RoLo

The main theme of the 'Float & Fly' delivery is to offer a bait with a Slow Natural Glide, as the bait pendulums slowly back under the float. Although it can be very effective on passive smallies, it tends to be wasteful of time for active bass. Roger

As written in his book, "Betts" was Lenny's pet name for his wife Betty Hartman

FINALLY, a post about 'lure color'. Well it's about time!

Since 1 in 4 voted 'Yes'; we dub thee "NED"

Precisely. As a final insult, the slate was wiped entirely clean of all former musky records and was started anew. The new program has the fandangled name “Modern Day Muskellunge World Record Program” (MDMWRP) The world-record went from Art Lawton's 69-15 to the modern world-record of 58-lb 0-oz (a 12-pound descent!). Roger

However, I wouldn't place too much stock in anything Lenny Hartman said (He had 3 versions of everything). Len Hartman's riches-to-rags story was among the saddest in the angling industry, he was a man enshrouded in unethical behavior. When Lenny finally confessed to a multitude of laws & rules that he & Betts had broken, I literally threw his book in the trashcan ("Before I Forget"). Roger

In my opinion, Garmin has always produced the best GPS hardware (probably due to their military contracts) I used Garmin devices since the public release of GPS, but found Garmin software (bathymetry) to be the worst! However, for any Garmin unit that interprets Navionics cartography, that's a non-issue. Though CHIRP is a relatively new layman's toy, it was incepted during World War 2. CHIRP is a form of 2D sonar that instead of emitting a fixed bandwidth, uses a range of multiple bandwidths. CHIRP supposedly allows higher sensitivity settings without a proportional increase in noise. 'Ideally', CHIRP will offer greater noise suppression, sharper imagery thus enhanced object separation. Roger

Only two bucks, 25 years ago? Pretty soon they won't be worth anything

I'm a sucker for foam worms & hollow worms...I added the Nikko Worm to my next order I still can't understand why anglers stood-by and let the 'Gambler Big Stick" go belly-up. Roger

Them buggers are really cranking it in

"Can You Catch Pike On Topwaters?" You certainly can, and during the right season, pike are more enthusiastic about topwaters than bass. One pike that stands out in my mind, raced toward my topwater, missed the lure completely, went head-over-teakettle & wound up facing in the direction he came. I felt embarrassed for that pike Roger

I used to fish with Rusty Fishhooks, but haven't seen him in years

Even a thumb with a college education, cannot compete with today's braking systems.

That's funny, right there

I'm not familiar with the Inferno, but the Powell Max runs with the big dogs. I don't like them, I love them. Roger

I’m sure that different anglers fish the shaky worm in different ways. In my case, I only tie on a shaky worm when I’m looking for maximum jiggle in place, at the expense of forward coverage. I want a bold, cocky worm that waves its tail in the face of the bass. This is easily accomplished by selecting any high-floating worm like a Strike King Cyberflexxx, Z-man ElaZtech or Gambler Floating Worm. When the worm is paused on the bottom, the tail floats up high above the head, where the entire worm is vulnerable to the slightest jiggling or shaking. In other words, regardless of the jighead you now have a shaky worm whether you want one or not. On the other hand, when I rig a sinking worm on a standup jighead and allow the worm to sit still, first the jighead falls over, then the worm lies on the bottom. Roger

Say What? When I lived on Lake Weohyakapka (lake shore community), I had access to a pier over gin-clear water. The pier offered a vantage point higher than I had from my boat, which gave me the opportunity to scrutinize lure behavior and different deliveries, and the Shaky Head Worm was one of them. It was pretty obvious to see that shaking & jiggling a sinking worm produced marginal action, at best. But is a high-floating worm like a Strike King 3x worm was rigged on the same jig, the worm came to life with every rod-tip movement, the jig used made little or no difference. Roger

Yes

A shaky worm made of sinking plastic, I would deposit in the dumpster. When the worm is high-floating, you can shake that sucker on 'any' jighead. Roger

I like your priorities John, you gave precedence to "ball-&-chain" over "Carolina rig"

Out of curiosity Bob, would you rather it floated, or would you prefer that it sank? I'm not being facetious

Strike King 3x (cyberfleXXX) 4" Finesse Worm (full floater) Brewers 1/8oz Slider Head with Z-bend keeper (T-rigged worm) Roger

> Spro Aruku Shad (stays upright when nose-walked along bottom) > Strike King Red-Eye Shad > Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap (best bang for the buck) Roger

Actually, locating the hollowest hairs is quite involved: 1) Deer produce two pelts every year, a reddish summer pelage and a grayish winter pelage. Not surprisingly, the winter pelt contains stouter, hollower hairs than the summer pelt. 2) The most hollow hairs by far are found on the deer's body, while the tail consists largely of solid hairs 3) Anglers are usually attracted to the bright-white silky hairs on the underside of a deer's tail, but those are mostly solid hairs (but still have their place). The white underside of a deer's tail serves as a warning flag which a deer in flight waves back & forth. Most of the hollow tail hairs are found among the brown and gray hairs on the upperside of the tail, hair that's more closely associated with the body of the deer where insulation is vital. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In short, the hollow tail hairs that offer the most flare and breathing tend to be brownish and grayish in color with a crinkly texture (not silky smooth). The best tail hairs are 2 to 3" long with a strong taper (carrot-shaped). However, any kinked hairs with broken tips should be discarded. Roger

I'm afraid I can't help you with material providers, which is often the single biggest stumbling block. In any case, maybe the data below can offer some food for thought: BUCKTAIL HAIR Among animal hairs commonly used for dressing, only the tail hair from whitetail deer and polar bear is "hollow". As such, these 2 hairs offer the most buoyancy and best bellowing action (marabou of course isn't hair). MARABOU Originally from a marabou stork, marabou today is usually from turkeys. In any case, the myriad of trapped air chambers give marabou dressing equal or better breathing action as deer hair and bear hair . CRAFT HAIR 'Craft hair' is a synthetic material used as hair for toy dolls. Craft hair is not hydrophobic like animal hair, but is hydroscopic and tends to wick water. Although the action of synthetic bucktail (craft hair) is excellent, it lacks the same buoyancy and pulsation of natural bucktail hair. SOLID HAIR DRESSINGS >> Squirrel Tail Very fine, restless hair but not hollow. Slippery to tie (very popular with crappie buffs) >> Foxtail Arctic fox is the most common species of fox used for foxtail hair >> Coontail Roadkills offer the cheapest source of coontail hair ;-) >> Rabbit Hair Rabbit makes the best long streamers (e.g. Bunny strips for pike) >> Kip Tail From the tail of a calf Roger