TOXIC

Hand tight only. What gets me are the dang nuts or flat screws in the reel handles. always falling out.

Have to be sufficient to see Bluebirds and Robins in the yard. Spring is not here but it is right around the corner.

I had a wireless on my last truck. Loved it. New truck has one built in to the tailgate. My first one was a Yaba or Yolo something like that. Got it from Costco.

Are you going to be in the back or the front? I have never seen 2 fish from a yak. I got hooked enough guiding with someone else on the front deck I would be duckin all day!!

I'm lookin at 50-65 miles to get to either a good lake or the Potomac river. Those are the closest but there are a lot within 200 miles that I have fished. I go to St Clair for a week which is 9-10 hours one-way and I go to Wisconsin which is 2 days (18 hours) each way. It doesn't take much of a nudge to get me to go anywhere to any new water to fish. That's part of the fun of fishing.

If you want the latest and greatest, you're gonna have to pay for the privilege. I too will buy what I want but I consider myself more smart than frugal.

Just watch the post tournament interviews and smile. One angler will say "the key to my success is to powerfish and put the trolling motor on high and cover as much water as possible" while the next guy will say "I really had to slow down and make multiple casts to the same target to get them to bite". That tells me it has a lot to do with style. I know my tournament partner and I would go out and he would powerfish from the front of the boat and I would watch where he cast and what he used and I would normally do something completely different. Once we got consistent bites on a style or technique, we would both switch over to that method. I am primarily a finesse guy so I naturally fish slower but that doesn't mean I can't burn a trap or spinnerbait if that's the presentation they want.

You bring up an excellent point. I have seen it many times while guiding where I have 2 anglers in the boat fishing the same lures on the same gear in the same spot and one will be smashing them while the other doesn't get bit. I have watched and looked for anything I see one angler is doing different from the other and it's just not there. Always perplexed me. I just tell them that they're just not holding their mouth right.

In a yak...nope. In a 20ft boat I've been on St Clair in 20mph sustained and 50mph gusts. Of course we had access to a somewhat sheltered bay and powerpoles so we could pole down with the rear of the boat into the wind, fish an area and then lift the poles to let the wind move us and then pole down again. We stay on an island that you have to take a ferry to get to but we have been known to load up the boats and head back over to the mainland just to launch in a more protected part of the lake. You do not run across Lake St Clair in 20mph winds unless you have no other options. We always plan for "Blow Days" in our week there every year. Rare but it does happen. Safety first is our motto.

For the "family" time is it going to be used to pull tubes or skiers? My first concern is always safety so if I'm 10 miles from the ramp and a storm is moving in, I want to be able to get back asap.

Good job.

Let me first state I have never been seasick a day in my life and I have been in some rough stuff multiple times including 14 hours on the ocean in rough seas and a relatively small boat. My buddy brought out his Aqua View on Lake St Clair one year and as I sat and watched the screen in a mildly rocking bass boat....I thought I was gonna hurl. Got dizzy and nauseous after about 10 minutes.

The problem with science is that Bass can't read.

Or it picked up a discarded plastic off the bottom.

"Normally" you get what you pay for in hard baits and one of the things that drives the price up is premium hooks/split rings/line ties. There are always exceptions. The only bait I have felt compelled to change the hooks out of the package are Rattle Traps. My go to is the SPRO Aruku Shad but there is 1 color of Rattle Trap that I like on the Potomac.

5" Yamamoto Pro Senko. I use as a dropshot /Shakeyhead/Ned/small ball head bait. Very thin profile lot of action.

Yepper. Put in at Dike 2.

Got out Saturday with a buddy who needed to do a shakedown cruise to his boat after some maintenance and of course we had to get our lines wet. Was a great day and we caught fish everywhere we stopped. Air temperature was anywhere from 29 in the morning "warming" to 42 in the afternoon. This body of water is a 3,000 acre series of cooling ponds connected by canals for a nuke power plant and gives us a nice break during the winter months. Usually smaller fish but they are plentiful and there's just something unique about catching bass on topwater in the winter!! I have some maintenance to do on my boat so. I'll be back out there again soon!!

Normally, once females spawn they head out to feed and recuperate. The males stay behind to guard the nest. That's why you catch the big girls easier during the spawn, it's one of the few times they are very predictable and if you know the routes they take to spawning grounds you can catch them both pre-spawn and post-spawn. And.....not to start another ethics debate but you can also catch them on the beds/nest.

If I didn't have access to the warm water discharge of a Nuke Power Plant (3,000 acres), I would go crazy in the winter. Went Saturday. Water 58-65 Air temp 25-30. Never ices up and keeps me sane.

Great writeup!! Keep up the grind!! There seems to be a big hub bub about not cancelling the tournament due to conditions. Sounds like you played it safe. Good for you.

I have never stopped to list them all because as I have said, for me when I get to the ramp in the morning and the boat is tied off to the dock, I am putting "the puzzle" together in my head because every day it's like dumping a 500 piece puzzle out on the deck. The more of that puzzle you can figure out the better day you will have. The last piece of my puzzle is to always follow my gut. It's usually right.

Dirt. Because everybody knows real men just rub dirt on it and keep fishing. Just a standard First aid kit for me.

I have fished St Clair for a week every year for 15 years. To say we have a lot of "areas" is an understatement. If we are having a tough time we call Marcel for some tips. Great Guy!! Better Guide!!

SPRO Little John in Cell Mate. My favorite CB of all time. I never leave home without it.