TOXIC

I would check the positioning of the bunk in question. My bunks have been on for 10 years and I don’t have any carpet rips or exposed wood. The last time I changed them I left the brackets that attach to the boards loose and loaded the boat. Then crawled underneath and tightened them up. I’ve had to re-snug them a couple of times.

Change #3. There was plenty of pork when I pulled it off the bone and now I’m having smoked Chuck for dinner and taking some out to my daughter’s farm tomorrow. My smoker has run non stop for 2 days and it’s not done yet. The Chuck was at 181 after 7 hours and finish internal temp is 200 so I bumped it up to 265 to get it past the stall.

Well, my 9 pound shoulder reduced a bunch during the smoke so I am going to put a Chuck roast on the smoker and combine the 2 when done. Adding Chuck gives pork a richer flavor. My 4:30 wake up wasn’t fun this morning either. 😂

Everybody’s taste in sauce is different. That’s why I’m contemplating not saucing the pork until it’s reheated. My personal favorites are from Kansas City, where I first got serious into smoking. I like the extra hot Gates, the wife likes Haywards. She’s in KC right now visiting her mother and is bringing back a resupply of various sauces.

It’s tradition on our annual trip to Michigan that everyone who stays at the cottage is responsible for 1 dinner. In the past, I have done smoked ribs, chicken enchiladas and other easily frozen meals that will transport frozen from Virginia. We have had some interesting meals in the past like Russian Boar, Venison Backstraps, King Crab, Jerk Chicken, Lasagna, and various other casseroles. We even had one guy bring his Italian pizza oven and make homemade pizzas. Since I will be out of town the entire month of May before we leave (I literally get back the day before we leave) I am doing my meal now and will freeze it. My 20 hour smoked pork shoulder for pulled pork started this morning and will finish tomorrow morning. I may wrap it after 12 hours depending on if it stalls on internal temperature. If there’s minimal or no stall, I’m not cracking open the smoker until it’s 195-205 internal temp. I’ll let it rest for an hour, shred, possibly add my BBQ sauce (I may leave it for reheating) and fast freeze it. I’ll take the ingredients to do my cowboy baked beans, some buns and call it good.

One bait I forgot to mention that was a good bass catcher, a Yamamoto Shad Shape Swimmer on a 3.0 gamakatsu ewg and a pegged worm weight.

First trip out on the Rapp was a good day. Water temps 64-66, air temps 75, wind picked up in the afternoon and was gusting 20-30. Water clarity was semi stained. Fished tail end of incoming tide. Outgoing most of day. Baits were custom Ned heads with. 4” Senko in color 297 (Green Pumpkin/Black Fleck). Snakehead was on a Bill Lewis crank in Cell Mate (Crappie imitation). 35-40 fish day. Most of the river traffic was multiple rod setups heading upriver for the striper spawning run. Great first day in the books. Will be out again in a couple of weeks before I head off for a wedding in Georgia, a visit to my brother and sister in laws on Cresent beach in Florida and a week stay in an Airbnb on Villano beach. I get back to Virginia for 1 day before loading up and heading to St Clair for a week in smallie Disneyland. Whew, I’m tired already.

You have options. Clean and keep using current carpet. My choice. Replace carpet. Gives you the option of putting in a padded front deck and going up in weight. Be careful, higher weight carpet can cause problems with lids, both fitting and weight on struts. New product that goes over existing carpet and is a sea deck like material. Remove carpet and replace with sea deck style flooring. Pros and cons are out there. From friends who have done it, I have been told it is not that easy to keep clean. Dirt gets into the pores of the material and has to be scrubbed to get out. I’m sure that may vary by manufacturer and material used. Just put the sea deck material in the footwell. Of course all of these options carry different price tags. As for cleaning your existing carpet, I’m with @A-Jay. Use a product designed for carpets. I know a lot have jumped on the shaving cream bandwagon and have good results but if you read anything from the marine carpet manufacturers, there’s a good chance you will have buildup no matter how good you rinse. Personally, I use a heavy duty carpet cleaner designed to totally rinse out. My 2005 boats carpet is worn but still holding up great.

Why fix if it’s covered by a lifetime warranty? I was pro staff for KeelShield and if it ever came loose, we sent you a new one. Hambys light duty also has a warranty as does Megaware. Hambys heavy duty is a dealer install and is glassed in. If it comes loose it is guaranteed but needs to go back to a dealer for install.

Headed out to the hot side of Lake Anna yesterday. Expected to find them on beds because last time out they were staging. The weather has been a literal rollercoaster of 80’s to 20’s. Yesterday was wind gusting 35-40 and air temps the same. Caught bass on Ned’s and Dropshots, caught striper, white bass and catfish on blade baits in the deeper pools. Water temps 62-70. Supposed to be back into the 80’s mid week. Wacky weather.

As a guide my limit was 3 anglers and myself. That was for a few reasons, first the USCG capacity plate, second if I had to run any distance seating 4 was problematic for the extra 2 above the standard seats, third I pulled too many hooks out of my body. Funny story, I was fishing with a friend who was a retired Sheriff and as we were getting ready to launch a boat pulls up lakeside with 3 kids and a dad. the dad gets out holding his head. seems that one of the boys put a rattletrap in the back of dads head and he was headed of to the ER to get it removed. My buddy asked him if he wanted it removed right there. After a little explaining, well, a lot of explaining, my buddy telling him he could go to the ER and pay $600 to have it removed or he could do it right there. He reluctantly agreed and my buddy went into the bed of his truck and got a piece of braided line, side cutters and some antiseptic. He cut the lure free, and while he was explaining what he was going to do, he popped it free. While he was wiping it down with antiseptic, the guy said, “I’m ready, go ahead” and we all laughed.

You river guys don’t count.😂 Drifting in current is different than drifting in the wind. You can throw drift socks out in current and you are still going to move at the currents speed. A drift sock will slow you to current speed if there’s a lot of wind. My point was lake fishing in the wind. I also forgot, you kayak and small craft folks do it all the time. I remember some guys who didn’t want to invest in drift socks would drag 5 gallon buckets behind their boats and in extreme cases, drag an anchor.

Catch, weigh and release somehow. I know, tall order to prevent cheating but length scoring have had their own cheating scandals. Since I don’t tournament fish and the only way you would ever catch my fat behind in a yak, would be if my 21 foot bass boat was sinking, I’m just spitballing. 😂.

You’ve touched on one of my favorite aspects of fishing. Traveling to new or different water. From Virginia, I have fished from Canada to florida in most every state on the east coast including Wisconsin, Michigan and as far west as Lake Fork in Texas. That’s why I am so anal about trailer and boat maintenance. Locally, it’s an average of 1 and a half hours to most of my lakes and rivers. When I was guiding, that 3 hour round trip was brutal.

There’s a few more variables that determine what I rig…river or lake, water clarity, time of year, wind, target species, etc. But generally speaking, keeping in mind I prefer plastics and finesse, I will have a Ned, a Senko (weighted and weightless), a dropshot, a DShad (fluke style) and some sort of moving bait (crankbait, lipless, spinnerbait, bladed jig).

It has always amazed me that kayak tournaments do length for scoring. Your pictures prove my point. That short heavy bass would score less than a longer lighter bass. Makes no difference to me since I gave up tournaments and the only time the scale comes out is if it’s an extraordinary fish. We take pics and release. All the while not long arming or trying to make them look bigger than they are. I agree with you, I have nothing to prove and value fish care over optics or weight bragging.

It recently occurred to me a technique we used before we had all these advancements in boat positioning. Trolling motors with Spot Lock and the ability to follow contours and trails, Power Poles (although they do offer attachable drift paddles) and even attachments that look like trolling motors that serve as “brakes”. I’m not talking about river Walleye fishermen who regularly drift and vertical jig or hand line, I’m talking about the old school drifting for Largemouth and Smallmouth. Let’s step back before all of those advancements to a time when in my 23 years of fishing Lake St Clair, we had to deal with wind and current fishing for bass. In the best situation, the wind was manageable and would blow us along our chosen depth at a speed where we could drag tubes, grubs, jigs or Dropshots. As we drifted and we hooked up, we dropped a waypoint. Often times our drifts were a couple of miles long and when we reached the end, we would have groupings of waypoints and a trail. The skill involved using the trolling motor, was to stay in the proper depth range and keep the boat positioned sideways so that we were dragging with the most fishing area. When we reached the end of the drift, pull up the trolling motor and use the big motor to run back to the beginning of your drift and repeat. While drifting, you could use the troller to slow the drift but If the wind got too great, out came the drift sock and if it was really blowing, 2 drift socks. Since I was usually the co angler, it was my job to manage the drift socks. You had to know how to position them, proper size, and how much line to use. I also had to pull in, store and redeploy them. The boater had to keep the boat positioned for them to work properly. It was a team effort and was very productive. All that being said, I don’t miss being wet and cold pulling in and deploying drift socks during spring fishing. Chalk one up for advancements in technology.

I probably have over 100 blade baits. For me they are all SteelShad. Got hooked on them when a buddy suggested blades for our winter largemouth trips. I then used them on Lake St Clair for Walleyes. I’ll be packing some this Sunday for a largemouth lake trip!

I used to be in one group it was for a specific boat brand and I got out of that brand. I made a lot of friends on that page and met up with a lot of them to fish all over the country. I am still friends with some. I am an admin on another brand specific page and post there regularly. I was on another very popular page and had thousands upon thousands of posts but a group of my friends got in a spat with the site owner over a very bad interaction with a pro and we all got banned or left voluntarily. I spend a fair amount of time writing for Yamamoto’s Inside Line but the format has changed and I only send 1 picture per story. I am in a number of private groups that focus on specific bodies of water I fish. Being retired it’s good time consumer when I’m not fishing.

I’ve been readying myself for the possibility of a new whip. I just read where GM is going to make the High Country in a lifted off road version. I’m interested to see how the new 5.7 performs.

With the USPS threatening insolvency in the near future, it doesn’t surprise me that delivery times are long. Options are limited as well. I could write a book on my last dealings with FEDX after ordering my replacement keypads and brainbox for my Ranger. Due to the value, they required a signature and I went through multiple failed deliveries with them saying no one was home when I was here all day. I had to create an account to be able to put it on a “vacation hold” since it took so long, I was going out of town. Then I had to change delivery addresses and the process started all over. It was a nightmare especially since I was under the gun because we were pulling my boat to Florida.

It took incredible courage and compassion to put your pet down yourself. Not sure I could do that. We put our dog down 3 years ago and the vet was nice enough to come to the house. We now have 3 cats that are 11 years old due to my daughter not being able to pass a stray.

89 here in Virginia today. I put on short pants 😂

I can’t comment on storage but I can tell you over my 50 years of fishing, I have refined my tool requirements. I can say I have used every one of them numerous times. Long needle nose Short needle nose with split ring Side cutters Scissors or nips Boca Grips for toothy species

Glad you are on the mend. As for tourism, savvy travelers know that the violence that erupted is still there just under the skin. Is it different than any other tourist destination? I’m not exactly sure. There’s a lot of violence here in the states right now so travel as a whole is worthy of an extra amount of consideration. Thank you for the honest reporting.