TnRiver46

When’s the tourney??

@Paul Roberts, that territorial dispute thing you mentioned came to mind while I was setting traps today. I used to rent a log cabin that was just propped up on stacked stones, anything that wanted to could walk under the floors. One night in early sept we were sitting down to watch the first NFL game of the season and heard some kind of high pitched screeching noise. Within 2-3 minutes the whole place reeked of skunk and we went to go watch the game at a sports bar haha. This must have been something like you were describing because it was about as far from breeding season as possible . Skunk fights are always better when they don’t occur under your floor boards !

I also catch a lot of fish on floating jerkbaits and sinking jerkbaits, it’s only a very small window if any window at all where they eat only suspended baits . Which is why I don’t fiddle around with the bait, just keep twitching and switching until a fish bites it

So that’s why my lures expand and explode in my tackle boxes......

Gotcha. So I’m going to imagine its warming fast after ice out. On the sunny increasing temperatures they oughta be coming out of those deep haunts and creeping uphill, that would be a good time to bounce a spoon or rattle trap in front of them. Also using a tiny crappie jig might be a good option, since you’ll be fishing close to ice out they might want to eat ice fishing type lures. The crappie guys here get a little upset about the big smallmouth snapping off their jigs in winter if the largemouth start biting first................... just reel them in too! What kind of little fish live in the lake? Perch pattern blade bait by Johnson is excellent in perchy places for me, I think it’s called the thinfisher

Meteorology is a myth. I think there is a secret pipeline from high school drop outs to news channel weather rooms

My neighbors watch Frazier every night til about midnight haha. I think I saw every episode of it at my grandparents house back in the 3 channels days so I don’t watch it anymore but I bet I would still laugh at Niles and his tomfoolery

Husky jerk and x rap make up most of all my jerkbaits and I don’t recall ever seeing one rise. I’m not sure how big the husky 10 is but I throw the one with 2 trebles on 6 lb line and x rap on 10 lb line. also get you a smithwick rattlin rogue disclaimer: I’ve never changed hooks, split rings, or put strips or lead on any lures so I’m kind of a fuddy dud

The waterways of the north country never cease to amaze me . Floods moving smallmouth around? That’s pretty cool! Here in the mountains $(@“& just rolls down hill and all creeks and rivers flow into the Tennessee and the smallies are in all of it. I have no “ice out” experience but it seems water warms very fast in small northern lakes. A lot of times guys on here from MI, MN and IL are posting water temps higher than mine in the spring time. How big is this lake you mention? If it’s already getting to 40+ by the time you get out there, the smallies will be ready to eat just about any lure. I like gulp minnows, tube jigs, hair jigs or blade baits/spoons under 45-47 degree water. Once it’s above that, they will eat any lure. Under 40 degree water, I haven’t encountered that much but i would throw live bait if I did. 1/2 night crawler on a jig head

I saw an ott Defoe video where he said he rigs his so he knows how to fix anything out on the water. I rig my own because I’ve never been to a boat dealer and boy does it show! Not in a good way......... hahah. in all seriousness drilling holes in the boat seems crazy the first time but as long as you’ve got good screws and some 3M 5200, it won’t leak a drop. I’m a HACK and I’ve drilled at least 75-100 holes in boats from replacing transoms and mounting transducers and none of them have ever leaked.

I think there’s some sort of group or club of guys that all have older trackers they have remodeled. I hear and see a ton of them from the late 80s, seems that would mean they make a good hull.

Tracker makes a good boat. I’ve never owned one but I have tons of friends that take me in their trackers. As stated above, they cost less because they have less horses! Apparently they also come with the longest lasting trailer tires since the invention of the wheel. One of my buddies was claiming he had 11 year old trailer tires on his, I was saying no way. Another buddy chimed in and said his tracker still had the original tires from when he bought it 13 years ago. I have no clue how this is possible but it happened twice! And these guys are pulling the boat every weekend and some weekdays. I should clarify, you mean tracker aluminum, correct??

Hahaha dude you’re killing me

Ain’t fished nickajack much but I don’t like either one of those colors haha. I’m a purple, black, and/or blue kind of guy. Or any bait that moves I like white

What happens in late winter here is a female will get under a house, or shed, or concrete slab. She’s under there in eustress and males will come from all around to breed with her. You can usually set a trap near the mouth of the burrow and catch 10-12 males and you may never catch the female. If you do catch her, you seem to have to catch all the males first. All of this is somewhat specific to late winter, basically any cold time after new year. I assume they also have many territorial disputes, just guessing since they are everywhere and have such successful litters

Found a bunch of the non everyday knives at moms

Life goals: address involves the world island “Check!” -MN fisher

This is the weatherman’s 15 minutes (3 days) of fame! He/she may retire after all the coverage

Good thing I didn’t bet much! That satellite view looks like one of those northern bogs.

Yes that’s what most people have. One day!!! We had electricity down to the dock at one point, it should still work Hahaha those deer sure look mouth watering but there’s 4 houses close by. My game warden buddies tell me it’s still legal but it could run to their property and they don’t have to let you come get it . There are at least 6 does in the yard everyday and I’ve seen buck sign but of course they seem to stay nocturnal I bet you own a few pair of rubber boots

atta boy !

I intentionally bought my house based on boat ramp proximity, I think I’m about 1.5 miles from a ramp on the TN river. When I can finally convince my fiancé it’s time and when our renting tenants move out, we’ve got a lake house on a tributary reservoir. It’s got a covered boat dock, albeit I can’t leave a boat tied to it for very long as we are in super heavy wakeboard/water sports area. They even set up a jump like 220 yards from the dock............. I’m going to install some whips but they won’t help inside the covered area. We built all this before wakeboarding was popular hahah. It’s one heck of a walk from the water back up to the house but at least it’s a walk and not a drive . It also comes equipped with deer and turkey for all your viewing pleasure

Cool runnings......ing......... never mind

I’ve had to pick up quite a few skunks that would gladly spray! It usually happens in a huge cage that someone set for a raccoon or if the skunks have encountered the household canine. If I set my own traps that are small and pre wrapped with a cloth, I have an estimated 95+ percent successful no stink rate. I could write a fairly long book about all my skunk encounters. I’ve got some good videos and lots of ruined clothing. Some of the more interesting situations are when you have one caught and another is trying to assist in the escape effort, it happened to me everyday right here for a week We had an intern back in 2015 that was always right next to me no matter what. We were inspecting a customers crawl space and when I got to the HVAC, a live skunk emerged from under the unit and was 5-6 feet from my nose. I slither in a circle to leave and the intern is right in my face asking me what’s up. I think all I said was “exit” but I wanted to scream “get the %*+ out of the way!” Haha when I tend to stink the worst is when I have to pull dead skunks out of places, usually in an HVAC unit. Like this particular fine specimen pictured here I also have a coworker that was filling in a burrow inside of a crawl space with loose dirt. He said all of a sudden a skunk covered in dirt emerged from the burrow and ran right by him and went out the crawl space door haha. He refers to that as the zombie skunk incident. We’ve also had 4 (yes 4) skunks that my boss put into the freezer that were not 100% deceased . Guess who was the lucky guy that opened the freezer to find a live skunk 3 out of 4 times? Yours truly. We are nearing the tail end of breeding season here, been getting skunk calls non stop and I’ve been catching 1-2 a day since New Years . We will have a bit of a die down in activity until the middle of summer, that’s when the young ones become mobile and start running all around, even during midday. Then the complaints start again and I’m usually riding around with 3-4 of them in my truck during summer

Cracked me up too! You gotta stop and think: am I lower on the food chain than a goose?? that’s not nearly as bad as encountering a wasp nest at the top of a 40 foot ladder