TOXIC

It always amazes me to hear statements like, I’m not wasting my life at a job….40 hours and I’m out….life is too short to spend it working….My question is always what are you going to do when your 70 and have no savings, no income, no retirement and Social Security is your only way to pay your bills if it even exists? Oh, that’s right you’ll live off whatever social programs those of us who do work get forced to pay while we are in the workforce. Coming from a retired boomer, I was taught that nobody owed me a thing and if I wanted it I had to work for it. My kids are the slackers you say? Nope. My daughter is 26 and isn’t blogging living in a van, she owns her own business works hard and knows the value of a dollar. Kids coming out of college with huge student loan debt and a degree in Art History demanding a “living wage” are forgetting who builds and maintains the infrastructure of this country…..the trades. Without them we don’t exist, no roads, no buildings, no housing, no transportation. It’s way past time to squash the thought that the only way to be successful is to go to college and that the trades are for those who can’t.

Don’t confuse the economy with politics. The economy has made profit margins for business owners narrow. I can site a lot of businesses that can’t find workers from hospitality to manufacturing, I read the articles every day and I know of some personally. When Elon Musk has to threaten to fire employees that won’t return to the office it’s not an unfair employer. If businesses can’t make any money due to the economy, inflation, supply chain problems, etc.., how can they pay the higher wages it takes to make a living wage due to those very same factors. My heavens, just read a little about all the big companies laying off thousands of employees like in the auto industry including Ford and GM and tell me how rosy the business climate is. Jobs that were traditionally high school gas money are now considered careers and deserving of a “living wage”? Seriously.

Oh, I dunno….maybe the highest inflation in 2 decades and the second largest bank failure ever (one of 3) or maybe the things that aren’t factored into inflation like food and fuel costs, natural gas prices doubling, the US’s debt overtaking the GNP, and on and on….

Yamamoto actually calls this “cinnamon” but it’s more of a natural earthworm. It produced very well this last weekend when fishing creek mouths that were heavily stained from recent rains.

Ok, I get it nobody wants to work but answer me this……where do all of these non-workers get their $$ to live on? Is is unemployment? I know many got paid not to work during the pandemic but that money has got to be running out. Are they all living in mom and dads basement? Some have got to have families and need to provide for them. The government keeps painting a rosy picture of the economy and spouting how unemployment is the lowest in decades….we all know that’s not true. I consider myself somewhat smart and I keep up on current events but this one has me stumped. Of course, I have worked non-stop since I was 13 years old.

When I was a kid in high school in the 70’s I fought my parents to let me grow my hair. When I got a big boy job with the government in 85, we had to wear suits and ties. I was still a little wild so I grew a “rat tail” and tucked it in the back of my dress shirt collar. One day I forgot and I got called on the carpet for it. In no uncertain terms I was told it had to come off. Just so happened we were having an office party that weekend (we were a young group and I wasn’t the only wild child in the bunch) and one of the guys I worked with was a competitive axe thrower as a hobby. After waaay too many Jack Daniels, we thought it would be cool if my rat tail got cut off by an axe. We stood up a picnic table, I stood sideways to it, taped the end of my rat tail to it and from about 15 feet away he threw an axe and cut it clean off. Since then I have had more of a high and tight because it’s just easier to take care of. ??

I’ll read your story and raise the ante. I had gutter guards on all my gutters but with the combination of trees we have they didn’t work well and were always plugging up with hickory nuts, beech nuts, acorns and oak pollen strings, so I pulled them all off and I periodically climb up on my roof and blow out the gutters with my leaf blower much to my wife’s protesting. My house is built on a cliff and a fall would be potentially life ending plus climbing the ladder to get up there isn’t as easy at 66 as it used to be. Well, my trusty leaf blower gave up the ghost and I got a new one for Father’s Day. I was a couple of months behind in getting on the roof so I knew the gutters would be completely full of sticks, pollen strings, nuts, etc, and full of water. The pollen strings alone could fill the gutters by themselves. The last few rains the gutters were overflowing badly so I knew. Put the new leaf blower together, got the ladder out, shimmied my fat rear up there, started it up and it promptly blew the nozzle off the blower, it bounced and went right off the roof. I climbed down retrieved it, reattached it and climbed back up and it promptly did it again with the same result. After 4, yes 4 more attempts and me going in the house a watching a d**n YouTube video and reading the instructions 20 times, I couldn’t figure out how something so simple was kicking my rear. I was now covered in sweat and mud from what short time I could get the nozzle to stay on. I looked at it one more time before putting the ladder away because I was getting too tired to climb it many more times and if the nozzle flew off on the backside it would go off the cliff and I’d be done for sure. That’s when I noticed there were 2 sets of raised plastic pegs on the nozzle. The first were a guide and the second were to lock it on. I was putting the nozzle too far on and it wouldn’t lock. All I could think was D-U-m-B A-z-z.

Just to add a little update, I just read an article in Wired to Fish that every angler in the top 10 fishing the MLF tournament on St Clair used a drop shot on a spinning rod as their main bait. ???

Here is my Invicta with the Winn Grip worn off. I may look at stripping the rest off and re-wrapping if it looks like it will work and not be too far from close to original.

To be fair, my CastAway rod was my dedicated Senko rod and we all know how much I fish a Senko. I moved away from it because at 7ft, I wasn’t getting the hook sets on long casts that I wanted.

While not exactly the same, one of my favorite rods a CastAway Invicta with Winn grip has done the same thing. I was amazed at how thin the Winn Grip material is and it’s just a regular black foam handle. I know you can buy the Winn Grip wrap for golf clubs but I haven’t figured out how to glue it down and make it seamless.

There’s a whole lotta different ways to fish a dropshot. Not just vertical. One of my favorite ways to fish. You can jig it, vertically drop it, cast and retrieve it, suspend it in different water column depths, bed fish with it, drag it drift fishing, it’s always a top producer when we go up north.

Still makes you wonder why the heaviest pressured lakes still turn out the best catches. But they do.

Super glad to hear you got out and had a good time. As you well know, fishing is good for the soul. Enjoy!

I don’t nose rig my dropshot, every bait is T-Rigged with a #1 gamakatsu ewg hook. A Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm quickly became my bait of choice but before that I exclusively used a 5” Pro Senko or 5” Kut Tail. I have also used the California Roll with good success. Now that Yamamoto has come out with a smaller Yamatanuki, I’m going to give that a shot next.

There is a product made by GatorGuards that works the same as a KeelShield for kayaks.

Brushless also and allows you to make corrections while spotlock is engaged. Upgraded mount also. If you touch the pedal on a Ghost, the spotlock automatically disengages. Pricey though and I’ll be looking for all of my buddies to be upgrading and selling their ultrex and ghost units. ?

Well today is my birthday and it was 80+ degrees so for the first time this summer, the margarita fixins came out.

I’ve always been resistant to the sun but I have been slowly losing that quality as I age. My dermatologist told me as long as I’m not burning, I’m pretty good but still recommended sunscreen or spf rated clothing so I went from shorts, short sleeved vented fishing shirts and visors to long sun pants, long sleeved spf 50 shirts some with and some without hoods, sun buffs and full hats. I got a very nice HUK buff at Roland Martens Resort on Okeechobee that has longer tabs front and back to fit down inside your shirt and a different fabric down the center of the front to allow easier breathing. I still can’t do the gloves though.

A ps. To my post, the football head jigs I use have no skirts, just hook and head.

Lady Pro Bass Angler Judy Wong once won a tournament in the discharge of a dam by rigging a 5 inch Senko on a football head jig. It had less water resistance and she could get the Senko down where others couldn’t. Fast forward to one of our early trips to lake St Clair long before spot lock and we used drift socks. Even with drift socks, we couldn’t get baits to the bottom drift fishing. The weights needed to get tubes and other plastics deep enough, totally overpowered our gear. That’s when I remembered Judy Wong and her rig. I rigged it up and smoked the smallmouth. After that I regularly rigged it for dragging because the football head jig acted like when you were trying to launch a kite and it “walked” across the ground. The football head jig did the same on the bottom and wagged the Senko like the tail on a dog. I named it the “Wong” rig and it has produced ever since. Gotta be a sandy fairly clear bottom because it is fished hook exposed but man does it catch fish. So yeah, my vote is for a football head jig.

Always amazed at what mechanical minded guys can accomplish. My buddy who helps me work on my truck/boat isn’t afraid to tackle almost any job. His saying is that if a man built it, he can tear it apart and fix it. ?

I had a Bass Hunter and it was a tank. Try to find the thickness of the PVC on both brands. Thicker is better.

It’s hard to discuss this topic without offending both sides of the cost/quality camps so it’s better to just leave it at everyone has their own wants/needs/requirements/skill level/price point, etc. Kinda like….is the Senko worth the extra $$. ??

I have my grandfathers metal rods and open faced reels with cloth line. Personally, he gave me a green Zebco 303 when we went to Canada and I caught an 18lb pike and countless walleyes up to 8lbs on it. All on red/white daredevil spoons and white hair jigs. I have the old slides from that trip, I need to look at them again.