TOXIC

The only sentimental rods/reels I have are my grandfathers ancient casting rods made of metal and the same age reels with the original cloth line. I won’t touch them. They are display models only. 😉

A badge of honor in Michigan on lake St Clair is to catch a banded smallmouth. Some guys have a collection of them like banded geese. I was lucky enough to catch one and saved the band. They are banded through the bottom lip.

The info I read did not require the removal of the tag but we will see. I have measurements and GPS location, the fish was released.

Buddy and I hit the Rapp again for what will end up being one of our last trips out to the river. Once the fall bite shuts down, we transition over to the private side of Lake Ann known as the “hot” side due to the discharge from a nuclear power plant. We will spend all winter fishing there. Anyway….I had a 40 fish day that had better overall sizes but lower numbers. Also caught crappie, monster bluegill and even a tagged bass that I am researching.

Out fishing yesterday with my buddy on the Rappahonock River here in Virginia and I catch a tagged bass. Tag has an id#, a telephone # and the word “reward” on it. I called the number and left a message but after a little digging, I found it probably is from our local DNR from a few years ago. I have to laugh because a couple of years ago this same buddy of mine and I was fishing and we saw something odd floating in the water and we netted it out. Come to find out it was an ankle monitoring device and had a number to call if found. He ended up getting a $25 prepaid Visa card. Let’s see if I can beat him! 😂

Transit instead of transom.😂

Writing for Yamamoto and being edited by a professional doesn’t let me get away with any writing errors and I’ve learned over the years. My biggest cringe…. I have my boat for sell….Instead of…. I have my boat for sale.

@woolleyfooley please do and report back what you find out.

I like the Yamamoto DShad. Denser, heavier, made with Senko material. Shimmy’s on the fall. Never leave home without my DShad box.

Sorry to hear.

Here’s another interesting angle. Since we don’t know where the extra $$ is coming from to be able to drop entry fees, whether that be from tv, sponsors, YouTube, social media, etc., and we never will because we can’t see their books or financials, if….and that’s a big IF some of that $$ is coming from sponsors, it might just lead to fewer and smaller sponsorships for individual anglers. It also begs the question that if it was just an internal decision, where did all that $$ go prior to now? I’ve always known professional fishing is not really profitable except for a very few. Most have other jobs. One Elite Series angler I got to know pretty well who stayed with me in Florida and stayed with me with his family here in Virginia, made the majority of his income designing lures for diawa and guiding in Japan during the year. I marshaled for Zell Rowland and he made it perfectly clear he couldn’t fish if he wasn’t a ghost employee of his brother’s construction company. To me, this move by BASS creates a lot more questions.

I’ll do my part to keep this thread up because now that I’m retired, I enjoy cooking more. While I’m better known for my BBQ ribs and margaritas, my wife and daughter like a break from it and really enjoy a smoked citrus chicken that I make. Really easy and it’s actually very good. Key is to not over smoke the chicken. I find yard birds have a tendency to absorb a lot more smoke than beef or pork. I smoke the chicken for 1 hour per pound at 225 or whenever the internal gets near 160. I hate dry chicken so I stay on the lower end. I prepare the bird by washing, rubbing with butter or olive oil (IMHO olive oil gives a little bitter taste and butter helps brown) then I rub with a good citrus rub like Rufus Teague and then squeeze (depending on bird size) 2 lemons, 2 limes and 1 orange. After squeezing into the carcass, put the citrus skins in the bird like stuffing. Better to go lighter on the amount of citrus than over because it will make it bitter. I like apple wood for smoking chicken because it is milder than hickory, cherry or mesquite which are my most used woods.

Give a call to Custom Mold and Tint in Monticello, Arkansas and see what they can do.

The fact that you want to access electric only lakes is really not a hold up with the lithium batteries now out. My buddy fishes a 1,000 acre electric only lake with a 20 foot Ranger glass boat and a 250 4 stroke. He has a 36 volt PowerPole Move troller and can fish the entire lake all day on just his trolling motor. The problem usually is the ramps on electric only lakes. As for the 9.9 lakes, you would still be limited to electric only when on them, or some let bigger motors idle only. Storage is your big concern. I have a buddy who just bought a river Jon and it’s pretty nice. He could easily fish all day on his lithiums only. He bought it for river running so it’s a jet drive.

Great report. Helps you keep a good perspective. When winter rears it’s cold breath here, we transition over to the 3,000 acres of warm water discharge from a nuke plant so we can keep going year round. Makes it difficult to identify years in specific terms. That’s neither good or bad.

Remember, you were hurt and damaged as much as your daughters. Might be a good time to consider some family counseling. I sure know I would. Good luck in the future, sounds like you are moving in the right direction.

Went out on the Rappahonock river here in Virginia and instead of our regular pursuit of bass, we got into a mess of monster Crappie. There were 3 of us, 2 boats and we would have had enough for a pretty good feed. We caught around 10 each, all the size of those in the pics. We were commenting at the end of the day, next trip we might just load up the Crappie gear. All of these were caught on Neds. Same with the perch.

@Tennessee Boy us old timers remember when Rick Clunn only used one rod reel combo setup for all applications. He had 4 or 5 rods on deck and they were all identical. I bought into that idea and tried one of his combos and hated it. Ultimately when finesse started dominating he acquiesced and started tailoring his rods/reels to specific applications. Suckered me in for 2 combos.😂

Yamamoto DShads in bubblegum, goby and perch. They are discontinued colors but there’s still a lot of leftover stock out on the market. If you like those colors like me, you better grab them while you can. Did anyone get a good read on the line of hardbaits that Yamamoto offered at one time? I thought they would be hot baits and ordered a lot of them and took a couple of every style and color and added them to my baits but they got discontinued before I could really give them a try. Now I have a pretty big box of them all opened.

With experience comes knowledge. Either you can trust the rod maker to tell you what a specific rod is for or through your own experience you can match up the various actions to make the rod work for you. Likewise, no 2 of us are the same when it comes to feel, fishing experience, preferences, presentations, etc., so “standard” rod actions may get you in the ballpark but to refine that, you ignore the labels. That goes both ways too both more expensive and less expensive. When I was using all CastAway rods, their action was on the heavy side and my favorite topwater rod of theirs was actually a saltwater series. I know some very good sticks who claim a cheap uglyStick rod is perfect for frogging.

I just went on eBay and checked out the seller. I was expecting it to be an overseas retailer because for as long as I can remember, yellow packaging was for overseas release only and I don’t ever remember getting any jigs for my own use. I’m not confident the new ownership could tell me the date codes of old stock. I still have some of the old white on clear and green on clear packaged plastics and an entire case of all the different hard baits they once offered but I do not have any of these jigs. They are either very old stock or baits released for overseas use.

Sometimes, it’s not the spot that is special, it’s how you fish it different from everyone else. When I was guiding, I had a fallen tree off a bank on the main part of Lake Anna, it was right out from Sturgeon Creek where a lot of the tournaments launched. Another guide who was a friend of mine, Wayne Olsen, and we were both at the docks waiting for clients to arrive. He asked where I was going to fish and I told him I was going to start at my secret tree and that it was always good for a couple 3 pounders. He also lived on the lake and was in eyesight of my secret tree. He said, you mean that downed tree across from here and up from the power plant? I said yes. He belly laughed and said that every tournament he sees no less than 5 boats fish that tree but I was the only one he ever saw pull fish off it. I said well, that’s because it’s MY tree. 😂😀

We’ve all done it. Reminds me of an outing on the Wolf river in Wisconsin when myself and a couple of other “Bass” boats docked in Fremont, Wisconsin on the river to have lunch. We got a lot of side eyes from the walleye fishermen that were in the cafe. Just as our food arrived a couple of walleye fishermen walked in and said who owned the gold and black glitter sled? It’s floating down the river…. Seems me buddy wasn’t as good at knot tying as he claimed. All the walleye guys got a good laugh as we scurried out to retrieve my boat.

@BayouSlide I use different weights depending on tide strength. Rule of thumb is to go as light as possible. I go lighter in the lakes I fish. 1/10-1/16 usually. But the river on a strong tide will make me jump up.

Take your pick. I guarantee one of them will work.