fourbizz

Ghostbusters. "I believe you have my stapler"

Inglourious Basterds "WOW! That was just an incredibly daring escape! These guys are good""

I was referencing Tombstone

OOOOH a swing and a miss

Tommy Boy "you gonna skin that smoke wagon or just stand there and bleed?"

I love movie quotes. Name the movie that the quote above you is from, and leave a quote of your own. Any man who uses any kind of search function, will be looked at as a leper by the rest of us ;D I am bored. "The Chinaman is not the issue here, dude"

Dropshotting.

My bass fishing stuff.

Holy crap. I hope that guy got his bait back. Yes, I know for a fact he did, lol

Well, with the approach of fall, Branuss and I are already looking at making our first trip to big brookie territory in the next couple weeks. Im excited! Lets go dude!

other than excessive heat, no idea.

I look at a black bear attack just the same as I do getting struck by lightning, or being crushed by a falling tree while hiking. I'm not gonna run around the top of the ridge with my flyrod in the air during a thunderstorm, and I'm not gonna swing from the limb of a dead tree. But the chances of those things happening arent going to keep me form going out, or make me wear boots with a 4" rubber sole and a hard hat while in the woods. If I happen to be hiking along and am killed by lightning or a random falling tree, so be it. Same with bears. I'm not gonna sleep with a package of bacon in my sleeping bag, but I'm not gonna lug a 3lb pistol with me everywhere either. If I get eaten, I get eaten. That is a lot cooler than dying of heart disease or a car crash. I really am more worried about people than bears. Now, Grizzlies are another story. I wouldnt backpack through their house without my 1911. And before anyone quips in with "Black Bears kill more people than Brown Bears", I know that already. But that is like saying that more people die from car wrecks than spaceshuttle crashes. There are black bears EVERYWHERE! ;D

We use purifiction bottles. In the early season I will also drink from the water running out from underneath snow fields, and this last trip we found a delicious spring. She uses a Katadyn, and I use a Bota. Just fill the bottle up from the lake, stream, whatever, put the cap back on, and purified water comes out when you squeeze it. Very efficient and handy. Also, in places where you come across water pretty frequently, you can always have cold refreshing water, which is nice. As for protection my Commie state makes it pretty scary to carry a gun, so despite having them, I do not take one. If I did, it would be to protect myself from people not animals. The black bears around here tend to stay way below the elevations we camp at, and I am not worried about encountering them while we are hiking at lower elevations.

1/0 Owner Stinger ST-41

I love the Chartruese Shad and use my CS Wake Jr in every body of water that I fish.

I have used them for swimbaits. They are decent rods. Specially for $60. It had a faster tip than I like for swimbaits, but I am to understand that is desirable in a muskie rod.

Managed to sneak out on a 3 day trip with my girl. Since she has proved her mettle the last couple trips, I opted to do a pretty tough one to some remote country. The day 1 hike was a strenuous 6.6 miles. This picture is taken about 3 miles into the hike. We still have to go about half a mile on the OTHER side of that low pass/saddle in the background. Some guys mentioned that they hardly ever see rocks in Florida. Well, we got them here. Nothing like a trail paved by the creator himself, lol. Finally made it to the top of the pass. The wind was HOWLING up here, my guess is 50mph+. Had a hard time keeping my footing for this picture. This was to be our home for both nights. The fishing was a little slow the first night. But I did manage to put together a couple brookies, sauteed onions, and shitake mushrooms to go with a delicious dinner of ramen noodles. On day 2, we opted to hike down into the canyon and try and get a Golden out of the Rubicon river. After a few miles down the mountain, we discovered a nearly dry river. I was able to find a pool of trapped fish and catch one tiny golden. But after another mile or so of heading up the valley, I found the handiwork of some long gone beavers. Thank you beavers, thank you. I found no more goldens, but what I did find was a ton of Brookies, probably 40 in total. We headed back to camp for night two and again enjoyed a brookie/onion/shroom dish finished off with freeze dried spaghetti. On day three, even though we had a long hike out ahead of us, we decided to make a quick dayhike over to a neighboring lake. I'm glad we did. Many of the lakes in this area are fishless and it is near impossible to get current info, so its almost always a gamble that you might hike your butt off for nothing. Well, this 2 mile jaunt was worth it! By this time we were about 9 miles from the nearest trailhead or road, so it was feeling pretty remote. Unfortunately, the camera ran out of batteries and we couldnt find the spares, so hopefully my verbal imagery can paint at least a pallid picture of our morning. We came over the hill to see a BEAUTIFUL lake. Quite large by backcountry standards, I would say in the neighborhood of 30 acres. The water was stunningly clear, you could see the bottom in probably 20ish feet. At first it looked barren, and I thought the hike was for naught. But then, I saw a group of half a dozen large fish! SCORE! I proceeded to catch brookies in the 12-14 inch range for about 2 hours, all on the fly rod. I was fishing a large streamer just below the surface and you would see them rocket out of the depths to t-bone it like the Great Whites hitting seal decoys on the Discovery Channel. It was too much fun. Have you ever felt completely at peace and content? That was me. Just about as happy as I can get. We made a short side trip following the tiny outlet of the lake that held suprisingly nice size fish for its diminutive size. I even got a chance to prove my mountain man prowess to the girl by catching a couple fish by hand. We had to leave much too soon to tear down camp and head home. I wish I could've spent the next 5 years up there bumming around and eating wild trout, but alas, back to the lowlands we went. All told, my conservative estimate is 21 miles in three days, much of that with a 40lb pack. Probably over 100 fish. I cannot wait to do it again.

HAHA. The plight of the swimbait builder. Cant even get a new bait on the market and everyone wants the next one..... NOW! ;D That being said, Matt, I want a trout bait too ;D

Thanks all. Good times were had. Had an awesome three day trip Tues-Thurs of this week. Took a bunch of pics if you guys wanna see them. Tin, I'm glad that your wife let your balls out of her purse long enough to drop in on this thread.

I'm sorry to hear that Keith. Not having work is a bummer.

So, doing my business, flipping through an old BPS catalog yesterday. I started noticing something pretty entertaining. I was looking at the various makes and models of cranks. Now, you know that BPS has trained professionals that take the photos of baits for their catalog. There were a surprising amount of baits with the split rings all opened up. Now maybe the fact that swimbaiting turns you into a real stickler for pristine hardware, or maybe I am just OCD, but stuff like that makes me not want to purchase baits. Most of the brands had at least one messed up ring in their spread but Rapala/Storm was a freaking joke. I dont know why I found this amusing, but look at your BPS next time you are on the can. Its like a fisherman's "Where's Waldo" but with split rings, lol.

Yeah, but I have I ever led you astray?

Matt builds badass baits. A bait of that size and build quality, at that price, is a steal. I'll be throwing it.

OH my goodness. I havent truly "laughed out loud" reading this forum in a long long time. That one did it. Thank you sir ;D