RoLo

I prefer a bladed jig in murky water, but prefer a safety-pin spinner in weedy situations. Roger

I was just so stoked about this lure, that I beat a path to my local tackle shop. Then I got the bad news! The Suicide Duck is not available in 'Gadwall' nor 'Baldpate' I'm Outta Here!

Doesn't surprise me that we both notice a perceptible upswing in activity correlative to moonrise & moonset. In the grand scheme, it all tends to point to "light level", not unlike warm fronts and cold fronts. We've both paid our dues, so there ain't no ramblin here, buddy Roger

For my cartopper and for rental boats on vacation, I use a cheap portable sounder with dry cell batteries. As a matter of fact, I use the same one as scaleface, the Lowrance Fish Mark 320 You do not need an expensive depth sounder and you CERTAINLY don't need side-scanning Roger

Both topwater baits serve a similar purpose, but the Solid Toad is more weedless, especially in heavy surface slop where Buzzbaits tend to bog down. Roger

If any reel needed to be lubricated right out of the box, I don't think that company would have much of a future.

Bluebirds sure are beautiful! In the past, bluebirds have accepted my nest box, and like you said, they often have a couple broods a year. Sadly, the first nesting family lost their eggs to a raccoon that climbed the post and reached thru the box hole. I put a quick stop to that, the next day I bought 4-ft wide pig wire and encircled the nest box post Roger

When I was a youngster, it was 'catch-&-keep' (barring 'No-Kill' trout zones), and at that time live bait stood toe-to-toe with artificial lures. We'd throw a pitch fork in the trunk to dig up worms, and turned over rocks to grab live crayfish. Back then, live "hellgrammites" were the premiere live bait for smallmouth bass, but today the BR custom dictionary sees that word as a misspelling 'Times they are a changin' Roger

I knew when you mentioned "March Brown" that you were a fly fisherman (my go-to wet fly was a Light Cahill) Anyone who's never been frustrated by an insect hatch, doesn't get on the water enough Roger

UNbelievable Andy, those are a pair of medicine balls Congrats on your new PB! Roger

It does sound like a connectivity issue in your unit, but 'not' in the transducer or transducer cable. Fire-up the unit in your driveway and do a shake-test at every wire and connection. Hopefully it's not internal. Roger

Welcome aboard Lukas. Looks like your first post landed a pterodactyl (2013) Roger

If there's one knot I haven't tied, it probably has no name (I've tied a few 'no-name' knots too). Although there's a truckload of great knots, there's no one 'Best Knot', just the best knot for 'you'. Roger

DVT stated: "Unless this was the first time you used the rod" That's a key point, because manufacturing defects typically show up the first time the blank is stressed. Roger

Why didn't I think of that

My guess would be that the blank suffered from previous damage. Even when care is taken, rods do get banged around during loading, unloading and transit. They even get stepped on inadvertently when lying on the deck ( I think it was Bill Dance who stepped on 3 at once). Rods can't scream so we get no warning, but once ruptured a blank can fail anytime thereafter. Roger

You said a mouthful, right there! That also answers the question why trophy bass are often taken under a mayfly hatch Roger

I also love the Carolina wren, and that cocky upright tail is fair warning of their feisty personality. We have an incredible amount of bird species in our backyard, but the beautiful sounds that pour from one little wren is mystifying. When we lived in the northeast it was all house wrens, but living in Georgia and Florida it's been all Carolina wrens. The only musical competitors that our wrens have are the mockingbirds, but that's a whole other story I erected a wren nest box years ago, and though they've checked it out many times, they've never nested in the box. Last year though, great crested flycatchers nested in my bluebird box and had 5 healthy fledglings (that was exciting). Roger

That might explain why I've been faithful to the 'Uni-knot' for over 50 yrs. which practically ties itself. I've used the uni-knot in freshwater & saltwater, for fish weighing several ounces to several hundred pounds. Though I've lost fish, plenty of them, I can't blame a single loss on a failed Uni-knot. Roger

Pitching commonly ranges between 10 and 30 feet, but the most accurate & effective pitches tend to fall in the 15 to 25 ft range. For those loose coils on your spool, you might try this: Instead of grabbing your lure between each pitch, raise your rod tip to swing the lure toward you, but instead of grabbing the lure, lower the rod-tip as the lure pendulums backward, then lift the rod-tip to pitch the lure to your target. In this manner, each pitch is one continuous pendulum swing without stopping to grab the bait. Unless your weight is too light, you won't see loose coils. Roger

I can assure you, I'm not one of those anglers who has no problems during a cold-front Water nearest the surface is most effected by a cold-front, which pushes bass down to the bottom. What you want to do is downsize your lure, fish on or near the bottom and slooow down your delivery. A dropshot rig is a good choice, but any option that caters to the above 3 adjustments will be just as effective. Roger

When still living in New Jersey, I went through a period when I logged all my catches as they correlated with lunar phases, moonrise and moonset. I confess that I really wanted to discover a compelling connection, and found myself giving lunar connections the benefit of every doubt (wishful thinking). Right around the time I thought I found a valid connection with moonrise and moonset, the wheels fell off! In non-tidal waters, I pay no attention today to lunar phase, moonrise or mindset, not even during the bedding season. Roger

I believe John Alden Knight devised the Solunar Tables, and Doug Hannon introduced the "Moon Clock". Roger

A lake chart without contour lines is like a platter without food Problem is, canals, points, narrows, creeks, bottlenecks, etc. are all visible to everyone, but the meat-&-potatoes of chart analysis is usually not revealed by the shoreline Roger

From all I've seen, dips in water temperature are well tolerated, but high winds can take away the punch bowl. A good example is a vacation I took in the Thousand Islands, Canada. It was spawning season for largemouth bass, and I was fishing a 2-1/2 ft deep backwater flat, just outside Lake-of-the-Isles. The water temperature had dropped to ~60 deg but the fishing was superb. That night a strong wind moved into Rockport, Ontario. The following morning the wind was blowing straight into the cove, and the bedding flat was marbled with whitecaps. I couldn't buy one bite that day, the bedding flat turned into desert cove. Roger