the reel ess

Maybe not a bad thing. I was fishing with a friend once with hot dogs for catfish when one of his dogs ate a piece of hot dog with a hook in it and had to go to the emergency vet that night. Our dog is a Morkie, half Yorkie, half Maltese. She's 11 years old and less than 6 lbs. She's afraid of everything. We had a cat take up on 9/11 as a kitten that has grown to 8.2 lbs. He wants so badly to play with the dog but he's too rough.

My dad told me the worst part about getting old is going to the funerals of family and friends. I'm starting to feel that way and I'm only 52.

I worked with a guy who sounds similar. He was incredibly socially awkward. He wanted to leave work early every day. He was obsessed with talking about metallurgy. You couldn't turn his mind from a wrong direction. And he made the same drafting mistakes every time, which I had to correct. I told my wife who's a teacher and she said it sounds like kids she has taught with Asperger's Syndrome.

It really did start to resemble NASCAR around that time. WFN was awesome when I had Dish. They took it away and I complained thinking I might get it free for a while. They said no and I quit them and cut the cord. But there are several online channels with tons of content. I would mention one by name but last time I did my post disappeared before my eyes. Suffice it to say it's the one that Brian Latimer is on. My daughter is into writing and wants to do it professionally. She still gets some quarterly literary mags. But many of them are online now too.

I quit for a bit in my late 20s-early 30s. Then I got divorced. I wasted years not fishing because my ex didn't like for me to have fun by myself. I believe she felt it was a form of cheating, but she didn't want to tag along. When I met my current wife and we got serious I told her I was going to go fishing regularly and that was all there was to that so be prepared. My wife has gone once with me when we were dating and I baited her hook and she caught all the crappie until there were only catfish left. But she admitted later that she didn't want to go and it was alright that I do.

It's straight 30# braid for me for jigs/T-rigs. I've tried braid to 15# leader. It works, but you have to keep a really good check on the leader. I've never broken straight 30# or higher braid. I don't fish very rocky places, mostly wood and some weeds. It's usually at least a bit stained water around here.

What I didn't like about mine is, to avoid being turned around by wind while paddling alone, I had to paddle from the middle seat, the widest part of the canoe. It was also pretty heavy compared to a kayak.

On our first date my wife asked me a lot of questions. Two of the questions were "What's the last book you read?" and "Have you ever been arrested?" I wouldn't say she grilled me. But we did talk for 3+ hours. She told me later that she had made a list of 10 things she'd like in a husband and I filled all but one of them.

You can spend as much as you want, but you won't find a more durable, effective frog than the Booyah Pad Crasher in my humble opinion. I also like the popping model. They're still around $7. I like a soft bodied frog when fishing on a mat. But the toads seem to me to work well if the vegetation is more sparse. Use a good, strong hook with them because you'll probably have to yank the fish out of cover. One of the cool things about the toad is if the fish misses you can kill it right there and it sinks. Or you can let it drop off the edge of the mat.

I watch when I catch it on TV. And I watch a lot of their YouTube videos because I can always learn something. But I don't really care about any tournaments.

I dusted off some of my dad's rods and reels and used them after he died. It was fun to catch fish on his stuff. But it really felt like tying one hand behind my back.

Goes without saying. I know mine. It's a very common practice here. And I fish a private reservoir most of the time anyway. I could take 100 fish if I wanted to. I hardly want to take any though.

But I've thrown back many I caught bass fishing just because I was too lazy to clean them.

https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/mr-crappie-troll-tech-double-drop-rigs?ds_e=MICROSOFT&ds_c=BPS|Shopping|Smart|CatchAll|General|NAud|High|NMT&msclkid=72a3f510a7051390f41d964927de92d5&gclsrc=ds

Look up double crappie down rig. You can do it either with jigs, minnows or one of each. I prefer jigs. Last time I tried, and it was last Friday, here's what I used. I put a 1/2 oz. bullet weight on my line. I then put a bobber stop on (the rubber kind, like for flipping) and then tied a jig on. So it was basically a C-rig with a jig. I moved the bobber stop up about 1' above the jig. I did this on 2 rods and slow trolled (paddled very slowly). Getting hung up is just part of the game with crappie. I can tell you though that crappie are not usually "in" the brush as much as around it. I think the brush attracts minnows, which attracts crappie, which attracts fishermen. But crappie can often be caught away from brush, either close to bottom or suspended. If you have electronics you can spot the schools. If not, you can just slow troll down rigs until you find the fish. They're usually near the bottom. So dropping down to the bottom and reeling up a few turns of the handle is a good idea. You can raise them more if you get no bites, but know the fish are there. I've been told crappie will rise to get a bait but won't dive for one. Not sure if that's true.

As you wish.

I already did it with two, with the butts tucked under the stadium seat. It's not hard to paddle because trolling for crappie is a low speed affair. I used a C-rig with a 1/2 oz. bullet weight above a 1/16th oz. jig. That kept the line mostly vertical. I dropped to the bottom, then reeled up 3 turns of the crank. Then I just slowly paddled. The cool thing about down rigs is, if you get a fish, you can easily go right back over that spot. But if you're pulling lines you have to keep moving. I plan on something like this. But I wanted to know if anyone had experience with it.

I think I can find a solution off the shelf.

I do have tracks each side.

My buddy is an accomplished crappie fisherman. I asked him for some advice and went 'trolling" down rigs with jigs on Saturday. I basically paddeled very slowly with what amounts to a C-rig with 1/2 oz. bullet weight and a 1/16 oz. jig on 2 rods. I caught 16 and kept 12. So now I'm thinking I'd like about 4 rod holders that fit into the tracks on my Perception Pescador Pro kayak. Any recommendations would be appreciated. I'll use spinning combos for this. Thanks.

It's in the shop right now. But I suspect the distributor is aftermarket. At lease the cap is. The tach is the original one in the dash.

The last time I mentioned a YouTube channel the post disappeared in 3 minutes. Not complaining, mind you. It just didn't occur to me it was an infraction.

@galyonj I have yet to do the basic tune up so I hope that does the trick. We'll see.

I bought a 1981 Z28 recently. The in-dash tach reads double what I think the engine is really turning. What could be causing this?

I was fishing one nice late winter day last year and a duck hunter came by me and warned me he was going to be shooting a couple hours. I said "OK" because I knew he wasn't likely to shoot anything there. I rarely see more than a couple ducks of any variety and he had no decoys out. It was also too nice of a day. It was quiet the next couple hours and he motored back to the landing. It's an electric-only lake, BTW.