Hanover_Yakker

2005 Dodge Grand Caravan (needed for the family primarily and the dogs) has close to 246K on it right now. I know another vehicle will be in my future at some point, especially with a newborn on the way.

I personally would have waited to launch until 10 or 11 in the morning and fished the exposed flats near drop offs or ledges that had been warmed by the sun later in the morning. I would have considered the following: 1. slow rolling a large profile black/chartreuse spinnerbait with a single Colorado blade and a thumping tail shad trailer 2. working a suspending jerk bait like a LC Pointer or SPRO McStick in the clear water areas 3. stroking a gold shiner lipless crank 4. working a jig-n-craw in dark colors with a ratte and a dark craw trailer along the dropoffs. Anyone else?

There are valid reasons on why different lines will or will not work. The common variables regardless of line choice are drag setting and hookset. With topwaters, it can be difficult to teach yourself to "not set the hook" when you see that first strike. All you need to do is keep the line relatively taught and slowly sweep the rod to the side. The drag is another important factor when "dialing in" your topwater setup. For me, a light drag is a good option when paired with a rod that is not a dedicated topwater rod. As we all know, not all actions are equal, as well as power ratings. For me, I typically set the drag so that I can pull line off with a little effort but the drag kicks in in the event that I "overset" the hook on my sweep or hookset motion. Kind of goof-proofing it if you will. Just remember that the drag setting will need to be adjusted accordingly if this will be a rod you will be using for different levels of the water column. Another trick I use (since I use braid myself) is to allow a little "s" curve in the line when walking or popping the lure. This gives you an additional split second delay when the fish takes the lure. It serves three purposes: 1) Helps minimize jerking the lure from the fish's mouth; 2) It helps minimize the amount of movement or action with each rod movement; 3) Allows enough slack for the fish to take the lure and turn away thus increasing the chances of a good hookset when you sweep to the side.

I remember watching that a while back. My only changes would be like Bobby said to fish it with a little longer line length. I would also fish it with a free spool with your thumb on the spool. After you have the hookset, then engage the spool. I use a similar technique on salt water fish that have soft mouths that tear easily (spadefish, speckled trout mostly). Doing this helps me ensure the hookset is good but not too hard to tear a hole in their mouths. Not an issue so much with bass but it would help reduce the chances of losing fish by ripping the lure out of their mouth.

Dang!! The rod storage and that livewell is sick man! Congrats!!

.....and a closer look at the price points of the high end Abu's, Shimanos, Daiwas, Lews, etc. relative to the discount you get isn't phenomenal by any means but $40-50 off isn't too bad I guess, so a Shimano Core would be a decent value at $300 but you might be able to do better online if you're diligent enough.

I think what Hootie is referring to is that there are no exclusions during the reel trade-in period. A few years ago, they had excluded a few of the high-end reels, because people were bringing in busted reels and then getting massive discounts on Shimano COres, etc.

Depends - if I want to get deep quick, then weighted is the way to go especially if you are trolling a channel ledge. If you are casting and retrieving, the weighted jigheads might where you out after a bit.

Might I suggest trying this..... http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/index.php?app=core&module=search&section=search&do=search&fromsearch=1 When I did that, I filtered using the keyword of Dobyns and selected "Title Only" then I used the CTRL key and selected the General Fishing forum and the Rod, Reel, Tackle forum. It resulted in 4 pages of topics that were associated with Dobyns rods. Might answer some of your questions as the topics cover a variety of rod choices and power/action combinations.

Some of you may already know this from our discussion in the Westminster Kennel Club thread, but to the uninitiated my wife and I are champion breeders of Welsh Springer Spaniels. The Welshie is only one of four breeds of origin to have "red" as their primary color. All other breeds that have a red or mahogany coat color today have had it bred into their lines. We currently have three in our household and co-own 5 other champions that live across the US. Here are ours: Savannah (the foundation ***** of our kennel) is laying down and is the mother to our other two at home, Tegan (left) and Colin (right). They are 12 (going on 13) and 9 respectively. Here are a some others you might enjoy.....

Stradic FJ2500 for my money for daily use but if you were willing to spend the extra $35-45, then the Ci4 would be my choice..

Don't forget that BPS offers a trade in credit voucher the first week for each serviceable reel you donate towards the purchase of a new reel during their Spring Fishing Classic. For Chronarchs, they sell them at $199, so per the trade in voucher, you would get $30 off meaning your Chronarchs would be $169. Or you could opt for the Citicas at $129 and get $25 off. The rod voucher is the second week.

During the summer and winter months - all the time!!! They are amazing. Many people think they are only for summer use - not true. I went out on the water a caouple weekends ago to chase some yellow perch with fellow kayak anglers. My Hobie buff kept my face nice and warm and protected from the chilly winds but still was breathable enough that I wasn't sweating under it. Now, during colder months, there is one drawback and that is your exhaled breath is typically warmer than the outside air, so if you wear one with polarized glasses, the lenses may fog up when you exhale. Small inconvenience, but its worth it in my opinion. On a side note, the coolest one I have seen is the one that looks like the faces of the Ghosts from Ghost Recon fame - pretty killer if you ask me, but black is not the best color for summer sun.

Welcome aboard!! If you have a minute, take some time to update your profile with at least your location. That way the folks that are closer to you might have some information or opinions that are more relevant.

First, check the card in another device like a camera and see if it will store pics. If it does, then the issue may be with your card slot on your FF or your FF's capabilities. Check your owner's manual for the minimum class of SDHC card that the FF can read. Most work best with class 10, but if you have a class 6 or lower, it may or may not be usable in your FF. Other things to check are you might want to look at the card itself and make sure the lock tab is not in place. Some generic cards really don't work well compared to higher grade ones. Another tip that I learned is to ensure that when you empty an SDHC card's contents using your computer that you also empty the trash can on the computer while the card is inserted. Otherwise, you'll get a card full error as well.

Sorry - meant feeding tables and moon phases for deer and to apply the concepts to the solunar tables and fish feeding patterns. Hope fully folks got the drift.

Here's some of mine......

I had two dogs entered the last two years and handled my own dog last year. I can honestly say it was an amazing experience, and I enjoyed every minute of it. We were very popular with the fans when they came around to our setups and met our dogs. We received several compliments and even were on TV. For those that are unaware, the dog show world is very political and preferential. Westminster was originally founded to creat a singular event where the best representatives (from a breeding stock perspective) could come together and compete on common ground against their respective breed standards. Well, over the years, that fundamental concept has faltered tremendously. My wife and I have been breeding champion dogs for the last 12 years and have multiple AKC Confirmation, Hunting, Obedience and International champions to our credit. I personally handled every one of our show dogs to their AKC championships and finally reached a point where I was fed up with inferior dogs winning simply because they were handled by a big name handler. This is not always the case, as there are a greater number of good examples for each breed when you make it to the big stage, but I can tell you from personal experience that in the breed rings it can be downright cutthroat. It costs several thousands of dollars each year to show your dog, let alone the advertising costs if you have any aspirations of competing at the big shows with the big name handlers. If you doubt it, just pay attention to who is on the end of the leash in each group, and then go back and watch the group judging videos from past years. It's odd that the same people happen to always be in the final ring don't you think? It frustrated me enough combined with the excessive costs that I no longer do it. You have to remember that almost every single dog you see in the final group rings has been "campaigned" to certain judges for 2-3 years in preparation for nights like Westminster and Eukanuba. The Best In Show and Group judges that are selected are chosen a year in advance and are specifically prohibited from having any assignments leading up to the WKC event to avoid the appearance of any favoritism. A judge can only be the group and BIS judge once in their career, so if you are a savvy handler you can quickly deduce who the potential judges are going to be simply by looking at each judge's approved breed and group assignments in the past and who has already judged at WKC.

I'm probably in the minority here, but my thoughts are actually contrarian to most on this subject. I actually leave all of my tackle variety at home. The first key is dialing into the solunar prime windows and adjusting for pre-fontal or post-frontal conditions. Once you've done that, then you have a window of opportunity to dial into a specific pattern. For me, fishing out of a kayak helps me simplify this lure selection process. I take one tackle tray and 3-4 individual bags of soft plastics plus one small tackle tray for terminal tackle. That's it. In my opinion, the majority of your fishing lures (minus big swimbaits obviously or unique lures) will fit into a 3600 -3700 tackle tray. My current tackle tray of choice for a one day outing is a Plano waterproof series with removal long dividers to create a single large area on the right hand side, and the section of the left hand side into smaller compartments using the provided dividers. The tray contains the following: 1. 3 lipless cranks (1 each in shad, gold shiner and red/orange craw) - no need to carry billed cranks that waste space in the tray. 2. 4 skirted jigs - (2 each of black/blue, brown/orange) 3. 3 spinnerbaits (1 each in white/chartreuse, bull bream/bluegill and a sexy shad variant) 4. 3 jerkbaits (1 each in silver, gold and a shad pattern) 5. 2 buzzbaits (1 in black and 1 in white) 6. Inline spinnerbaits - (Rooster Tails in white/silver blade, black/silver blade, chartreuse/chartreuse blade and perch/trout color. 7. Soft plastics (1 bag each: black/blue or okechobee craw, a white tube, a lizard, shad/pearl fluke, senko and a curly tail grub) 8. Topwater - a couple hollow bodied frogs and a few Ribbits (watermelon pearl, black and brown/orange) and a spook. My small terminal tackle box has 6 slots that I segregate to accommodate: shakey heads, EWGs in 2-3 sizes, wacky hooks, keel weighted swimbait hooks. The EWG hooks perform double duty as fluke hooks as well as frog hooks. The keel weighted swimbait hooks do the same only for flukes and lizards or stick baits. The wacky hooks perform triple duty for flukes, stick baits and tubes. That's it! Simple and to the point. If I can't catch fish on one of those items, then it just isn't my day. If you take more than that, you might find yourself spending more time second guessing you approach and switching constantly. When I head out, I have three rods pre-rigged: one topwater, one bottom bouncer and one mid-column. That usually equates to: a Ribbit, a shakey head and lipless crank or spinnerbait. 8 out of 10 times I head out, I never need to deviate from one of those presentations. Your area may vary, and your tackle selection may vary as well depending upon which area of the country you are in, but the general concept still applies and should be considered the next time you head out. For the record, if anyone doubts the impact of the solunar tables, just make a mental note next time during deer season of when the prime feeding hours are for deer and then go home and check the solunar tables. You'll find that their feeding windows adjust daily and coincide with those time frames. Fish behave in the same manner.

Welcome aboard!!!

Here's my next one. Already on order and hopefully delivered next week........

According to the specs, it is a 6.3:1, so that would equate to a variety of presentations depending upon true rod power and action. If you find the power to be too strong (more of MH than a M), then you will need to either use a line that stretches, use a soft hookset with a slow sweep to the side or set your drag looser than normal to avoid ripping the treble hooks out of the fish' mouth. You could use it for small cranks though.

Anytime I can, well as long as the water is warm enough!!!!

Shimano Cumara, Compre or Crucials will do the job rather nicely. They have a lifetime warranty over the counter replacement, so depending upon your tackle stores's policy on merchandise warranties, you can swap it just by walking in. St. Croix, Powell, Dobyns, Kistler, etc all have choices in that range in you look hard enough. The key is the XF tip but good backbone of a MH/H powered rod. My Shimano MH/XF does perfectly fine doubling as a frog rod and a jig rod, and I fish some thick, nasty lily pads with bad matted grass, too.

You need to stop and turn around and leave the store. $97 for a shirt is insane!!!! What stores are you shopping in big money? LOL.