cyclops2

Well said how I will be until I die. ?

This is a FANTASTIC topic about night time & being run over by raise hell crowd in any other boats. Just stay out of the day time paths. I have USCG lights and a very slow pulsing white light on the bow also. Lights & distance at night are very deceiving for some drivers. Do not fish in front of a wealthy mile of houses with docks in front of them. YYEEE HAAWWW as they blow by at 50 + mph. They do not see you at all with so many lights on the docks & yards and house. I live in such a area. Had enough close calls. Yes the fishing is MUCH BETTER !! ? The real excitement is when they do a U turn next to you on full plane and you know they never saw you. What no wakes 100' ?

Why I always believed in low profile boats. They keep you in that blind deflection zone of the fish. This year the knees under my chin position is hurting a bit. But the 15" transom& low Aluminum seat allows getting very close in shallow waters. Weeds allow me to almost step on fish. In shallow water. Concealment & 45 to 60 # braid is a winner. Shorter casts are effective & mandatory on the big , weed wraparound fish. Will you come back again ? Pre spawn is the best time. They will attack anything then.

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All our bay & river female bass are VERY DEEP bodied. They are almost a square in Length & depth. I am guessing that skinny one is a male.

There Is a camera function in almost every cell phone. Whip it out as he approaches about a quarter mile away. take a picture of the shore line around him & his wake . Take a picture of your bow and the water. Take pictures as he is getting closer. Take them as he passes to get his BOW numbers. Then stuff the camera in your pocket & hang on. Call the state police to find out who will prosecute the bum with your pictures. DO NOT give your Camera to ANYONE................. Sorry but I deleted all the pictures. ............ My deletor was transferred out of the district.

I like the very hardy Smallies. I do not care if they were stocked or swam up in high water conditions. Love them all everywhere. ?

Thank you all. I will be repacking the bearings for the 2nd time since 1988. Yes I can be that forgetful. And very lucky.

Only people who fish a LOT OF TIME can have that combination of break downs at the same time. I too do not do needless P M parts replacements. My little bas boat is a 1988 Lowe 16' Aluminum With a 100,000 hours on a 1988 Evinrude 30 hp 2 stroke. My boat would not crank the first time this spring. The heavy battery cables finally corroded thru at several places. The Garmin last season was acting erratically.........I replaced the connectors on most wire ends. My boat was still on the trailer ready for relaunching.

It is tough growing up on texting & fast food boxes & wrappers.

Remember The best lures always catch the fisherman first. ?

This is your Captain Tangent. You may relax and discuss any topic during this Dog Days of August flight. Lures are available in 2nd class. Flies are only in 1st class. Cleaning people skipped this plane.

River46 is totally right about developers & rivers or lakes. The apply for duilding permits during high water levels . Then toss up houses during droughts. WAAAHHOOO Screw everybody as water rises and floods the houses / businesses.

We just have too many people going to the bathroom at home or at jam packed restaurants. The N Y S is / has put in city sewage To all towns & buildings along the water ways. BUUUTT What are they discharging into the river ? How much of what ? Have they just chlorinated the crappy sewage ? To kill off bacteria & virus ? But still allow all the Plant nutrients / food To skyrocket and cause record plant growth ? I will stop by the treatment plants & get a answer. We are having ALL week days with PACKED restaurants. FAR FAR greater crowds on roads, rentals. If these crowds keep going all summer the bays & rivers will be choked with weeds. Solidly. Are the treatment plants just disinfecting the discharge ? If yes ? Then all the increased human crap is just a lot more plant food for all the weeds. There were years when weeds were down & up. They might coincide with employment cycles. My rambling on is another thing about old farts. ?

My 1988 30 hp just has1/4 to 3/8 " holes. But I will do your S S screen suggestion. Thank you. I avoid any anchoring now to reduce those floating clumps of weeds.

The Very green slime has died off. BUUTT There is nothing popping right back to life there. Worse ?? There are some MASSIVE areas of 8 ' high weeds in the 13 foot deep areas. The 25 to 40 foot depths Have 15 foot long string type with a leaf every 6" . Easily sucked into any cooling holes in lower units. Could be a early winter storage season. I may be rowing out & back or wading in chest waders. Oh well. Be saving a bunch of all the boat operating expenses. Lets hope the long stuff leaves a few clear feet and dies off slowly to prevent those MATS of floaters.

The Smallies are our true type of saltwater fighting fish. Hard fighters with no deaths from Lactic Acid buildup on 4# lines & lures. They are a fantastic fish. They thrive in any size pond or creek of water. I have never seen die offs of them. In any type of waters. Only problem is all mine are switching to none daylight feeding patterns. Loads of them traveling with baitfish schools all day. When the bait fish go into the weeds. So do they. The baitfish are feeding in 15 to 30' of water. Close to the bottom after sunrise. Then sunlight drives their food into the weeds. Game over about 8 to 9 am. I FEAR those night shift mosquitos.

I always caught 10 to 20 big females before any males in past years. Clayton , N Y waters.

Lets not put all the fish losses on the ice people. The crappy job & wages market & fish diseases are destroying the area around me. Several people at the camp sites fish FOR MONEY to help pay their bills. 1 neighbor fills 5 gallon pails & sells to all restaurants locally. The religious farmers go out in row boats & keep everything that meets their standards. Lake Ontario winters are long enough to reduce growth rates severely for bait & game fish. Add in the use of the latest fish finders. There is no way the populations are going to survive. Plus VIRUS diseases like the hemorrhagic ones. We are trying & succeeding to wipe out the various bait & game fish we enjoy. I see parents teaching a child how to remove a hooked fish on a worm. TEAR the hook out. Then cut off the throat or gills still on the hook. I may lie to others. But I NEVER LIE TO MYSELF. The hunting is in serious animal decline also. There is no shoot & release available. PLUS In my farming area there are NO winter crops anymore to help animals make it . The Crows & Turkey Vultures are rare now. Add in all the millions of tons of property sprayed with plant, animal & insect poisons and nothing is recovering from all our Sport Harvesting. More people play. More non humans die faster than they can repopulate. Lets keep bass fishing those bass nests. DUUUHHH

Now what ? Yesterday All of a sudden the 2" to 8" fish of all types are BACK into the shallow rock piles. Trolling was doing 1 after another. So was super long casts. I give up on trying to figure out them. A week ago surface was just under 76 F Almost nothing. Now at 66 F. They are all over. In 3 to 5' of water. No biggies. They are out in 16 ' deep or more and traveling with BIG baitfish schools. It is like all the easy to catch DAY TIME fish gene pool is gone. NAAAHH ?

That is the VERY scary part about the weed change to a thin green carpet of slime. It used to be a carpet of 12 to18 " long blades of grass.It was BORING to fish it. 4 to 10" fidh of all types in it. I once put 4 small plastic skirts on. 4 fish on and of on the way in. sometimes 2 different types together. It was that fantastic. With septic sewage feeding the weeds. 4 or 5 assorted pike in a choice 100' circle. I would wind drift thru the crowd. None now. We are missing a lot of fish. BUUTT Each bass tournament still has 3 or 4 guys doing a quick lap around the bay. Not catching this year like others. I asked them.

Great question. My bay has been getting more fishless in the 6 to 8' deep area ever since They put in city sewage in all river frontage houses for many miles. The super green slime is covering the shallowest shoreline edge. We NEVER had anything growing along the shallowest bare sand & pebbles. Just drift stuff. With Septic tank discharges we would have 10 to 20 acres of weed beds in different parts of the bays. Our local largest bay has almost NO weeds this year as reported by the pike guys. Also no real pike either Or other fish. It sadly looks & feels like the food chain is broken or gone. I am pinging on different sized fish on the deeper edges of the Si. Lawrence River. In my small creek S M nests. BOTH sexes guard the nest. Occasionally each partner leaves for a while. Then the other goes away for a while. Sometimes both will be in the nest for a while. The male & female are HUGE. I never catch them.

Edit to above. The bass & all other fishing contest are not the only people transporting undesirable plants, weeds and diseases around the country. How many NON fishing, Trailered, Boats are going to different waters each year ? A TON more. I am ALMOST glad we have discussed the native fish problems. Old geezers usually do not accept the changes well. I now accept my bay being lost to progress.

The majority of the data is again created by using standardized MODELS that are accepted by Fish & game agencies to speed up the findings and use less man hours & equipment in the streams & reservoirs. Understandable. But the most HONEST & sincere statement about ALL THEIR best intended efforts to increase size & numbers. At the end of the program was stated on page 187. We could not determine any real difference in areas WITH CONTROLS compared to the rest of the water ways WITHOUT CONTROLS. A outstanding conclusion to come to over several years. It points up the difficulty that trying to manipulate waterways to save or increase fish populations. With people dumping in any fish from anywhere in the world ? The native fish can be reduced suddenly with no noticeable changes in water color or plants in it. Substantial fish reductions can be from diseases, Parasites in the meat, organs, loss of bait fish amounts Oxygen changes or several other problems. We are constantly finding newer invasive fishes & plants, to push aside our favorite fish. It is TOTALLY out of F & G peoples budgets to reverse 1 or 40 different things causing a reduction of native fish. Studies are great. BUUUTT Who has enough money & POWER to restore our native fish ? No one.

One other line in that computerized report is more telling. Quote The growth rates of 3,185 bass were completed By MEASURING the inner ear EAR BONE. 1995 to 2000 Only killed off 3,185in 5 years. In the prime locations of the state. Afull reading reveal admission of using estimations, Changing data to CONFORM to their belief of what the data should have been. The study is paid for to promote a predecided position. It use hundreds of computer models & 1938 data to justify the 3,185 deaths of prime location bass.