fourbizz

lmao. I use 2lb dia braid. The small diameter is just as important to me as the sensitivity. x2 Since switching to a braid mainline, it is like a whole new world. I understand the sensitivity in braid is nice, but I don't use braid for anything but musky. I feel like I am tossing rope out there, even with a fluro leader. Confidence thing I guess. It is either 12 pound mono for most situations (have even caught a 43'' musky on it, no leader) or lighter if I am using spinning gear. I know I will get lit up for this, I just don't see the need unless fishing for money. Then maybe it is 20pound big game. To each his own... :-X

Didnt even think of that. I'm sure youre right. I was out for like half an hour.

Well, my girl and I had a few days completely to ourselves and were dying to get to the high country. After some searching we found our potential destination. The Lane/Roosevelt area out of Leavitt Meadows in the eastern Sierra. Since I couldnt ascertain real time snow conditions up there, we packed very heavy, and packed so that we had the option of doing several other things if conditions dictated. As soon as we got to the junction of 108 & 395, I knew we would be good. We started up the trail and opted to take the more difficult, but more scenic route to Roosevelt via the Secret Lake trail. Some great scenery for sure. Looking back towards the Marine Mountain Combat Training Center http://lh5.ggpht.com/_2bPMvJ99Jus/TA_3Cd8AHsI/AAAAAAAABNQ/A0bbnxEe1O8/s800/SANY2090.JPG This tree is cool. Click link for more detailed view http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Vp8HTeEigcF2tKYnSKlohgtNjyV9gk2xizeZAHvzSkw?feat=directlink That is Kirman Lake down there. Secret Lake. Fished for a little while. Did see one small rediside, no sign of trout. After a little fishing, lunch, and a great nap on the rocks we moved on down the trail to Roosevelt and Lane Lake. Our destination for the trip. I was bummed to see how much of a challenge this lake would be to fly fish without a tube. Somehow I had missed out on that little jewel of information during my short research of this trip. But, while my girl played home maker and set up the tent, i played hunter/gatherer and put my fly rod to work. After only ten minutes of fishing, I had this nice Lahontan come up and suck in my redside imitation streamer that I came up with this winter. Killer. After making a circuit of the lake with my fly rod and finding only a couple places to cast, I headed back to camp and picked up my girl's spinning rod. After a bit of experimenting, I found the lure that they liked and spent the rest of the evening catching probably 20 fish. Most were between 8 and 12 inches, but did catch a couple nice ones the size of the first fish that I caught. Had a great dinner, found a tick on my male anatomy, dispensed justice to it, then went to bed. Had a very nice, mild night and got to sleep on my insulated Big Agnes air pad for the first time. Talk about an upgrade. I didnt realize you could wake up on a backpacking trip and not feel like the Crypt Keeper. After breakfast, I caught another 15 or so fish, and we decided that since I couldnt flyfish effectively, we would opt not to spend another night here. Had a blast with the spinning rod, but after a little while, I get bored of that. So we packed up and headed out on the normal trail into these lakes. There were some awesome views of the valley on this stretch too. So we got out of there, and headed to Bridgeport to get a Jolly Kone burger ( d**n those are good! ) and talk to Jim at Kens Sporting Goods. We were still undecided on what to do for the rest of our trip at that point, but after talking with him, we opted to spend the rest of the day on the East Walker river. Caught 2 fish and missed a couple more. Both were very nice Browns. The bigger one got foul hooked and took forever to land. I didnt know it at the time, but she got a video of it. Be forewarned, there is a bit of language. http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/CMezEmnDfvrbtIuunmLLtgtNjyV9gk2xizeZAHvzSkw?feat=directlink I told her to be ready to take a pic, because I didnt want to stress the fish anymore. She snapped this just as it flopped free of my hands ( i had already dehooked it) Mad Jedi fish levitation skills. The force was with me. And that was our first backpacking trip of '10. FINALLY! Bridgeport is beautiful.

No, I just assume that it was a karmic payback for making fun of tin's spidertaint debacle. ;D

So, I just got back from a backpacking trip ( full report later). But I had the worst thing ever happen to me while I was up there. So, after a full day of hiking and fishing, I was ready to crawl into my bag, when I decided that I should empty the bladder now, as opposed to having to get out of the tent in the middle of the cold night. Throw my boots back on and walk a little way from the tent. I pulled my soldier out of his long john hammock and noticed something stuck to him, right underneath the rim of his helmet. Must just be a piece of bark or dirt that somehow found its way down there on the hike in. Tried to brush it off. No go. Try a little harder. No go. Then, a terrifying realization hit me. My loyal compatriot these last 25 years was under siege. The tick had overrun the trenches, and my boy was taking fire. Panic/disgust/nausea/revulsion/anger set in quick and with a vengeance. I called "MEDIC!" and my girl was instructed to locate my headlamp and fly fishing forceps stat! After exfiltrating back to the field hospital, I set to work on bringing my fighting man back to health and removing the bane of his existence. Luckily, the little commie bastad had just barely gotten hold, and through much praying, interspersed with the foulest language ever heard, your humble narrator was able to remove the tick, in its entirety, from his poor soldier's collar. He is in fine spirits and resting well. Keep him in your thoughts. P.S. WORST THING EVER!

Yeah, I'm sure it works being casted but I just cant bring myself to do it. I always throw the carolina rig in those situations. I might cast a drop shot one day but for now, I think I'll just keep dropping it......straight down. (I'm hard-headed) Dropshotting is my third favorite technique. I cast it probably 90% of the time. Just sayin... ;D

Powell.

If you are not using braid mainline, you are cheating yourself.

Well that being the case, IMO, the most important piece of gear you take with you is your graph. I dont run a real expensive graph, but I do use a quality one( Lowrance x-96). It is fairly inexpensive, but has great power and resolution, is consistent, and most importantly, I have used it enough to know what it is telling me. You could have the best unit on the planet, but you gotta learn to hear what it tells you.Some of my buddies, that tend to fish shallow reaction baits, have garbage graphs on the front of the boat. "Oh. I just use that for the temperature." ;D I am a graph watcher, big time. Matter of fact, when fishing deeper than 20 or so feet, I probably spend a majority of the day listening to what my graph is telling me. MAPS! MAPS! MAPS! The new units with mapping software are AWESOME, but a traditional topo map of your lake with good definition. Maximum of 10ft elevation lines, 5ft is better if you are fishing a deep, canyon type lake. You want the 2ft countour lines for shallower natural lakes. Fishing deep is all about knowing what is down there. You can fish a lake hundreds of times over the next 30 years and start to learn it with a C-rig, or you can look at a map for half an hour before you ever get to the water and have a general idea of where to go. Ill look at the depth range where big fish are most likely to be this time of year, then circle potential structure with a pencil. That way when you get to the lake, especially if it is a new lake to you, you have a focus. Turn on your graph and make some passes across the structure in a zig zag pattern. As long as you know how to read a graph, it will tell you d**n near everything you need to know. You can see exactly how the spot lays out, where the secondary breaks are on the structure, and if you find a boulder, tree, or bush on one of those break lines, you have found the sweetest of sweet spots. Seriously, to me, I would rather have just a jig and a graph to fish deep than all of my tackle but no graph. If you want/need to fish deep and you dont have a decent graph, and more importantly the know how to read it, you are in for a tough road. Now, at the extreme depths of 40+ you are unlikely to be able to see fish clearly unless they are suspended or sitting on a very featureless bottom. If there are good size rocks, at that depth, the fish tend to blend in. Most of the time I am using my graph to find structure and the subtle features of it, not the fish. The other thing that I consider very important when fishing deep is using braid, often with a flouro leader. You put that kind of depth, possibly neutral fish, and a drifting boat into play and that extra sensitivity can mean all the difference. Obviously that sensitivity can let you feel more bites, but it also lets you set the hook more effectively when fishing a jig or big plastic, and it also transmits more of the bottom to your hand so you can better feel what piece of the structure you saw on the graph. I believe that the biggest hurdle for most people when they start fishing deeper, is that they feel lost, like they are fishing a desert. The more you can do to see the structure you are fishing, and feel your bait as it traverses it, the more confident you can be that you are where the fish are. I am of the opinion that if the average fisherman backed out and fished deeper on a regular basis, the more frequently he would catch big fish.

What are we calling deep? For me, deep starts at about 30ft and goes down.

The Old Man And The Beaver An 86-year-old man went to his doctor for his quarterly check-up... The doctor asked him how he was feeling, and the 86-year-old said ,'Things are great and I've never felt better. I now have a 20 year-old bride who is pregnant with my child. "So what do you think about that Doc ?" The doctor considered his question for a minute and then began to tell a story. "I have an older friend , much like you, who is an avid hunter and never misses a season." One day he was setting off to go hunting. In a bit of a hurry , he accidentally picked up his walking cane instead of his gun." "As he neared a lake , he came across a very large male beaver sitting at the water's edge.. He realized he'd left his gun at home and so he couldn't shoot the magnificent creature. Out of habit he raised his cane , aimed it at the animal as if it were his favourite hunting rifle and went 'bang, bang'." "Miraculously , two shots rang out and the beaver fell over dead.Now, what do you think of that ?" asked the doctor. The 86-year-old said,"Logic would strongly suggest that somebody else pumped a couple of rounds into that beaver." The doctor replied , "My point exactly."

He's a ball hog, a cry baby, and I hate his face ;D

He was telling me that it is perfectly legal to buy "moderators" for air guns. Strangely, they look, function, and perform like a silencer, but arent. lol

I just hope Kobe dies. I dont care how. Just make it happen someone.

Drug dealers get the death penalty on their first strike. Problem solved ;D

censorship on top of censorship. only here folks.

This entire thread is full of fail.

I shot a couple of his air pistols. He runs red dots on them. Insaneley accurate ( like cheez-its @ 30yards) and they seem to stay pretty true.

My uncle is all into air guns these days. He just bought some sort of ultra awesome pre charged pneumatic gun. He is also in the process of saving money to get one of these for big game hunting. http://www.airgunsbbguns.com/Career_Dragon_Slayer_Air_Rifle_50_cal_p/shin-sung-career-dragon-50.htm Thats right all, .50 I want one!

;D

That was not a grammatical error, it was a spelling error.

Without an "e" apparently.... ;D

Wow how tall are you? I wear a 30 length. 6'8" of twisted steel and sex appeal. ;D

Well, regardless of whether they are consistent, at least you can find clothes your size. 38X40 pants arent as easy to find as you might think.