Poor Richard

:-X You are all talking through your dorsal fin, as we say down here. None of you has even once thought of asking us. Chartreuse, shmartreus. Lures are made to catch YOU, not US. Probably any odd color just makes you guys think about sex. Now listen: we don't like ANY of your lures. In fact, the only time one of us gets caught is when we are yawning with boredom and your hook happens to fall in some poor fish's mouth. Occasionally we might be distracted while discussing quantum mechanics or the history of consciousness. Now, do you see that nice bottle of Jack Daniels sitting there on your boat seat? Ignore the line attached to it. That-a-boy. Just pick it up . . . . --R. B. Bass ---------------------------------------------- "You can't see under the water until you know what's there." - R.B.

Old Timers used to put a leather flap around the post behind the spool (i.e., behind the direction the reel spools out) so the caster can press down on the line by pushing down on the leather flap. I don't have a reel handy, so I don't know if it can still be done. Any good fish is worth being maimed for. I broke a rib once when I had a choice between falling across the boat's front rail or losing a 6 pound flounder. I deliberately took the hit. I mean, Lordy, 6 pounds of monster tasty flounder. Shoot, a girl broke my ribs once before that. Gotta keep your priorities straight, especially in a moment of crisis. ----------------------- Take a cheerleader fishing today. :-*

Some lakes produce bass that are very good eating, but we seldom indulge, and we're promoting C&R constantly. Any bass lake will give you enough bluegills and/or crappies to load the plate, and they are better anyway. Since I was here as a kid, C&R in Michigan has greatly improved the bass population! But here is an exception we do apply: any bass that is injured in a way that will likely kill it goes into our pot. Bleeding gills are always fatal, for instance. I fish with the barbs pressed down almost all the way on all my lures: this really reduces the damage to close to zero. I always have a small cooler on board with ice in it. Fish can rot in warm water before they die; that bleeding bass goes on the ice and then I can say, "I kilt it, I'll eat it." Of course, some bass are just yukky anyway, like those caught from some alkaline lakes or those that have been eating hot dogs and candy wrappers.

nb1226 Hang tight in Iraq, Buddy. Be careful, come home safe, and be proud of your good work. We'll get some citizens to tie a bunch of big bass to a post in the water near your home and save 'em for you.

To quote a friend long ago, when you say in all sincerity, "I got a nice house, a beautiful wife, and a brand-new Buick, and I'd trade 'em all for an eight-pound bass." That's a Michigan bass, though. Down Home, it'd have to be a ten. --------------------------------- "Meditation and water are wedded forever" -- Ishmael 8-)

:-[ Listen, guys and gals--pay attention to the warnings in here from your fellow anglers. My neighbor just had half his nose excavated; they filled the hole with fat from his temples. A famous local golfer LOST his nose entirely, and the business column writer for our newspaper came close to losing his and wrote a good article about it. I have had rosacea on my nose for at least two decades. This makes me look like an old drunk, and if I have to look like an old drunk, I want to go ahead and be one! I can control it, but this a bit expensive and awful fussy. A good dermatologist can read your facial skin like a book; go see one and find out how far gone you are. I vote for zinc oxide (baby bottom paint) and a wide-brimmed hat. Protect your lips, too. Nothing is lovelier than a great big oozing sun blister, a regular haven for herpes as well. A nice tan is, well, nice--but she won't be looking at your tan; she'll be checking out your damage. Our sun really is more dangerous than it used to be; it doesn't take long to mess you up good. Don't forget, you're not going to be aware of the damage until it's much too late. If the atmosphere gets any worse, we'll all be wearing papers bags with little eye holes. ------------------------------------- "Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." -- HDT 8-)

: OH, OH. You shouldn't have gotten me started on this one. My best partner always had to light his pipe or we caught nothing. If it rained, he smoked it upside down. Some research I did for a paper a long time ago turned up these: if a fishing party does poorly, someone in the group had sex the previous night; women are strictly forbidden; you must not predict the results of your efforts at any time; you must 'strive not to strive' (how Zen can you get?), in other words, don't be thinking on it all the time. Try to relax after that one. My daughter the psychologist says it normally takes two coincidences to establish a personal superstition. But for fishermen and baseball players, it takes only one event. Here are my personal best superstitions, with just one final illustrative example: gotta have that hat; if fishing for the pot, you must keep the first fish no matter what or the fishgods will be insulted (that's from the Florida Gulf Coast); after LOUDLY declaring your last cast, throw a second last cast--scored two nice steelhead on that one. Perhaps the most famous is spitting on your bait. I know this one is true. One truly nasty day on the Skagit, we were doing nothing. Little wonder: the water was so high from snow melt and rain that there were trees floating past us in the river. I declared loudly that we all needed to spit on our baits. Pooh, pooh, everybody says. On the next drift, I nailed a lovely ten-pound buck steelhead. My friends and the guide were all hooting at me now. So we ran back up and I called everyone's attention to me spitting on the bait. We drifted and I caught the hen, also ten pounds. My companions then tried to throw me out of the boat. Those were the only fish we caught that day. Of course we promptly forget when our favorite ploys don't work. A tip: never, never, use live frogs or salamanders for bait. I won't tell you the consequences. :-/ Look for my picture on the hundred dollar bill. ------------------------------ You can't see under the water until you know what's there. 8-)

;D 25 pounds, Dude. A new world record! : --Poor Richard, B.S., More of the Same, and Piled Higher and Deeper.

Wut?

Lots of those Florida golf course ponds have alligators in 'em. Boys like to go out and feed marshmallows to the gators. This trains the gators to associate white nubbins with tasty tidbits and so of course they eat golf balls, thinkiing they are marshmallows. Not good for the gators, but the trouble is the gator may think you owe him some more more more. :-/ Those bright green bass (hilarious!) would convince me not to eat anything out of golf course ponds. They spare no expense on weird science to make the greens fair and fairways green. Farm ponds get fertilizer that is much more natural: just common nitrates and cow poop. : ------------------------ This is all there is to it: they're either bitin' or they ain't. :-?

8-) Oh, cool, Russ010--just tell me how to get there. By the way, a big moccassin makes a superior bait for a really big bass. Grab him behind the head and stick a 6/0 through his lip and out the nose. Oh, yes, be careful: they sorta like to bite. My insane colleague and boonie-tramping buddy down in North Florida has encounted many moccassins. True to his usual instincts, he ate one. He said it was awfuly sour, kind of fishy. But I HAVE eaten snapping turtles, raccoons, woodchucks, bait shrimp, raw coquinas, croakers, and plenty of crow. My grandfather tried to get me to eat an "Indian turnip." I was nine, but I already knew him well, so I passed. This is the culinary equivalent of going snipe hunting. My wife has us all beat, though: she spent a chunk of her very early childhood in Santo Tomas Prison Camp in Manila. By mid-1944, things were getting very lean. She tells how a dog wandered into their area and disappeared into the cook pot before you could say "Hey, Ma, he followed me home--can we keep him?" Some of the internees ate rats, which I hear are quite tasty. Trouble is, the rats were starving, too. The best lunch I ever ate was made up of fresh brook trout and frog legs a friend and I harvested ourselves. This was in New Jersey, during high school. Mom fried 'em. Lovely. ---------------------------- "I kilt it; you wanna eat it?"

Russ 0 1 0: around here, they dynamite the dam. But boy those beavers are stubborn. Fortunately, beavers are hardly endangered. I have no ideas on how to control them. Talk to them nicely and see if you can get them to build you a nice fishing cabin. For a while, the pond they create can provide interesting fishing, but just like the big dams we have choked our rivers with, theirs will also silt in and become useless. Maybe your state DNR can move them. I STILL THINK THE SOLUTION TO FISHING SMALL PONDS IS STEALTH. IF YOU GET ONE OR TWO, YOU'RE DOING REALLY WELL. I fish a hundred-acre pond, and I swear they know when you get in the rowboat and push off. If the kids are swimming anywhere, you can forget it. ------------------------ You kill it, you eat it. (I hear beaver tail is delicious. I'm in over my depth now, for sure.)

fishingfrenzy: All right, that does it. > I have e-mailed the King of the Otters, and you are in for a surprise. The Otter Army and their friends the Eagle Air Force will be waiting for you one of these days. You might get a few before they get you, but what they will leave behind won't even feed the bass. Fair is fair. : C'mon, Frenzy, leave the otters alone. You know perfectly well that they are not the reason you're not catching those bass. They probably aren't even very interested in the bass; like you and me, they'd rather not work too hard, and they probably settle for the bullheads and suckers. I have never seen an otter in the wild and would walk many miles to do so. :-[ You should be thankful to have them around. Is it even legal in your state to kill an otter? I'd hate to think it is. We all have an equal share in our country's wildlife, and I hereby register one vote against your killing otters. So far, then, we are in a tie. I'd like to hear from some more of you guys and gals out there about this one.

I have a much bigger problem: every tiime I cast out my thermometer, some Big Mama Bass makes off with it. This year I'm adding hooks. ------------------ "I believe your lies, why won't you believe mine?" - paraphrasing Ben Franklin.

:'( Izaac Walton was of your opinion about otters, but killing an otter -- a predator just like you and me -- to save a few fish is unforgiveable. A neighbor of mine lost a duckling to a redtail hawk and was talking about getting his shotgun out. I asked him which he would rather see when he went outdoors, a hawk or a little duck. He voted finally for the hawk. Values may be relative, but there are values nonetheless. The otters got here first, my friends. Count yourself lucky even to have seen one. Tiny ponds are almost impossible to fish. Night stealth is the best idea, I guess, and live bait might work because you can let it sit and not stir everything up with the first catch. Dynamite the pond and end all the controversy at once. ----------------------------- "You kill it, you eat it!" :-X

"A Boy Named Sue"! Dang! I must have hit the wrong button by mistake. Well, that's all I have to say for now. Anybody know how to tell the sex of bass caught when it's not nesting season? :-? ----------------------------------- My Daughter the Psychologist says it takes only two coincidences to start a superstition. But for fishermen, it takes only one. Spit on your hook and catch one, you'll do it forever. -- Penniless Rich

:-X Don't you remember how your Dad told you to jump off the porch and he would catch you? He let you fall on your butt and said, "Now you've learned never to trust anybody!" Papa bass guards the fry faithfully for two or three days or maybe even four. Then it occurs to him that he hates babysitting, so he starts eating them. It is their first lesson in nature's ways. Ever notice how ferocious little bass are? I've caught 'em no bigger than the #11 Rapala they tried to eat and they act like street punks just itching for a fight. Reference: Johnny Cash, Shel Silverstein's "A Boy Named

You know, my cousin was skinny dipping and a bass grabbed his most embarrassing protrubence. If a bass would chomp on that, it will bite anything! Who else besides me remembers the bass lure that was shaped like a woman? She looked like a small-sized Barbie with treble hooks. It was sort of a gag, but some anglers swore by it. Look through one of Heddon's antique lure catalogs. Holy Cow! There has been no limit on our anglers' imaginations. I did see a bass swallow a cow once. But I wasn't impressed--it was just a heifer. -------------------------------------- "They're either bitin' or they ain't." :-/

Nothing works better than sinking a nice-sized tree, even a wad of Christmas trees. --------------------- Can't know what's under the water 'til you know what's there

:'( Let's hope that skinny bass didn't have LMBV. If others turn up, please inform your DNR. Chris! Are you a cousin? If you live in or near Eau Claire, MI, then you know the Bruces, some Murphies (esp. the late Reva), and all the places my Mother grew up. We have a little cottage on Smith Lake, home of the world's tastiest bluegills and a once-or-twice a year good bass lake. Do let me know. Our name is Hauck. --Poor Richard ----------------------- Total fishing wisdom: "The fish are biting or they're not."

Hey, Flip, you're right: PETA should not be allowed in schools--it is obviously one of them wacko religious cults. This is why we have separation of church and state, not to mention freedom of expression such as fishin'. Fishing is the true religion, anyway! : We all know what the fish sign stands for, right? And I notice the multitude was not fed with Big Macs.

There you go again, picking on us senior blue pill users. Your time is comiing. :'( I caught my personal best--7# in western Washinton State, where that is a good 'un--in a moment of total dead stick. My lure? A midget Jitterbug. My problem? A serious tangle. That bug sat there for at least 20 minutes while I got straightened out. It drifted a little, close in to a tangle of roots beneath a tree. She must have nested there, though it was late in the season. When I twitched the bug, she exploded, and I did get her out of that tangly place. Weighed and released immediately. Too pretty to put on a wall. Trouble is, I can't wait that long ordinarily, even though I know it is a great technique, especially for busy, hard-fished lakes. ------------- When I was kid, the elders insisted I be quiet and patient when fishing. They just didn't want me to yap all the time. They also didn't want to clean any fish. I was all growed up ere I learned that the fish won't come to you--you gotta go get 'em.

Oh come on, everyone knows it doesn't matter what you're throwing if you don't spit on it. And about sarcasm: sarcasm is a gift. It is almost as good as irony. -------------------------- Take a kid fishing today. If he acts up, use him for live bait.

Low Budget (don't forget to set the Hook-er!) is right--all heed. Some of these messages illustrate the principle very well: "All my fish are caught between 5 and 6 pm because I am awake and thinking about dinner." We hear that 10% of the fishermen catch 90% of the fish. Granted that some are better and/or luckier than others, but basically, that 10% of the fishermen do 90% of the fishing! Aren't numbers fun? My motto below is the only thing I know for sure about fishing. Not to say, though, I still get great tips from all you folks. ------------------------------ They're either bitin' or they ain't.

I would think a big bass would run more like 400-500 bucks. But I dunno; when I had one big enough, I let her go. Just couldn't picture her on the wall. What I do want is a great big pike with a bikini-clad Barbie Doll stuck in its mouth. This would entertain all the children that come to visit our family cabin. ------------------------ Kiss 'em and let 'em go. Eat bluegills.