TOXIC

There are regulations as to how warm the water returning to the cold side can be. Cold side is 13,000 acres and the hot side is 3,000 acres in 3 “pools” of about 1,000 acres each. The water is pumped out of the nuke plant and cools as it goes from pool 1 to pool 3. All are connected by large canals. Both sides have feeder creeks the size of small rivers and the cold side actually has 2 feeder rivers. Great fishery in the winter but water temps top 100:degrees in the hot summer months. I have been fishing it for 25 years and guided residents non that side. I would not take non residents over there but there are some guides who will. Here is a map of the lake showing the dikes separating the hot and cold side. Hot side separated by dikes is shown on the bottom left.

Hmmmmm.......another term you need to learn is being “back boated”. Some “Pro’s” are more skilled at keeping you off fish from the back of the boat than they are at catching fish. Major cause of hard feelings at a lot of TX.

Access to the hotside will spoil you for sure. A buddy of mine fished your TX, Nick Kight, he runs a center console.

Y’all are discussing the lake I used to guide on a lot. There’s 2 ways to fish Anna. 1. Brushpiles 2. Target the Wolfpack’s that roam. While you will always find them on docks, the bigger fish will always be on offshore brush piles. I opted for the Wolfpacks because those were where the numbers of fish traveled in schools and that was good for clients. I considered dock fish part of the Wolfpack crowd. If I had clients that wanted a trophy or bigger fish or were prefishing for a TX, I would target brush piles.

I have seen waaay too many crank baits stuck in hands to ever grab the line. Even with releasing the pressure on the rod there is that amount of time between when you grab the line and lift the fish out of the water. Mr Murphy is always with me and his law states it’s at that point in time the crank bait will come loose and rocket into my hand. My preferred way is to either lip them or cradle them under the belly because I very rarely have one thrash when belly landing them. As for lipping, as long as you have a good grip there is no counter action between the bait and my hand, they are both moving in the same direction when the fish thrashes. My quest for a 7 pound smallmouth was within reach on Lake St Clair but my buddy who was helping me land her thought I had braid and wrapped the line once around his hand when in fact it was 8pound mono. Snap.....gone. I am a finesse fisherman so no swinging fish and definitely no hoisting by the line.

Last I checked, WalMart doesn’t make spinnerbaits. A lot of guys are probably buying the same spinnerbait with a different name on it and in different packaging for more money. ?

I have 2 Ram mounts for my bass boat and my problem with them is that in rough water it is very tough to keep them in position. They make a wrench that fits the handle that allows you to get them a little tighter but over the course of a day in rough water they can come loose. I actually have a rubber block that zip ties around the base of my console unit to protect the fiberglass if it bounces down and hits the boat. I’ve been tempted to go to a solid mount like a Kong for a while.

While I agree, 3 foot rollers on Lake Michigan are pretty common and not in the extreme at all and a 621 Ranger Fisherman is designed to run rough water. My point was what you said, that a bad driver can make a bad day worse. I’ll never forget a day on St Clair in the same conditions when I would have doubted my own ability, I went out with someone who was born and raised on that type of water and 3 footers were like going over boat wakes for him and that was in a 20 foot bass boat. The difference between the two was that my friend DROVE his boat, his hands never stopped moving the steering wheel and he was always making corrections.

Look at Bass Boat Technologies website and mounts.

He’s what we call a “point and shoot” driver. Roughest ride I ever had was with a PWT (Professional Walleye Tour) pro who offered to take me out on Lake Michigan to run some planer boards and drag some crawler harnesses. We had about a 30 mile run to where he was fishing. This was in a Ranger 621 Fisherman. He pulled the waypoints up on his graph hammered down and never turned the wheel one time. Wind was blowing 10-15 and there was 3 foot rollers. I literally had blisters on my back from bouncing in the seat. I have been going to St Clair for 17 years, I have run some rough water but that was the worst ride I ever had and it was in a boat designed for it. Side note, the guy in the video totaled that Ranger and there’s some serious discussion as to whether or not he had his kill switch attached.

Exactly what I have learned. I’m no novice when it comes to buying real estate. I bought my first home in Omaha, Nebraska sold it when I was transferred to Kansas City, sold that one when I was transferred to the Boston area and then sold that one when I got transferred to northern va/ DC area and made good profits every time. I have sniffed out some pretty unique properties every time and will do the same if Florida is our next move. I have the time to ferret out another deal once we decide exactly where we want to be.

I have been retired for almost 2 years and have been doing the same search as you but I have narrowed it down to Florida. No state income tax and the wife has a sister and brother-in-law who have a beach house on Cresent beach close to st Augustine. Initially I wanted some sort of waterfront and Florida has no shortage of lakes, canals, rivers, the inter coastal and the ocean but beach living is not in my budget even though I really like surf fishing. Right now Florida real estate is red hot from a lot of people moving out of big cities on the east coast. Since we have a place to stay for free, we are planning a few trips down to check out different areas and see if anything fits my requirements. We are taking it slow since hopefully this will be our last move and we will be selling our home here in Virginia that we have been in for 30 years and it is our big nest egg for the Florida move. My biggest requirement is that we move somewhere where winter will never find me again.?

Had a buddy from here in Virginia choose to go to Headwaters instead of Okeechobee a week after we got back and he had a tough go of it. They caught fish but the dirt road to the lake and the accommodations they stayed in were terrible. Lake was fishing tough for them.

Take it to a trailer shop and have the whole system checked. Since your trailer has brakes, they should be functional and if you can’t handle a rebuild associated with a new coupler, let a pro do it since a new coupler will involve the braking system.

You can say that about any technique. That’s the reason I used the Bass Pro tank as an example. Happens right before your eyes for those who like to argue. You can see the effects with both setups and you can see the bass hit. This has been a debated topic forever. I’ve had to show lots of hardcore anglers that say they could never use a spinning rod the error in their thinking.?

Curse of being healthy and 63, I am not on the list. I think I will be opting for the single shot when it’s my turn.

Lucked into some deer meat but unfortunately it was frozen when I got it. Thawed it out today and processed it cutting out all the fat and silver skin. I plan on using a good portion for stew meat but I have to cook it before it can be frozen again. I will also do some stroganoff. Anybody have any suggestions on what else I can do with it? I also have 2 butt roasts still in the freezer. My buddy who feeds his family most of the year on venison tells me that the leg quarters and rump roasts are only good to process and cube. I wanted to smoke some but he told me it is too lean. I only have experience with tenderloin and back straps. The fat and scrap pieces will be going to a friend who feeds working dogs raw diets. The bone is waste.

Exactly. What most called action was throwing baits that covered a lot of water.....search baits, and power fishing. With all of the new technology they are going to have their faces locked on their finders looking for fish. They won’t be throwing nearly as much.

If you don’t want to add weight, gamakatsu makes an ewg hook specifically for skipping called a Skipjack. It has an extra bend at the tie end to hold the bait.

I use grubs on spinner baits and Yamamoto Zakos on chatterbaits. Zakos come in both forked tails and paddle tails.

Normally off and stowed in the house. My boat is parked covered in my driveway year round. Rods/reels are locked in the garage. Any trip where I am staying in a hotel, finders are removed and in the room at night. Rods/reels are in the rod locker with a lok r bar that has the alarmed padlock. Week in Wisconsin where boat is at the dock, graphs are left on the boat as well as the rods/reels. Week in Michigan on st Clair, we are on Harsens island and the boats stay in the water with all gear. Just got back from a week at Roland Martin’s on Okeechobee, graphs off and in the room, gear left under cover on boat.

To me a technique is like cranking, dropshot, a-rig, jig, spinnerbait, chatterbait, etc., all different. Presentation is different ways of fishing the same bait. My example of the article I wrote is different presentations for the same bait....a Senko.

When skipping docks there’s a couple of things I take into consideration. First is water condition. If it is calm or rough. All my skipping is done on spinning and a sidearm cast. With calm water, I will make the Senko contact the water much closer to the boat and I will throw it harder. By far the deepest I can skip. If the water was rough and I did that the Senko would launch off a wave and probably end up on the dock or hitting the front board. So in rougher water I cast so that the Senko makes contact with the water closer to the dock. The second factor is the size of the opening under the dock I am trying to skip. If it is 2 inches or less, I want the long skip I mentioned above and hopefully the wave action is minimal. If it’s rough I will just pitch to the posts and where the motor makes a trench in the bottom. I will also skip under the boat lift.

Sorry I didn’t see this before now but I was in Florida on Okeechobee for a week and just got back out on the hotside yesterday. I am a little dumbfounded from the last post I made here with the pics. I fully expected to see them on the beds yesterday but we found none. I guess there was some colder weather when I was in Florida and that pushed them back. We caught some on cranks, Ned and dropshot out on the flats. No traces of any beds where we usually see them. Good thing was we caught a lot of different species. Crappie, bass, white perch, catfish and striper.

I can see my line react to a bite as it free falls from a spinning spool. If you are pulling it off by hand with a baitcaster you are putting action on the slack line and will miss bites. And if you don’t peel it off by hand the bait is going to pendulum back to you. I’m not going to split hairs on trying to change anyone’s mind but I have shown both of these examples on the tank a Bass Pro doing seminars. No creative engineering or theory involved. Its never been disputed that the majority of bites on a weightless Senko come on the fall. That’s where the action on the bait comes from. And as was said earlier, if you are fishing in less than 4 feet of water, it is less noticeable. If you want to throw a Senko on a baitcaster go right ahead because I have always said there is no wrong way to fish a Senko. I just know what the bait was designed to do and how it works for me.