the reel ess

In my first marriage, my fishing time was an issue. She didn't like me leaving her to spend that time with my dad or even by myself. In my free time, she wanted me to do whatever she wanted to do. That's not a good sign for the long haul. I came to understand she had trust issues, which were really her deep-seated feelings of being abandoned that I could not fix-she didn't have an ideal childhood. It was pretty complicated and needless to say it didn't last. Fast forward. My current bride of 16 years went fishing with me a grand total of once when we were dating. She caught all the crappie while I baited her hook with minnows and then I only caught catfish after the action slowed. She has no problem with me going fishing and genuinely wants happiness for me. She can see beyond her own wants. That's important in a relationship. If you don't have it, one of you will always be giving while the other takes. That's a recipe for lifelong unhappiness and you really cannot expect people to change completely.

I use a 10 year old regular Lightning Rod for those. I have another medium I use for cranks. I'd replace them, but they won't break. And if it ain't broke... These are techniques that don't require great sensitivity.

I fished a place like that in FL with a guide. It was full of big'uns. We caught bass and peacocks all day, including a 7 pounder. There's even a video on YouTube of Bill fishing it with another guide.

I watched a video of Gerald Swindle where he was typing a jig on and said "Why would a bass care about your line's tag end when they don't care about the other 100 yards tied onto it". Then he cut the tag end off his fluorocarbon line and cast it out. LOL. But I'm in agreement. I was fishing with a guide and we were working down the bank flipping to sparse patches of pepper grass. I said "We're mighty close. Aren't they aware of our presence?" He said "Yeah, don't worry about that. When you drop that jig in their face in that small space they can't ignore it. Instincts won't allow it." and gators and pythons

Another vote for the Glide. In fact, any hard swimbait. I know I just haven't used it at the right time/place. The action just doesn't look very natural to me. Big creature baits like the Brush Hog. To the guys with no luck on the Whopper Plopper, use the 110 in late prespawn/early spawn when there are big bass shallow. They won't tolerate it. I got my PB on it and I can say my average is better than 3 lbs. on this bait. You will have to make many casts without a bite, but the bite will likely be good. I've only caught a flounder on it. I was in a bait shop at the beach and the owner walked over and asked me what I was fishing for. I said reds-trout-flounder. He handed me a gold Johnson Minnow, some jigheads and Gulp mullets. He said you can spend as much as you want, but this will get it done. I have several, but the only jerkbaits that I have confidence in are Rapalas.

In my experience, if someone else has it, it's really good as new with a little age on it. If I have it, it's worthless, but someone will take it off my hands for $1000.

I'm so old, there wasn't even a Fox network until I was in my late teens. Bill Dance and Virgil Ward were the only ones I got and they were only on after noon Sundays after NFL season was over. I'm from the south, so naturally, Dance was my favorite. I thought he spoke the Gospel and walked on water. It didn't occur to me until years later the reason all his fish were bigger than mine is that he either owned the lake or it was a private managed fishery. I still love him.

Walmart forces some mfg's to make their products at a certain price point or they can't sell there. Quality has to suffer.

I agree with both of these. To get better at the jig I decided to put one on a dedicated rod and use it every time out. If you're thinking it will be like a T rigged worm with an offset shank worm hook, you're wrong. That's a thick gauge hook with a fiber weedguard in front that you really have to drive home hard as well as a soft plastic that can foul the hook points. Many times I've tried to set the hook on a smaller fish only to have it spit the bait. Thankfully, bigger bass are easier to set it on because they offer good resistance. Basically, it's the same with the chatterbait. I even sharpened my point and still missed a bunch. The frog is one that has a low hookup rate. But that's because the fish don't get the hooks in the mouth as often and you have to compress the bait to expose them. You need to feel that fish's weight before you set. When they do get the hooks, if you don't turn them towards you they have a tendency to leverage the frog out in the weeds. If you'll take some pliers and bend the hook poits out just a tad, so that they're not touching the plastic body, you'll hook more bass. A HVY-F or MF longer rod will help out a lot with any of these.

I've relayed this one before, but it applies. It still makes me feel quite stupid. Boat would not start when my dad and I got ready to leave a spot. We looked the usual connections over and couldn't find anything. We got a tow back to the ramp and I took it home where I looked it over many times and was just about to take it to a mechanic. My dad called me out of the blue and told me to go check the kill switch. That was it. I didn't use the boat for 6 months or more. I wasn't wearing the kill switch so I don't know how it happened and that's why it didn't occur to me. It's the old mechanic's adage "Start with the simplest, cheapest fix, not the most expensive". My dad thought something was wrong with the outboard on his pontoon once. It wouldn't get up on plane all day. Finally figured out he was dragging a 20 lb. anchor.

I'll keep fishing that log till that ol' bass bites. ? This reminds me of a story. I used to go to the reservoir every Saturday morning. There was always an old man fishing from a dock there or putting in his jonboat to troll for crappie. He would always tell me to fish a log that was under water nearby and that he caught a 10 lb bass off it once. I always fish that log and have caught quite a few off it-nothing approaching his 10 lb. claim. That old man died of a heart attack while fishing in that boat. My buddy found his minnow buck floating 2 days later and it still had a crappie in it. He still has that bucket and uses it. If I could choose how to leave this world, that would be it. BTW, I did keep a log a couple of years until I started to recognize the patterns. I still have it and will consult it from time to time.

Could be that people cheated and got away with it. We had a builder remodeling our house that filled about 8 deer tags this year. He kept bringing me summer sausages and those meat and cheese sticks without being asked. I was going fishing from time to time and he kept asking why I didn't keep and eat the fish, even the big ones. So last time I went to my buddy's pond full o' dinks I kept 8 and gave them to him. It's just a totally different mentality to me. But i wasn't always this way. And I, too, will keep a few every now and then, especially crappie. I just don't want to fill the freezer anymore. My family doesn't like freshwater fish very much.

This is less of an issue now than it has ever been in the history of modern bass fishing. I was raised by an old school fisherman who though if you didn't clean and eat the fish, you didn't really catch them. Most people today don't need a trophy bass for food. Most people fanatical enough to fish long enough to catch lots of big bass don't keep them. And those are the only people who could do damage to a fishery. One of the reasons I fish instead of hunt is that I can catch that trophy more than once. I'm pretty sure I've caught the fat bass in my avatar twice because that gut is unusually large for my reservoir and they were caught close together. But even if people do kill their trophies, and a few will, there's no law against it. Hell, bass tournaments probably kill more big fish. I don't see a lot of arguments against weigh-ins on this site because it hasn't impacted the sport negatively.

Some heat shrink tubing would get that job done as well.

I think they slow it down in colder water. I'm either in the kayak or with my buddy in his boat. Either way, I'm usually moving and only get a couple pitches at best. 90% of the time, the fish will bite on the drop near the target. But if it's very calm or it's a pattern that's working, I'll fish it longer. The guide I fished with in FL told me to pitch it in, bump it twice and if there was nothing on it, pull out and pitch to another spot. But I've had bass bite the jig as I reeled it back.

I used to take part in the bassboat rat race at the local big lake. It got to be more work than reward. So I bought a canoe. After using it a few times, I wanted a kayak. I just sold the bassboat. Practically gave it away. I know the guy I sold it to. It's now his permanent yard art. I bought a Perception Sport Pescador SOT, which was really the previous generation Wilderness Tarpon. It was an entry level model I got on sale at Academy for $500. I still have it and use it for small or very shallow places. Its light and easy to throw in the truck and take off at the drop of a hat. But it has limitations. You can't stand and fish. It's a little less stable than the expensive ones, but not so unstable you worry about flipping. It has a molded in seat and thin seat pad, which I removed and a back rest (a must for fishing). I use a stadium cushion. Even so, it will put your butt and feet to sleep after a few hours. Another downside is, since you sit low to the water, you can get a wet butt in rough water or if you have to paddle hard. Not nice in cold water. I bought a Feelfree Lure SOT from a buddy for the bigger places. It has a stern mount, foot steered, 36 lb thrust, saltwater trolling motor with variable speed control. It keeps me from having to paddle for miles and is a bit more hands-free. You can stand and fish. It even has a standing brace, which I don't use. The drawback is it weighs almost double what the Pescador weighs. It has a wheel in the stern, but that's because it almost has to. It really needs a cart or a trailer (someday). I had to buy it because I got the whole package for less than the kayak alone costs new. But it's a load and requires some motor and battery setup when I put in and take out. It takes a little longer to get ready and I have to recharge the battery.

I saw someone said "taking the time to grind out the tough part of the day". That's something that's hard to do and a mindset you have to make yourself take on. When I go and don't get a nibble for 2 hours, it just makes me want to fish longer. The lessons you learn trying to buy a bite on tough days are more valuable than the ones you learn when you can't keep fish off the hook.

Zoom Trick Worm can be fished like a jerkbait.

Tying on a jig and not cutting it off-ever. Just making myself use it until I could consistently catch bass on it. And I still don't cut it off. Hiring a So FL guide for a couple days and getting pointers, catching maybe 100 fish along the way. It was expensive, but a good experience I can't get here, alone. I also have a bud with a pond full of dinks. Whenever I want to try a new technique, I'll give it a shot there first. It usually works because they're hungry there and it gives me the confidence in it to use it elsewhere.

Yes, it's the wastegate. There's a spring in it to relieve compressed air pressure before gets to a damaging level and causes detonation. The computer is supposed to re tard timing when that happens. It can happen so fast the computer can't stop it. By changing the spring, you can increase or decrease available boost pressure. If the car came with a tamper-proof wastegate, you can replace it with one you can that swap out the springs. Those engines were built for a certain boost level with a safety factor built in. Increasing boost on a stock rotating assembly is removing the safety factor. Simply swapping out the intercooler for a larger unit and a larger exhaust is good for some horsepower without risking the motor. The upgraded intercooler can decrease detonation risk because it cools the incoming air.

Yeah, that was the premier late 80s muscle car. If you look long and hard, you can find T-Type turbo Regals that have been upgraded with go-fast goodies. What scares me about them is the early computer control of a turbo'd EFI motor. If it's been buggered with, I'd have to take it to a tuner to work out the kinks. That could turn into an inanimate pile of parts in the carport.

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I throw them on 15# Big Game mono. Same with spinnerbaits. I don't know how it affects missed fish because I never used braid for that presentation. I use a trailer hook whenever I can though. I have a feeling that would net more missed fish than line type.

I noticed a negative review I did of one of Academy Sports' house brand baits is gone.

If it's not all places, then Academy will lower theirs. But I must assume it is across the board.