TOXIC

Deep Grass beds and rocks will be isolated. Many times there will be a more established weed line shallower but we’ve discovered that more pike, musky, largemouth and Rockies hang there.

Well, there’s some pretty heavy multi species aluminum boats and there’s some aluminum boats on torsion axles. Boat weight doesn’t matter on a torsion axle. Single or double and I’ll bet you a bag of Senkos, most trailer manufacturers don’t recommend jacking any trailer up on the axle.

Totally depends on the trailer and the weight of the boat. On my dual axle torsion suspension trailer, the one sure fire way to ruin an axle is to Jack the trailer up by it. Never, never, never jack a torsion axle trailer up on the axle. I’m assuming this may hold true for others as well. I would place a call to either the dealer or manufacturer of your trailer to make sure.

Been going to the lake for 21 years straight but we always go in May. Siebert has it pretty much right on. They are more depth and structure oriented to the time of year and water temps than they are to baits. If you can find them, they will normally bite. A couple of places to add to your spots are the bay by Selfridge and the mouth of the Salt. Both offer you all the depths that they may be holding in. Just keep working your way out until you find them.

I’m the outlier on this. I use straight mono on my dropshots. Never seen the advantage to braid….longer casts….nope….dropshot isn’t a long cast technique. Sure you can cast and retrieve and I do, but if you are heaving a dropshot to full cast, you’ve essentially made it a reverse c-rig. Abrasion resistance? Nope if I’m fishing local lakes and rivers to me, nothing to cut the line and when I’m fishing waters with zebra mussels and the like, braid slices just as easy as mono and if your using fluro as a leader, it’s going to slice just as well. I will admit for most braid eliminates a lot of line twist issues but I have a routine that eliminates line twist for the most part. Has to do with the baits I use, how I rig them, and periodically untwisting my line. I have a natural aversion to adding another failure point to a presentation as well.

Kind of a loaded question because if you factor all of the costs that go into a day on the water, it can be a staggering amount. Especially if you are a boat owner. I went through the process in depth because as a sole proprietorship in the guide business, I had to split all of my costs out for the business. There’s not a lot of difference on the balance sheet between fun fishing and guiding except there’s an income side to offset the expense side. As a casual fisherman you still have a lot of the same expenses. Fuel-Truck and boat. Insurance-Truck and boat (+ large liability for guide). Maintenance-Truck and boat. Gear&Baits Launch&Ramp Fees Of course there’s a lot of additional things that go into a business operation like clothing, phone, office equipment, home office write off, advertising, etc. and there is some offsetting things like sponsors providing baits/gear. You can add in more costs if you tournament fish (entry, travel, lodging, food) and let’s not forget, time is $$, whether you are fun fishing or not, your time is worth something even though we all agree it’s worth the cost. Nowadays, I am happy to go when I can, take my trips to Michigan and Florida as annual expenses (I am going up to the St Lawrence in a couple of weeks as well), throw my buddy some gas $$ when I ride with him, and keep my paid off boat and truck in service for the days I want to hit the water alone.

I have traveled a lot with my boat and trailer and knock on wood, never had anything stolen. A crackhead thief isn’t going to steal your trailer, someone who steals trailers is. You can bet they know how to defeat most every lock made. That’s why I don’t bother locking the trailer. Overnight in a hotel, I have a lok-r-bar with a motion activated alarm padlock. That’s not to say that 90% of everything comes in the room but it will trigger if the trailer gets shaken as well. It just beeps the first time it is moved and the alarm goes off the second time so I always pre-arm it when I go into the room.

In my wading experience, I was more concerned about getting “swept” because I waded shale rim rock and if you stepped off the ledge wrong you were going for a ride. Summer is not so bad but when you are breaking ice chunks in the winter, getting swept can be a real danger. For that reason, I chose 3mm neoprene bootfoot waders that were good for summer and if proper underlayment, winter as well. The most important part was they were buoyant and kept me afloat. When paired with lightweight wading boots with felt soles and gravel guards, I was pretty good at floating. More treacherous than quicksand was the possibility of me getting a foot wedged in between rock or roots in fast deeper water.

Great job. We all know a big part of fishing had zero to do with catching fish. I have had the same fulfillment guiding wounded warriors. It’s unbelievable how much we both get from those experiences. I have always said, I get more than they do, it’s life changing.

I’ll say this, on our trip to St Clair this year I had at least 10 bags of every new bait Yamamoto introduced and were available. I fully intended to give them a try and write an article on how they performed. Problem was, I started with what I knew worked and could never get myself to change out since I was so successful with the “old favorites.”😂

I can’t add much. I am a little disappointed we didn’t fish Blue Cypress the last 2 years we fished Headwaters and stayed on Blue Cypress in some rooms where we could have docked our boats right outside our doors. I lived on the St Johns for a couple of years and the fishing is not “easy”, I found it tough until I got connected with a local river rat. I’ve fished Okeechobee for a week straight twice and was able to put together good bags but we covered a lot of water. I fished Kissimmee, Harris Chain, Toho and Rodman when I lived in JAX and all have different personalities. I like Headwaters because it has a very good population of “trophy” size fish and it’s much more concentrated making it a tad bit easier. Pic is a Headwaters fish and the rooms on Blue Cypress.

I’ve got some friends up on the St Lawrence river that would disagree with it being slow. I know because they’re sending me pictures.!😂😜

It’s a simple process to me. I start out with what I call “high percentage” baits. Usually a couple of plastics in some form. If I can’t get bit, I change to a different presentation like a crankbait or spinnerbait. If still nothing, I move. Now that’s not taking into account that I have highest confidence in plastics, it just means that’s my starting point. The key is to vary one confidence bait with another while at the same time changing the presentation the fish see.

Just bought a new one myself. No inflatables for me only full vest style.

Hmmmmm……maybe you need to thin the herd a little? Personally while I like pike fillets, I do not like cleaning them.

3 day fishing trip just got expensive. 3 different fishing licenses, hotel, fuel (boat and truck) and food. Oh well, like I said, bucket list trip and if I like it, maybe a more frequent trip.

Rats, you’re right. I was looking at non Ontario residents vs non Canadian residents. I need to get an Ontario license plus a Canadian Sport Card plus a New York State license.

I remember floggers from 20 years ago on St Clair. Saw some homemade out of warning cones. 😂

And another nice thing is that I don’t need a Canadian (Ontario) fishing license since I’m over 65. New York is still gonna pinch me though😂

Some call it a grinder, others call it a sub. Some call it a bubbler, others call it a water fountain. 😂😉

Numbers can be deceiving. # of units sold? Overall revenue? # of locations closed as a percentage of sales? I retired from a federal agency and I definitely know how to spin the numbers.😂😉. The number of craft brewers vs overall beer sales is a tricky comparison . Obviously more craft brewers can drop out of the market due to the sheer numbers of them and the “industry” can look better than the big boys.

Am I reading it right that the next improvement to FFS is that you can “target” a fish and your networked trolling motor will follow it? Begs the question….Where does it end?

@Rockhopper I’ve certainly started to gravitate that way. Some can be a bit too bitter or coffee tasting for me and with the elevated ABV, I limit the number I drink. This was a favorite this trip.

Well, spinning rods you can change the handle side from left to right. My baitcasters are all right hand retrieve, so I change all of my spinning reels to a right hand retrieve. At first, being a guide and casting a lot more that the average fisherman, I always worried about damaging my throwing or reeling arms due to the same use for both spinning and baitcasting. I’m 67 and no problems yet. 😛

That’s a whole different discussion as to whether or not to get into distribution (store shelves). Most craft breweries are single locations with crowlers or growlers for takeout. As for better hops or grains, I know of some who import hops from Germany. It’s all in the unique craft of craft brewing. @Rockhopper I’m more concerned about the craft breweries chasing the niche “candy beer” market as I call it. Turning more to the White Claw or Mikes Hard Lemonade. When does beer not become beer? Pale Ale, Porter, Stout, Lager, IPA, Wheat, Amber, Blonde Ale, off the top of my head are all established brews it’s one thing to give an original brew a catchy name, it’s totally another thing to make it less like beer. Axios has an article that states the craft beer industry sees worst ever slump in 2023 production. While I will admit there’s probably markets that haven’t had as much of a hit overall craft breweries are suffering. Anchor Brewing, the first and oldest craft brewer shutting down after 127 years.