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The mental aspect of fishing, of hunting, is genetic, beyond any doubt. Innately, we look for causation, for patterns, we try to predict animal behavior. All valuable for the survival of our genes

But it's 9 cents!

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/163970-southern-california-vacation-hawgs/ A post about SoCal private lake fishing, and access to Casitas is limited due to Quagga mussels so it is almost private.

Seems like a fly rod from a boat could cover more water, deliver more time during which your small bait is in the prime strike zone. Of course, would work best during those few times when bass are chasing/stalking small fry or polly wogs or baby frogs up into shallow water/grass. What I mean - while drifting down the bank, paralleling the bank, you don't have to reel all the way back in and re-cast, too often miss casting, landing short or long or too hard. With the fly rod your distance is set, the line is out, you back cast and then settle your light bait onto exactly the next spot on the forecast. The bait is sized to the forage and has a new/different look too. Then hand retrieve through the prime water, and recast, again just right, without having to rewind line, to the next spot. Efficient. What am I missing?

They come up on sale; last year I got two at $59 each. Good rods for the money.

Figures. Stupid bankers.

I've got several hook hones and hook files scattered in my Plano boxes; I also snap up my wife's cast off diamond nail files.

Most reels retrieve 2 to 3 feet per crank, depending on how much line is on the spool. Let your bait out a few feet and crank it in, note how many feet per crank. Next, let the bait drop to the bottom and do two things, count the seconds down and then count the cranks back up. Do the arithmetic and you have a good idea of your bait/line combo's rate of drop. Now, for example, suppose your moving along a bank or rock wall, you cast to that area and count it down and you have an idea of the likely depth as you move along.

Around schools, I imagine that my bait gets hit when it happens to be moving authentically within/around the ball. That's hard and unlikely. My experience is that the hits come when a bait ball is breaking against the surface and bait are scattering. That moment is when my bait may appear authentic, a bait panicked away from the ball. The fluttering spoon, or a fly lined un-weighted slow sinking small swim bait, may look like a wounded bait, falling out of the school. The rip and flutter spoon may look like that but it also may simply trigger a reaction bite.

My experience, bank fishing, is that they can feel/hear your footfall. There are spots/cover where I know fish are always there, but I have to sneak up and stay low and throw a side arm, soft entry, cast. You could say that I'm catching out of the same group of fish and training them.

Stealth matters. That's the best reason for long casts. Sharp light gauge hooks help. Sometimes I get lucky with a long cast, reaching back across a cove, to water we covered five or ten minutes before. WRB's point, the reel set, is well taken.

The trick is that these rigs, on a slow retrieve, bounce along on the nose with the tail high, almost vertical; it looks as if the worm is face down, feeding. The weight is in the nose and the eye of the hook, being 1.25 or 1.5 inches from the nose, tends to pull the worm up onto its nose. Even a salty sinking worm will tend to stand up but a floating worm has better presentation, more vertical, less tilt off to either side. So . . . I sort my worms, not only by color and size but also by whether they float or sink. WRB is referring to Iovino's S120 color, "Honeycomb." Here's a picture of the rig: http://www.iovino.com/nailworm

Evolution has something to do with it. Maybe that explains why moon phase matters when fishing in waters not subject to tidal flows. For land locked fish, behavior that is vestigial. I wonder now about moon phase and pelagic, open ocean/non coastal, predator fish - where the effect of tide presumably is less consequential in terms of the movement and location of prey.

Seems as if many fish circle, or at least half circle, whatever cover is adjacent, whenever they eat. They don't just run, they make some kind of turn around whatever obstacle/hide/cover is nearby.

I'll eat those that die in the live well and I've noticed that the thin part of a LMB fillet, from near the belly, is the most likely part to taste muddy. Doesn't seem to be so with every fish though. I'm not sure about it, so has anyone else noticed this? I think it also helps to take care when gutting, make sure that the intestines/organs aren't cut before they are separated from the fish.

Yeah, until you burn your thumb!

Also, isn't it similar to why a Texas rig can work better than a jig - the fish doesn't feel it as much at the moment of the bite?

Listening to the radio the other day, a guest who wrote a book about the ecological change wrought by the arrival of Europeans to North America, he said that earth worms were not native to North America and that they arrived here in the root balls of tobacco plants.

You might slow down on bringing DNR into it as that might cause trouble for the quarry and then presto change both quarries get closed to fishing because fishermen cause expensive problems. It's really true, the EPA and the state DNRs are all over anything to do with wetlands and watercourses and who knows what kind of permits that quarry is, or is not, operating under. You have a good thing going, leave it alone. Besides, there is some unseen reason why the other lake doesn't seem to have comparable fish - different stage in its life cycle, or different forage, or . . . . who knows. Transferring a few fish from one lake to the other likely won't deal with the underlying causes for the differences between the fishing in the two lakes.

Thanks guys. Flyfisher, I'll check out those Costas. Maybe cheap polycarbonate lenses are more likely to distort and that's what we pay for upscale polycarbonate. Glass can't be easy to make the right shape, consistently, either. On stevec328's point on kinetic protection, I don't know, I imagine that tempered glass is universally used. To make a pair of sunglasses out of regular glass would be criminal, or ought to be. Tempered of course does not make shards when it breaks, it sort of crumbles. I once tested polycarbonate lenses with a BB gun - BB went right through, can't say that's comparable to a fishing weight. Good idea Scott about turning one pair at right angles to another pair to verify polarization, or not, as well as any differences in effectiveness of that polarization. Still, it seems that the industry is hiding the ball since AFIK there are no standards and none of them make any technical or scientific claims.

Ditto that on stealth; soft step, sneak, keep low, throw the bait so it soft lands even slides into the water. Several times I caught a big bass that lived under a particular dock. Wary fish. It got to the point where I had to walk in from an entirely different direction and then only a perfect skip cast of a new and different plastic bait that went deep under that dock from forty or fifty feet away would get a bite. I could swear, that bass could feel or hear my foot steps and was looking for me too.

As I understand it, diffuse light hits the water from all directions but it is largely re-aligned when it is reflected off the water and transformed (from our viewpoint) into a largely horizontal band - glare. Polarization uses a vertical filter to reduce that horizontal band of light while allowing the vertical band of light through to our eyes. How effective is one lens compared to another, is there a rating? an industry standard? This link explains how Land invented it and how his company made, and makes it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_(polarizer) How do I know whether brand X offers better glare reduction than brand Y? Are there preferred materials or methods of manufacture? Glass vs plastic? If the polarization, brand to brand, is consistent, then it's all about the lenses themselves, curvature and thickness, subtle distortions, light gathering . . . are there industry standards here? Sunglasses cause our pupils to dilate more. Is there, then, a harmful effect when stray light enters our eyes by getting in from the sides or reflecting up from under? I notice diminished perception, light blinding sort of, when glare reflects in the side. Ever notice how folks tilt their head and look askance so the glasses can catch the glare that if they were looking straight ahead would be coming in the side? Bottom line - I'll pay for the best but I can't tell high class junk from yeoman value.

Any jerk/stop retrieve presents this problem, jerk baits, topwater . . . Braid is the difference. Mono and flouro spring off the spool on a spinning reel where braid just lays there. There are also almost unconscious habits of line control that spinning reel users have. For instance, every time that I miss my target, a miscast, I pinch the line against the rod while I wind it back in to repack the spool. When I make my last cast at a spot, I do the same, wind it in with tension on the line, change the retrieve to steady, no jerks or stops. The fish might want a change up anyway.

Well, you got me there. I fish with cheap polarized stuff and I have to admit that many times I have learned that I did not know what I was missing until I ventured out. So, I will see if I can borrow, switch off with a fishing partner and see what I see. As for eye protection, gee, I dunno. Eyes evolved without sunglasses so we probably really don't need them for protection, but on the other hand we evolved without antibiotics and sunscreen too. Seems to me that sunglasses cause your pupils to dilate and that once dilated, any light that intrudes from the sides or the other gaps, for that reason - pupil dilation - may well be harmful. So . . . . I buy sunglasses that prevent light from coming in from the sides and most, in terms of their fit on my face just flat fail to do that. That means I buy those ugly oversized plastic glasses that are designed to go over prescription eyeglasses. The way they wrap around and close out that extraneous light is what sells me. Admittedly, the quality of their polarization likely is inferior.

Ditto that. I'd add what I suspect WRB is saying between the lines - that just WD40 won't do it, not enough; you must rinse with water to dissolve and remove the salt, THEN the WD40 (unlike other lubricants) displaces the water. Then, later, after the displaced water has evaporated, the WD40 (which is a poor lubricant) itself can be displaced with reel oil. Great points about galvanic action. Magnesium is worse than aluminum in that respect.