TOXIC

Most all of what I rig on a dropshot stays vertical because I Texas rig everything on a #1 gamakatsu EWG hook. Yamamoto Ned Senko, Shad Shape Worm and Pro Senko are my go to baits. The nature of the dropshot with the weight at the bottom of the tag line and the Texas rigged bait with the pressure from me pulling from the topside, keeps every bait vertical.

A little off topic but I saw a video on the next improvement in FFS. When you locate a fish on sonar, you mark it with the cursor and it will follow the fish wherever it moves. As FFS sonar users know, it’s not unusual for a fish to move in and out of view and is very hard to track if moving.

Being born and raised in Nebraska and my father being part owner in 5 restaurants, I’ve had my share of steaks, all cuts all breeds (angus, herford, cross breeds), feedlot finished to grass fed, fresh and aged. I like them all for their individual properties. My daughter here in Virginia has taken the farm to table approach to a new level. She has chickens of which we have eggs and fresh yard bird, sheep we made into some of our favorite Indian dishes (Vindaloo, etc.,) and we have fresh milk and milk products (cottage cheese, butter, cream, dolce) from a dairy cross cow she bottle raised and just had a calf and finally, her other bottle calf that is all grown up and we took him to the butcher on Monday. He is a dairy cross and was grass fed organic so I’ll get to rotate through all of the “butchers choice” cuts per the owner of the processing operation. Can’t wait.

Awesome catch’s being a smallmouth addict myself, I’m dizzy and faint right now. ?

Are there other trim switches? My motor has a switch on the bow, on the hand throttle, on the steering column and on the motor. If my trim is not working, I try all the different locations first. That will tell you if it is in the trim unit or the switch.

What, no votes for Django Unchained?

In kind of an odd twist of fate, I had a friend who got addicted to those nasal inhalers that look like a tube of chapstick. He finally had to get some that were just saline filled because he was killing his nasal passages, took him a long time to shake that habit.

You guys are making me chuckle. First off just for sh!tz & giggles, go price what a new decked out wake board boat, wake ski boat or pure ski boat runs, then venture down to your average recreational lake and see the numbers difference in new bass boats vs new “pleasure” boats. There’s a lot of people spending a lot more on boats than us bassers. We are definitely in the minority. I don’t begrudge anybody who can afford a new toy. Just because I choose to spend my $$ a different way. ?

The Mayo Clinic doesn’t really like it?. Good thing they didn’t know my grandfather who at the slightest sniff, would run me down and smear Vicks up both my nostrils and on my chest. It wasn’t unusual for him to put a dab in his mouth as well?. To him it was the cure all for whatever ailed you. Vicks VapoRub — a topical ointment made of ingredients including camphor, eucalyptus oil and menthol that you rub on your throat and chest — doesn't relieve nasal congestion. But the strong menthol odor of VapoRub may trick your brain, so you feel like you're breathing through an unclogged nose. By contrast, decongestant tablets and nasal sprays sold over-the-counter may narrow blood vessels in your nose's lining, leading to reduced swelling in your nasal passages. VapoRub has drawbacks in addition to its ineffectiveness as a nasal decongestant. It's unsafe for any use in children under 2 years old. In adults and children age 2 and older, use it only on the neck and chest. Swallowing a few teaspoons of camphor — one of the main ingredients in VapoRub and other topical medications, such as Campho-Phenique and Bengay — can cause deadly poisoning in toddlers. Topical camphor absorbed through mucous membranes or broken skin also can be toxic. That's why you should never put VapoRub in or around the nostrils — especially a small child's nostrils. And if VapoRub gets in your eye, it can injure your cornea.

Let’s add a little common sense to what might be an old wives tale. Ever eaten a meal or string of meals loaded with garlic? Ever hear about eating garlic or eating match heads keeps mosquitoes away? Reason being what you eat in some instances gets excreted through your skin. It’s not too far fetched to think that if a bass is eating crawdads or minnows which both contain high levels of oil, they could and would excrete a smell through their skin. I know in my home waters it’s very easy to tell the bass that are feeding on Shad, they reek of Shad smell. Just some food for thought.?

IMHO stowing a longer shaft isn’t a problem since you are not on deck fishing with it stowed. With all of the add on deck mounted stowing locks, I wouldn’t be concerned about it bouncing in rough water. When fishing and you have to raise it up then yes, you have to be careful casting around it. Question is do you fish more shallow or mor deep? You can always raise it but you can’t lower it if it’s too short. Nothing more aggravating to me than my TM surfacing in rough water or boat wakes. On St Clair one year, my buddy had to sit in the drivers seat with the big motor running to hold us on a spot because the wind and waves had my TM out of the water more than in it.

Remember: Some countries require that your passport be valid at least six months beyond the dates of your trip. Some airlines will not allow you to board if this requirement is not met.

Welcome to my world. My boat was left outside by the previous owner for about 3 years with a leaky cover. When he decided to sell it I was the first one there. The mold was so bad in the bilge, you couldn’t tell the color of the wires or even the maker of the batteries. It was covered in black hair mold. The tan carpet was black and all of the gages were coated. When we pulled the seats the yellow gas tanks were coal black. Here’s what I did. First, I attacked all the mold I could see with simple green. Second I sprayed all of the carpet including the boxes first with water then with a strong mix of carpet cleaner, white vinegar and water. I could have used a carpet cleaning machine but I opted to scrub it by hand. I did small areas at a time and flushed it all afterwards. I used a shop vac to get as much of the water up as possible. Once fully dry I used a commercial mold killing spray in the boxes and the bilge. I also dumped a gallon of Purple Power cleaner in the bilge with the plug in and added about 20 gallons of water to it and drove around sloshing it as much as possible. When I opened the plug the liquid tat came out was black and had the consistency of syrup. That was 10 years ago and I still deal with mold periodically but I store my boat outside so that is to be somewhat expected. I use a fan under the cover in the summer.

I know a lot have used a company called Rec Lending because they always offer good rates. Personally, I would first go to a credit union, second a bank. In house financing is just another moneymaker for Bass Pro/Cabela’s.

Yep. And they’re sterile too. ?

Ok so y’all sent me down the rabbit hole.?. I think we are both right. Yes, they can naturally occur but no they cannot spawn themselves and are sterile. While some tiger muskie occur naturally most are bred in hatcheries.

I’ve always known they were sterile, I thought it was common knowledge. I hate to send you down the rabbit hole of googling but you’ll get your answers there. Lots of scientific articles. Do tiger muskies spawn? A tiger musky (Esox masquinogy x lucius). Muskies spawn in the spring and will work their way up into very shallow waters to lay their eggs. Sadly, tigers are a rarity due to their inability to breed.Dec 12, 2019

I used to guide flyfishermen on backwoods logging roads to remote fly streams to catch minnow sized native trout on hair strength line. Due to my advanced age and experience I can tell you that in the old days you could hand a bass fisherman a fly rod and they wouldn’t be able to get the fly much past the end of the rod. Nowadays you could hand a flyfisherman a baitcaster and you would get the same result. It’s not about elitism as much as it used to be about cost and a different skill set. Flyfishermen were paying outrageous money for fly outfits when bass gear was cheap. Bass fishing has more than caught up in both categories. Likewise, not all fly fishing is the same. Guys fly fishing for trout are not the same ones fishing Marlin or bonefish, nothing is the same from gear to technique. I have trout fished with 3wt fly rods and I’ve striper fished with 9wt the 2 have very little in common. I got to meet Lefty Kreh and have him critique my casting and lucky enough to have Harry Murray’s fly shop fairly close by. But in my opinion flyfishing and traditional bass fishing don’t compete with each other. The only thing they have in common is the target species. Technique skill and cost are more than equal for gear if you don’t add in the price of boats and trucks. There isn’t a single thing either one does that the other doesn’t from gear to special clothing to lures/flys etc. The general public will never get past the idea that bass fishing is a bubba sport but we all know that’s not true.

Just an fyi, all true Tiger muskies are stocked. “The tiger muskie is the hybrid offspring of the muskellunge and northern pike. Tiger muskies are very rare in nature because they're sterile and can't reproduce on their own but due to their stout genetics, they grow larger faster than either of their parent species. I have only caught 1 Tiger in all my years but hundreds of pike and regular muskies on everything from tubes to cranks to Senkos and jerkbaits. The 1 tiger I caught was in Wisconsin in a 2 man pvc boat trolling back to the cottage dragging a deep diving crankbait.

Never proud of fights but when I was in high school in Nebraska, I was a wrestler and football player. To make a little extra coin I would bounce at a bar across the state line into Iowa any locals might remember it…the Joker Lounge. It was in Council Bluffs and was a converted quanset building. Main room had 3 walk up bars and disco music with a DJ, second room with live music. It also had a pool room, and arcade room and a movie theater. It was a busy place because at the time the drinking age was lower than Nebraska so you had a lot of young kids getting their first drunks on and it was the Wild West on the weekends. It also drew a not so good element that was dangerous. Place was “family” owned and had a staff of bouncers. Wasn’t unusual to have gunfire in the parking lots. One of the bouncers went to prison for shooting and killing someone in the parking lot. Point being it was a rough place. I pulled in early for a Saturday night shift in my Formula 350 Firebird and I had a portable CB radio with a magnetic antenna. I was putting it all in the trunk when a car pulled up and 3 guys got out and proceeded to tell me they were going to steal my CB. Instinct took over and I grabbed the first guy by the back of the head and slammed him on my outside mirror knocking him cold. On my way up, I came up with an uppercut that knocked the second guy backwards off his feet. The third guy took a swing and I pulled back and felt his punch just graze my face. By that time the second guy was back on his feet and he grabbed the first guy and they all jumped in their car and sped off. I got a chuckle out of it. I walked into the bar and back to the bouncer room when one of the other bouncers grabbed me and laid me down on the floor all the while telling me I would be ok. I was confused and kept asking him what was going on and then I looked down at my white polo shirt that all of us wore and it was soaked with blood. Evidently the last guy had beer can tabs on all of his knuckles when he hit me. If you remember back in the day, when you opened a beer can the “tab” pulled all the way off and was attached to a ring of tin. You could break the tab off and have 2 sharp metal spikes on the ring. He slid them over his fingers like brass knuckles. I had 4 pretty deep slices across my cheek. We cleaned them up, put medical butterfly tape on them and all was good. Worked my shift (with a new shirt). There’s a lot more to the story but I’ll leave it at that. ?

Funny this comes back up now. I am heading to Headwaters in Florida at the end of the month and will be throwing some 5 and 6 inch Senkos. I’ll rig my Senko spinning outfit up with at least 8 maybe even 10 pound mono and a 4.0 or 5.0 ewg hook Texas rigged. No wacky rigging. I’ve never liked the braid to leader setups. Heavy grass and big bass mean I need to upsize. I’m not worried about the action.

My grandfather taught me how to filet a wide variety of fish from crappie to catfish and walleye, and pike and bluegill, and bullheads and like him I hate bones in my fish so I got really good at filleting. It helped when my daughter was young and the pickiest eater on the planet, she loved crappie so every outing with her we would bring home 2 limits of 50 crappie and I would filet them by hand and my trusty Cutco filet knife. Practice makes perfect!?

The problem with using past decisions as a guide is that you will never know how things would have turned out if you did it differently. So what you think may have been a bad decision may in fact have been the best decision. I don’t burden myself with the past and my decisions, I remember the past for what it is, some good, some bad.

Davey Hite was on a Yamamoto call in live event last night and he was demoing some new products and he rigged up the new Yamacraw on a shakeyhead and said it is a killer bait because it falls straight down whereas a kut tail or other worm will fall at an angle. I immediately added some Spot Sticker shakeyheads to my punching box that has Yamamoto Cowboy, Mermaid and Flapping Hog baits along with some discontinued 7.5 inch Kut Tails. I have not ordered any of the new craws yet. This is for Florida at the end of the month.

Looking forward to it. There’s a lot of drama surrounding it with all of the live bait fishing and some not so friendly guides. FWC is being very pro active ticketing and ramp parking is limited. The chance of a double digit ditch melon may just make it all worth it. ?