AricStoner

I am trying to find an online resource to shows the present and predominate Bait and Forage Fish Species for the TVA system, and more specifically Barkley and Kentucky Lake but Google has failed me! lol Can anyone please point me in the direction of where to find this information? I am not looking for spots, or any specific data, just species present to give me a start for lure selection to match the hatch so to speak. Thanks!

As my subject line indicates I am looking for a supplier of the latex base plastic to pour some home stuff similar to the 3X line of plastics Strike King carries. Also, I have been told that you need special dyes to be compatible with this stuff so if anyone could point me in the right direction to get my hands on these special dyes that would be a tremendous help as well! Thanks in advance! Aric

I am in dire need to find a MICHIGAN tackle shop (preferrably close to I96) that will do a Waranty Replacement for a Ducket Micro Magic 7'6" Extra Heavy Flippin Stick. It needs to be a walk in, pay my waranty replacement fee no questions asked, walk out with a new rod basis. I need it before Friday as I am fishing the BFL Michigan Saturday on the Grand River and have no flipping stick! If anyone can help me in any way it would be greatly appreciated! Aric 519-365-1242 bobcat93dl@hotmail.com

Could someone please tell me if Co-Anglers need Liability insurance to fish FLW - BFL events? Rule 22 says all participants, but I called them to clarify and go conflicting information from 2 different reps. I’ve also left 3 voice messages with the in house tournament director with no return calls. So I thought I would see if anyone who has fished BFL events as a Co-Angler could clarify for me. Thanks Aric

I am just looking for some basic answers as a general guideline about how changing weather patterns affect the location and mood of the fish. More specificly for example: - how a change in wind direction and speed affects them - cloud cover vs sunny - changes in barameter - pre/post storm/cold/warm fronts I'm looking for tips on how to recognize these changes and how I should react to each for making decisions as to where I think the fish will be. Thanks Aric

Not in their natural environment?? What the heck are you talking about?!? Are you trying to tell me that there are 45 year old bass, ie. the original bass that were stocked? Heck no! Most of the fish in these lakes are fish that were born in these lakes. It may not have been their "natural environment" 50 years ago, but it is NOW, simple as that. And newsflash, unless I have read BS from articles, correct me if I am wrong, but aren't most bass in most lakes accorss North America introduced as well? They were not indigenous to most the lakes that have them these days. Bass are adaptable to many different environments, and if they can adapt and thrive in any lake regardless of the reasons, they are in their natural environment as far as I'm concerned. Now as far as stocking of rainbows, their purpose is not to feed these fish, they are to keep the a steady population of trout. There are many stocking programs across the continent, do you really think they aren't having an impact on the bass in those lakes? Maybe, maybe not. But the point is, we have too many rules as it is. Don't discriminate bass because of where and how they live and grow. A bass caught is a bass caught, simple as that.

I wasn't sure if I had posted this or not, because I remember having a few discussions about it somewhere! But I didn't see anything on this board so I thought I'de post it anyways. But if I am dragging up a topic that was discussed before I appologize. With rising fuel costs, many of us are almost always looking for ways to save on gas while pursuing our beloved finned friends. Well I had an idea that could help to solve this problem that starts from ground zero, your outboard. And if it is feasable, you'de almost have to wonder why nobody had thought of this before. Maybe they have been, but aren't saying much untill they find something that works. The way it stands outboards have 2 gears, FW & REV. Now think about an automobile, with an engine of the same power, we'll say 200HP. There are several reasons that this car can achieve phenominally better mileage, and in turn much faster topend speeds as well. One is friction, a car transfering it's energy from the tires to the road is significantly more efficient than a prop biting into water. But another thing is the GEARING. Can you imagine how bad of milage your car would get if you always ran it in 1rst or 2nd all the time? And thats assuming you didn't blow your engine either! What I am suggesting is maybe try to apply that technology somehow to outboards. Some kind of small and efficient gearing system which could allow the engine to get the same amount of speed, just at lower RPM's. Now one problem I had suggested to me is that if you do that it would take too long to get up through the gears so in essence what is the point? It's not going to any more efficient, and you will lose out on acceleration. But my answer was, keep it simple, don't bother with 4 or 5 fw gears, just use 2, high and low. Low for quick holeshots and acceleration and high for when you get out in the open water and really wanna crank up the MPH. Now again the premise of this idea is not for blazing fast speeds with higher gearing (although that will obviously happen). But the main reason behind this is to get better milage out of your engine. For example, and bare in mind these aren't actual figures, just ones I made up to try and illustrate my point, if you have a 150 outboard with this high/low gearing, you could probably get the same speed in high as a 200HP outboard, but you will in turn will use way less fuel becuase it's a smaller engine. Now again, those are only gestimates, but you can probably see a bit more clearly now where I am going with all this. Anyone else have any insight to this? Possibe problems, other ideas? I'm looking for a lot of feedback especially from mechanincs who would have a better idea as to exactly how or why this would, or would not work. Thanks Aric Stoner

I would like to submit some of my articles to this website, how would I go about doing this? Thanks

Another thing that might help you if you ever get into tournaments is fish hard right up to the very last possible second you have. My best finish so far happened because of this. We desperately needed to cull out a few small fish! We figured we had about 6-8lbs in the well, but that certainly wasn't going to cash a check that day. We decided to give our hotspot one last go. There must have been about 10 boats scattered around us and that was disappointing to say the least. Everyone, including us were flipping to everything in sight but nobody seemed to be catching anything at all. So I figured well we only have about 10-15 to go, lets try some topwater! Maybe I'll get a nice pike to hit and make a pleasent end to a tough day. First cast I had to sneeze 3 times just after my frog hit the water. As soon as I looked up a 3lber slurped it under. After landing that fish, my partner casted near where I had my blow up and a 4 3/4 lb fish crushed his spoon! This certainly helped us, but we were worried about the 10oz. dink (which surpriseingly was the largest of the 3 we originally needed to cull out!) that was still in the well. We didn't get any bites after that untill my very last cast, a cast that my partner didn't even want me to take because he was worried about being late and just wanted to fly. But I had a gut feeling and said what the heck, I have nothing but a few seconds to lose! I fished it with no success and then began to burn it in to get going. Thats when another 3 hit and I landed her quickly. This put us just over 13lbs. and secured a top 5 finish for us. There was less than a lb.s difference between 15th and 2nd so that fish made all the difference in the world! The fish on the right in my photo was that last keeper I landed. So you see, don't give up, it only takes one cast to catch the big one, or atleast the important one in my case. My partners 4+ helped too tho, just a little ;D cheers! Aric

If you spend enough time on the water, try to learn each technique on it's own untill you have mastered each of them. The best way to do this is take as many rods as you want, but bring one, and I mean only ONE type of bait out with you. This will force you to use it and not switch up every 10 casts when you don't get bit. Case and point, when I was just starting out I started to get a pretty good selection of tackle in my box, but I didn't catch many fish. Well in the middle of the summer my tackle was stollen But that didn't stop me! I went out and bought a few lures to get me back on track. I was unemployed at the time of this unfortunate incident and I wasn't able to buy a whole lot of lures, but the few I did I was forced to use them exclusively for the rest of the season. I learned them so well that they are now my bread and butter go to baits! I'll let ya in on what they are because they are pretty good starter baits for most anglers anyways because they are just that effective. Another plus is that they cover top to bottom as well. - Pop-R, it's what got me hooked on topwaters! - Spinner Bait, was there any better lure ever made? lol - Tube jig, haven't yet found a lake where I can't get em on tubes. Hope this helps! Aric

gotter done, thanks guys Ya, we hope to see ya out there, I already have quite a few teams signed up, should be a blast!

Just wondering how you can add your own photo for your profile?

How to find the Thermocline? I am wondering if anyone could help me out here. I am having trouble trying to find the Thermocline in whatever lake I plan to fish. As a fish & wildlife student I feel I have developed a pretty good understanding of exactly what the thermocline is, and even more so I know that different types of lakes stratify differently. This variety effects the limnotic levels (epilimnion, metalimnion, hypolimnion) for each, and therefore they can be varied as well. However one thing I still can't figure out is exactly how to find each. Is there resourses I can look into at the MNR or whatever that has information about this, or is there a method one could use to determine where the thermocline is? Thanks. Aric