nboucher

I have lakes that always seem windier than other nearby lakes as well. My theory is that the windy lakes have less protectionfewer tall trees and similar obstaclesto block the wind from the predominant wind direction in my part of the country, so they always seem windier than other lakes nearby that may have a thicker and taller forest on that side. Track the wind direction on the windy days, and you may find a connection.

Matt, why aren't you out getting high or vegging in front of the TV like other guys your age? I'm in awe of you. Your creativity and determination are a wonder to behold. And that photo of your rig hanging on the doorframe is a classic. Keep at it, man.

jb, your boy looks like a mini you.

Here's how I do that alone: Calculate what 1/4-1/3 of your line's breaking strength is in pounds. Take a two-handled plastic grocery bag, and using your scale hooked into the handles, fill the bag with canned goods until it's at the desired weight. Put your scale aside. Run your line through your guides, tie a good-sized hook at the end, and hook the handles of the bag. Stand and hold your rod at a 45-degree angle to the floor. Set your drag so it gives just as the bag comes off the floor.

Good luck, Avid. As Russ said, the surgery's the easy part. The rehab makes all the difference later. Make sure you're religious about attending the sessions and work hard at it. You won't regret it. I've had a couple of knee surgeries, and thanks to rigorous rehab, I ran a marathon on them last year! All best, Norman

Welcome to the site! Most of the TV stuff is based on big-water pro-tournament expectations, and if you live in a state with no big water, the guys with the huge bass boats who are used to roaming 2,500-acre lakes might be disappointed. But small water can be great water. I live in eastern Mass., which is not exactly known as a bass-fishing mecca. Yet over the past few months, for example, in the ponds and small lakes I fish regularly I've caught everything from dinks to 6.5 pounders, and the 3s, 4s, and 5s are fairly common. My most productive pond is about 30 acres, and very few people bother to fish it. Because this pond is on no state list of hot bass sites, and because no one's ever fishing there, I ignored it until this year, thinking it wouldn't be worth it. But because it is literally two minutes from my house, I figured I'd put a kayak into it and give it a shot, and, boy, have I been pleasantly surprised. The point is that you'd be amazed how good bass fishing can be in spots ESPN would never look at. Get the maps out and look for any water you can find.

I've always thought you have the best screen name on the site, and that's because I spent so many days with a Zebco 202 "ZeeBee" as a boy. I will never love another reel as much as I did that one. I'm in my mid-50s now, and even though I sometimes confuse the names of people I love, I still remember the exact feel of unscrewing the front of that reel to clean out all the sand I used to somehow get in there. I wish I had done what you did, and kept that reel.

Right after college, I was living in a cabin whose back porch literally overhung a slow-moving river. I'd come home from work, grab a rod and cast off the porch. Or at least I did until I got home one day and all my fishing stuff and my favorite sleeping bag (which was spread out on a cot) were gone. I didn't fish again for more than 20 years . . .

The warmer your head and core are, the warmer your extremeties will be. If your core is not good and warm, your body will keep your blood there and send less of it out to your hands and feet.

Mama mia, Muddy! I'm gonna have to drop 10 pounds by March, so that your meatballs and Matt's brisket can fatten me back up. 8-)

Those do look great, Avid. Is there an easy to pop them out of the water as you're moving around from fishing spot to fishing spot? Do you slide them in as you move, or do they stay in the water as you paddle?

Just booked a room. There is now one left, as of 10 PM eastern time. Linda at Fisherman's Cove said they'll be happy to recommend nearby places once they're booked up. Riskkid and I will be fishing together, and we've hired a guide named Tim Walker to show us around on Monday. When I called Fisherman's Cove tonight, he happened to be eating dinner at the restaurant, so he came to the phone and we chatted a bit. He offered to set anyone up with guides who wants one. His Web site is http://www.timwalkersguideservice.com/

Superstition and luck are not the same thing. I'm not the least bit superstititous, but I occasionally get lucky. (Err, let me rephrase that; oh, never mind.) Skill in fishing is of paramount importance, but there's often an element of luck. Like catching a fish while removing a bird's nest. Like just happening to cast in the spot where a big fish IS. (Skill is casting where a big fish is likely to be.) success = skill + luck

I also have used this site, which has good photos and a pretty good key up top. Although it's a Mississippi guide, it's widely applicable: http://msucares.com/wildfish/fisheries/farmpond/weeds/thumbs.html For a more northern view, this one is pretty good, though more difficult to use: http://www.mciap.org/herbarium/index.php

Try running stores for some good ideas. My own view is that Under Armour is wildly overpriced. As a New England runner, I'm always looking for deals on wicking clothing, and I've found some great stuff at some of the shoe outlets. For example, there's a Saucony outlet near me, and they carry some good wicking garments at reasonable prices. Anyway, here's a pretty decent review of some of the topline wicking fabrics, including Under Armour. http://www.slate.com/id/2124889/

Muddy, if the Mets with it all, I'll wear my Red Sox World Series hat and you can wear your Mets World Series hat. . . . Those Tigers are going to be hard to beat, man. Okay, I'm trying to piece together a plan here, but I've got some rookie questions, mostly so I can budget for this: 1. Should I just book a room and get a plane ticket and show up with gear, or do we all need guides & boats? If we need guides and boats is there a rational way to share the load? My impression so far is that everyone is just scrambling. Am I missing an underlying plan/organization? I'm happy to help out with this, if you need me, Russ. My impression is that some guys are coming down together and will likely fish together, but for those of us who are coming down "unattached," should we organize some kind of teamwork? 2. My boat is a kayak, so when it comes to bass boats and engines I don't know squat. I'd like to hook up with a more experienced boater (and fisherman, for that matter). Should I just start begging? 3. Where do we fly into? 4. Any special permits/licenses needed?

Russ, is this trip open to amateurs like me, who owns exactly one spinning setup and one baitcasting set up? How do we handle the boat rentals? Do we pair up? Seems a guy could learn an awful lot on a trip like this.

Every so often I see people mention wind blowing baitfish in a particular direction. Fishing in wind for a few days recently, I started wondering about this. Isn't wind a surface phenomenon? As such, wouldn't baitfish be able to easily avoid its influence by swimming a little deeper? I've also read that the wind doesn't blow the baitfish around, it blows the surface organisms they feed on, so they are just following their food source. How does wind actually affect baitfish and bass? Is it always better to fish the bank that the waves are hitting, or is it better to fish spots that are relatively protected from the wind? Or neither?

Transition? Ha. Here in New England it's jig season. Today the air temp was 55 and the water temps were in the low 60s. Gusty wind, too. Managed a 3-pounder on a jig and a couple of smaller ones. Now I'm sipping hot coffee. Brrrr.

How do you guys decide when to swim a jig and when to use a more traditional approach. I use the traditional cast/drag/lift technique most of the time and don't have a lot of confidence swimming a jig. As a result, when I try to swim it the result is kind of a hybrid of drags and lifts with some swimming in between. What retrieving speed do you prefer, and do you intersperse the retrieve with pauses and jerks, or just a steady retrieve?

Looking forward to having you back. Be safe.

I do think that persistence and perseverance are a big part of it. When I started fishing a new pond this spring, I had never seen more than one or two people ever fish this particular pond, so had no idea what it might contain. So I put some time on the water trying to figure it out, to understand just how the structure and cover were laid out and how the fish related to them. Then I matched my baits to that layout. At first I caught nothing, then some small fish regularly, and as I got to know the place better and better I started catching 4, 5, and 6 pounders fairly frequently. I kept learning and kept reminding myself not to get set in my ways. Some anglers talk about having to "earn" your fish by spending time on a body of water, and I think this is really about getting so familiar with the body of water that you can visualize the structure and cover beneath you and you therefore know where the big fish are likely to be. Once you do this, your odds of catching the biggest fish in that particular body of water go up. This process can happen faster on a body of water that's well-known and about which there's a lot of info out there to be had. But the point is that it's unlikely somebody can just go to a new body of water and catch big fish simply by using big baits. That may be a part of it, but more important, I would argue, is the time spent getting to know a particular body of water, the persistence and perseverance that Fish Chris is talking about.

Avid, those look pretty cool, especially for a canoe. And they remind me, even though I've never flipped my kayak (yet), anyone who fishes a lot from a kayak is well advised to have some fun and practice "wet entries" on a hot day. http://www.kayaklakemead.com/wet-entry.html

Finally, RW is wrong about something! I agree that any bass fisherman accustomed to fishing from a traditional bass boat would find a kayak confining and frustrating. Mine has a pretty open cockpit, so I can move around pretty well in it, but I can't stand in it and having to fish from a sitting position can be a major drawback, especially with pitching & flipping. And a kayak is NOT a big-water craft. I've gotten wet more than once fishing from my kayak in water with sizeable waves. Also the bigger you are, the more awkward it is to get in and out of one. For big guys looking for non-motorized fishing, I'd recommend a canoe over a kayak. As for hauling in hawgs, my PB is 6lb, 7oz (granted, that's pretty modest for many parts of the country), and it was a blast to land her. You do get towed some, but that's part of the fun, and I had no trouble getting her in the cockpit, weighing, photographing, and releasing her. And I certainly wouldn't recommend a two-man, or tandem, kayak for fishing. Kayak fishing is closer to float-tube fishing than it is to motorized fishing. A small kayakI wouldn't recommend anything longer than 12 feet for most freshwater applicationsis really an extension of your body. Although RW is correct that you can't cast behind you (does anybody really do this?), it's pretty easy to cast forward and to either side. In a small kayak, maneuverability comes from sticking your free hand in the water and sculling or correcting your position as you would while treading water. With a little practice you can pretty effortlessly make the yak point in whatever direction you want to cast, and in a light wind you can stay oriented the way you want. In a heavier wind, I have a drift sock hooked with a carabiner to the yak that works pretty well, considering you don't have the wind-resistant mass of a bass boat. Is this as easy as maneuvering with a trolling motor? Probably not. Do you have the limitations of a battery charge? Definitely not. Another advantage to a yak is terrestrial mobility. With the days getting shorter, for example, I can get home from work, throw the yak on the car and be fishing a local pond in a matter of minutes. The same goes for pond-hopping. Like so much about fishing, a yak is terrific for certain applications and it sucks for others. It's all a matter of budget, preference, and personal style. It's probably best as a low-cost compromise for someone who wants to move from bank fishing to fishing from a boat but who isn't ready to buy a motorized boat, or who likes to fish where motorized boats either aren't allowed or can't physically get access.

You can get specs for that canoe here: http://www.oldtowncanoe.com/canoes/huntingFishing/pack.html