Ratherbfishing

I'd say my ideal day has already happened numerous times. It consists of schlepping into a stand of flooded cattails, anchoring, and proceeding to fan cast a plastic worm or crawdad. What a wonderful sensation to feel that "tap tap" and then rearing back and setting the hook on something with some heft to it! But fishing in a prestine mountain stream sounds mighty nice also.

Because I'm too stubborn/cheap/old school to buy flourocarbon and mono is less visible in the water than braid. I'm convinced that especially in clear and/or hard fished waters, relative "invisibility" can make a huge difference on a slow moving bait.

I use a mono leader for all soft plastics. I tie directly to braid for everything else.

Straight worms (without curly or ribbon tails) can usually get down between the pads better. Sticky curly tails tend to grab onto the surface of pads too much (a pet peeve of mine) . Although I haven't tested every product out there, the material in Berkely powerbaits are "slicker" than many other soft plastics and, therefore, don't stick to the pads as much.

I have more "standard" and crazy leg chigger craws than any other bait in my arsenal. Either dragged, hopped or swam, they are difficult to beat-especially when the bass don't want to hold on very long.

This isn't a "how to..." but I can tell you about the time one "school" of bass attacked my large bass poppers like there was no tomorrow. They ignored everything else I threw at them (including the smaller bluegill sized poppers) but when I dropped a big popper, they charged up without any hesitation. THAT was fun!

Do your computers do pretty much everything you require of them? If so, what's the compulsion to keep up with the Jones'?

If it's hot and humid and/or the fish aren't cooperating, yes, I do need a break. And then I have an evening like tonight (some good fish on a super fluke and a moss mouse) and I'm revved up again. But except on special trips to Canada (or wherever) the most I prefer to fish is about every other day. Every day would wear me out physically and emotionally.

Well fed fish don't necessarily hug tight to cover like cold front bass seem to do so there's something else going on. Yes, they generally feed heavily while/when the cold front is moving through but this, like not feeding much afterwards are just "symptoms" of some other environmental factor(s). I don't have any empirical evidence to back this up but even if, for some reason, they couldn't feed heavily before/during a cold front, I don't think they'd feed at their normal or highter rate afterwards. They'd still be tight lipped.

Just about as well as I would with a fiberglass boat-lousy.

I'd worry LESS about matching "the hatch" and more about matching the lake conditions-particularly water clarity.

A general malaise toward fishing and life in general.

Yes and you should have a buddy urinate on the wound immediately.

Liverwurst on white bread soaked in lake water.

Central Illinois has few (if any) pike so if/when I go North to fish, a pike seems to me a rare and exotic species so, no, they aren't a nuisance. They are pretty slimy though.

Howdy

Hmmm...I wonder if the length of the "weld" can be shortened?

PB and first runner up were both caught on Glass Shad Raps (Green and White, respectively).

A bluegill/sunfish will generally bite in a rapid tap tap tap whereas a larger predator will generally only give you one or two more solid but slightly slower taps (because that's all that's required to ingest the bait)-one "tap" to grab/ingest the bait and, perhaps, a second "tap" to adjust it or move it deeper. If/when you feel the line suddenly get heavy, it is generally NOT a bluegill and is probably a bass-particularly if the line seems to tighten up in a direction different than where you anticipated it to be. In the "tap tap" instance, if you aren't sure (and you don't want to yank the tail off the worm with a pesky bluegill), slowly tighten up the bait to see if it then FEELS unnaturally heavy (as in the second example). If so, give it a good hook set. The more you do it, the more innate it becomes. It's almost like using the force. You'll find it easier to do but more difficult to describe.

It's past time to lubricate my Pflueger President spinning reel but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to remove the side plate. On most spinning reals there is usually an exposed screw which, when removed, gives you access to another screw but I see NOTHING. Help!!!!!!!!

It depends on whose butt it is and how many more fish they've caught than me. If it's a lot, I like to jam it ALL the way in! : )

When the local pond was "swept" of all its larger bass by a couple of (cough cough) bucket fishermen, the remaining bass had a tough time competing with each other AND the remaining population of bluegill. There weren't THAT many bass left so I started catching and keeping bluegill. I believe that has helped.

I don't consider this a religious post as it pretty much applies to ALL people (religious, athiest, and in-between) and I want to stress that I, myself, am FAR from being perfect (just ask my girlfriend) but whatever happened to the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? Or, to put it differently (if you are a masochist and like pain): "Do unto others as they would have done unto them." And as Sir snookalot said (I'm paraphrasing): "Even if you don't care about how your actions affect other people, you, youself, will get a LOT farther in life and with people if you try to be pleasant." Intentional rudeness and bluntness is likely only to be met with hostility in kind. My former supervisor was proud of what he termed his "acerbic wit" whereas I just thought he was a (insert nasty word here). He'd have gotten a lot more out of me if he had tried to be nice.

If you feel AWFUL about injuring/killing the occassional fish, maybe you ought to switch to photography. It's going to happen from time to time-no matter how careful you are. As long as the fish is harvested/eaten, you shouldn't, IMO, even feel bad about it. Heck, you might even find yourself ENJOYING the meal and deliberately keeping some fish. I do feel bad when a badly injured fish HAS to be released (by regulation) but as BOOSTR said, even that fish won't go to waste. SOMETHING will make a meal of it.

Another Honda Pilot? If you can afford, spring for the 4wd.