TOXIC

Good job! Lucky she had you as a neighbor.

Heading to central Wisconsin (Waupaca) next Friday for our annual family get together. Little concerned for my niece and her husband who have a new baby 2 weeks old. Cottage has no ac and it looks to be a hot stretch. They live in Chicago so they can leave if need be. My daughter is 26 and we first took her when she turned 1 year old. I have been fishing in the heat all summer. I keep hydrated and wear sun clothing.

Truck has been paid off for a few years but there’s always an expense to keeping them. I have left full coverage insurance on it but I doubt that I would get its full value if totaled. I’m just getting to the more involved maintenance now. I flushed the transmission at 50k, did the rear shocks (upgraded to Bilstein), pads and rotors all around (upgraded to Powerstop drilled and slotted rotors) with a brake fluid change and Michelin tires at 65k and also did a fluid change on both the front and rear differentials and transfer case. Replaced the battery as preventative maintenance last fall. This last trip in for a state inspection and oil change, I had a B&G cooling system flush and refreshed Dexcool. They told me I have a ball joint starting to go and my buddy and I will ***** later and replace along with the front struts which are fine now but original and will need replacing soon. I do all of my own maintenance except for the oil changes because I want them on record with the dealership and I get a free tire rotation so it’s close to what I would pay to do it myself. I didn’t do the flush but the rest was all home garage done. I live by the saying of my mechanic buddy….”they never break down in your driveway”?

Good deal for me bad for the area. I’m more concerned about the weeping 150 foot pine trees at the cottage. Put a couple of globs on my old truck (that I was just as picky about) that I couldn’t get off. I got smart with this one.

Facebook Memories reminded me today that I bought my truck brand new 7 years ago. Pic of me standing next to it was at the dealership the day I took delivery. I am a little ocd on keep up my truck. Sooooo, today it got the spa treatment. Wash, wax including rims grill and running boards. This truck has made the trip to Florida multiple times and to Michigan every year and those who know Michigan roads, it’s a battleground. Rest of the pics are from today, not bad for 85,000 miles and never lived in a garage. Going in tomorrow for an oil change, tire rotation, inspection and B&G cooling system flush. Heading to Wisconsin next weekend,t he land of pine tar and mosquitoes the size of sparrows??

It also negates the need to “moisten” the line as you pull it taught. ??

Tough one. I’d be more concerned with rabies than mange.

I’ll be the odd ball, when I tie my Palomar the loop starts on top of the lure, I bring it down over the lure and it comes up underneath. I use my fingers to hold the loop somewhat open and pulled up my line towards the rod and cinch only the tag end that will get cut off.

If they’re willing to be rude and have you outnumbered, they’re probably willing to start something if confronted. I would walk away but let them know they are breaking the law. If they keep harvesting, a little further away and I would say, google call game warden so they could hear it.

Just this weekend we fished the Rappahonock river which is now getting pretty thick with grass. My normal weightless Senko presentation is to let it fall on a 4.0 EWG Gamakatsu hook and 6lb mono but we found that grassy creek mouths on outgoing tide with the same setup walked on top of the grass was getting slammed. DShads did the same but the hookup ratio was better on the thinner Senko.

I can honestly say that in the 20 years I have been going to St Clair there have been consistent baits that catch every year but there have been specific baits that excel on certain years. One year it’s the weightless Senko, one year it was the dropshot, one year it was the Ned, one year it was a weightless DShad, one year it was a spinnerbait, one year it was a SPRO Little John, one year it was a Staycee jerkbait, one year a tube. The standard baits will always catch fish but there’s always a bait that stands out. We are going the same time of year, fishing the same areas. All that means is when I am packing for this trip, I need helper springs on my truck. ?

When I was guiding and still had my day job 3 consecutive days would kick my rear but I attributed that to the added stress of guiding and putting clients on fish. Nowadays it’s still easy for me to do a sun up to sun down day but if it’s miserable hot I’ll cut it from sunup until about 3 in the afternoon. I’m also still good with our week long trip to St Clair every year and we call that combat fishing. It’s brutal but still the most fun ever. Leading up to that trip in May, we spend as long and as many consecutive days on the water to get into “fishing shape” before the trip. I also do a week long trip to Florida in January or February and we fish very hard on that trip. I’m 66 and I refuse to let myself even consider that I “can’t” fish. I’m sure at some point my body is going to overrule my brain but not if I can help it. I can still hook up, tow, launch and recover my 21 foot glass boat and that’s all part of it.

Had a good day on the Rappahonock but we had to run 30+ miles to get right with the tide and keep catching all day. Largemouth, smallmouth, snakehead, striper and a LOT of catfish. Got to see a striper feeding frenzy which is a little rare for upriver. They had pushed bait up on a river bend bank and were slamming them. We had some poppers tied on and were able to get a few before they scattered. Normally I only put up pictures of myself because I’m not sure my buddy likes being plastered on the net. Caught a couple of largies on a clay bank and they were almost orange. Lot more orange than the picture shows. Lots of traffic on the river and the ramp escapades were in full display. Almost forgot the stripers…

You might be right but the last time I used it was on my jeep wrangler with American Racing rims. It almost ruined them. Took some heavy buffing to get them back. I suppose I could be more careful but I now have a mental block to that product in the same way I do Armor All after all of the dashboards it cracked back in the day. I’m sure they’ve upgraded their formula but I can’t make myself put it on anything. ?

I used to clean and scrub my tires every time I washed the truck. Used Simple Green and a brush on them. I then found out that every time I scrubbed them and got that black residue, I was shortening the life of the tire. Simple Green is a light degreaser so it was dissolving the factory infused protective coating on my tires. It’s the coating that if not treated gets an orange hue to it on the tire. It’s an emulsifier. Now, I rarely scrub my tires. Only when I get in some mud and then do a double treatment of 303.

At one point in time, a dropshot single hook was illegal on St Clair. You could not have any weight below your bait. Constituted snagging.

Works great on tires. If you want a higher gloss like my truck tires, don’t wipe it off. There will be runs and it will drive you crazy but they disappear when it dries. It will dull after a few dunking but the protection is more permanent. Some even use it on the fiberglass but I do not. I want something that holds a bit better. I buy it by the gallon?

For a while, I substituted a finesse jig place of the dropshot weight. I did catch a few fish on it but the loss rate of the more expensive jigs was too much.

Depends on what the “look” you want is. Glossy shine or dark rubber. Personally I go for the most protective that has no silicone and contains UV inhibitors. I like the deep black rubber look so I use 303 Aerospace Protectant about once a month. It also goes on my seats and Road Armor ranger trailer as well as the tires on my truck. I’ve never had a tire dry rot or sun crack.

One thing that cannot be measured and I believe unequivocally plays a huge role in catching is confidence. I have said this in the past where I worked a show with Gary Klein and we went out to lunch. I asked him about confidence in new baits and his reply was “I don’t know if having confidence in a bait catches fish but I do know that if you don’t have confidence in your bait you are guaranteed not to catch fish”. So, does flake matter? Maybe in some ways that aren’t measurable. ?

At one time Yamamoto would do custom colors as well. If I remember correctly, the minimum order was 700 bags.

Personally, I don’t like to take the reel off the rod to spool it. I have busted reel seat retainers because most are plastic. Plus I really wrench my reel seats tight.

That’s exactly what I did before I bought the Plano box. Doesn’t really matter because I walk all the fresh line off the spool and rewind it so there’s no loops.

On the boat I normally co-pilot, the 2 console units (2, 12 inch) are GPS and 2d when running. When fishing, the GPS unit is put in standby and the second unit is split screen down scan/side scan for me to look at from the back deck. Front has 3 units, FFS, GPS, side scan/down scan split. 2, 16 inch and 1 10 inch. On my boat I’m cheap. I have a 8 up front with down scan side scan and a 9 at the console for split screen GPS, 2d.

I know I sound like a broken record but a Ned just like a dropshot is a finesse presentation. Light wire hooks biggest advantage is that you don’t (and shouldn’t) try to cross their eyes on the hookset. All these braid to leader riggings just add complexity to a finesse application the should be kept super simple IMHO. I use 6lb straight mono and Ned heads custom made with trout hooks. The only time I have hookset problems is when I try to use a Ned bait that overpowers the hook. For example, I like a 4 inch Senko as a Ned bait. When I step up to a Baby Ika which is thicker and heavier plastic, I have to make sure I rig it so that the hook gets exposed to the bend or I will have problem hooksets and fish throwing the bait. What bait are you rigging?