TnRiver46

Once you tweek your back the first time, it never stops. Mine was cutting a full truck of firewood, no problem at all. Went to close cow gate and the spasms began, they haven’t really stopped since and that was a decade or so ago. Once I made a doctor appt because I couldn’t figure out how to put my feet on the ground from my bed. By the time the appt rolled around I was healthy and the doc of course didn’t help any, maybe a few decent pointers on how to lift a log. Sounds like you already know the drill, just rest it for a while

Mechanical problems I can abide. Bell and whistle problems make my blood boil (my truck has manual windows, locks, and transmission because I don’t like my blood boiling)

She’s got 4 brothers too, 3 military and two of those 3 have been to Afghanistan/Iraq!

Let the lioness bring you the food. My fiancé had to teach me to cut up a hog but I can fillet fish blindfolded haha. I used to fill my freezer with fish, now I just fill my belly with them. They rarely make it to the freezer

Congratulations! She sounds like a go getter! University of Tennessee has a good forensics program. The “body farm” is close to my house, as you can imagine there are lots of ghost stories on the subject

Haha! Yeah some but I think food is her specialty and just getting into equine photos as well

My fiancé has a new photography business, she loves it

Stocked Trout are my nemesis. I didn’t buy the stamp this year just because I hate them so much

Wait a minute...... if you take too long to drink the coffee it will get cold...........shew congrats @Mobasser

Gosh.........where to start......... When we were about 18-20 years old, my buddy Eric got a nice aluminum v hull with 18 hp evinrude. We were launching it at an extremely shady ramp known for wild human activity, but it was midday so we tried it anyhow. There were two guys on the floating dock, one awake one asleep next to a mountain of empty beer cans. My buddy backs the truck down , I’m in his boat that I’ve never driven. When it floats off the trailer, I start pulling the ripcord and it wakes up the sleeping guy. He stumbles to his feet, stares a hole directly through me, and says “hows bout you and me kill each other” hmmmmm how to reply......... I start pulling the rip cord on the 18 horse and mumbling some horrible things to it and it started! Thankfully the awake member of their party diffused the situation by telling his buddy to shut up and go back to sleep. this one lady made out of leather offered me and my buddy a tackle box and fishing pole for $5 when we were like 12 years old fishing near a bridge. Then she said someone paid her $5 to jump off the bridge the day before, it’s probably 20 feet high and over a set of shoals with 2-3 feet deep water............maybe she hit her head......... I can still hear the raspy “you wunna buy tackle box fishin pole $5?” I pulled into a ramp once and a state trooper had a guy pulled over. When we pulled in, the guy started asking us for a ride into town. We had driven 45 minutes to this remote lake to fish for like 2 hours and explained this to the guy. He says the trooper won’t let him drive because he doesn’t have a license (red flag). There’s no cell service so we can’t call a ride for the guy, I just said sorry buddy we are fishing. When I returned, my window was knocked out and every document in my truck had been rifled through, paycheck stubs all that jazz . But he left my iPod and loose change? I guess he’s out there somewhere plotting his revenge, who knows. Maybe I should have given him a ride or maybe I’m lucky I didn’t haha I started to type another story or 3 but I don’t believe we are 18 and up crowd here

I’d say you’re about right! Down this way our 19” smallies aren’t so fat, usually 3-3.5 lbs. Every now and then we find a hefty one but mostly they are long and lean fighting machines. The northern smallies seem much fatter in general, well fed on perch, gobies, etc I guess

I got my flippy floppies

I could write a book about all the things I’ve seen at access areas. I’ve got lots of photos too, snapped this one just yesterday I’d much rather come across some dead carp than half of the weirdo humans I’ve seen! Hahah. Always smile, be friendly, and make sure you pick out a good rock to use for self defense

Bearings usually last at least one decade maybe 3. Replacing the entire hub with bearings already in it is light years easier and only like $20 more

Paralysis by analysis I got musked by one of Those the other day

You know it! Haha. He comes twice a year and we document all things good and bad

I pull a paddle leg frog across it or let a fluke sink slowly down the edge

That’s a big 4! Nice job

One of my buddies from college lives out near Memphis, he comes back to east TN for a smallmouth fishing weekend twice a year, arriving Friday mid afternoon and leaving Sunday at noon friday afternoon: we got some good info from @Jerminationon where to fish close to an access so we weren’t wasting time motoring. After a 1.5 minute idle with the gas motor, we put the trolling motor down and start fishing. On the first cast, my buddy hooks up with a nice smallie on a tube! I guess it’s going to be a good trip..... I had small fish duty all of day 1, although I did manage to lose a fairly nice one on a jump. Even mister whiskers showed up to the party. My buddy got me a new spinning outfit on a 7’ rod, it was fun casting further than i typically do. No backreel on the new shimano reel, it was pretty funny a couple times when I was trying to flip the switch Day2: we had a third buddy joining us with fly gear, and we decided to hit the shallow rivers close to home. We drive up and the water on river #1 is 58 degrees at 8 am....... hmmmm.. action was slow, although the fly captured a couple nice drum and white bass. We got dink smallies and lots of skipjack, once again I couldn’t make a striper eat a skipjack for pretty much an entire day. As usual my buddy got the biggest SM of the day, a 16-17” fish I think. We went up another river and found 70 degree water and more white bass and skipjack, maybe a few more decent smallies starting to show up. Right before dark my buddy is landing one, I get a phone call. When I check to see who it is, my line took off swimming fast. I set the hook and a pretty big SM jumps, then dives and I can feel head shakes, and those shakes resulted in the hook coming out ?. I’m guaranteed to get a bite when my fiancé calls but it usually ends with me catching the fish. I guess I should have answered this time! Haha. Day 3: we only have until noon to fish before my buddy drives the long haul back to Memphis after sitting in a boat for 22 hours or so straight of awake time. This is where the peaceful weekend fishing trip took a bit of a turn! We decided to get the shallow boat hooked up and try way up river. It was beyond shallow, we were driving down a shoal that was several hundred yards long and about a foot deep and dry docked the boat on a rock with the target fishing area in sight. It’s about 1/4 mile away still, maybe we can still make it. Well turns out someone is bank fishing down there in the distance. We decide to attempt making it back upstream of the ramp in case of more crashing. Well, there was more crashing. I kept losing momentum on plane in shallow gravel shoals. I bet I tried 6 different times and getting stuck in the exact same spot so I finally just started walking the boat upstream (barefoot, smart. Forgot river shoes). We finally get 2-3 miles above the ramp and start fishing. My buddy hooks up on a tube with this one That bite somewhat died and we had wasted lots of time so we start drifting in the current reeling grubs/swim baits. I notice the boat is now leaking and I broke the prop! Heck we were lucky not to be stranded. Even though I played small fish catcher again, we then proceeded to catch all kinds of smallies in the short period of time we had left and my buddy got the biggest bass of the trip, just over 18” . We had a double or two and some back to back cast action.

Congrats! I owe you lots of tinkering time if you ever have a problem, although I don’t think you like to ramp waterfalls like me . Cant wait to see some fish poop all over it

Nice fish and Sweet rig

People are the real problem, more specifically the ones that brought carp across the ocean!

I shall not think of such Tom foolery! Out of my mind silly thought!!!

I try not to be disrespectful to bass by slinging my silly fluorescent floating lines at them with buggy whips

Whoa! That looks wild