TOXIC

Question: Do you think the craft beer industry is on the decline? Reason I ask is I’ve been reading articles about some pretty established breweries going under and my brother-in-law is part owner in a brewery in St Augustine and per him, they have had a down year for the first time in the last 7 years. I also made note while in Wisconsin (a beer drinkers Mecca) that the craft breweries were putting out some weird concoctions like cookies and cream beer, smore marshmallow beer, etc., have they ruined the craft? On the other hand, we went to Central Waters brewery, and Hinders brewery and they were both expanding and doing well it seemed. Central Waters just put 500 barrels of bourbon barrel aged stout in a freshly built warehouse and Hinders just doubled its footprint and is expanding into events, weddings etc. What’s your take?

@gimruis I almost went there one of the last years I pulled my boat up to the chain. My wife had to work, so she was flying into Appleton and I was driving up solo. I took a couple extra days and went to Big Green instead since it was on the way. Mille Lacs looked a little big for me with no intel. 😛 ps. I brought 4 cases of cow bottles back this year. Also some Central Waters bourbon barrel aged stout. 😋

As controversial as FFS is, what it is not is Rocket Science, I seriously doubt that anyone can’t learn it. May take some longer than others and some may be better at it than others but it’s got traction in the mass market and to be blunt, there’s a lot of everyday Googans who use it. Why the retirements? Simple. When you run out of gas in the tank, you’re done. Some have bigger tanks than others but when it’s gone, it’s gone, either physically or mentally or even more common, financially.

We’ve been going to Wisconsin (Waupaca/King chain of lakes) for 26 years. Up there all of the “original” structures were called, and most still are, cottages. For those who have knocked down and rebuilt they are still cottages unless lived in year round. Then they are homes. Never heard one called a cabin. Just for giggles I googled the difference between cottage and cabin and got this… For the most part, cabins tend to have a more rustic, unfinished look and are cruder in appearance than most cottages.

Got a call from my buddy who is a lieutenant in the DC Fire Department. And he asks….”Have you been following all of these monster bags coming out of the St Lawrence?” I said sure, who hasn’t. He has gone with us to St Clair for the last 7 years so he’s got smallmouth fever like the rest of us and he says “Well, I made us reservations on September 23-26th, let’s go give it a shot.” Can’t argue with that. It’s one of my bucket list locations along with Mille Lacs and a few other Southern lakes. Add to that we have a couple of other hard core fishing friends who have been going for the last few years and are heading out next week. They’ve promised a few waypoints to get us started. As much as we love St Clair, they love the St Lawrence. Will be an interesting trip. I’ll for sure report back on how we do and what baits we used.

Best Guide service on the lake is Marcels guide service. Call him with your prospective dates and he will clue you in. https://www.marcelsguideservice.com/

Actually, Yamamoto but since they are now co-owned, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t share.

Being a finesse plastics guy my boat always has a weightless Senko, dropshot and Ned rigged and ready. I may have tough days but very, very, few skunk days.

Timely topic. Yamamoto just introduced a line of clear plastic colors. I can’t wait to try them out.

Also getting them off season from green house growers leaves them a little bland as well as hydroponics.

In order…. Walleye Crappie Bluegill Catfish Although you don’t mention it, Yellow Perch is also a favorite and I will add a caveat that properly prepared catfish is very, very, good. If you don’t get the right type and size, they can taste muddy. Although they are tougher to fillet, White Bass or White Perch as some call them, are also very good.

That’s awesome!

Totally agree but LSC is not a Great Lake and I’ve read reports on inland lakes like Guntersville, Kentucky Lake/Barkley, Champlain and others that, while not Great Lake dangerous, can swallow bass boats like tic tacs.😉😛

Believe me, without my boat here I am trying to drain all the Spotted Cow and Hinders and Central Waters with a Jack and Coke every once in a while. 😂😁

I’m in Wisconsin and we went to both the Farmers Market and the butcher shop and got delicious tomatoes and thick cut slab bacon for BLT’s. 😋

On my boat, I split baitcasters and spinning up on each side. On my buddies boat they get mixed. I do spin the line around the guides making sure the top 2 guides are wrapped. I don’t do anything with the baits. I do have a system on how I stack them and how I grab them and have very few tangles. We all have a habit of spinning the rods when we pick them up. If you don’t do that it will cut down on tangles.

Well, if I would have had the boat, I would have gone straight west until I hit the hi-way that runs north through Madison. That was the route with the boat every year after the first year when I pulled through Chicago to my brother and sister in law’s house in Inverness. I swore never again.

There’s a scenario that I used to cherish every time I hit the water. Get there at sunup, get launched, idle out of the marina, throttle up on glass water being the only boat on the lake, head into an isolated cove, throw my favorite Hawg Caller buzz bait and have a big ditch pickle blow up on it. If all those things fell into place, I would be happy to motor back to the marina and put the boat back on the trailer. 😉

I’ll just throw this out there that depending how good your boating skills are will help with your decision. All the locals that have grown up on Lake St Clair that I have fished with run 20 footers. St Clair can get really, really, nasty and these guys can flat out drive a boat. I’ve been with them when you drop into the bottom of a swell, the water is 2 feet above your head. Bigger boats may help with spanning waves but in their world, there is no such thing as a point and shoot boat. You have to drive them. I rode on Lake Michigan with a walleye pro in a Ranger 621 fisherman made for big water and I came back with blisters on my back from being thrown up and down in the seat.

Got here in Waupaca yesterday and went on a pontoon ride around the lake. Didn’t check any of what used to be great fishing spots to see how they looked. May do that today. I wish I had my boat but it’s just not worth the hassle to pull it up here. I can honestly say that if I had the boat behind me yesterday rolling through Chicago, an elderly man with a small truck pulling a small camper decided not to merge and just stop in a construction required orange barrel merge, then just pull into 70mph traffic going 10mph. If I had the boat behind me there’s little doubt I would have pile drove the truck in front of me. As it was, the truck behind me stopped an inch off my rear bumper. Thank heavens I upgraded my brakes all the way around with Powerstop.

Awesome trip. My first real fishing trip was to Lac La Ronge in Saskatchewan when I was 13 (I’m 67 now) with my grandfather where we only kept walleye over 8lbs and my grandmother caught a 25lb pike. We had an Indian guide that my grandfather used every year.

Difference being, those of us who don’t have years of experience on Okeechobee can go to Headwaters, study a map, account for the weather and be pretty sure you can catch good numbers of fish with a good probability of getting a trophy. It can be as simple as hiring a guide and drowning shiners for those who have little fishing prowess or you can be like us, fairly experienced with good skills and electronics and can usually put together good bags of fish on artificials. First fish is Headwaters, second is Okeechobee.

As soon as they offered it.😉 If it’s good, we’ll probably put in a recurring standard date every year like we do in Michigan. That’s “our” week. 😂

We have stayed on Blue Cypress in the past but never fished it. We are always flexible and close enough to spots to change up if necessary. This year we snagged a place that backs up to the access road. I will say it would take a lot to get us to move. We almost did last year when the ramp got blocked with a hyacinth island. Luckily a couple of duck boats cleared a path.

This coming February will be our 3rd year going to headwaters. Before that, we went to Okeechobee 3 years, and Kissimmee 2 years. Headwaters outshined all of the others. It has its own set of challenges but there’s still more trophy bass per acre there than in any of the other lakes we ventured to IMHO. The lodging options are few, the access road sucks and does a fair amount of issues to both boat and truck, the lake has a lot of moving vegetation, shallow areas and ramp follies but it’s still better than the others. It’s also better than what I fished when I lived right on the St Johns in Jacksonville and my venturing out to Harris, Rodman, Toho and a few unnamed lakes.