OCdockskipper

Great question. I don't know about other states, but the issue in California is that the money collected for maintenance of infrastructure gets pilfered by the legislature & used to patch up budget leaks elsewhere (pun intended). The biggest ticking time bomb for us is unfunded pension liabilities.

Glenn, our posts were concurrent. I wasn't responding to you, I was responding to the OP. Since it is indeed a dangerous situation, all the more reason to be accurate. Otherwise why not post that ISIS has planted bombs on the dam and taken the mayor hostage. Dangerous situation, accuracy doesn't matter... There is a huge difference between a potential failure of a spillway that could send a 30 foot wall of water flooding downstream and the failure of the nation's tallest dam which would result in a 600 ft wall of water wiping out the same area. Accuracy does matter. I believe the correct response from you should have been "Thanks for the info, I stand corrected".

Yeah, that is my personality. I enjoy figuring things out, using information to put together the puzzle that results in catching bass. I wish that the tables were a piece of information to help with that, but it seems like they give off more false flags than anything else. And for a headcase like me, that is no fun...

Here is a link to exactly what is occurring and why the dam is not an issue https://www.metabunk.org/oroville-dam-spillway-failure.t8381/

Your post is a little innacurate. The dam is not overflowing. The auxiliary spillway is being used for the first time in over 40 years and has developed a hole downstream. If the auxiliary spillway fails, it will release a substantial amount of water all at once, creating a problem downstream. The dam itself is structurally sound. The reason for using the auxiliary spillway is that the main spillway developed a huge sinkhole halfway down. They shut down the main spillway to stop erosion around it as water went outside & under the spillway, knocking loose concrete, trees and soil.

Well, if you stretch your arm & salt pops out of the pores, then maybe you should keep an eye on it...

I understand that TRD's are made differently than ZinkerZ's, but on the TRD's when I stretch them, the salt literally pops out. I will give them 4 or 5 quick stretches before putting them on the jighead and I end up with a dozen or so "grains" of salt in my lap or on the outside of the worm.

For the entire event, it looks like 4 people tied with the most points & none of them had Tharp. The guy in 5th, just 5 points behind, had Tharp, Mullins, Mueller, Wheeler and .... Ehler. Day One Ehler was 9th & on Day two, he only caught 2 fish & fell all the way to 68th. How in the world does Ehler, one of best on the planet, only catch 2 fish after 17 lbs the day before? 1 more silly little keeper and this player wins it going away. Talk about heartbreaking. The player makes a great call in choosing Tharp and one of his no brainers (Ehler) ends up costing him $3000.

Points wise, Tharp was the choice - one of the few times a Bucket A choice will give you some distance on the rest of the field. I think the other difference maker will turn out to be Mueller in bucket D. I believe that BMac31 won the Bass Resource pool, congratulations. I understand Glenn was awarding $1000 Circuit City gift certificates to each event winner...

Like you, I personally prefer to fish shallow & watch shallow water tournaments. However, I think the dismissal of those doing well at Lake Cherokee is a little off: While Jacob Wheeler is only 27, he has a tremendous amount of experience and has Aaron Martens type fish-smarts. Listen to him talk, he is really bright. Heck, just knowing the rules that he can fish from another guys boat shows how much work he puts into his craft. Don't forget, he outcranked KVD fishing deep ledges at Kentucky lake a couple years back at BassFest. Jamie Hartman, while a "rookie" is 44 years old. He has spent decades fishing and has committed everything to making it in the Elites (sold his house, put his belongings in storage, living on the road). He was the most consistent guy out there this week. Jesse Wiggins is a rookie in both experience & age, but appears to be that rare phenom that has great instincts. He has won in Alabama, in Florida & nearly won here. Matt Lee described him as being much like his brother Jordan, a bit scattered in everyday life, but knows how to put fish in the boat. Time will tell, but it will be interesting to see how these guys do in some of the more frequent stops like Okeechobee or Toledo Bend. With more & more of the top FLW guys coming over as well as better & better college anglers joining, the competition level in the Elites is zooming up.

I agree with Darren. As I have gotten older, I prefer using the best tool for a job and really don't focus on what someone might think. Light baits and skipping docks go to my spinning rigs, heavier baits and continual winding go to my casting equipment. That means on my home lake, I use spinning 70-30, but can see how if I lived on a lake with different characteristics, it could easily be 70-30 in favor of casting equipment. I believe there was an episode of MLF down in Florida where a few guys were skipping docks. Mark Davis was doing it with a spinning rod and said something along the lines of "I can skip with a casting rod, but I am not near as accurate as with a spinning setup". It makes sense this comes from an older guy whose loaded resume means he has nothing to prove to anyone.

I have a love/hate relationship with the various solunar or lunar tables available which give their view of the best times for fishing & hunting. On one hand, like everyone else, I want to be on the water at a time when it is most productive. On the other hand, I don't want the negativity in my head that I am fishing what is supposed to be a less productive time, I believe that too easily leads to a self fulfilling prophecy. With that in mind, I adjusted my work schedule in order to be on the water this past Friday (the 10th). I had noticed that the BASS lunar tables had that day rated very high, with the best times being 10:30 am - 1:30 pm. Additionally, the 3 days before Friday had been sunny, warming the lake up to 62 degrees (from 57 the week before), Friday was forecast to be overcast all day and there was a full moon. I felt I was stacking the odds in my favor and had very high expectations for the entire day. The first hour went as expected. 7 bass in 60 minutes, three on moving baits (spinnerbait & squarebill), the others on a T-rigged craw. Then, over the next 3 hours, it slowed, just 4 bass (all on plastics) and a 12lb carp that I tail snagged with a small swimbait. No problem I thought, I hadn't hit the peak time starting at 10:30 yet, then it will be lights out. So from 10:30 to noon, not a single bite on anything. Apparently the fish in my lake don't wear a watch. I was getting disgusted with myself, think how crappy a fisherman I must be to have these perfect conditions and not be able to produce anything. Just after noon, I pick up a fish on the entrance to the largest cove (pocket?) on the lake, so I continue in, throwing a TRD Ned rig and dragging it through the first breakline in the cove in 7-8 feet of water (cove is 10 feet deep). Over the next 60 minutes, I caught 13 keepers. It wasn't a school all in one place, the fish were dispersed around the cove, albeit all near the same depth. About every 2 or 3 casts resulted in a hookup, but not if I kept repeating the cast. So now I am questioning was it the time or the place or both. As the clock slowly passed 1:00, I decided to make a 2nd pass through the same cove. 30 minutes of fishing resulted in no bites. Really?? I wrapped up the last hour or so picking up 3 fish at the entrance to another cove (2 going in, one when leaving), but nothing in the cove itself. So I know these fish are prespawn, both by the location of most of them and the depth. What I don't know was if the productive cove was an isolated hot spot, one that the fish had moved into first or did they just have a lunar-lunch-bell go off and spent an hour cruising inside that cove before exiting back out to the main lake/cove entrance transition. And what was up with the 10-noon time frame, were the fish busy watching MLF? I so want to just ignore those lunar tables...

I have seen plenty of fisherman recommend alterations to the Ned rig, but Friday was the first day a bass ever told me he wanted something different. Apparently he so much liked the idea of stretching a Ned rig out to 10", he went and did it himself. You may have to zoom into the picture a little to see what I am talking about. When I landed this 16" fish, I found the Ned hook in his mouth and the back end of the TRD stuck on one of his dorsal fin spines. It was stretched out to nearly 10 inches. I don't think there was any way this bass could have done that himself, he had to have had help. The only explanation I can come up with is he grabbed the TRD like a cigar and another fish grabbed the backside, swam away and looped it over his back. Either that or the 2nd fish was trying to snap him in the face with it like a bungee cord, but failed miserably Typical of a ZMan bait, it didn't tear, it just popped back into shape & went on to catch more fish. (Darn picture is sideways, I can never get that right...mod, help me please!!)

Defoe, Mullins & Wheeler all had the highest percentage of players choosing them in their buckets (A,C,E) and are in the top 10 after day 2. That really hurts those players who chose other anglers who most likely will finish behind them. KVD & Walker were the top vote getters in B & D and both finished in the 60's. That is helpful if you chose someone else in that bucket who didn't crash, it gives you points over a bunch of players. I was fortunate in bucket D, Walkers late rush didn't get him into the cut or pass my sinking D pick, Jonathan Van Dam (sorry Kyle). For the top 3 in the Bass Resource group, we all have 3 in the top 10, one in the 20-30 and one missed cut in the low 60's. That middle pick for the 3 of us will most likely determine the winner of our group. BMac has Mueller, Flying Monkie has Coulter & I have Pirch, all 3 could easily move in either direction on Saturday. It looks like the pick of the tournament may turn out to be Randall Tharp. If he holds on to big bass & big bag, those 80 points will put him far & above anyone else, even if Wiggins holds on the next 2 days & wins. Last year in the first tournament, I chose Cliff Crochet. He had a great first day and then crashed, barely making the cut. Apparently that has become a theme for him.

Hold on, he only has me by 38 points, that's no hill for a climber... . Actually congrats, that is indeed a good start. I would like to see someone from our group win one of the events (or even the whole deal). If my math is correct, there are just under 25,000 entries, although as the year goes on, a good portion of those players stop playing.

My wife is like that. Her dad was full blooded German, but her mom is some combination of French, English, Scottish, Italian, Greek with an Egyptian & American Indian thrown in for good measure. So she always says that she is 50% German & 50% mutt. Whats funny is the German side of her is the nice side, not the demanding, hard headed stereotype.

You & I were not too far apart, I chose: A - DeFoe (31st) B - Pirch (24th) C - Mullins (12th) D - Jonathan Van Dam (33rd) E - Wheeler (5th) I'm happy with the results so far, but well aware of Cheokee's reputation of drastic changes from day to day. I am hoping that the local knowledge of DeFoe & Mullins, the deepwater dropshotting prowess of Pirch & JVD and the versatility of Wheeler keep these five consistent thru tomorrow & the weekend. Big fish is just 5-0 and no one had a 20lb bag, so those points are most likely still up for grabs.

Yes, those 49ers of the 80's & 90's were something, cool to hear you give them their due. And just think, like the Steelers of the 70's, those teams never lost a Super Bowl...

50% Irish (paternal), 25% German, 25% Bohemian (maternal). With an Irish last name, my mom named all of us with Irish first names. We grew up thinking we were happy-go-lucky, friendly with everyone products of the Emerald Isle. Only as we all became adults did I realize we were the most hard-headed, stubborn, fascist Krauts you could find. So of course I married a woman who is 50% German...

I can make a donation. I have an old saltwater rod that a neighbor gave me & I was going to use for the BPS trade-in sale, but I'll donate it to you. just stop by the next time you are in the area. As for financial ideas, I watched a TV series recently where a middle aged man did very well financially by getting in the Meth business. I believe it was a documentary...

Yes. I have found quite a few items on sale that aren't even mentioned in the flyer. I don't know why they would do that, other than not wanting to commit to having huge amounts on hand at sale price.

That was what I was thinking. I know different species often school together because of size, but I wonder if they realize they are different than the other fish. They are kind of like Buddy the Elf or the proverbial boy raised by wolves, completely out of their pack but clueless about it.

I don't have any rods that float, but I do have an angler who is cheap enough to dive in the water after them...

Well, as you surely know by now, rarely does your Bucket A choice separate you from the crowd. Often there are 7 or 8 guys in this bucket who end up within 30 points of each other. AMart was an exception a couple of years ago on the Potomac when he led all 4 days and had both the largest bag and the largest fish. A perfect 400 point performance...that 30% of the participants chose . No, the separation often comes from buckets C, D or E. Either an average Elite has a great day, ends up with big bag & coasts to the top 12 while everyone else in that bucket misses the cut or an above average Elite that has been in a slump breaks out. Edwin Evers did the latter back in 2015, he started out the season slow & was mired down in Bucket D I believe when he ran off a string of 3 great tournaments. It started on Havasu (big bag, top 5 finish), continued on Kentucky Lake with a win and then another win on the St. Lawrence. By the time that string was over, he was back up in Bucket A, but he had huge point advantages over the next closest angler in his bucket as he made that climb. Of course, after picking him at Havasu, I played the "No one goes back to back in the Elite series" theory and missed taking advantage of his next 2 performances...

One of the few things I did right from the onset while bass fishing was not try to turn the Ned rig into something it wasn't. I learned about the Ned rig less than 2 years ago from a friend who, in a fit of common sense, referred me to this website and specifically the posts from Team9nine and Bluebasser instead of trying to teach me himself (it was new to him also). I may have been fortunate that my home lake fits the Midwest Finesse style perfectly (shallow, sparse cover, fairly clear), for following instructions paid off for me immediately. Most of my fish are caught via a Ned rig and rare is the day that biggest fish also doesn't fall for it. I have since used it while traveling to Nevada, Utah, Texas & Missouri, on both lakes & rivers, targeting largemouth, smallmouth, guadalupe & stripers with similar results. While it is not designed for tournaments, I will be shocked if it doesn't play a major part of at least one BASS or MLF tourney in 2017. Check your ego at the door and follow the instructions of those who have figured some stuff out, you will be glad you did.