Zel

Professional bass fishing hasn't reached the level yet where they can eliminate the co-angler. I think John is right, that some day it will probably happen, but only if and when the professional bass circuits can stand alone on a purely professional basis. But for now, the professional circuits depend on co-anglers and federations as part of their overall business strategy as customers, in revenues and as volunteers. If the co-anglers and federations disappeared tomorrow, I fear so would many of the sponsors who recognize that you don't want to alineate the core customer. Right now, like it or not, the co-angler and federation member is a necessary feature of the environment... and they want to fish, not just observe. Personally, I wouldn't be too hard on him, because in truth the co-angler does have an impact on the professionals livelihood, and is one of the few things that they don't have control over.

Yup last time we fished there were two moons out that night on the lake. - - - - - - Alpster

A different perspective of Muddy

I have a couple of spots I fish that are loaded with rocks and smallies, and I know I'm definitely gonna lose most of the plastics I throw to the area. I prefer to fish plastics as I do better than with cranks in the rocks. I've come up with a cheap alternative for the situation. Here is the rig I throw. I attach a three-way swivel to my 10lb test, then about another 12 inches of 10lb test to a floating jig head with a tube (insert a packing "peanut" into the tube to give it buoyancy. Hanging down from the three-way swivel I put about 10 of 6lb test line and a 1/8 or 1/4 ounce split shot (depending on depth). If the split shot hangs up in the rocks, it just slides off , or the 6lb test line breaks. The rest of the lure usually doesn't hang up and I just attach another split shot.

JustinFromPA, you might also keep an eye out for what's available in boats on craigslist in the area. http://allentown.craigslist.org/boa/

Welcome INANN (formally known as TAB).

I keep a list of famous quotes and review them every so often. I like to use them when an occasion permits. Here are some of my favorites, if you have some you like, please add them to the list. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (1729-1797) "Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required." - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) "Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity." - Irving Kristol "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." - Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953 "After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one." - Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato) "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) "I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) "I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959) "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) "I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx (1895-1977) "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) Huxley (1894-1963) "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." - Will Durant "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." - Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.) "Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?" - Bumper Sticker "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) "A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies." - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) "When ideas fail, words come in very handy." - Goethe (1749-1832) "The graveyards are full of indispensable men." - Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) "I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) "Happiness is good health and a bad memory." - Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982) "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt." - Mark Twain (1835-1910) "I worship the quicksand he walks in." - Art Buchwald "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." - Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), "The Prince" "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) "I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them." - Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964) "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) "We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." - Vince Lombardi "Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." - Isaac Asimov "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix "God, please save me from your followers!" - Bumper Sticker "Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure." - Ross MacDonald (1915-1983) "Well done is better than well said." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) "Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches." - the Duchess of Windsor, when asked what is the secret of a long and happy life "A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted." - Helen Rowland (1876-1950) "You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." - Al Capone (1899-1947) "We are not retreating - we are advancing in another Direction." - General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) "Woman was God's second mistake." - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato (427-347 B.C.) "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." - Revelations 6:8

Yeah Robby, but try to get on and off Beltzville on a weekend with a boat during the summer. Unless you are real early or real late, expect it to take a least an hour. What really aggravates me is when they are lined up 10-20 deep waiting to get their boats on the lake, and all you want to do is pull your boat out of the water and get it on the trailer it can get real ugly. And I've found they usually shut the gates right after lunch (both Pine Run and Preachers), and only let you in as someone leaves. The rangers there are no help at all.

Welcome RangerDad. Some great fishin in central NJ.

There are several sportsman clubs dotted throughout the Lehigh Valley with private ponds/lakes attached to them, you might want to investigate. They aren't much to join, some less than $10. I was thinking of joining Blue Mountain Fish and Game Association this year (only about a mile from my home) for when the kids want to go out and catch a few, and accidentally fall into the water.

I throw lizards in spring and summer. I texas rig 6 and 7 lizards, and carolina rig 4 lizards, and do pretty well with them in northeast PA. I've found my catches on the lizards tend to be better quality fish. Personally, I only use basically 3 colors, black (with and without blue tails), pumpkinseed (with and without chart tails) and watermelon (black flake and red flake). When I'm looking for a kicker fish, I go to a lizard. BassinBoy, as for your trip to Pennsylvania, when it comes to plastics, I'd recommend to have some 4 & 5 Senko type baits (I usually texas rig the 5" and wacky rig the 4"), some Fat Ikas (rigged backwards), and some 4" hand poured straight tailed worms on a jig head for when the bite gets tough (like the Slider Spider Head jigs in 1/8 oz). Stick with dark natural colors and I think you'll do fine.

Man, I have 7 baitcast combos, but none on the list... I feel so inadequate... it's a wonder I catch fish at all. Lookin' to set up a bait monkey outlet LBH (Abu Garcia's are the best selling reels, followed by Shimano)?

I prefer Blended Scotch Whisky. Blended Scotch whisky constitutes over 90% of the whisky produced in Scotland. Blended Scotch whiskies generally contain 1050% malt whisky, blended with grain whisky, with the higher quality brands having the highest percent malt. They were initially created for the English market, where pure malt whiskies were considered too harshly flavored (the main two spirits consumed in England at the time being brandy in the upper classes, and gin in the lower ones). Master blenders combine the various malts and grain whiskies to produce a consistent "brand style". Blended whiskies frequently use the same name for a range of whiskies at wildly varying prices and (presumably) quality. To be called Scotch whisky the spirit must conform to the standards of the Scotch Whisky Order of 1990 (UK), which clarified the Scotch Whisky Act of 1988, and mandates that the spirit: 1. Must be distilled at a Scottish distillery from water and malted barley, to which only other whole grains may be added, have been processed at that distillery into a mash, converted to a fermentable substrate only by endogenous enzyme systems, and fermented only by the addition of yeast, 2. Must be distilled to an alcoholic strength of less than 94.8% by volume so that it retains the flavor of the raw materials used in its production, 3. Must be matured in Scotland in oak casks for no less than three years (oak casks come from Bourbon production, which has a nearly inexhaustible generation of used oak barrels, due to a regulation requiring the use of only new oak barrels in the production of Bourbon), 4. Must not contain any added substance other than water and caramel, and 5. May not be bottled at less than 40% alcohol by volume. Special Note: New legislation is expected in the spring of 2008 My two favorite Blended Scotch Whisky brands are Johnnie Walker and J&B.

Over the last couple of years I've been hearing quite a bit about the safety importance of having a ladder for your boat, in the event you would go overboard. When I bought my used boat the other year, I had them install a ladder on the boat. Just read an article about boarding ladders for small boats. According to the US Coast Guard, 275 fatalities resulted from 721 boating accidents that involved a fall overboard in 2006. The article went on to suggest 2 safety items you should have on a boat regarding ladders: 1) Life Vest (a fully clothed adult with no buoyancy would have difficulties attempting to get back aboard using any type of ladder), and 2) a of course a boat ladder. Funny, but the cheapest ladder seemed to work the best, a 4-inch wide webbing ladder ranked highest in the test(less than $25). http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|294|92384&id=92369 An interesting read: http://www.boatus.com/foundation/findings/findings44/FF44_Mag.pdf

Very good interview. Jeff Kriet offered some good insight into many of the complexities in professional bass fishing. If it wouldn't violate BR policy, would you consider putting a link in the interview to the pro's official website, or profile link at BASSs website. That way we could easily click to the best link to find out more about the angler.

Sound Card on my work PC went bad and since BassResource doesn't provide Closed Captioning for the Audio Challenged, I'll have to wait till tonight to check it out. I will definitely watch (and listen to) the interview later on.

BASS CLASS BASS BRASS

Welcome BKNJ!!! SHARKBITE I work in Easton, PA (right across the river from you) and enjoy fishing NJ lakes. I see you are new to the area. If you have a boat, you might want to check out Merrill Creek Res, Spruce Run Res and Round Valley Res. You can get free downloadable lake maps from the state of NJ here. http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/lakemaps.htm Also check this site out for fishing waters that might interest you in NJ, including small ponds (especially if you don't have a boat ). http://njbassanglers.com/places.php

Welcome from the ShimanQuantAbuDiawBrownPro Squad. (We have a small posse.)

The ability to never let the truth interfere with a good fishing story.

No bass were hurt or injured in the production of LBH's Avatar. It's image is purely fictional and any resemblance to any bass, living or dead, is coincidental. For those not in the know... it's just a CARTOON! :

Can't advise you on what to get, but something a little different you might want to consider. Does the new truck you're looking at come in diesel? And if the price of fuel is a concern, have you investigated the Greasecar conversion (link below) that runs on vegetable oil? Also, do you have restaurants (mostly Chinese) that use a lot of vegetable oil, in your area, that you can pick up for free rather than have them pay someone to take it away? Also, I think buying vegetable oil in bulk is cheaper than gasoline. Like I said, just something additional to think about. I don't know much about the system, you would have to investigate it yourelf, unless any else here had utilized the conversion system that could give you advice. http://www.greasecar.com/

When I fish from the bank, this is the one I use. I just limit my selections for the season, conditions and what I know about the lake. http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=972017&cp=2367824.2291514.2291519.2291567&parentPage=family&searchId=2291514

Between a torn meniscus operation, cancer treatments, and now a bad fractured knee that hasn't healed in over 6 months, I've unfortunately had to sit in front of the TV more than on the deck of my boat last couple of years. Between ESPN2, Versus, The Outdoor Channel and The Sportsman Channel I've seen almost every titled fishing show there is. I'd put Lunkerville is in my top 3 list. It's a show for the regular angler. No glitz, no glamour... just a good time fishing (except for that one of Mike practicing his pitching in the cold streets of NYC... that one got my head scratching ). If you haven't had a chance to see it on the boob tube, definitely check the shows out on the Lunkerville website. You will be entertained.

Muddy, if you need me and my a boat to take a couple of the guys out on the lake, let me know. And just and FYI if any members here who are going to Mauch Chunk Lake in Jim Thorpe, PA that weekend, and are country fans Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers are playing at Penns Peak in Jim Thorpe on 6/6. Now I know Country isn't Muddy's cup of tea, but to his delight, Arrival ABBA Tribute Band Is playing there on 7/18, the weekend of the other get-together at Mauch Chunk.