herder

My wife has absolutely no interest in fishing, and even less in camping Being retired and fishing and camping my whole life I have pretty much all I need. Just need to replace stuff, terminal tackle and pretty much plastics with some lures too. Fishing out of kayak is cheap after the original purchase. I have all the camping gear I need, when I retired I did treat myself to what I figure is my last tent. I camp about 50 nights a year, my wife goes on vacations with her girlfriends and my daughter. We'll go on one vacation a year to our old friends vacation home down on the Jersey shore. It's worked out for almost 40 years. I do have start taking my rmd this year so maybe I'll upgrade some stuff.

The prerequisite around here was drinking a lot of Hiram Walker blackberry brandy. That's ok if you like having railroad spike driven through your skull hangover

There is a little on some of them, but nothing too bad and doesn't effect them.

And the Giants blow another game with a 4th quarter lead, kick the f'king field goal!

I get a lot of mine on Ebay, TCI Fishing Lures. Packs of 50 1/8 oz are around 11$. You can choose different hook styles and sizes, they are unpainted. I've ordered them with no issue, pretty fast delivery. I fish them a lot in rivers and other snaggy places so the pain of losing them is not too painful.

Like many others here in my younger days cold didn't bother me too much. Never ice fished or really had any desire too. We would fish through the winter at a reservoir though that usually didn't freeze. It was a boring type of fishing, bait and wait fishing with herring. We almost always had success doing it with various types of trout. Here's a laker I caught, we always fished from shore.

Still using my made in Sweden 6500's for Saltwater Striper fishing, pretty much indestructible. Been using em since the 90's, someone mentioned to me oh, you mean last century. I felt old,,,,,,,,,,,,

There’s a one day sale on these on the FishUSA site. Buy one and get a free Okuma StormRunner Spinning Reel for 129.0$ Anyone have any experience with either of these? I’m not using it for Salmon/Steelhead but for the spring shad run here on the Delaware river. Might also get used for hair jigs for smallies in reservoirs. I’m looking specifically at the 9’6” light rod and the 3000 reel.

I have to exhibit some self control or I'd be 400lbs. There are some choices to be made, I've reluctantly choose to control what goes in my pie hole. Tackle buying,,,,,,well,,,,ya'll know how that goes

I like pie, can't wait till Thanksgiving for sum Pumpkin pi, with a dollop of homemade whipped cream! Back to the original question probably 10% too. I have stuff I don't even remember buying, or what I was thinking when I did buy it. A lot of saltwater stuff too, I only go in the salt a couple times a year now, whereas I was pretty much saltwater fishing 90% of the time.

I got one those citations 2 years ago for fishing without a license on the Delaware river in NY. My license expired 2 days earlier, we've been going there for 15 years to a friends outing there and it was always on the free fishing weekend. Well that time it was a week before the free fishing weekend, completely my fault. Cost me 80$, lesson learned.

@softwateronly, is that a Chatillon scale in one of you're pictures? Old school, batteries never die on em.

I refused to waste that much Jack and muscled through it. 🤢 The struggle is real

Congratulations getting the kayak, sounds like it will be perfect for where you fish. What paddle came with it, I know I don't have to tell you how important the paddle is. My kayak is 29" wide, there is no standing in it for me. I knew a guy who was consulting with Eddyline when they were getting into the sot market and was asked what I would want in a sot, my main suggestion was no wider than 28", shows how much pull I had

Ahhh, the age old question. Should I stay or should I go. Everytime I'm in that situation I immediately hear that song by the Clash in my head. What WRB said, swing back later.

How old is it? Was it stored outside in the sun? Check around the scupper holes for cracks. They are pretty heavy, but have a tri hull and 33" wide so it should be pretty stable.

Places I've fished many times I have an idea where they might be, doesn't mean they are. Fishing new places is where the fun begins, and if I managed to find them, then the satisfaction level is high, though I know that doesn't mean I'm smart, a broken clock is right 2 times a day

I've been a fan of the Giants since the days of Yelberton and Delbert. Oh were headed for the bowl, just not the super one.

I don't think I've eaten one in 50 years. Not to many freshwater fish I've eaten besides Yellow Perch and Channel Cats from clear cold water. Saltwater fish is a different game, stripers, fluke, tog, spanish mackerel and even bluefish were always harvested. Now a days it's very rare for me to harvest anything to the disdain of my wife. I look at cleaning fish as work, being retired I avoid work at any cost. I've become Maynard G Krebs !!

The waters by me for potential big smallies are 45 minutes to a hr away. Farest I've driven is 5+ hrs to the Adirondacks, then we camp for a week up there. I've have not reached my potential

It all depends on where I'm fishing. Deep clear reservoirs, I'm bringing my dropshot stuff in addition to my boxes of plastics, jerk baits and top waters. River fishing depending on the river just plastics, jerk baits and topwaters and spinner baits. Shallow lakes pretty much plastics and top waters. Saltwater depends on what I'm fishing for, stripers it's plugs and jigs, fluke jigs, tog is just rigs and crabs. The most rods I bring are 4, again depending on where I'm fishing.

Just been spooked a few times, shad fishing solo on the Delaware river over 30 years ago. Waded about 20 yards off the bank casting darts for shad, out of the corner of my eye I see something. Turn around and I think man that's a big dog, well it's a good size black bear. At this time bears were very rare in New Jersey, well the next thing is the bear gets in the river and starts swimming across real close to me. I can't really move to quick in the river current and I think maybe if he gets too close I can poke him in the eye with my rod . Thankfully he just swam across paying no attention to me. Another time solo camping on the Delaware river sitting around my campfire after a day of fishing. I'm in that zone where I'm just one with the universe, something made me look off to my side and put my headlamp on and there's the biggest raccoon I've ever seen just waddling up to me, made my heart skip a few beats as I just shooed him off. I solo camp a couple times a year on the Delaware river, my wife is not too happy about me being out there alone, she's worried about bears as they are around up there. I tell I'm more afraid of things that walk on 2 feet, not 4.

I lost a 15$ tube lure in Massachusetts striper fishing. The only problem was that it was attached to a St.Croix musky rod and an Ambassador 6500. We were striper fishing and just picking away at em, I found a bunch and called my buddies on the radio to come over where I was. When I called I just laid the rod down on my lap just hanging the tube in the water off the front of my kayak. I looked down and the rod and reel shot off my lap like a rocket, striper grabbed it right on top of the water. I think I created a bunch of new ways of stringing expletives around.