wdp

Lol. Fair point. I was just reading that wiggle wart thread earlier. But that appears to be more of a mold change issue that reduced the hunting action of the bait. My beef is the cheap hook hangers & poor quality hooks. Don't think putting some decent split rings & maybe some Gammy hooks on a Jitterbug is gonna change the action of the bait. ?

I used to love to throw a Tiny Torpedo back in my high school days. The problem with a lot of these old skool baits like the jitterbug, hula popper, tiny torpedo, etc. is that they're made with some really sub par components by today's standards. Cheap, terrible hooks, crummy hook hangers, etc. It's like these companies been making these baits the same way for 40+ yrs. I mean c'mon mayne, join the 21st century and make some improvements to your lures & use some higher quality components. You might sell more of your lures. ?

D'oh! Are you using the DT Fat 1 or Fat 3? I bought a couple of the DT Fat 1 cranks like 2 yrs ago and only used em once. I gotta lake with a ditch running thru the middle of big flat that's only 2 - 3 ft deep. At times that stack up in that flat up & down that ditch. Shallow cranks absolutely kill em some days. I mostly use a Baby 1- and it's hard to put it down cause it's usually so productive. Also, a burned 1/4 oz Redeye slays em well. But it I really wanna give that DT Fat a chance.

Dang. Yeah, that lake has a lot of timber in it in 2 different areas. 1st area you come to walking up to the lake is a shallow cove that has a bunch of logs in it. That area obviously gets hammered by fishermen. Lots of corks & line broken off in the cover. If you walk walk down to the left along the bank, there is another big area of stumps & laydowns. I've caught a few there with shallow cranks, wakebaits, flukes and buzzfrogs. I've never fished going along the right side of the bank. And the bank on far side of lake is steep with limited access. You kinda gotta be careful walking the bank tho. Some areas are a bit dicey & steep. Plus, there's also a roped off area along the trail where there is a major erosion issue where it drops off very steep into a big culvert/ditch.

Yep, spot on. And the Big 10 was not all that great this year. Look at their overall bowl record. The ACC was the top football conf this year - great overall bowl record plus the NC.

I tried that pond once the year before last. It's super shallow. Biggest thing is it's really hard to fish. There really isn't any good bank access. There is another lake out there that's located past the 3 ponds up front near the baseball fields where you've been mostly fishing. If you walk all the way down the walking track past those ponds thru a clearing in the woods, you'll run into that lake. That's where I've had the most luck at Johnson.

I don't think it matters. I've used 8-15# mono backing for both 12 & 15# fluoro. I just use whatever mono I can buy super cheap at Wally World.

Same for me. I like MH rod for the 4.5 - 5" swimbaits (like hollow bodies) with a keel weighted single hook. But I always texpose the hook so it's weedless. I like the extra power for hook sets. I've thrown the smaller solid bodied swimbaits like the keitech easy shiner (think it's 4") with a 1/8 oz jig head with lighter wire hook using my spinning tackle. Think it's a 6'6" MF. No hookup issues at all.

Well, you might've called it. Def not a high scoring game. Unless some offensive explosions happen in the next qtr. Glad the game actually kicked off at 7:15. I guess the 8 pm game time I kept hearing was eastern time. It's still gonna end late tho.

It was high scoring last year. My biggest complaint is they aren't starting til 8 pm. Gonna be after 11 before the game is over. Some of us gotta get up & go work for a living. ?

Shallow cranks, lipless cranks, swimbaits, weightless super flukes. Oh yeah, and topwaters: poppers, frogs, buzzbaits, etc.

Rapala Skitter Pop Stanley Ribbit Frog Zoom Horny Toad Finally broke down & bought a whopper plopper. Looking forward to trying it this spring.

Yeah, like everybody else has said, it's hard to get em to bite sometimes when they're schooling like that & busting on pods of shad. Few months ago, I saw big ones up to 4-5 lbs totally coming outta the water. I'd run over there and cast right into the school of shad & nothing. After & hr or so of this, I finally hooked up twice on 2 dinks using a Redeye Shad. It can be frustrating. ?

Well, nothing is full proof. But my best baits have been a Rapala Skitter Pop, Zoom Super Fluke, or SK Redeye Shad.

Only ended up with 1.5 - 2" in the Memphis area. But enough to freak out all us southern drivers, lol. Seriously tho, roads were pretty icy yesterday when I made the obligatory milk & eggs run.

Wow!!!! See! This is why I'm trying to convince my wife we need to move to FL. You get to catch fish like this in January without freezing your boys off, and during your lunch break no less. ??? Congrats!

Very nice work @DoDFire. I don't have that kinda patience.

Ha ha ha. Yep, and every time there is the slightest hint of snow.

My wife's uncle found this & posted it to all of us when my father-in-law passed last year. I don't think I've ever seen dealing with the loss of a loved one described so perfectly or more poignantly. Some may have already seen this. But hopefully it will help those dealing with this. Life does go on & it does get better. This gentleman responded to a post on Reddit about someone losing a friend and the person didn't know what to do. "Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents. I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see. As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive. In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life. Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out. Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks."

Wow. Well, that was my fear which is why I kinda gently popped back my rod hoping the hooks wouldn't get the bird's foot. Luckily, my frog popped out. When he came down for that 2nd pass at it, I was gonna make sure he didn't get it again.

Weightless super fluke for me. Many days if I miss one on topwater or shallow cranking, I can throw a fluke in there and twitch it a few times & get bit.

Nice ones. You're still thumping em.

People here in the south really do flip out over a little snow. All the eggs, milk, bread & cheese are gone from the local grocery stores. Lol. Never really understood that. If I'm getting snowed in I'd rather have steak!

So sorry. Man that's gotta be tough. Thoughts & prayers to you & your wife. Prayers for you too NF Mike. Prayers out for you also.

This jogged my memory. A buddy & I were fishing on Father's Day when a guy & his 2 teenage sons show up and launch at the ramp for what was obviously a father & son Father's Day outing. This was an old gravel ramp & the water was low so it was easy to get the back tires down in the mud where the gravel ended. They fished a while & headed back in while my buddy & I continued to fish nearby the ramp. And of course, they got stuck once the boat was trailered & they went to pull off. We must've chuckled for near 30 mins watching them try to get their truck outta the mud. I'd have offered assistance but had no rope or anything in my truck to help pull em out. Not even sure my lil 4 cyl Ford Ranger woulda been up to the task. They cussed & hollered the whole time. The highlights were when 1 of the sons yelled to his Dad who was spinning the tires non-stop. Dad! Dad! Stop!!! You're just making it worse. The dad got out yelling at the top of his lungs, I knew it! I knew it! I knew something like this was gonna happen! To this day, my buddy & I yell "I knew it!" as a sort of catch phrase. ?