Fish Chris

Being skunked doesn't bother me in the slightest. I truly enjoy being out on the water, under a blue sky, and surrounded by nature. I mean, if I "had to catch fish" to have a good time, I'd only fish in April and May, targeting dinks, with night crawlers, and I would catch fish, every single time ! But 10 or 20 dinks, would leave me feeling exactly the same sense of accomplishment, as if I had caught nothing at all. So instead, I might cast a big, heavy swimbait all day, and never get bit. That's fine, because at least I was in the running for a truly meaningful catch Peace, Fish

I'm not sure if he was the very first to come up with this, but he certainly believed this... and so do I. Of course I didn't "follow" him, nor anyone else, to this conclusion. I always have to learn things the hard way, through personal experience. But ending up at the same conclusion as the late, great, Doug Hannon is not a bad thing at all One other very cool thing about starting at 10 or 11am, is that only a couple hours later, the early morning crowd is starting to get tired and wimp out. Usually by 2 pm, 90+% of the crowd is gone, and I have the entire lake to myself for 4 or 5 more hours < Which is almost even better than catching fish ! I swear I'd trade half of my bites for a lake to myself ! ....well, at least the "smaller" bites LOL Nothing worse than fishing a lake that is being all chopped up.... often by bass fishermen in high per bass boats, that spend more time flying around at 60mph, than they do fishing. Fish

It's funny, I LOVE Wal Mart ! Shop there every week. But I typically walk right by the the fishing section. On the rare occasion that I need some kind of tackle, its usually some kind of speciality stuff (I'm picky as $#$%) that I have to get from a big, full blown tackle shop.... or the Internet. Fish

1 mph will totally impact sight fishing. 5 mph just sucks. I freaking despise wind ! Not saying it can't help the bite at times.... I just mean, I personally can't stand wind..... And I live in the windiest area in the US ! No, seriously ! It's known as the Carquinez straights. Look it up.... Fish

Funny you should ask..... Yes, as somebody mentioned, it has to do with jurisdiction. In my area, you would not even see a city cop in a fishing area > but you will often see Sherrifs ! In fact, we only have like 1 or 2 F&G Wardens in my county, and to even see one is rare. But we have a bunch of Sherrifs, and yea'.... they check for fishing license, issue citations, arrests, etc, all without even notifying a Warden. I guess if it were like a major F&G violation, they might at least notify the CA DFG, but for most things, they just handle it right there on the spot. Fish

You can look at the responses here, and see exactly why I'd prefer to fish dusk, than dawn.... because the majority always think they have to race to the lake before the first light. 10 dawn to 5 dusk in this thread so far. One of my biggest secrets to success, is to do everything differently than the crowd, if they zig, I zag. Besides all of this, it doesn't matter when I start, I still fish until its dark regardless. So I might fish from dawn to dusk, or from 10am until dusk > but never fish from dawn until noon, or something wimpy like that ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To be totally honest though, if I could only fish 4 hours, I'd fish 10 am until 2 pm WAAAY before I'd fish either dawn, or dusk ! As I've caught the majority of my biggest fish right in the middle of the day. I call the hour from noon to 1pm, the magic hour, and always plan to be on my best spot during this time. Dawn and dusk are more for numbers of smaller fish... and who really cares about those ? Peace, Fish

If they have to. Fish

Thank God ! I was SO tired of that Show Boating POS ! Silva was a very talented fighter, but IMPO, he made a mockery out of MMA. He said after the fight that he would not pursue another title fight. He said he would fulfill his contract of 10 more fights, but would not specifically try to be #1 again > which just does not even sound like the words of a true fighter to me, but whatever. I hope he was telling the truth. Fish

A boatload of strippers ? How cool would that be ? Geeez, you'd have to be like Chuck Norris LOL Fish

Forget about "spooted bass".... I'll take a "stripper" any day Fish

Yea'...... That place {San Pablo Dam Res} used to be awesome. But the Spotted Bass have just flat taken over, and outcompeted the baby Florida's to the point, they are all but gone Then at Rancho Seco, where I got my 18.4 lb PB, and still the lake record, first, it had some kind of huge big bass die off (I personally believe it was something 'like' the LMB virus that some places in the Southern US have experienced) Next, they started getting rain run off, instead of well water, and the entire dynamics of the lake changed. It got murky, all the tons of water plants died. Now it has a small population of dinks, some Sunfish, and trout whenever they dump them in for a derby or something. After I caught the Lk. record, I had said, I wouldn't care if somebody broke it later.... and that records were made to be broken. But at this point it doesn't even look possible. You rarely here of a 10 lb'er now, let alone an 18.4+.... Then I heard, that when the lease on the land runs out in a few more years, the park would likely be closed, and the land sold to the highest bidder We still have some HUGE 20,000+ acre lakes, like Don Pedro, or my home lake Berryessa, which have a top end up 17-18 lbs.... but the big ones are VERY hard to find, and I believe, hang suspended, way offshore, most of the time. So it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Fish

Alright, I was a bank beater for many years, and caught a lot of fish that way. WAY better than sitting at home because you don't have a boat One thing I have not seen reading over all of these posts > Is the often GREAT advantage a shore fisherman has at getting a big fish to eat in the first place ! People don't seem to realize how acutely aware a big bass is of its surroundings and any "intruders" which have come into there territory. MANY times I have used the boat, only to get me to an area of the lake that I could not get to by land, only to beach the boat, and get out and shore fish {how often would you see a glitter rocket beached up on the gravel, while the angler fished from shore ?} Here's a couple good ones I caught from the shore... Saw this 14.4 from my boat, but could not get it to come into the boat. I'm sure it felt trapped between my boat and the shoreline. So I went down about 75 feet, beached the boat, came back and stuck it on the first cast This 15.8 was hanging out right about where "most" fishermen would have pulled up and parked their boats Which was good for me

Glenn, I've known you for a long time, but never had any idea you were so into weightlifting ? You were pretty darn jacked, too ! Didn't know you were a pyro technician either. Our city could have probably used you last evening.... we had a nice show, but two 5-10 min interruptions, to put out fires ! No injuries at least. Peace, Fish

Music is an odd thing. I have a room mate who actually {sings ?} like this, in a band, and listens to stuff like this about 90% of the time.... Uhhh.... okay. I could talk $#!+ about how it isn't even music..... but that would be a totally biased opinion. To each their own. The older (and deffer) I get, the more I like (need) smooth, clean, clear vocals, and with lots of separation between instruments, for me to even be able to make sense of it. Then again, I often listen to electronic / techno, with no vocals at all, and I know their are people who wouldn't consider this music either. So again, to each their own. Peace, Fish

As for sups, the only 'legal' one that has really been proven to be really effective, is creatine, and just my luck, I can't take creatine The lucky 1 in 1000 I guess Other than that, their is all the "pump you ups"...... most of which have this big, long list of useless ingredients, but they sound good on paper anyway. Then, they throw in a big helping of caffeine, which is dirt cheap, and is the only actual active ingredient, and Bam ! They are making like a 1000% profit, for this fancy designer product, that does nothing more than a fat cup of strong coffee. I'll just stick to a fat cup of strong coffee Peace, Fish

Right on.... But I'm sure you meant 18 hz... not 18khz (or 18,000 hz) is like super high frequency.... probably outside of my def a$$ hearing range... On the other hand, my system rolls off in the low 20's, so it might miss most that 18hz stuff. I could have tuned it down to 18hz, or even lower, but it would be at the cost of SQ for stuff in the 30-80hz range (most bass recording) Still, I'll go check that song now Peace, Fish edit; Couldn't find it on Youtube... Got a link ???

Well of course But please... I hope nobody here tries to play this song (or others) at 50 watts, on a 20 watt stock stereo system ! Nothing sounds worse than distortion. Now, playing it at 1500 watts on a 1600 wt system, is "all good" Fish

Crank it up ??? Don't you guys know that loud music is bad for your hearing ? Peace, Fish

Great post Matt. Spot on, as usual. Of course, a 15+ lb Bass, can eat a pretty good sized Gill ...granted, it would probably prefer a hatchery trout over a Gill, about 100 X's to 1 Peace, Fish

Kevin, the pond I mentioned seeing big bass hanging around the Bluegill beds, has no minnows or shad, and does not allow minnows as bait. This is also the pond I caught my 18.4 lb PB (the lake record) at. Peace, Fish

SpeedBead, I totally agree with you on this. I've seen numerous bass to over 15 lbs, hanging around the outskirts of Bluegill bedding areas. Not that these big bass "wouldn't eat a minnow, or shad".... But I think they are looking for a Gill which is too busy spawning, and not watching its back.... Fish

Love Jack Russels too Fish

Hey ET, cool I like those too.... and French BD's as well. All just great dogs Fish

Ah JF, I'm SO envious ! Such cool dogs Peace, Fish

RedLine, I'm sure your right..... but for my broke a$$, it would have to be about 1/50th the MSRP, for me to be able to afford it LOL Peace, Fish