Dan:

I've never fished the James, but I caught a striper or hybrid (not sure, don't have experience with them) west of Fredericksburg on the Rapidan River...

I think it's pretty obvious who the two best teams are right now. I hope we get to see LSU and USC in a championship game.

This may be takin it over the top....but it bugs me when people lie to make people feel bad for them or to make a situation seem different than it is. This site will prove that Captains claim of his county sharing 1 cop with another is not true.....http://www.co.juniata.pa.us/ I was born in Juniata County. Both sets of my grandparents still live in Juniata County. My grandma worked in the courthouse pictured on that website for decades. Juniata County has more than one cop. In fact, directly behind that courthouse is the jail, outside of which I have personally seen more than one cop from the adjacent street where my grandparents live.

I would make sure that everyone knows what you expect in terms of using your tools, not using your tools, asking to borrow them, etc... Some people might have gotten the impression that you were bringing them to share, I would make sure to clear that up before you get angry because it could just be a case of people not realizing what they are doing. If they knew the tools were yours and that you didn't want to share them, then sure, I would be ticked, especially if someone broke your toolbox trying to crack it open.

That was quite an upset. App State has a TON of speed. I'm worried about them being able to beat Michigan because my school (JMU) plays them quite frequently, including this year. A lot of people don't give enough credit to what was Div 1-AA teams. Many of them can really play football. Granted, they should still never be able to beat a #5 Div 1-A school but they clearly outplayed Michigan yesterday.

I don't know for sure, but I would say the answer to the promotion question is that they don't sponsor as many people as some other companies do. Fishing shows are all about promoting products made by companies that pay for the show, Rapala probably doesn't sponsor as many shows because they just don't need to, they are in every tackle box and everyone knows about them so they don't need to get their name out there as much.

I have been doing pretty well on soft jerkbaits fished slowly as well as shaky heads for river smallies.

Wow. I'm speechless. That was just....embarrassing. You could easily get out of that by saying something about raising teacher salaries to improve education but she says something about South Africa and Iraq??? :'( Makes sense that South Carolina's public schools were rated 45th of the 50 states recently.

And heaven forbid you want to be a teacher or a gov't employee, most of those jobs require at least a 3.0

I noticed this summer on the Rapidan River in Virginia that lots of the smallies I was catching were in shallow, slow moving shady areas and often near wood instead of near current or rocks like they usually are. It made for hard fishing until I figured it out.

All the more reason to drink as much as possible. Your transcript is only useful in obtaining your first job (and getting in to grad. school should you go down that path). Yeah, but in some professions you have to have graduated with a certain GPA to get the job you want. And a good transcript will open more and bigger doors than a poor one will.

The first classes are always easy, just wait until you get into more specialized advanced classes.

AWESOME FISH! I love seeing some big smallies from VA. Any way you guys could be talked into giving up your spots?

In general, I don't know. In fishing I would have to say Al Lindner going for some huge smallies -- Based on his faith and his passion and ability when it comes to smallmouth. Either that or my twin brother who used to go fishing with me a lot but won't any more for some reason--wading for smallmouth

Way to go Russ, you do very good work.

Jcrzy, send me a PM if you want some tips on some good smallie fishing near Fredericksburg and what to use.

I know how you feel man, I get that nervous unsettled feeling when I am in sketchy areas like that. I went through Anacostia a few times in Southeast DC and that place is pretty scary. Also I was just down in New Orleans and there are some very shady areas down there.

Muddy, I think the additional income is just an average so of course there are exceptions but by and large people with college degrees make more money in their lifetime.

at first I thought it was an acoustic lap guitar but it appears to be something different. looks pretty difficult to me.

I agree with Cigarlover, I wish there wasn't all this mystery surrounding the record, but there hasn't been the solid evidence to invalidate it

I got a couple out of the Juniata a few months ago with some jerkbaits left almost completely still as well as some shaky head worms. (Both in green pumpkin).

I dunno, I can go see a game for about $20 if I wanted to. Granted that would include me taking the metro so there would be no fees for parking and I would have crappy seats and I would be watching the Nationals but still, there's something to say about the experience of a major league game that other games can't provide. That being said, I much prefer watching college and even high school baseball. The games are usually more intense and are usually much more about the love of baseball than major league games are.

nice fish man! I can't imagine fishing on a day like today. Here in VA we had a heat index of 105-110 and I decided against wading...you even braved boating! that's a sign of a real fisherman.

I can't even imagine being on a lake that big. The biggest lake I've been on is 2100 acres.

^I've seen Joe Bonamassa twice, he is an excellent blues guitarist