Panamoka_Bassin

Nice work, bro, its a relief when all your hard work pays off. Good luck with the last class and let us know when we should call you Dr. Muddy...

A fine beer, for sure. We have it on tap at the restaurant where I bartend. We sell a bunch of it, probably a barrel a weekend. We've also been doing well with the Blue Moon Harvest ale, but it's a pain in the butt for a bartender since its supposed to have a cinnamon-sugar rim. Unfortunately, they've stopped making it and all the distributors around here are out. As a replacement, we're now serving Post Road Pumpkin Ale. Pretty darned good in itself, and it comes from an excellent brewery, Brooklyn Brewery (who also make one of the most amazing Dark Chocolate Stouts I've ever had!). Becks makes an excellent Oktoberfest, as well as Wachusett, though I don't know if that one is getting any distrubution of if its limited to the Northeast.

'cuz the girlfriend won't let me anywhere near her after I've been fishing.

I had this same problem, but KVD helped me out with it (ok, so he didn't personally help me, I just paid attention during a tourney on espn...). A lipless crank or a shallow crank bait timed just right should get those buggers to bite.

Not that anyone else in the country knows about it, but Long Island wines have been called some of the best the east coast has to offer. Unfortunately, land taxes are so high that it makes the wine too expensive for what it is. Some of my local favorites are Bedell, Castello di Borghese, and Puglise. Redline, I completely agree with you on the David Bruce, probably the best Pinot Noir on the market. Mark West also makes a great pinot for the price ($15-20). Olebiker has it right, too, with the Ridge Zin. I'm not sure about the vineyard you mentioned, but they make/made an Old Vines Zinfandel a few years back that was so big you almost had to chew it. Mmmmmm. As for whites, I usually stick with the French wines (hate the politics, not the wine!) like sancerre or even Pinot Blanc. There's even some good Pinot Gris to be found if you concentrate on the Alsatian region. Hmmm, is 10:45am too early for a glass? All this wine talk is making me thirsty

Dang, there's a whole passle of kids being born these days! 15 years from now there won't be any room on the lakes! (j/k) Congratulations on the new baby, and best wishes for health and happiness!

Yikes! The abuse he took at the end is amazing! Those bottles to the face had to hurt. Hmmm, maybe a future episode of Jerry Springer in the making here...

In my experience, LM bass hook sets aren't all that different from setting the hook on a striper, especially if you're using a stout rod. A firm sweeping hook-set will work for both, not a jerky motion, mind you, but fluid and purposeful. Just remember that when fishing fresh water, you're using (usually) much lighter rods and working smaller waters, and won't have to pull nearly as hard to set the hook. A little patience will go a long way, too. Don't try to set the hook at the first tug on the bait, give the fish a second to get the bait in his mouth, then a nice sweeping pull (after you reel the slack out of your line, of course) and you should have a goot hook set.

I watched and thought, "When's he gonna throw the cast net?" Boy, I'll tell you there's no better bait for stripers than live peanut bunker. Works pretty good for fluke, too! Being that LI isn't too different or far from RI, I get to see those like that too. It's cool to watch, and even more fun when the "snappers" (baby blues) boil 'em up and start a feeding frenzy. Good stuff, LBH!

One of the reasons I got out of commercial fishing (and there were many) was because of catching more than the legal limit and keeping short fish. Morally, I couldn't handle it, but I also really couldn't say anything about it, either, seeing as I was only a deck hand, and not the captain or the owner. More often than not, after a fishing trip, we would keep a basket or 2 of short fluke (summer flounder) to sell for cash to the local market, what is commonly called "shak". In the fisherman's defense, the regulations had gotten so strict that it was darned near impossible to make a decent day's pay without this part of the catch. Like I said, I wasn't going to stop them from doing it, but I also couldn't continue to be a part of it. If we were ever caught, the penalties for doing this are extreme, to say the least. The NYS DEC would "chain" the boat to the dock for 6 months minimum and hand out a meaty fine to boot. Now, when I go fishing in the salt, I am always over the legal size if I am going to keep a fish. I won't let anyone with me keep illegal fish, and more often than not, I can convince anyone else to throw back even the borderline keepers knowing that chances are they'll catch another, better fish soon enough. That saying "There's more than one fish in the sea," is absolutly true, and with a little patience you can find them. I haven't had to "rat anyone out," (for lack of a better term), but I will most deffinately say something to an angler I see keeping shorts. Luckily, I don't see too many other fishermen in my lake, so I can't say I've seen anyone keeping short fish, but I know the DEC is always near-by and wouldn't take too much to get them here.

It almost looks like a bit of a hybrid/white bass in the middle. Take the fish to the marine biologists to see if its a new species...

Hey, this might be the only game Michigan wins all year!

So what makes lake fishing so much better than pond fishing? If its harder to do, and you catch smaller and fewer fish, I don't see why lake fishing is such a big whoop when I can find one of these ponds and catch my limit in hawgs? (just playing a little devil's advocate here, to see what kind of response you guys give...)

I bought a '04 Ranger last year and can't complain one bit. I had my last ranger for 14 years and it always served me well. This one seems to be doing the same.

"Dear Auntie Em, Hate you, Hate Kansas, Taking the dog. Dorothy" for men who don't ski Big Sky, Montana"

I'll keep the Tak, probably bring it up to Vermont for the winter so I don't have to schlep the Ibanez up every other week. I thought about trading it in, but I just love that guitar too much to get rid of it.

Drink whiskey instead :P

Glad to hear you're ok. Get you ribs x-rayed if it hurts to laugh. Not that they can really do anything to heal them if they're broken, but you can end up with pneumonia if you don't keep your lungs fully inflated. Better safe than sorry, ya know?

Sounds pretty slippery to me, who ever he is. Those reels better be in pristine condition! Thanks for the heads up!

Say what you will about BB&HC, but the bass player kicked butt! I don't know who it was, but just listen to "Try a Little Bit Harder" and you'll see what I mean...er, hear what I mean...

Look into Takamine. You can get a pretty good sounding guitar for about $500, and if you can find one used you'll get a better model for that money.

I was thinking along the same lines, Glenn. While there are quite a few plausible threats listed there, you have to sift through them and counter refference them with other sources to get to the real truth. Interesting, and scary, site, though...

"I smell gas, somebody light a match so I can find the leak..." "Lemme show you how to wrassle a bear..."

Some fish are just voracious like that. When we were kids we'd sit on the canal with only a safety pin tied to a bit of line and haul in snapper blues (baby bluefish) all day long. Too bad the large mouth don't feed like that :'(

Thanks for all the replies, dudes! It was an exhaustive process finding this guitar; I must have shopped at least 25 different guitars before I found this one. The only thing I have to get used to is playing it without an amp since its a 3/4 width guitar and it sounds kinda cheap without the pickup. No big deal, though, as I bought it to use live and I'll always be plugged in. Muddy, lemme know when you're up in RI (I have an uncle who lives there); maybe I'll take a road trip and jam with you and LBH for an evening. As soon as I get my camera working again I'll try to post some pics from some shows...