Scott F

It was way to big a job for me to do it myself. I had a guy come and fill it in for me.

I removed a 30ft round pool from the yard in a house I bought in 2020. Ours took almost 30 yards of dirt to fill in the hole. I considered putting in a seating area and fire pit, but I put down sod and planted a tree instead.

Considering 80% of Americans will suffer back pain at some point, it’s discouraging that there is so little that science can do for most of us. I spent a lot of money going to doctors, taking tests last summer and not one of them did anything at all to help me reduce or even tell me what the cause of my pain is. Good luck Catt, I hope you are able to get some relief.

My oldest sister did all the research on our family. On my mother’s side, both of her parents were born in Ireland. On my father’s side, his father’s family were also from the UK. His mother’s family has a long history here in the states. Her ancestors came over on the Mayflower. One of them died on the ship while in Plymouth Harbor. We are distantly related to president John Quincy and Samual Adams. We had relatives who fought in the revolutionary war. My sister spent a lot of time doing the research, traveling to Ireland to look up records and visiting cemeteries and to New England towns to look for information.

They should relate to any new structure pretty quickly. I’ve seen bass in new eddies while cranes and other construction equipment is still working on the site.

Just the water alone puts tension on the line. Have you ever let bare line out behind the boat to get rid of line twist? Even with no lure, your rod will bend. The friction between the line and water will cause the line to stretch.

I’ll fish Senkos a lot but I don’t bring hundreds of other lures that I know I won’t be using that day.

A company like St Croix makes a product that if not abused will easily last 30 years. Their warranties are abused by people who after slamming their rod in a car door, claim the rod broke on a fish. Those claims cost a lot to honor. It’s a big reason they reduced the length of their warranty. It wasn’t because their rods quality dropped.

Warranty lengths have nothing to do with the quality of a product. The marketing departments want long warranties to help increase sales but warranties are an expense. The longer the warranty the less profit a company makes. The company decides how many extra sales will offset the higher cost of a long warranty. Lots of junk products offer lifetime warranties and some excellent products only offer 90 days.

It’s gotten so that the orange craw color, Red Eye Shad is the only lipless bait I throw anymore

I’ve never stored line and lures where they could touch each other. No way I could even know what might happen

I’m retired and have no worries that keep me up at night. I’m not even close to Warren Buffet money but I’ve got enough for my needs. I don’t waste time or energy worrying about what might happen.

That was the same thing I thought when I saw that photo. Pliers, rods, sunglasses, lures, towels, everything would wind up sliding or blowing over the side eventually if that was my boat

One of the main uses for oars I’ve found isn’t for rowing but as a way to push yourself away from shore. Sometimes, you need to get in close to retrieve a lure and are too shallow to use a motor to get out. If you don’t want oars, get a strong, collapsible pole. One with a hook on the end helps grab tree limbs, line or a dock. If you fish in or near shallow water, you’ll use it more than you thought.

I put 16 oz of water into my 4 cup coffee maker every morning and that’s is normally all the coffee I drink all day.

Generally speaking, using circuit breakers as disconnect switches is not recommended. Switches are designed for repeated use and circuit breakers are not. Cycling circuit breakers too often can result in premature failure.

I worked for the same company for 36 years before I retired. It was a family owned company when I started and eventually was purchased by a few different Fortune 500 companies. I was inexperienced when I started but a hard worker and moved up to management. The big corporations changed the culture. They took away benefits and even though we generated bigger profits than any other division, they just kept pushing for more profits at the expense of its employees. They stopped giving annual raises but expected the workers to do more and more work. I got out of management and back on the road once I saw that my hard work was no longer appreciated.

The area where I live used to be a huge wetland. Over 100 years ago, the wetland was drained and turned into farmland. The ditches they dug to drain the area run into a river. In the spring, when the river is high, the ditches fill with water. Northern pike and smallmouth swim up the ditches and get trapped there when the water levels drop. Good sized pike and smallmouth are often caught in these roadside ditches along the cornfields that are narrow enough that you could jump over them. Back in the days before Navy Pier on Chicago’s lakefront was turned into a tourist attraction, we used to fish for perch there. The perch used the pillings under the pier for cover. The pier had a roadbed built on it with occasional drains that opened up right into the lake. We’d take the drain covers off and fished through the holes like we were ice fishing. It was quite a sight to see people sitting on what looked like a road fishing and catching perch.

I don’t actually remember which hook I used last but it was definitely the #8 short shank. I know I had a hard time finding them and bought a bunch so I wouldn’t have to search for them again. I’m not that particular about my hooks, stick with a name brand if you can

I use the 65’s and have literally caught thousands of smallmouth on them. If you replace the hooks with anything larger than the #8 short shank treble, it will not suspend properly. Using a long shank or stepping up a size really makes finding hooks easier, because there aren’t many #8 short shank choices out there. But the bait will sink. If that doesn’t bother you, do what you want.

You may not agree, but the bass don’t care if it’s shaped like a fluke. A 6 or 7 inch Senko is easily thrown on a baitcaster and you can work it like a jerkbait when you T rig it weightless. The slow fall, and the erratic, dying minnow action is what has caused millions of bass to be fooled by it.

Are you looking for a bait that sinks the fastest or that can be thrown more easily on a baitcaster?

I used to charge my batteries through the trolling motor plug for 30 years until I bought an on board charger.

You looking for a sinking or floating bait?

Lakes that you can drive to and have big pike are some of the most heavily fished. I used to fish some remote fly-in lakes where in the first few years of being fished by only 6 anglers a week, all catch and release. The size of the pike caught went down every year mostly due to inexperienced anglers not handling the fish well and killing them. Even the big, high priced lodges with guides aren’t putting out nearly the numbers of big fish they used to. While there are certainly big numbers of fish that can be caught, trophies are not common on most lakes. Just like in the states, you need to be in the right place at the right time. It’s not as easy as just showing up and tossing out a lure.