Elkins45

Or a Crème Scoundrel.

I've been making some big inline spinners for musky fishing and experimenting with skirts made from acrylic yarn.

Do any of you use locking lug nuts on your trailer wheels and/or spare to prevent theft? If so have you ever had any issues removing them when needed? I park my truck and trailer at some remote places and I’m getting paranoid that I’ll come off the water one day and find my wheels missing.

Do you think the fancy photorealistic paint schemes of modern hard baits make them more productive that the much simpler mostly solid color or simplistic paint jobs like wooden lures had 40-50 years ago? I bought some blank lure bodies and I'm wondering if it's worth the effort to try to paint them realistically or just give them a coat of paint and then maybe add a stripe or two? Do you think it makes a big difference in how effective they are?

My grandad basically did nothing but bass or musky fish for decades until infirmity stopped him in the early 70's. He swore that the best bass lure on the planet was a 6" purple Creme Scoundrel.

If you do Amazon they have a lot of possible options labeled as “bead organizers” https://www.amazon.com/Qryuvfek-Organizer-Jewelry-Organizers-Containers/dp/B0FH1X1Q2V/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2S3CLE1PN5P8L&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GYOI6CoTe7_l01R8oTCzfWA_wCRVNrTTNDaYD2N6r7GbQXW7o8SY9JGiIZS1bdncphhDa6DoEnqgoiP9zeLA4NE_lj_yzBV1SZe6jHxdgLdct3uMQ-1bbiqyBw1zQEDaquJw9DR86faiXrTHK4pkquXxCruoHy9PJD6XAC0FuomWcSDEbgkCkPYNlJiTNCL4L93-TPEXtoGovG2_kv4ZohGfCTS1xJ2cuBU9lMmRxbdO03Wo-zbVjKJrIVNeuZ-Sy-9TA9wE4nuetUvEzDha9EDC-8fG4dQekEH36rPiJ_c.2jRc6bZyDX2sOptkSKXevPSCcnBSUksjdQCBuVpObIc&dib_tag=se&keywords=bead+organizer&qid=1762474840&sprefix=Bead%2Caps%2C296&sr=8-6

No, this was a large molded hollow plastic lure, like a giant jointed wind cheater minnow. I’ve tried using AI to help me find it but no luck. Right now the bait monkey seems to be blind because I’m not finding anything close enough.

This either came from the hobby aisle of Walmart or the Dollar Tree, but it's marketed for crafting. I'm sure it was less than $5. There's a bottom row so it's 24 little boxes total.

Jitterbug Floating worm Some variety of frog Choppo Zara Spook

I lost a really nice musky lure yesterday, a big jointed minnow. It was fairly new and I'm sure I purchased it in the last 4-5 years. Unfortunately there were no identifying markings on it at all, so I don't have any idea what to search for to replace it. I wasn't even smart enough to take a picture of it to have that as a starting point. I wish all lure makers would put some sort of model identification on their products, especially big ones like musky baits where's there's plenty of surface to work with. If not the model then at least the brand. I have all kinds of lures that I have no idea who made them, and I'm not talking abut knockoff stuff. I have learned one lesson: from now on whenever I buy a new lure I'm going to take a picture of it in the package so I'll have a reference to know what it is.

The idea of the ball coming loose from the hitch insert is completely foreign to be because I’ve only ever had the opposite issue. After a couple of years mine are permanently stuck. In fact, I ended up buying two inserts and balls because I couldn’t unscrew the ball to flip the insert for my mower trailer.

I went fishing on Thursday and left before sunrise. All the trailer lights were working perfectly. When I turned them on for the trip home the marker lights didn't come on. The stop/turn still worked and thankfully it was a short drive so I made it home without a ticket or an accident. I tested the truck the next day and the trailer circuit was dead, but fortunately it had popped a fuse rather than fry something expensive. It took a bit of searching to find the fuse but that fixed it. I was smart enough to text the trailer and find the short before just plugging it in again. The trailer is a Bear brand made in 2006. It turns out that they did the wiring by just torching a hole in the steel tubing wherever a wire enters or exits the frame. The edges of all those holes are exactly as ragged as you would expect torch cuts to be. Between 19 years of weather deteriorating the insulation and the mechanical rubbing where the wires entered the frame there were two places with exposed wires causing dead shorts. Honestly as bad as the wear was I'm amazed they hadn't failed long before. So I spent my afternoon yesterday completely rewiring my boat trailer. I elected to run the wires along the outside rather than through the frame so I hopefully wouldn't have the same issue again. I know it doesn't look as clean but I don't really care about looks on a boat trailer LOL. Everybody checks if their trailer lights function before going on a long trip, but how often do you really look at the wiring? It might save you a big headache to check any entry or exit points for insulation failure, and maybe even give the wires a wrap of electrical tape at those points.

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'm going to try contact cement rather than liquid nails, even though I already have a tube of liquid nails. The point about it getting brittle squares with my experiences using it in the past.

The carpet on the sides of my boat is coming loose. What adhesive should I use to glue it back in place?

I went ahead and sprung for a dual use size 27 to replace my size 24 starting battery because it was on sale for Black Friday, and if it ever stops raining I'll install a new battery tray and the new battery. I didn't like how it was behaving on the charger, although with my little 50hp two stroke I'm not terrified of a dead starting battery because I can either jump it from the TM battery or I can rope start it. My first "real" outboard was an 85hp Johnson that had some sort of defect in the starting system that I could never track down even after paying a boat mechanic a good deal of $$. You got about 30 seconds of cranking max before the starter dragged to a crawl. I became a real champ at pull starting that thing; fortunately once if started for the day it didn't take much cranking to restart. Rope sorting my 50 is like starting a lawnmower in comparison.

How many years do you get out of your starting battery? How about your trolling motor batteries? My starting battery was bought in January 2019 and it's taking longer to charge than the trolling battery. Even though it only gets used to crank over the motor a couple of times and run the sonar for a day of fishing it now takes like 36 hours for the onboard charger to give a green light for it. I put a load tester on it and it's still about 80% of the rated capacity but the longer charge time worries me for a multi-day trip. That doesn't seem like very good battery life to me, but I hate to spend $100 to replace a battery that still might have a decent bit of life left...but i would hate being stranded on the water more. How often do you change your batteries?

Is Salt Springs Run and the northern end of Lake George a reasonable spot to try in mid-December? I’m feeling the urge to make a Florida trim before my out of state license expires. I’m also considering Rodman because of the drawdown, but I was disappointed last time. I think the fish were in the flats when I was in the channel and vice versa.

Back in the day before the first Mister Twister there were basically three plastic worms everybody I knew threw. The Crème Scoundrel, the Manns Jelly Worm and the Fliptail. I forgot who made the Fliptail.

Great idea. I already had the picture hung, I just had to add the worms.

I found this blast from the past in some of my grandfather’s stuff. He’s the one who got me into fishing and I still use some of his lures, including an original hand-carved Big O. I stumbled across these today. He died in 1977 and was infirm for several years before, so these are probably no younger than 1972. I can’t decide whether to fish with them or just keep them as a memento.

I did find this, which might be OK if I could live with a 40. https://louisville.craigslist.org/bod/d/adolphus-new-2023-crestliner-1600-storm/7707712910.html

I’m fishing from a really good deep V but I’m getting the urge for a true bass boat as well. I’m not finding any great deals on used boats at the moment and I see you can get the basic Tracker with a 50 HP for somewhere around $17K after all the fees, etc. I was pricing an equivalent G3 and their list price for a bare bones 16ft boat with a 50 is approaching $30K. What’s the go-to deal for a 16-17 foot bass boat if not the Tracker?

Have any of you ever stayed at Bass World Lodge just north of Lake George on the St. John’s river? I stayed south of the lake a couple of years ago year and want to try the other end this time. Is it a decent place to stay?

Lodging is the main reason I haven't been to Headwaters yet. I would just sleep in my truck for a couple of nights but they won't let you.

I'm going to be staying on the Florida side near Three Rivers State Park, but I'm willing to follow the fish. Any fishing reports or advice for December bass fishing?