RoLo

Great Job Trolling is the Bomb! Roger

She was beautiful but was 10 pounds overweight, so I nicknamed her "Porky"

I used rind baits up until Uncle Josh pulled the plug on pork. Sadly, "pork trailers" are now out of my life, including the fat girl that chased me in high school Roger

Beautifully marbled fish! Roger

My favorite jig dressing is "bucktail hair", but selecting the most hollow bucktail hairs is more important than their color. Fly tiers will tell you that anglers are attracted to the whitest bucktail hairs along the base of a deer's tail. However, those hairs are the least resilient and tend to kink like straws. The highest floating and most active bucktail hairs are the crinkly brown hairs along the top of the tail (farthest from the deer's body heat). These are the hairs that give bucktail its natural unique bellowing action. If I were restricted to one color, it would be 'black'. Roger

Welcome to the forum, Mark. The first fish appears to be either a warmouth or green sunfish, tough to tell from an image. I'll bet you know what the second fish is Roger

I know it's not, but it reminds me of an old MirrOlure. Roger

I'd be happy to answer your question, but your pre-selected rod options belong to different cultures. The Berkley Lightning Shock rod is a superb Bang-For-The-Buck, (I'm on record making that statement). But I doubt that anyone suggested that a Lightning Shock Rod is equivalent to a St. Croix Avid or even a Mojo. I see the same cultural bias in your reel candidates, so I'll reserve my opinion on reels for fear of being labeled a member of the Shimano posse Roger

Unfortunately, heavily salted plastic worms are far more popular than lightly salted & unsalted worms. If the worm & hook you're interested in are in my arsenal, I'd be glad to tell you whether the worm will float or sink with your desired hook (the odds strongly favor sinking). Below are 3 popular floating worms; worms that weigh less than the water they displace: > Z-Man 10x Finesse Wormz > Gambler Floating Worm > Berkley Havoc Bottom Hopper Roger

Raul beat me to the punch . Dead-sticking is a proven technique, but it's the caboose of area coverage. In other words, if there's no fish where you're deadsticking your bait, you'll be playing solitaire. Roger

As Tom suggests, "overworking" the bait is Drop-shot Enemy No.1 (something I learned the hard way) Most lures are activated by raising the rod-tip, but the best way to activate a drop-shot bait is by lowering the rod-tip, which activates the bait while still maintaining bottom contact. Normally, a lure is activated by lifting and dropping the bait, but when nodding the rod-tip on a drop-shot rig, your bait moves down first, then back up when you tighten the line. Roger

As long as it provides the desired weight (usually 1/8-1/2 oz), any sinker can be used with a drop-shot rig. However, one of the big advantages of the drop-shot rig over its predecessor the dropper rig, is the 'drop-shot sinker', which is an adjustable sinker. A 'drop-shot sinker' is not only sacrificial (breakaway without losing the whole rig), but the distance between the bottom and the hook can be repeatedly readjusted without any retying. Your favorite #1 hook would be fine for drop-shotting as long as it's not a heavy wire hook, which causes bait droop and an unnatural delivery. Nose-hooking is by far the most popular rigging, but in weedy areas you can also Texas rig your bait. For instance, Roboworm offers a drop-shot rebarb hook for T-rigging. Roger

No sarcasm at all, it just shows that you're thinking Rather than parrot anything I've read, I'd rather tell you what I truly believe (i.e. facts that I can defend). I reject the notion that fish move deeper in winter in search of comfort, because cold-blooded creatures are relatively comfortable in all but extreme temperatures. If the body temperature of a warm-blooded animal like man, deviates a few degrees above or below normal, death is imminent. In stark contrast, fish are cold-blooded creatures that have absolutely no use for a pain warning system (benign sadism). Every ice-fisherman knows if you toss a flash frozen yellow perch in the lake, it'll thaw out & swim away. I trust you've never heard of that happening with a scuba diver. It's my opinion that fish in winter instinctively gravitate to RDC (Rapid Depth Change). A fish's metabolic rate in winter is the lowest of the year, when they're most conservative of calories. The most heavily utilized depth range of largemouth bass is arguably 3 to 18 ft (natural/artificial lakes). During the winter, bass that aggregate at a bluff bank may only have to travel 10 yds to change the depth from 18 ft to 3 ft (Yes, bass in winter do make forays into very shallow water). A bass that dares to spend the winter on a slow-tapering slope may have to travel 100 yards or more to shuttle between deep and shallow water. Unhappily, this bass will be burning about 10 times more calories. In light of the fact that the metabolic rate is lowest in winter, her odds of survival will be significantly compromised. Roger

I'll drink to that

Gosh i hope not, it's a brand new Abu!

Takes me back to my green crab days, shipwrecks and removing one claw

'Casting Distance' can be a poor criterion for comparing two reels. To perform a valid shootout between casting distances, both reels must be attached to the same rod (brand, power, action, material, length), and both reels must be spooled with the same line (brand, material, diameter). Last but not least, the brake tension & spool tension must be set to the same tension on both reels. If any one variable is overlooked, the comparison is a bust. Roger

Seems my pen is out of ink

I agree with John, a gentle rinse is better than a strong blast that'll force abrasive grains into inaccessible pockets. WD-40 smells real nice, but don't spray it on internal reel components. Roger

Though I've used lots of 10-lb braid for smallies, I'm really not a fan. The diameter of 20-lb braid is only 1/1000th inch more than 10-lb braid (0.009" vs. 0.008") but your getting "twice" the breaking strength. Roger

I like supperglue too, makes my food stick to my ribs

I totally agree, the Paycheck Transporter Frog was yet another casualty of consumer ignorance. I still throw the Transporter Frog, but since they're no longer made, I no longer bother to mention them. Roger

I don't use Senkos or O-rings, but I'm never without stickworms Roger

Remember...if you believe it, then it's true.

Good question. In fish camps without electric docks, I generally wind-up foregoing the electric motor. This summer for instance, we're renting a boat in Manitoba that has no electric motor, much less a live dock. We vacationed a few times at a lodge in the Thousand Islands that had dead docks. There we'd take a long lunch at a waterfront restaurant with live docks where I'd plug to the onboard charger. I've had no experience with solar panels, but they're getting more efficient by the year. As Al mentioned, a portable generator and 100 ft extension cord should fill the bill, but I'd also be concerned with theft. Roger