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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica Not Swiss but Italian, anyway, Luxottica owns Oakley and RayBan and a host of other eyewear brands. Major market share. Good to know about Wiley X, CA company and mil spec too.

The prices they ask, and get !, for sunglasses just floors me. Yes, there are quality differences but after about $25 . . . . I read something about there being one Swiss company that owns most of the big names and has something like 3/4 of all the market share.

Might there be a problem with any kind of alcohol, denatured or not, because it still absorbs water? Once it's cleaned with an oil based solvent maybe its best to keep it that way, complete the job with a light oil designed for the purpose.

Thanks all, for your thoughtful posts. Yes, a pegged lead Mojo, and/or brass and glass will do it. Over the weekend I was in a local tournament and I wanted to quickly switch from drop shot to split shot. I could do that quickly by just clipping off below the hook and crimping on a split shot above my already tied hook. In doing so I noticed that my split shot had the teeth and I recalled Murphy's warning about the teeth and, as Tom reiterated, the advantage of a set up that allows the line to slip if necessary through the split shot. Rip rap was catching my drop shot so I wanted to split shot to drift over the rocks instead of the drop shot sinker dropping into them. The problem of course is that I wanted to avoid the time expenditure that a re-tie for a pegged Mojo, or pegged bullet, weight, would require. I just wanted to quick clip the drop shot and quick crimp a split shot above the hook. Edit - Mr. Mallard - the clam shots look to be what I want. http://www.basspro.com/Bass-Pro-Shops-XPS-Clam-Shot-Weights/product/30031/ The Carolina Keeper could work but with a dropper to the weight.

OK, thanks, I'll look into them again but so far all I found in Gremlin have teeth.

10 pounds, 50 years ago when I was about 10 years old, with live bait - blue gill on a treble hook. Threw it under the dock where I knew that fish lived. She'd broke me off before on the dock pilings so I knew to get her out of there quick. Since then, 7 pounds, drifting a little red/pink 2 or 3 inch plastic trout worm on an ultra light rig behind my row boat, not really fishing, just left the line pay out while I was moving from spot to spot, when I stopped to set up and reeled in - whammo!

There's a major sub-heading - floating and sinking. You could even add a third category - neutral buoyancy. Makes a difference of course, depending on presentation technique.

In his book In Pursuit of Giant Bass, Bill Murphy makes the point that when split shotting he recommends split shot with smooth instead of toothed or serrated interior clamping. The only kind I can find all have the teeth "so the shot won't slip" on your line. Is there a brand name I can look for to get the smooth jaws? I could peg a hollow sinker but typically they wind up being too heavy when they are big enough to peg; I want to be able to clamp on a tiny weight for that slow sink but still get the split shot action on the bottom.

I used some old Uncle Josh successfully this weekend; probably 25 years old.

Sometimes I wish I was in a hot air balloon, drifting over shallow water, with just the right angle so there's no glare, just so I could watch what the various fish do.

Great thread. Spoons throw so well, their distance adds an element of stealth.

Roachdad - You can get it on Amazon. Or, directly, write to: Giant Bass Publishing PO Box 1025 El Cajon, CA 92022 A-Jay - great project.

I imagine that the swim bladder is an energy conservation device - allowing the fish to suspend without much finning to hold vertical position. It may also be that the bladder can be adjusted faster than we might think, allowing 40 or 50 foot depth changes over a short time, maybe 10 minutes to an hour or two? Clearly, as mentioned, they can rise to the bait, for predation, for short moments, perhaps with some sense of pain or distress. What is their comfortable, harmless, rate of ascent?

I was forced to learn backreeling when I was a kid, discovered the advantages of light line, but I had a cheap spinning reel with a really crummy drag. Now that I can afford a good reel with a decent drag, I still backreel and there are several reasons. First, that's my habit. Next, even with a good reel, when you use 4 or 6 pound line, the initial "break" of the "stiction" of the drag discs, the point at which they first release line, can be at a greater pressure than that at which you initially set it at, especially if you haven't tested it, or freed it up lately. Lastly, backreeling reduces the line twist associated with the drag system's operation. Another thing, sometimes you want to play out line to the bait and that can be done if the anti-reverse is off. For example, when you are line watching and the darn wind picks up and starts to drag the line, backreeling will allow the wind to take line without distrubing the bait. Or, a fish takes the bait and you want the fish to run a bit before your hook set. Don't get me wrong. I still use the drag, but more as a back up, I still set it, test it, and let it cover for any mistake I might make. It's kind of like a second soft rod tip.

Motorcycles, turbo cars, golf - all suffering on account of fishing.

Thanks Teal, for the clarification. Charlie Brown, What can I say? I have no 401K, I am self employed and my IRA is embarassing; it'll run out quick, and then there's SSI. Inflation and the new "chain CPI" will devalue that. I live in CA where the public employee unions own the state, where the prison guards are at the top of the pile. Fortunately, we didn't borrow against our house when easy money from the Fed and Fannie/Ginnie ballooned its value to 5 times its debt. Sorry about your foreclosure. No sarcasm, I really am. Good to know that finally, after 20 years of resistance to the idea, the State reluctantly allowed some commerical fishing for asian silver carp; I see that they stalled because they were worried that allowing it will create an interest group in favor of the carp . . . . .http://www.xploreutah.net/story/brasher-commercial-fishermen-best-bet-reducing-asian-carp-numbers Having botched it, and resisted for years, they are a little late for that concern. But then . . . . what did they have to lose? They didn't own the resources, they just were "responsible" for it. But not really, what price have they, the game warden establishment, paid? The government game warden model of resource conservation is a continuing failure. Tragedy of the commons - over grazed and underenforced. The bounty of private waters shows how good it could be.

Except for you comment about "iconoclastic," I notice that you went to the trouble, for some reason, to cut this part out - "Some lakes, loaded with stunted middling fish, ought to be fished commercially for fish of that size. But that proposal is iconoclastic. Same thing - commercial fishing - should happen with fisheries that are over loaded with Snakehead and Flying Carp - try telling that to a Fish & Game commissioner. Heresy. Too often, the law enforcement/game warden model fails. If someone owned the fish and therefore had the right to inspect buckets/chests and charge a fee at the dock or point of egress, the enforcement would be better. High price for undersized and oversized, low price for midsized." How would you improve conservation of the resource, given the current system's failings? On the ocean I see party boats get spot checked but the real enforcement is by the crew, who are told to see that the anglers obey the rules by their boss, the owner, who knows his boat could be properly targeted for enforcement by DFG. As a taxpaying, small business, angler, looking with *** at those who chose careers in government, I'd like to know, why not privatization? Why not commercial fishing for snakehead? or those silver asian flying carp?

At a public lake local to me, every weekend, there are boats that ferry groups of bait fishermen out to various points, drop them on the rocks, leave them there for most of the day, ferry them back to the dock later. I've seen bags of undersized fish. Looks to be illegal in many ways; poaching/commercial fishing to me . . . . the fact that they appear to be recent immigrants would make enforcement, in the opinion of some, racist, I'd guess. Slot limits work - allowing the take of middling sized fish and C&R for the smaller and the larger (more fertile) fish. Some lakes, loaded with stunted middling fish, ought to be fished commercially for fish of that size. But that proposal is iconoclastic. Same thing - commercial fishing - should happen with fisheries that are over loaded with Snakehead and Flying Carp - try telling that to a Fish & Game commissioner. Heresy. Too often, the law enforcement/game warden model fails. If someone owned the fish and therefore had the right to inspect buckets/chests and charge a fee at the dock or point of egress, the enforcement would be better. High price for undersized and oversized, low price for midsized. Game wardens, good and bad, get paid anyway, no matter whether they catch poachers or not. Yeah, they try to do their job but how hard? The incentives are inadequate, or even perverse, they don't get paid a lot more for doing their job really well. Internal politics matters most. They are good people, just not any better or worse, as a class or job category, than anyone else. Maybe bonuses/bounties for wardens? Rewards for to the public under "we tip" hotllines? Or, privatize the fisheries.

When finding a pattern and you don't have multiple rods available, then you can use them to be able to change baits quickly . . . .

Maybe find a properly vented gas cap?

Yes, but so long as no one owns it, the private sector is irrelevant. Only when a property right is created can the private sector find the solution. My point is that the absence of ownership is the problem. These are public waters, regulated by public officials whose incentives are not sufficiently coincident with the fishery. If someone owned the fishery, then that owner would be more effective in dealing with an invasive species that is destroying his asset. There would be more coincidence of what's good for the fishery and what's good for management.

Seems like the point of the springs in the Bearing Buddys is to create an allowance for heat expansion?

Lopez, San Antonio, Santa Margarita, Naciamento I/2 day boats out of Port San Luis for rockfish, rental rods/gear - Vermillions, IMO are the all time best eating fish ever.

Typical response of F&G - nada. For all their posturing about caring for the resource . . . . they have no real motivation to act effectively. If they had real incentives then they would allow commercial overfishing for this species or electroshocking/culling to keep the numbers down to levels where other species are sustainable. Whether these quick "off the cuff" suggestions are feasible or not, if a private party, individual or corporate, owned the fishery, then something effective would be done. When no one owns it, no one cares enough.

Assuming fish that are relating to the bottom and the use of a sinking/salty worm, then I try to have the tip of the worm touching bottom for a vertical presentation and that means that line angle matters when adjusting the weight's distance from the hook. So, when I'm in the back of the boat on a slow drag or drift, or if I'm stationary and casting and soaking to mask my presence, I use more distance between weight and hook, because the line angle from tip of rod to bottom under those conditions will be perhaps 20* to 45* depending on how far the bait is from the boat. Taking both the angle of the bottom and the angle of the line into account, if I'm crawling the weight downhill back to the boat then I might set the weight 24" or more from the hook, or, if I'm crawling uphill maybe only 3" from the hook. If the fish are not relating to the bottom but are suspended at some reachable (with drop shot) depth above the bottom, then I use a floating (horizontal presentation) worm and try to set the hook at whatever distance from the weight, that will place it slightly above, or in the midst of the fish but this is where some other technique begins to take over, suspending crank baits, spoons, or float n fly.