RoLo

I agree, 'black' is the safest color for any and all conditions. Roger

Then again, I've seen pictures where the weight was missing...if ya get my drift Roger

Mergansers are wild ducks of the 'diving' variety, as distinguished from puddle ducks (aka Dabblers). Over the years, I've harvested all 3 mergansers: American, red-breasted & hooded (the hooded merganser is stunningly beautiful). As it happens, the 2nd duck I've ever taken was a red-breasted merganser, I was 10 years old Roger

I use different colors but without departing very far from the median hue. Example of compatible colors would be brown & orange, black & blue, green & yellow and so on. I try to avoid loud contrasting hues because that's exactly what Mother Nature uses to warn predators of toxic prey. For instance: the monarch butterfly, coral snake, Asian hornet, dart frog, and so on. Roger

If mergansers are frequenting my favorite trout stream, I would view that as a positive sign of health. If the mergansers abandoned my trout stream, that would be a harbinger of ill-health, a problem invariably caused by man (not mergansers). A fellow once told me that purple martens are great to have because they eat all the mosquitoes. Then I asked him: "What do the purple martens eat?" (talk about a blank stare) Roger

Mergansers are diving ducks whose diet consists of vegetation and small baitfish, mergansers cause no measurable harm to predatory game fish. Cormorants are blamed for a lot of things, not the least of which is the decline of yellow perch. Although the evidence seems powerful it is basically circumstantial rather than concrete. In any case, cormorants are neither ducks nor geese, in fact their plumage doesn't even shed water. Roger

Fluorocarbon line on spinning gear? No thank you Roger

There seems to be some confusion between a “double uni-knot” and a “double-loop uni-knot”, which are horses of different colors. A “double uni-knot” is simply two back-to-back uni-knots, but a “double-loop uni-knot is a uni-knot that begins by passing the tag-end ‘twice’ through the line eyelet. The winner of the Knot Wars TV series was the "double-loop uni-knot", which repeatedly busted the Alberto Knot. Unfortunately though, Knot Wars referred to the ‘Alberto Knot’ as an Improved Albright, and referred to the ‘double-loop uni-knot’ as a “Fish N Fool Knot”. Roger

I use a 0.0" leader on all my braided reels in Florida. When smallmouth fishing in a crystal-clear water I'll succumb to a 6 ft long leader. Not that 6-foot is necessary, but it offers plenty of retying allowance without permitting the junction knot to enter the reel (knot ends up near the stripper guide). Roger

I feel like I'm on Candid Camera. No...waterfowl does not upset our piscatorial counterparts, in fact wildlife dovetails together better than most of our human subsets Roger

Well, you named 3 quality bass fisheries, but you also specified 'BIG'. 'Big' would have to be quantified: for instance 6 is big, 9 is real big and 12 is the creme de la creme. Each weight-class comes with a different list of candidate lakes. Roger,

Over the years, our best producing 'solid toads' has been a rivalry between the Stanley Ribbit and the Gambler Cane Toad, but I'd give the nod to the Stanley Ribbit. I mount the 3.5" Ribbit on a Zoom 4/0 Horny Toad Hook, and use a 5/0 toad hook for the 4.5" Bull Ribbit. Roger

Smallmouth bass or largemouth bass? For northern pike I'd take along some Mepps Syclops spoons, LC Pointer 128SP jerkbaits and above all in autumn, some Dirty Jig Swim Jigs and Uncle Josh 7" Fork-Tail Sea Strips Roger

Bucket Brigade

Suck? Nuh uh A 7-lb bass on a crappie minnow is equivalent to a 9-lb bass on a bass minnow. Roger

Forced to be selfish, "*** *** Black gen-2" Roger

Needless to say, different anglers will have different opinions as to the ideal dropshot rod. In any case, never fall victim to brand wars & brand loyalty but select the rod that provides the greatest number of features that "YOU" desire in a dropshot rod. For dropshotting, my own preference is a 6' 6" Medium power blank with a fast action tip. Many anglers prefer a dropshot blank of 'medium-light' power, but IMO a 'medium' power blank provides better hook-sets. By today's standards, a 6' 6" rod is relatively short, but dropshotting is not cast-intensive, a delivery that frequently involves lowering the rig to the bottom on a vertical line. Happily, the shorter the rod the greater its sensitivity. Roger

I agree with this, and if Lee's wrong then I'm wrong too (entirely possible) Roger

Maybe I'm guilty of discrimination, but my idea of "finesse" fishing conjures the image of a 'spinning' outfit. Furthermore, if maximum sensitivity is your goal, you might consider stepping down from a 7-ft long blank. Never forget, the ultimate in sensitivity is provided by "hand-lining" (blank length gives leverage to the fish). Roger

Thanks for sharing *Hootie, memorabilia is a priceless commodity I have a house full of skin-mounted fish, birds and animals. Nonetheless, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that their intrinsic value lies in personal memories & achievements, something that cannot be appreciated nor quantified by the rest of the world. When we are gone, their extrinsic value will fade in kind Roger

If you can't buy a bite, do as *Hootie suggested and 'rent' a bite. That failing, do as Warren Buffett would do and sell bites 'short' Roger

When you blind a bass in one eye, you've blackened half of that predator's world for the rest of its life. Does that bother me? You bet it does, and if I attempted to trivialize that event I wouldn't be true to myself. However, the alternative is to give up angling, and that bothers me even more Roger

Any day now.........Aaanny day

In many cases, our 'delivery technique' is just as important as our lure choice. For low-growing plant life such as knotweed, sandgrass and spirogyra (snotgrass) a "Crank-&-Glide" retrieve (any lure) works very close to cover but without getting slimed. Roger

Dog-walking is possible with most any lure, just be sure that there's some 'line-slack' Before & After each twitch. The proper cadence creates the illusion that rod is a drumstick and the hull is a drum ;-)) Topwaters with a heavy tail-weight practically zigzag by themselves, a good example is the Boze ZZ Walker. Roger