TOXIC

Trigger warning but this is hilarious. https://youtu.be/DDcQoUHVukw?si=ZDWx3WLjGNtgwM5b

Not a snob but I’m willing to,pay for a better brew. Had REAL Kona on my honeymoon in Hawaii and it was great. One of our early years on our annual Michigan trip, we swung into a Tim Hortons on our way to the lake and I hafta say, it was one of the best cups I’ve ever had. Every year I would bring a case home. Now it’s available here I. Virginia or online and it’s very good but I can’t replicate the original cup I had from the store. I assume it’s how it’s brewed, temprature, grind size, yada, yada, but it’s still my main choice.

The key issue can be summed up in 1 word…..Intent…..Did he intend to deceive or was it a simple oversight. All of the rest of the comments of “I dislike him because” or “ I like him because” are just inflections of personal opinions which sway the individual to assume his intent. If he thought his license was valid, and had no intention to deceive, he would have filled out the form that way. If he knew his license was expired and filled out the form knowing that, then he intended to deceive.

I fished the SteelShad and Damiki side by side and the SteelShad fouled much less. I verticle jig only and the fouling is much less. I can’t wait to try their new offering.

Reminds me of a collection I had when I was young. My father worked for a number of years selling special coatings for Iowa Paint his big clients were NASA and John Deere. Every time he made a sales call to Deere, he would bring home a miniature iron replica of a Deere product. I had 5 shelves 4 feet long filled with over a hundred models from tractors, combines and every other old and current piece of machinery Deere makes. When I got older and realized their value, I called my mother and asked her about them. Her response…..I gave them all to Goodwill. I was crushed….

A lot of very ”on point” statements in this thread. Talk about conflicted, I was a pro staffer for Bass Pro for 20+ years and I am a native son from Nebraska. For a number of years, I traveled the country doing grand openings for Bass Pro/Cabelas. My take is simple. The economy and technology caught up to the Bass Pro/Cabela’s business model. Back before the merger, Bass Pro was a fishing store with some hunting thrown in. Cabela’s was a hunting store with some fishing thrown in and that fishing was mainly geared to the fisherman north of the Mason Dixon line. After the merger there was a lot of overlap in some areas like clothing, with Bass Pro having their 100mph gear and Cabela’s having guidewear. When profit margins are factored in there’s usually a winner and a loser. The added ease of online shopping with lower overhead factored into pricing models, that’s stiff competition. Finally, gone are the days of the major events at the stores. Used to be for the Spring and Fall Classics, big name pro fishermen would make appearances and crowds were massive. Now these sales are more geared to household goods, smokers, fish batter and camping. And I’ll let you all in on what I know but what I know is very limited and I do not have any corporate inside information but there was a time when everything changed, all pro staff contracts were renegotiated or dropped, corporate HQ longtime employees were sacked and the corporation of Bass Pro/Cabela’s changed. Why I don’t know but it was very obvious.

Why hasn’t the kayak series divided up in to divisions or regions? A nationwide schedule just doesn’t make sense.

…..why I quit cutting, splitting and stacking my own wood. In my younger years, I harvested from my land and split and stacked. I have a fireplace in my great room that will take large cuts and has built in fans to push out heat. At one time before we figured out the problems with our hvac in that addition, it was unusable due to insufficient heat. We also have a finished lower level with a wood stove insert in a fireplace that started out wood, switched to gas and after a couple of gas bills, bought the Vermont Castings insert. It is great and can pump out an unbelievable amount of heat. The wife requested we resurrect the fireplace so I called a local wood seller and got a cord and 1/2 dumped in the driveway. Pulled out my 2 upright wood racks, our circle rack we keep on the porch and filled the wood box that is accessible from the deck to load and opens into the great room. Just so happens that amount of wood fills them all. Just so happens after stacking and moving that amount of wood, it feels like I’ve been doing 500lb squats all day. Good reminder.

Yamamoto now makes a 2” twin tailed grub. Perfect trailer, lots of action.

I’m not going to try and compete with wives😂 but I did come up with a way to take what was supposed to be a wall mounted pressure washer and I mounted it on a 2 wheel dolly so I could move it around.

Basically it’s a creature bait that can be rigged a number of different ways, c-rig, jig trailer, punching bait, etc. Lucky me, I have a bunch that I got way back when they were first introduced. I have the prototypes.

Well, one year on St Clair I threw at least 5 different brands of jerkbaits and the only one that got bit was a Staycee in a certain color. Others in the same color didn’t get bit. Likewise, I paid $25 for a Sammy that never failed to catch topwater fish and I had boxes of other walking baits and poppers. Had that bait for years and ended up losing it on the Rappahonock when I had a birds nest snap my line after fighting a fish.

I’ll be the first to admit, I am a late adapter for most of the “latest and greatest” innovations. Partly because I’m cheap and partly because in order for me to consider it worthwhile, it has to make a BIG difference in my fishing. I do not have FFS. I have gen 1 Lowrance electronics. HDS 8 up front and a 9 on the console. I have down-scan and side scan. Keep in mind, this is on a 21 ft bassboat but there’s really no difference in my mind to a kayak except I can move farther, quicker. Once I’m fishing it’s all the same. What I have sprung for in addition to my graphs are power poles. Fishing in St Clair and local lakes/rivers have made them invaluable. I don’t have the newest, single pump, Bluetooth version. I have the original models with old fashioned stomp switches up front and a toggle on the dash. You can get micro anchors for yaks. Second big upgrade was to a Ghost trolling motor with spot lock. My graphs are too old to take advantage of all the features like following a contour or depth, returning to a waypoint, etc., but I’m good with that. I also sprung for the remote. Spot lock has taken the place of drift socks and allows 100% better control in wind and current. I fish tidal rivers and when the tide is ripping, to be able to hold a spot, fight a fish, retie as well as a 100 other reasons, spot lock is the real deal. Did we do it before….yes we did, but the efficiency of spot lock has, without a doubt, increased my catches and made my time on the water much more enjoyable. I would assume the same is true for a kayak similarly equipped.

I grew up spending every summer on multiple relatives farms in Iowa. My great aunt and her husband had dairy cows and chickens. They also had barn cats. For protection they had what they called an Australian Shepherd but I’m not sure that’s what he was. He was bigger than any Shepherd I had ever seen, let alone an Aussie. He lived outside and had a long thick coat. He was a coyote killer. It was his job and he took it seriously. Nicest dog you would ever meet unless you were a yote. I watched him do his job more than once. He also went with me muskrat hunting when I was a kid and I got confronted by a yote. Didn’t end well for the yote. When I lived on my farm in Iowa the neighbors would all get together mid winter on their snow machines and go hunt yotes, wolves and feral dog packs. All of which threatened livestock. Here in Virginia I had a squirrel problem so I decided to thin the herd a little. A huuuuge male fox denned on my property, he was the most beautiful specimen I had ever seen. He got so used to getting free squirrels that he would sit at my lower lever door and look in if I hadn’t dispatched a tree rat lately.

With all of the new sensors, codes and procedures like having to put your brakes into “service mode” in order to put new brake pads on, remind me for the most part, my wrenching days are over.

Had to channel my inner mechanic yesterday. The engine temp on my truck was running up to operating temp which is around 207, then it was dropping down to around 185, then it would climb back up. Yo-yoing constantly while driving. Both are within operating parameters but it's not normal for my truck and the thermostat is a common failure so I ordered a new original GM off Amazon at 1/2 the price from the dealer. Wanted to get it installed before the cold and rain settle in this week. I last seriously wrenched on the jeep, my days of laying on the ground and wrenching are long over. I did a clutch, throw out bearing, pressure plate, U joints, 4wd actuator, alternator, shocks, steering assist and a host of other small things. At the time funds were a major consideration, not so much nowadays. I've done some things on my truck/boat/trailer but use a trusted shop for a lot of my work just because time and cost were worth it. Plugs, wires, transmission service, radiator flush, front and rear differential service, transfer case service, induction cleaning, etc, were all done at the shop. Sure, I could have done some of that myself but chose not to. On the truck I’ve personally done Powerstop brakes and slotted rotors, rear Bilstein shocks but I still take it in for oil changes and tire rotations. Watched some YouTube vids and the tstat looked like an easy change so i decided to tackle it myself. Easy peasy 1,2,3, job right? Nope. First, the plastic clips that hold the intake shroud are a pain to hold in and pull off. As a matter of fact, there's gouges on the shroud where the shop had a problem getting them off for past work. There's 2 of them and of course they are different. One collapses from the top the other from the bottom. 2 other large tubes were good old fashioned screw type hose clamps. Final 2 clamps after I removed the shroud were radiator squeeze clamps on the thermostat assembly itself. They have never been removed so squeezing them and moving them up the hose to allow to remove, wasn't possible. The vids sure as **** didn't show that. Little ingenuity and some vice grips got that solved. The 3, 10mm bolts holding the tstat on were the easiest part of the whole job. Done. No leaks, test drove, ran up to temp and held. Best of all.....no bloodshed. Didn't even bust a knuckle. There’s a sense of accomplishment you get working on your own gear but at my age, I’m limiting myself to simple tasks above ground level.

Rest up. Sounds like you both got the trifecta. I’m housebound because my wife broke her right foot (which means she can’t drive) so I am housebound and tasked with all of the cooking and shopping and NOT being able to get out fishing for the height of the fall bite. Gives me a chance to catch up on a lot of honey do items and I’m going to change out the thermostat in my truck.

I’m not much of a wine drinker but my wife is and she’s become a fan of SnoopDog watching him as a judge on The Voice. I saw this in the store the other day and picked her up a bottle for a stocking stuffer this Christmas.

Yeah, since Bass Pro doesn’t make its own line, it’s made by a name brand company and rebranded. The company has changed over the years but you get a good line at a good price. Maybe even a premium line. I change out pretty regularly so it’s a good deal for me.

Kentucky Lake and Barkley might disagree that Asian carp aren’t a problem. The vids I’ve seen of thousands jumping and the reports of decimated fishing are pretty fresh in my mind. Didn’t they even put up an electric barrier to keep them out of Lake Michigan?

Ned and dropshot are different for me. Mainly because I am a finesse fisherman and in the finesse world small differences matter. For my Ned’s, I am throwing a Quantum Smoke spinning rod, 7ft, ML, fast, with a Smoke 2500 spinning reel spooled with 6lb straight Excel mono. For a dropshot, I am throwing a CastAway Skeleton, 7ft, medium action with a Duckett 3,000 spinning reel spooled with Excel 8lb mono. Most expensive part of those 2 rigs is the CastAway rod that I’ve had for a number of years and got when I was sponsored by them. It’s the only rod in my collection that I would replace at full retail without hesitation. Now that GSM has acquired Dobyns and Phenix, I may try some of their upper level to see how I like them.

El Niño, La Niña has got me all confused again this year. Overall prediction is for a seasonal 10-12 inches which is fine by me. That pretty much allows us to fish all winter.

Dog hunts are usually group hunts. One set of hunters sets up at the end of a draw or field and there is another group that goes to the other end and they release the dogs who flush the deer out where the first set of hunters are. Not unlike hog hunting.

The rise of the snakehead population besides natural migration is due to bucket biologists who, for some reason, feel the need to introduce an invasive species into waters they could have never reached naturally. Lake Anna, Lake Brittle and a slew of other landlocked lakes with no way for snakeheads to get into have been introduced here in Virginia. While I really enjoy catching them, I feel that anyone who releases them illegally into bodies of water should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. There have been convictions here but the damage has been done.

So I head out to my daughters 300 acre horse farm to change a bearing cap on my boat trailer that’s stored in one of her barns and when I pull up it looks like the carnival is in town. 😂. The guys she lets hunt her property pulled in a camper and set up a huge tent for opening day. They cook dinner and breakfast for a day before they go out to their stands. They always give my daughter some backstraps and pork at the end of the season when they dress out the deer they take and a hog they butcher. I have never met them so I walked down and introduced myself. Great group of guys and they had 3 deer hanging in another one of her barns. These boys are meat hunters not bone hunters, they are out there to fill their family freezers.