N Florida Mike

Bill's one of my favorites. Been watching his shows since I was a teen. Prayers and best wishes for his recovery.

A lot of places I fish are too weedy for rattletraps and too shallow for cranks. I have fished some deeper, clearer lakes you can fish those on though. Ive done a little better with cranks than r.traps . Trolling cranks across deep holes at night has produced some big bass. A friend got a 11 pounder like that on a baby bass c.bait in a deep, clear lake.

My Strong point is soft plastics and skipping. I also can read structure and figure out where the fish are. Im moderately good with spinnerbaits and certain topwater baits. I am not good with crankbaits and jerkbaits. I also dont do well with jigs. There, I said it. Jigs. I like to catch fish and soft plastics are the ticket to that around here. Why fix it if it aint broke ?

That's great Lonnie. Good for him. Wonder where he got it from ? ?

I found some in a pond up here and couldnt catch any on bread balls or piece of a live worm. I would throw the b.balls right in their bed but they showed no interest at all.

It's really sad how he died. To do all he did, then get killed senselessly by someone he was trying to help. But he died doing something positive. Good example and lesson to us that remain....

My least favorite road to drive in Fl. is I-4 . The traffic there is unreal. We were trying to go home from Dizzy- world with 2 of the G-kids and waited for the rush hour traffic to die down. Left at 10 a.m and it was stop and go all the way to past downtown, top speed 5 mph.. No wreck, no construction , just too many people. There are courteous people there though. Some friends and me were in a van down there once and we had a blow out somewhere downtown on I-4. We were in the far left lane going 55 or so. The driver was able to keep it under control, and people slowed to let us get across 3 lanes to the shoulder. We changed the tire and had gone a mile or so and the van overheated. We couldnt fix that. Apparently when the tire blew it somehow cut one of the hoses for the cooling system, but we couldnt find it . We had limited tools and it was after hours , in the dark ,so we started calling friends we knew in the orlando area ( which wasnt many ) Finally got ahold of a pastor we knew that brought his old towncar 20 miles, picked us up, we dropped him off, and rode home to N. Fla. Had to have the van towed.And bring his car back the next day. Have not gone back, but it could have happened anywhere I guess.

There's plenty of camping and fishing available in North florida. I have only made reservations once in my life. Its a little early though esp with all this cold weather we've had . Around the Full moon in feb. ought to be good at rodman this year.

Nice ! I need to rethink this jig thing. All I catch with them is weeds.

Good Job , Easton ! ?

^^ 10

I still use it some. It seemed to be great when I first used it , but I have had several breaks lately with it. Seems to need to be re-spooled more often. Lately Ive been trying trilene again . I like the strength of it, and it casts fairly well, but gets too many bird nests.

#2 Funniest was one I was in the middle of, but I didnt do it or was the one it was done to. We were fishing near welaka, on the St Johns, and fishing the cypress . I was in the middle seat, sandwiched between two brothers I had grown up with. The younger was in the back. We had been seeing a lot of cottonmouths on limbs, stumps, and so the younger bro. whispered " watch this ", and he flipped a big worm he had tied to the line on back of the older bros. neck. He was a big outdoorsman, and Id never seen him slightly scared of anything in the woods or water. Until that day ! " Reaction " does not do it justice. He hollered and flailed his arms wildly and almost fell out of the boat ,until he finally realized what happened. In the meantime, me and younger bro. had nearly fell out of the boat laughing.? I had to get between them then to keep little bro. from getting thrown off the boat.

I have around 10 bass combos. Most are 8 + years old up to 20 years old. Got a few newer rods and older reels from a friend who buys and sells from pawn shops. These include a berkely lightning rod and a couple gander mtn rods. They are all servicable rods. I still have my 6.6 mh ugly stick from the 90s that I have caught many hundreds of fish with, and its matched with my shimano stradic from 8 years ago that I LOVE. Favorite reel Ive ever had .

I posted this in a similar thread last year. We were at a church men's retreat on Lake George in the 80s. It got dark and we posted a teen under the dock and attached him to the end of a line on someones baitcaster. Then we hollered as a friend walked up that we had a huge bass, it was possibly a world record etc. At that point the teen began thrashing and splashing around, and the friend bought it hook, line, and sinker. We handed him the net and purposely kept throwing the light beam around so he couldnt see too good. At just the right moment, with Steve hunched over with the net, the teen ( david ) lunged all the way out of the water with weeds wrapped all around him. At the same time he made a scary , loud noise, kind of like " aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh " Steve shouted in terror, fell over backwards into a boat on the other side of the dock. The only thing that was hurt was his pride. No doubt the funniest thing Ive seen in 50 + years fishing.

I had a evinrude that was unpredictable like that. Got it worked on numerous times. General diagnosis was always something to do with the heater coil. It would start normally after launching, and make a perfect run to the first stop. Then it would start and you'd go 200-300 feet and it would cut off. It would do this several times before it might just not start atall. Several times I almost just unhooked it and dropped it overboard. Never could get it right so I sold it .

Yeah, I forgot Atlanta. I wouldnt argue with anyone saying it was the worst. I do distinctly remember ONCE when someone let me over where 75 splits with 85 ? I think. I am really nervous with the 8 lanes of traffic going one way. Tried to drive 30 miles to the east to get around it coming back and the traffic was HORRIBLE.

I Never knew either one of mine because they had already worked themselves to death before I was born. Farming and esp.coal mining has done that to many....? It was a choice they made though. There wasnt much else to do where they were from...

It depends on where your fishing. ? Big fish could be rare to common. In Most waters I would say less common, but not rare. They are smarter, just like any other living thing thats been around awhile. Animals are easier to catch/hunt when their attention is distracted from caution to food and breeding.

We even had a cold day for us. High of 47. Been raining since daybreak and has not stopped once. Raining harder right now than it has all day. Time for some hot chocolate !

I fish with soft plastics. I occasionally use something else. That pretty much sums it up.?

I wear a blue shirt on a sunnier day, and gray shirt on cloudier days. I dont know if it helps but it seems to. I also try not to fish with the sun at my back unless its a bait that will cast a long way. I really want a couple of blue and gray camo type shirts.

I cast and hold with the right and reel with the left , with my spinning set - ups. I like to set the hook and fight the fish with my right, since Im right- handed. I have a couple baitcasters that are right hand reels and I do ok with them though.