MassYak85

The way I understand it, at least in MA, is that if the state uses funds from the license program to maintain or stock the body of water, or there is a way to access the body of water legally (i.e. not trespassing on private property to get to the shore) then you have the right as a citizen to fish it legally (with a license and following state laws). If the body of water is completely surrounded by private property then it's off limits to the public unless a shoreline property owner gives you explicit permission. One of the biggest things I hear about as far as confrontations is land owners thinking they own a part of the water around their dock and yell at people fishing around the dock. I've only had that happen once personally and just left the area, but if an EPO has to be called to resolve it, the fisherman usually gets the nod of approval in those situations.

From what I've read most of his off-field training is just resistance training with those "big rubber bands" to keep his muscles loose. I imagine it's part of the reason he is not prone to injuries.That combined with how he takes hits. Most of the more mobile QB's like rodgers or Newton will fight a tackle, sometimes successfully, usually not so much, Brady just throws it away and accepts the hit like a ragdoll. Which has it's pro's and con's. It's one of the reasons I say that Rodgers is the best QB in terms of physical ability but I'd still take Brady's knowledge of the game and pre-snap decision making over the ability to scramble when the play breaks.

I just bought a line counter for this exact reason. I was sick of having that extra wasted bit. Now I just use 75yards of the 150yd spool and use backing if I need to add some to fill the spool, mark how much line is left, and leave the extra half for later where I won't waste any.

I might look at the 806 HSB if those ratings are actually accurate.

I've fished for stripers occasionally when they run up the rivers here and I honestly don't mind sitting with bait for hours and hours. But with that kind of fishing you could hook into a 40+ inch fish so at the end of the day one bite might be worth it. I certainly wouldn't do it if I was fishing for bluegills lol.

How does handle size affect inches per turn? I've heard a few people say this lately and it makes no sense to me. Whether the handle is 4 inches or 4 miles the amount of line picked up by one full rotation of the handle cannot be different. Or am I missing something?

If it were me I'd go 15lb fluoro (Sunline Sniper, in which case 16lb) for the first setup, 40lb braid (Suffix 832) for the second, and 20lb mono/copoly for the swimbait rod. I have the same rod and use 20lb P-Line CXX (granted that line breaks much higher than 20lbs).

Crappie?

I'm trying barbless octopus hooks for ice fishing this season, but only because the likelihood the fish will be gut hooked by the time I get to the tip-up is somewhat high. I've been using barbed circles for a while for that but last year my hookup ratio was too inconsistent for me to keep using them (some days it was 100%, other days maybe 50% using the exact same technique). For lures I've never felt the need as most lures you are in contact with and the fish generally are going to be hooked in a spot that makes removal easy and do minimal damage to the fish.

Honestly if I was in the NFL I'd probably have a short 5 year career putting aside all my checks and then retire and fish and enjoy life. But Brady obviously isn't wired that way, all he cares about is winning.

From Wikipedia: "not supported by any scientific evidence and has been rejected by astronomers and planetary scientists as pseudoscience and an Internet hoax" I'd be more worried about a rock in the kuiper or Asteroid belt getting knocked out of it's orbit and NASA not finding out about it until it's too late. Even still, the odds of impact with even the most probable known candidates are in the one-in-a-millions.

I don't use anything shorter than 7' currently. A 6'6" might be nice for target casting with squarebills though.

Part of what you pay for with higher end lures is the swim testing that goes into designing them. With super cheap ones like that they most likely made a master, decided it looked fine, made molds from it, and molded thousands with cheap materials and hardware, without testing a single one, and shipped them out.

Still in that awkward stage or thin ice, but no open water to cast into in my area. Sigh. Hopefully in a couple weeks there will be ice (or spring can just come early, either works).

Most likely my first cast of the year will be from the shore of a lake that still is half covered in ice so either a tiny little finesse jig or I'll bring the hudd and crawl it. Last fish of the season I caught on the hudd, would be cool to catch the first one on it too.

Probably a tiny hair jig small enough for panfish.

If you're lost and dying of hunger and need to catch a fish I'd probably give them a go

The Bargain Cave is something that is really nice though. I got half off a brand new Lew's reel (last one of a model they were no longer carrying) last year.

It's purely preference. Whenever I hear someone talk about "oh you need to put the rod or reel in your stronger hand/arm" this always pops into my mind: I don't know about you guys but my arms are pretty evenly strong and any slight difference is not a concern when fighting a fish as weak as a freshwater bass. What makes an arm or hand dominant is the fine motor skills it has learned to do over time. Which is why as righty, I want my right hand doing the small circular motions of reeling regardless of spinning or baitcasting.

Wacky rigged stick bait. All they have to be able to do it cast it and all the action comes from it sinking.

Well that was refreshing after the yawn-fest the first 6 playoff games were. NFCCG should be great. Hopefully Rodgers and Ryan get into a shootout, that would be awesome to watch. Any other Pats fans honestly not that worried about the Steelers? The Pats have a better D than KC and unless the Steelers offense kicks it up a gear, I wouldn't bet on Boswell setting another kicking record in an attempt to outscore Brady coming off a bad week (he never has two bad weeks in a row). I'm sensing we may finally get to witness a Brady - Rodgers superbowl.

This would probably the other best option. But I'd still lean towards a heavy since it sounds like OP's lakes might not even be fishable with cranks for a decent portion of the year.

If I was you I'd get a Heavy Fast Baitcasting setup to fish the jigs, frogs, T-rigs

Unless I need something that day, or want to see something in person for some reason I don't usually shop at either anymore.

I used to work there. What corporate was thinking when they sent us shipments for the fishing section is beyond me. "Oh, you guys are almost completely sold out of power pro and 832, the two most popular lines we carry. We'll send you a few spools that will sell out within hours, along with 50 spools of trilene mono that will probably sit in the warehouse for months" I will say though, their Rapala selection was pretty good. Had almost an entire shelf just for them. These days I'm not really impressed with Bass Pro either. They have a lot of selection as far as soft plastics but for hard baits, terminal tackle, jigs etc there is a lot to be desired.