a quest to get on the water and you've accomplished that. I want to see what happens when you get a quarter mile or so from where you put in and the wind picks up. In a perfect world the wind would come up just right and blow you back to where you put in. Perfect world situations don't happen all that often. What happens when you try to paddle that thing into a 7 or 8 mph head wind? And that isn't a strong wind, by any means. If I were anywhere near, I'd set up a lawn chair & pop a top, just to watch. My advice would be to save your money a while longer, get a pond boat that will perform better and the appropriate gear that will help you fish better.

How about another locker bar for the back compartments? Not familiar with the particulars of your port & starboard rod lockers, however, I'd guess that if the 3700 size boxes don't fit for some reason, get boxes that do, stack them in as best you can and call it a day.

I carry maybe 10 or 15 different colors of the Berkley 10 " power worms. This spring, I bought a hundred count bag of Blue Fleck. I think that is the only color and brand of 10" worm that I got wet last year. The only reason I haven't opened the big bag of Blue Fleck worms yet is that I haven't used up the half dozen regular size bags of 10" Blue Fleck worms that still reside in my 10" worm bag yet. Edit - on further review, I guess I answered the original post of what is my favorite worm color.

There are multiple ways to address this thread. The easiest way to explain it is, If I had a cocaine issue, all I'd have to show for it at the end of the day would be a runny nose. With my fishing gear addiction, I have a 40 by 60 fishing shed to show for it. There is enough room left for a lawn chair to sit in and an end table to set my beer on - barely.

Luke - I got a couple of spf 50 fishing hoodies at Academy Sports. I've seen them at Bass Pro, but didn't buy any there because I chose to support a local tackle shop in the KC Metro area. Be mindful that these aren't always cheap. The ones I got at Academy were off season, close outs, for around $20 each. The fishing shirts I got from my favorite KC Metro area fishing store weren't on sale, and those are in the $50 to $90 range. They are worth it. My favorite one, from Patagonia, is a unique camo color, several different tints of light green, off white & grey that blurs the line between what is camo and what is paisley. It also has a chest zip pocket in it that holds my cell phone in a zip lock bag. My cell phone is water resistant, but why push it? I'm pretty sure that tackle warehouse has them also. I buy a size that fits loosely, but not baggy. To answer your question, you can but the fishing hoodies at Academy Sports, Bass Pro Shops, probably at Scheel's (If there is one in your neighborhood. Now, open the subject of never wearing sunscreen - BAD IDEA !!! Even with the fishing hoodie, your legs & hands need sunscreen. Believe it or don't, but skin cancer is real. A couple of professor pals that I used to fish with decades ago, have had significant issues with skin cancer. They ain't dead, but they have spent money, that had they taken precautions decades ago, they wouldn't be spending money on skin cancer treatments now. This goes back to the first rule of fishing, boating & being outside in general, which states. " DON'T DO DUMB STUFF!!" Actions have consequences, always, and in the case of my former professors & fishing buddies, skin cancer treatments are the result. Former in the sense of we all live in different states now and can't go fishing together. Not former in the sense of they are dead. Hope this helps. Bust out your credit card and go order yourself some fishing hoodies ASAP.

Man, talk about old school, not even Jewel Baits refers to their finesse jigs as "Eakins Jigs" anymore. I h ave decent supplies of both the round head finesse jig styles ( both weights) and the flipping style. In my opinion, the round heads are more for hopping and the flipping style are more for dragging. The tipping point for me in choosing which one to use is how much vegetation is present. The flipping styles come through modest vegetation better than the round head does. On a side note, I've always wondered why Jewel Baits doesn't call them Eakins Jigs anymore. The guy was a force on the Ozark Lakes during the 90's, early 2000's, but haven't heard much from him since. At a KC metro area fishing store I frequent, they closed out all their Eakins jigs several years ago, I asked how come and they said Jewel told them to. It is a mystery.

In my limited experience with these baits, I think that 3/8 is a little light and a 1 ounce is a little heavy. My personal best Truman Lake fish, which I caught last fall, came on a half ounce or so Biffle Head with a Zoom crawfish trailer (South Africa Special color). It was 22" long, which I guessed to be in the 6 lb range, fish was fat so probably in the upper 6 lb range. Current Biffle Bug gear would be a MH 7' All Star Carolina rig rod ( which is on the heavy side of MH ) with a Curado 200 E / 20 lb Abrazx. I'm sure I could go a little longer rod and get a little more distance casting, but this rig stores ok in my truck and 7'6" or longer rods don't.

Here is what works for me. The SPF 50 rising hoodies are game changers. The hood actually seems to lock my hat on my head so the wind doesn't knock it off as much. Ball caps with longer than average bills are great. The only issue I have with this gear is once I get off the water I'm hot & sticky. I bring a change of clothes, or two, and once I finish loading the truck, I change clothes before I head home. I've found that driving home in clean clothes improves my attitude quite a bit, even if I had a tough day. If I stop somewhere to eat, I've got clean clothes on, I'm not hot & sweaty & stinky, well maybe a little stinky, but that is why God made men's cologne.

To echo a previous post, the best way to acquire the most rigs and deplete your wallet the quickest is to go the "dedicated rig" route. The premise behind this is that for any bait, or bait presentation, there is a " best" rig to use. And how do you KNOW which is the best if you haven't tried several different combos with the same bait? It is a dilemma, to be sure. Throw that concept in with my personal penchant for "junk fishing" and all of a sudden multiple rigs appear in your boat. MY boat doesn't have rod storage, to speak of, so I transfer gear from the fishing truck to the boat for each trip. Currently that means 20 rigs, more or less. Of those 20, 5 or 6 are "back ups" unlikely to get used unless I backlash a reel badly or break a rod tip, something like that. Back ups get stored on the back deck, more or less out of the way.

I can't carry all my cranks, so decisions have to be made. I've found that I stay much more organized with more, smaller boxes with 1 or maybe 2 baits per compartment. Lipless cranks - I carry 2 Plano lipless crank boxes that hold 18 baits each, in individual slots. (Not sure on the exact #, but that is in the ballpark). One box has my favorite half ounce lipless cranks. The other box has 3/4 ounce lipless cranks. I have a thin 3600 size box with 8 or 9 Red Eye Shads ( half ounce ) but it has been a while since those have gotten wet. Bass Pro Shops used to marked double sided, V slotted crank bait boxes. They were roughly the 3700 size footprint. Two of those boxes hold my working supply of Timber Tigers (DC1, DC4, DC5, DC8, DC13 & DC16) in various colors. I have more Timber Tigers in reserve in the fishing shed. Another double sided box holds a selection of Wiggle Warts on one side and various Medium Divers on the other. There is a thick 3600 size box that holds 8 of the big, ounce and a half Academy Square Bills. Couple of other boxes hold a modest selection finesse cranks that need to be thrown on spinning gear - Shad Raps, old discontinued Bandit flat sides, stuff like that. In the past few years, I've cut down the number of cranks that I carry by alot. If I'm going to a place where I'm likely to try throwing deep diving cranks, like the Ozark Lakes, I have a few boxes of those baits, but I don't generally carry them or the rig to throw them on week to week.

For spinning rigs, you have many options out there - depending on what you want to do. For me - a 7' rod might be a little long for finesse bank fishing. Yeah - I know that the length might help you reach out over some stuff, but the length might also interfere with overhead stuff. I don't know. Back in the day I used to carry a machete when bank fishing, just in case a spot needed to be carved out a little bit. For floating small Ozark rivers, I've found 6'6" or less to be best when floating, either from a float boat or a canoe or a tube. Current personal favorite is a 5'9" Fenwick HMG Medium/extra fast tip. I generally use 1000 size reels, either Shimano or Pflueger. With a medium weight nano-fil ( 10 -12 lbs ) I can throw a 1/8 or 1/16 oz soft plastic as far as I need to. I generally start out with a fluorocarbon leader but by the middle of the day and I've broke off the leader, using straight nanofil doesn't seem to hurt any. I've been reading in In-fisherman about fishing semi weedy- fairly shallow, clear water main lake flats and they write about using 8' sometimes longer Medium/ Medium light rods to throw 1/16 oz jigs a long ways using 6 lb nanofil. I want one of those rigs. Oops - sorry - got off topic. Back to the original post. IMO - 7' is a little long for finesse bank fishing work, but I suppose you could make it work. Not a fan in general of BPS rods. Don't know anything in particular about the BPS rods being discussed. Big fan of St Croix rods. All for now.

The first place I'd look is Japan Tackle or Ichiban tackle.

On the subject of small plastic pond boats. They get dings & scratches from time to time. They will get cracks & they will get small leaks over time. There comes a time in the life of all small pond boats that they are more trouble than they are worth to fix. Small one boats have a life span and yours might be coming up on the end. I've had a couple of them and they never did float completely level when loaded, no matter how much I adjusted where I put the batteries, or my seat. The issue is that there just isn't a lot of room to work with. After many smacks & cracks they floated less level. Not so bad that they couldn't be fished out of, but they weren't level either. The older they get, the more they are out in the weather and fished out of, the more brittle the plastic gets and it gets more liable to crack & leak. You can try repositioning your batteries, maybe getting a little lighter up front trolling motor, but the low waterline issue will always be there. The newer ones are better than the older ones. New pond boat might be the answer. You can try any patch you want, at this point you're unlikely to hurt it.

I used to think that the Mann's Minus 1 were the best pond crank ever. Might still be, I haven't fished a pond in years so I wouldn't know. What I do know is that there is a time & place to use wake baits on reservoirs & lakes and I wish I was better at knowing when that was. What I do know is that wake baits are another rabbit hole that you can go down collecting wise, just like jerk baits or deep divers, or poppers. I've chosen to stop at half a dozen or so. I've got some Minus 1's in various sizes. The discontinued Timber Tiger series included a wake bait model, and a couple of other one-of baits that their names escape me right now. Don't forget the old trick of taking a jointed red-fin and using a lighter to bend the bill straight down and make a wake bait out of that. That bait works good if you get the bill bent correctly.

That is very organized. For my way of fishing though, it is way too organized, what I mean by that is too much stuff too close together. Speaking from experience, sooner or later, you're going to dump that box, then you will have a serious mess on your hands. Hope you don't, but I've had a couple of similar organizing experiments, and I spilled the box, and it was a mess. I keep stuff more separated now. I still label stuff, just use smaller boxes. 1 for worm weight tungsten, another for lead worm weights, another for finesse drop shot weights, another for bubba drop shot weights. Hooks stay in their own packaging in a single compartment box. Worm hooks are separated from drop shot hooks. Various styles of hooks intended to fish flukes & similar baits have a separate box, weighted hooks separated from non-weighted hooks, tx rig hooks separated from the hooks with the hitch hikers on them. You get the idea. I'm trying this system for the second year now, because I know that I'm clumsy and I'm going to spill a box or two, either on the boat or in the shop and this way, there is less to pick up. I'm ok that my system weighs more and takes up more space. The original poster's set up is cool and I get how it maximizes storage space. I hope you never dump that box, that you're always sure handed, in your shop and in your boat, but now I feel bad for having put that thought in you head.

I resolved a long time ago to not get worried about excess tackle. It will be a problem for whoever outlives me or the public administrator. My fishing tackle choices might change - they have in the past. There was a time when I was boat less, and I got into bank fishing for catfish. Believe it or don't but you need different gear for reservoir fishing or river fishing or tail race fishing. There is some cross over - but some situations require different gear. The fact, that gear hasn't gotten wet in several years, is not a good reason to get rid of it - I might want to or be forced to get back into bank fishing. Same thing for crappie fishing - I got buddies that are seriously into crappie fishing - just as much or moreso than I'm into bank fishing - so I got some crappie baits & gear. I don't go very often, but when I do I want decent gear to fish with. Then there are the one of's. I wanted a rig to throw ounce to 2 ounce slab spoons for wipers into a tailrace, so I got one. The float & fly seemed like a good idea at the time, so I got one, didn't like it & got another one, 3rd time was a charm. (To be fair, this also doubles as a decent crappie dipping rig ) Once I got a chance to go Muskie fishing in Minnesota, so I got a Muskie rig. Point is, I don't see anything wrong with excess fishing gear & I built a fishing shed to prove it when I outgrew my basement & garage.

On a positive note, at least you know where your next spare $20 is going. This doesn't happen to me very often, I use fluorocarbon alot, but I also go through a bottle or two of KVD line treatment each season and that seems to help. A serious backlash on my smaller 50 size Shimano reels, I'll just replace the line. On the 200 size ones, I might splice in some new line, using the old for backing. How long the line has been on the reel is the question. Fluorocarbon that is taken care of will last several seasons for me.

It speaks to your sense of style when your deck carpeting and bunk carpeting match.

What weight gives you the best feel? Without overloading your rod. I'd try 5/16 or maybe 3/8 if it didn't overload the rod, just because the bait would get to where I wanted it to be quicker. If you're dealing with current, maybe heavier.

This is a problem that the easiest, safest, and proper way to solve it is to throw money at it. Go to Harbor Freight and buy the right jack. Next time and every other time, until the end of time, be sure the pin on your trailer jack is set correctly. At least right now, no one has gotten hurt. Start cribbing underneath your jack and using bricks or logs to help the jack lift a little bit more, and basically, you're asking for it. Go get the right tool that will SAFELY lift the trailer tongue to the right height. Don't be frugal and try to "rig" something.

If I'm on Truman and I think that there might be a spinner bait bite, I'm throwing a half ounce J&J spinnerbait. Chartruese/white skirt /white or chartreuse head/ and the blades, one is brass with white underneath and the other is brass with chartreuse underneath. Over the years for me and a number of other guys, this bait has caught fish on Truman. Can't speak to how effective it is on other waters, don't seem to run into the right stain of water on other lakes. Anyway, 20 years ago I hit a close out and bought 20 of them, so I have plenty, and pretty much the only place I ever bust them out is on Truman.

I don't know about that. I used to have the Falcon Eakins Jig Special, which was a 6'10" finesse jig rod. When Eakins parted company with Falcon, ( and I don't know the story behind that ) that rod became the Finesse Jig Special. Rated from 3/16 to 5/8 weights. I used to have the Eakins Jig Special, broke it ( kinda my fault) and Falcon replaced it for a modest amount of money with the Finesse Jig Special. I love this rod for throwing soft plastics on a jig head. Pretty much the only jig head I throw on it is the 1/4 oz Brewer Spider Slider. Smaller Lizards, Stick-o paddle tail worms, Slider worms all work great. Using this rod with the Eakins jig, I find that it throws the 5/16 jig with a smaller trailer great and I think it is a little overpowered when you try to throw the heavier 7/16 Eakins jig, no matter what trailer you try on the heavier jig. So it is kind of a one trick pony rod, but IMO it does that one trick real well.

Elaztech is famous for melting other types of soft plastic. Jigs look great - for now. Hope the elaztech doesn't melt the rubber skirt band or the skirt. I don't know that it will because I have very little experience with that stuff. Other than cutting a Strike King elaztech senko in half for a Ned rig, I have no experience using that stuff. I do think that at the very least, the elaztech will eat up the rubber skirt band so I'd get some 20 or 26 gauge wire from a flower shop or Hobby Lobby and wire the skirt tight to the jig head and not depend on the rubber. At the Michaels craft store I got some fabric covered 20 gauge wire and the way the wire is packaged it is kind of wasteful to use, but the cost is minimal.

I use the cheap 3 packs from Harbor Freight and don't worry about the rest of the tiny tube going bad.I've messed up too many bottles of the decent super glue & super gel.

Don't know a thing about skipping with a bait caster. When I need to skip, I use spinning gear. I know with spinning gear, I can skip with a whippy tip or a more stout tip, just change your action a little bit. My guess is that a similar principle applies to bait casting gear, in that I think that the right reel is more important than the "best " rod. They tell me at Rogers in Liberty that they can't keep the higher ratio Curado DC reels in stock and that the guys that are buying them are using them for skipping baits, so that's where I'd start.