RoLo

Exactly! Fluoro & I had an affair in the mid 90s, but I've since fallen out of love Roger

Neither. I never use nylon or fluorocarbon with swimbaits. Roger

We Will Always Be Friends....You Know Too Much! When We Get Old & Senile....We Will Be New Friends Roger

When we lived in Rico, Georgia, I fished West Point Lake quite a bit. As it happened, the spotted bass eventually overran the largemouth bass and today they pretty much dominate. Spotted bass can be found on rocky drop-offs throughout the reservoir, but the best largemouth fishing that we found was up in the headwaters. We launched at the Ringer Access and motored up the Chattahoochie river to the big bend area around Potato Creek and New River. BTW Spinnerbaits are best where visibility is diffused by turbulence. such as you'd find along windblown shorelines Roger

"Work" is tying your own jigs, reloading your own cartridges, portaging over large stretches of dry land, creating your own contour charts and camping far from electricity. Those are just a few of the jobs I love. When it comes to dealing with wiry line that forms untrustworthy knots, I'm going to leave that 'work' for you Roger

What is it about 'Fluorocarbon' threads that always become immersed in Knot-Typing?? Maybe it's just me, but I have zero-tolerance for any line material that has zero-tolerance for me. Roger

I always have a bass net aboard my vessel, but I 'hand-land' most of my bass except for lunkers (stuff over 6). As a result, I don't get to use my bass-net as often as I would like Oddly enough, if & when you do tie into that teener of a lifetime, the net hoop might look kind of small, and you may end up "beaching" the fish instead. I guess I'm saying, not having a landing net aboard should not spoil your day (I realize that's easilier said than done). I've beached several large fish in saltwater and it's actually quite easy. The hardest part of beaching a fish is finding a hospitable bank, the rest is easy but time-consuming. Simply maintain a taut line that keeps the fish's nose pointed in your direction by exerting moderate steady pressure. Any squirming or thrusting by the bass will only help him to beach himself (i.e. if you keep his nose pointed at you). Once the front half of the fish is out of the water, approach the fish while cranking your reel to maintain steady moderate pressure. As soon as your able to slide four fingers under a gill cover, it's Game Over! Roger

I don't take any changes with a bass's life, as soon as the fish turns 'BLUE'.....Back He Goes!

False Positives are not acceptable, which are generally the result of missing or misinterpreted data. Norton has been in the heuristics game long enough to have their house in order. We had a business account with Norton during the 1990s, but rather than going into gory detail, I'll just say that it was brief, invasive and even after a full 'Uninstall', my registry was still heavily littered with Norton entries that I manually deleted (search & destroy). Roger

I wonder about that myself, but I've been out of the Jersey loop too long to offer an accurate answer. My guess would be that they still use bang-sticks deploying 12-ga shotshells, because sharks have a habit of coming back to life at the weigh-in. Since women and children are in attendance, every effort is made to assure a fully dispatched serpent on the gin pole. The Mako fishing routine is to auto-chum with bunker mash (menhaden) and bait-up with a half mackerel. The fly-gaff is secured to a cleat 'before' hookup, because a handled gaff will be ripped from your hands. The shark is bang-sticked alongside, then tail-roped and towed backwards to home port. For the little freshies, a Fish Billy used to be the tool of choice, but even a little penknife will do. Back in the day of Catch-&-Keep, a 'fish billy' was general issue. One clunk over the eyes and it's lights-out. Roger

The confusion arises when you think of 'line-test strength' in terms of Thin line and Fat line (Big No-No). 80 lb fluorocarbon mono and 80 lb polyethylene braid are both in the same heavy "80-lb" line-class However, 80 lb fluoro is FAT line (0.034") whereas 80 lb braid is Thin line (0.017"), exactly "half" the diameter. Regardless of the line material used, the surest way to ramp up Abrasion Resistance is to increase the line diameter. By adding bulk to the diameter you decrease the 'depth percentage' of the nick or fray. Although braid is said to have poor abrasion-resistance, the bulk of the blame falls on its very fine diameter. When dragging a soft swimbait through nasty emergent canes, I'd much rather have 50-lb braid than 15 lb fluorocarbon, both by the way have the same line diameter (0.014”). Roger

Speed? Treadle cables and handheld remotes are just methods of deployment, they have no bearing on boat speed, which is a product of ft-lb thrust and the number of banks. Actually it's more involved than that, because a planing hull powered by an electric motor behaves as a displacement hull, and all displacement hulls have a low terminal speed despite ft-lb thrust. Durability Power Pole was the first e-anchor on the market, and they exploited that advantage with Sticker-Shock (why not?). However, when Minn Kota launched their 6-ft Talon, the punchbowl for Power Pole was taken away. I've beat the stuffing out my 8-ft Talon for years, I've motored off my spot several times with the ram rod still anchored in the bottom. In spite of all my abuse, the Talon functioned with nary a glitch, which I regard as good durability. The 12-ft Talon I'm now using is still new, so it doesn't have the track record that the 8-footer had. But this much I know, it deploys faster than the 8-footer, it's smoother and really sticks a landing. Although it reaches 4 feet deeper than the 8-ft Talon, the upright housing is shorter and lower, thanks to four telescoping sections. This is important to me because my boat is stored in a carport with low cross beams. Noise Noise? Your outboard motor makes noise doesn't it? After pressing the 'Down' button, the pile-driver makes bottom-contact in about 5 sec (varying with depth) Therefore, if you anchor-down at 30 different waypoints during the fishing day, your Talon will only be running a total of 5 minutes throughout the entire day. It sounds like you really want a Power Pole, if that's the case, I would recommend that you buy a Power Pole Roger

I'm not aware of any advantage to owning a Power Pole over a Talon (otherwise l'd own one) I've been using an 8-ft Minn Kota Talon for the past several years, and don't have one negative thing to say. Very recently I replaced the 8-ft Talon (and the boat) with a 12-ft telescoping Talon. Unlike the grasshopper legs of a Power Pole, the Talon is a single-column pile-driver. In water depths greater than 12 feet, the Spot-Lock feature on Minn Kota's electric motor does the job. The Spot-Lock is guided by GPS and hold's your boat within 5-ft of your coordinate crossfix (any depth). Roger

Years ago, my wife & I entered a Mako Invitational Tourney out of Hoffman's Marina, Manasquan, NJ. To be eligible, the mako shark had to weigh 100 pounds or more, so you planned on boating some very large guests. There were 101 boats in that tourney, which I can't forget because I entered on the deadline day and was boat # 99. To my knowledge, there wasn't one skipper who wasn't toting a firearm aboard, at least a bang-stick. That was 1979. Roger

I used fluorocarbon line before most anglers, because the price during the 1990s was hyper-inflated. I used it for leader material on my saltwater rigs, but found fluoro leaders to be unremarkable. Oddly, this thread asks for opinions on fluorocarbon line, yet it reads like a 'knot-strength' thread (i.e. Red Flag). Fluorocarbon is touted as having a refractive index similar to water, but that really doesn't light my fire. IMO, 'line diameter' is more important than 'line visibility' where the finer the line, the more natural the delivery. Does 'line visibility' really matter to bass? Maybe, but I'm still waiting for something to hang my hat on. Actually, I secretly wish that it was just that simple, because I still remember a few good fluoro knots Roger

The biggest problem that I see is "Norton" (they're more invasive than most viruses). In my opinion anyway, changing from Norton to Vipre would banish that message. Roger

Stumps, blow-downs & brush all serve as excellent bass cover, especially in the absence of weed-beds. "BTW, could those gars spook the bass?" Well, large alligator gar are known to eat bass, but not the run-of-the-mill gar. Those skinny, snake-like gar are likely fearful of bass (or should be). Roger

Before wetting a line, you might want to walk the shoreline in search of the healthiest and deepest weed-beds within reach of shore. The outer weed-line is the most important, but it's usually out-of-reach of the shorebound angler. However, the outer weed-line can sometimes be reached from an outer point in a bay or cove. It may also be accessible where the weed-line swings inshore to form an open lane, or where there's a ditch or tributary stream. Roger

Welcome to the forum, It could be that the bass have shifted to a summer pattern, which may be less accessible from your shore position. Roger

. Does Fluorocarbon Matter As Much As Companies Say It Does? It matters most to the companies who say it does (Doesn't mean a thing to me)

I believe that Strengths and Weaknesses are largely products of choice, basically a 'state of mind'. If you love casting plugs, then it's a foregone conclusion that most of your time will be spent chucking plugs, and most of your bass will be caught on plugs. On the downside, if you fancy yourself as a power fisherman, that might limit your potential. If you love manipulating soft-plastics to coerce a strike, most of your time will be spent working soft-plastics, and most of your bass will be caught on soft-plastics. On the downside, if you fancy yourself as a finesse fisherman, that might limit your potential. The first rule of the road is to be 'versatile'....that's also the last rule of the road Roger

Power Pole?? (ancient history) Take a real hard look at Minn Koto's 12-foot telescoping Talon, and notions of a Power Pole will likely dissipate. Roger

I agree, the 'lightweight' approach can be very effective in bulrushes. A heavy 1.5 oz weight is packing a lot of energy in flight, so it’s not unusual to skewer a bulrush cane on the landing, even before you get a chance to move the lure. In sharp contrast, a lightweight lure is more easily deflected by the stalks and is less likely to skewer a stalk beyond the barb. Ironically, the last time we fished the Big-I, my best producer was an "unweighted" bubblegum fluke. This requires more patience, because the fluke sinks slowly and sometimes it never gets down into the strike zone. But that's a small price to pay for having the ability to probe farther back, while cutting the number of hang-ups in half. Roger

This is the reason scientists only use scientific names. 'Bulrushes' is the colloquial name, and two of the most common varieties are hardstem bulrushes and softstem bulrushes. 'Tules' is a regional moniker and 'Buggy whips' of course is slang. They all answer to 'Schoenoplectus acutus', the botanical name. Roger

Good question, I was wondering the same thing myself. When I first began bass fishing, it was all about rowboats. The anchor was a coffee-can filled with cement that had a clothes line tied to a cemented-in screw eye (now it's a 12-ft electric Minn Kota Talon...CRAZY!). Back then, we did a great deal of 'row-trolling' and it was very productive and full of surprises. Roger