TOXIC

Pinky was a custom cover that the original owner, a FLW Pro had on the boat. It was totally trashed when I bought it so I sliced it in 3 pieces. The sides I used for trailer fender covers and the reinforced nose piece I use over my TM prop.

I’ve fished Frederick before, it’s a tough lake for sure. Deep and clear.

My number 1 crank that I have caught the most fish and the most species that I never fish without one being tied on is the SPRO Little John shallow crank with the computer chip bill. It’s the original. The magic color is Cell Mate. If I only had one crank, that would be the one.

As pretty much evidenced by the responses, you pretty much get what you pay for with covers. My 2005 Ranger has been under cover outside for its entire life. I got a factory Ranger cover off eBay from a guy who buys leftover/overstock covers from dealers and resells them. If I had to guess, I would say the cover I bought from him for $400 was initially designed for a Ranger deep v like a 621. This allowed me to keep the seats in when covered. I do put a tarp over it in the winter to make snow removal easier. I do not trailer with a cover so the fit did not have to be exact. If I were you, I would search eBay and Marketplace for a new/used higher quality cover. You might even find one custom made for your boat. The pic is how mine sits when not in use in the summer.

Normally, I will just change the bait color to water conditions. I will use a bait with more red in it. I fish a DS a lot in all clarity. My only other concern is how long has the clarity been compromised and is it normal for the body of water. After 3 days they gotta eat, up until then it’s a crap shoot.

Haha. My wife did that because she got tired of my “spare” chocks being stacked against the house. I use them on both rear tires and I need one for the tongue Jack because the wheel will sink into my asphalt driveway in the heat. I almost forgot what I hate even more than the mold….STINKBUGS! When we have a bad year for them they get everywhere on the boat. I cover the motor and they get both in between the cover and the motor and where the cowling meets the frame of the motor. They get under every locker lid in the drip edge and along the entire length of the cover where it meets the top cap. We are talking hundreds of them. While they don’t do any damage, they are true to their name and really stink when disturbed.

Like I said, if you didn’t know about the mold problem, you can’t tell it from the boat. Went ahead and spot treated some of the carpet, gave her a coat of Griots 3n1 ceramic, scrubbed the seats and recoated them with 303 Protectant and she’s looking like a new penny. Not bad for a 2005 model that has spent its entire life outside.

I have favorites in every category and/or ethnicity. I would never dream of limiting myself to just 1.??

I guess it depends on your locality. Bigger metropolitan areas I find use their horns as a means of communication along with hand gestures.? We used to be considered the sticks but are now a bedroom community to Washington, DC and I’ve noticed that with the increase of population and the influx of drivers, they are much more hostile. When I was commuting to DC and Northern Virginia on a daily basis I could tell the closer I got by the attitude of the drivers. As for honking at me for delaying at a green light, I don’t care because it’s a standard rule in my family to do a standard 3 count before accelerating. For some reason there are a plague of red light runners here that may be due to the long commutes but it’s also common with semi’s, dump trucks and construction equipment haulers. We have no shortage of red light t-bones here weekly. I only honk to avert a collision. I lost all aggressive driving when I latched a $50,000 piece of fiberglass to the rear of my truck. It carried through to my everyday driving as well.

The boat is stored outside year round so the cover is a necessity. The cover is not the problem, it has plenty of ventilation. The pics of the cover are before and after I cleaned it yesterday, the before is the dirty one, clean is after. I don’t have a problem cleaning the carpet, seats or any exterior parts of the boat and there is not a problem there, the mold does not coat those areas unless I fall off in my cleaning. Storing with the lids open is no help because the mold is in the space between the top cap and hull. I use a fan in the summer. I have also used every commercial mold remover and home remedy to try and eliminate it but short of pulling the top cap, I don’t think there’s any way to eliminate it. I have filled the bilge with a mixture of cleaner and drove it around behind my truck sloshing it as much as possible and after a few days the black molasses like liquid that came out of there was disgusting ? I’ve also had the seats out multiple times and done a thorough cleaning on everything I could reach. I guess I’m just venting because I am so picky about my vehicles and boat. Unless you knew, you wouldn’t know the problem even existed by looking at the boat.

My battle continues. Those in the know remember my boat came from the brother of a guy who drowned in the Potomac. He was holding on to it for sentimental reasons and it had sat outside under a bad cover for over 2 years. It was chock full of mold. I have tried most everything known to man to get rid of it and the best I can do is keep it under control. For the most part it has left the interior alone. It is in the bilge and the worst is in a couple of the rear compartments. I'm on a cleaning binge this week and the boat is on the list. Here's a couple pics of the cover before and after cleaning. The mold was pretty bad. I vacuumed and cleaned all of the compartments and will get after the wax tomorrow. Today was the cover.

Y’all gave great advice regarding line twist but unfortunately his picture is of line loops. Look closely, there’s no “twists” just loops pulled tight. He’s got too much line on his spool would be my guess. I’ve seen it hundreds of times and done it myself a few.?. Feeding out and respooling some line will help until the line conforms better to the reel or he knots it up enough to cut off the excess. Also, by the looks of the line in the picture he’s not got too large of test and it doesn’t look like fluro.

That’s the exact box I use for my Senkos. It’s amazing how many you can load that box with. I am still looking for a terminal tackle box that doesn’t split open, break latches or mix n’ match all of my weights, hooks, etc.

Ethics or etiquette questions always open a hornets nest because we only hear one side of the situation and we all know there’s 3 sides to every story. ? Going off what you said, unless you were within a cast length no matter what direction you were heading, no harm no foul, I can see the other guy getting a little peeved if you were too close. Personally I wouldn’t have cared.

Ok, so I went back and found my rigging post from the past. When you get proficient at rigging, you can make a DShad all sorts of things. I would assume it’s the same for other fluke stylembaits. I throw a Yamamoto DShad a LOT. It is one of my go to baits. I have rigged it many different ways but weightless is the most deadly for me. Depending on how I want the bait to act, the key is where you insert the hook in the nose for a weightless Texas Rigged bait. Straight in the center will give you a flat level fall. to the top and the bait will dive when you twitch it, to the bottom and the bait will climb on the twitch. Likewise left or right of center will move the bait sideways. There are a lot of minor adjustments in between those that I mentioned that will dictate the baits movement.

Wow, I went and searched for my standard response to a fluke thread and I sure do like the Yamamoto DShad. There’s a bunch of reasons and a lot of rigging options. Needless to say I always have one rigged up……always. Here’s a little sampling of my past responses. The great thing about the DShad is that it can be fished in all sorts of situations. I used it in the heavy weeds on the Chick last weekend by pulling it across the top of the cover pausing in the open holes letting it sink. I was getting most of my hits just as it made it to the weed edge. Earlier this year I threw it in open water where there were fish schooling on the Rappahonock River. They would either hit it as soon as it hit the water or if I let it sink like a wounded baitfish. In Michigan on lake St Clair, I have dragged a weightless DShad drift fishing. It was all the smallmouth wanted one year and it saved our trip. It can also be used as a search bait by just casting and twitching. The DShad is heavier than most other fluke style baits and sinks at a faster rate. It’s probably one of the most versatile baits I throw and I always have one tied up. I use a 7 foot Quantum Smoke spinning combo (2500 size Smoke reel) with 6lb mono. I use a 4.0 gamakatsu ewg thin wire hook for my Texas rig. Be advised, when fishing the heavy grass, it does require that you go in to retrieve bigger fish if you are fishing from a boat.

Not being political but look at how local government deals with criminals. Catch and release is a big problem in a lot of the more crime ridden cities. I worked in Washington, DC for a number of years, my office was at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, traveled to San Fran a lot and have relatives living in Chicago and Portland. There is a common thread.

While catch and release is fantastic, don’t you ever get a little disappointed when you reel in an ABC fish (already been caught) or what we call “retreads”? My fishing partner for the last 30 years hates it and when we go to St Clair every year, if we get into a bunch of fish that have been on beds for a while and have been caught multiple times, we’ll move off. That’s why we time our trips pre spawn so that we are catching them fresh. While that may be more of a statement against bed fishing, it holds true on released fish around tournament sites as well. I’ve seen fishermen really concentrating on release areas. I’ve pulled many a hook out of fish that have broken off or caught fish with torn jaws or holes in their faces and it does diminish the catch for me.

Common knowledge is that if fish are following and not committing, you have the style of bait right but the wrong color.

Add to that spray sunscreen. Reeks havoc on graph screens, seats, plastic boat trim pieces and sunglasses both the lenses if poly and the frames, most notably the nose pieces.

Usually depends on how high the vegetation is that I’m fishing. I want the bait just above it. Second consideration is bottom composition. Muck, I will lengthen it up, rocks I will shorten it.

She needs your strength. Stay strong.

When I fished Lake Powell’s vertical rock bluffs, I would find cracks or openings that looked like they went down a good ways and toss a weightless Senko next to them and just let it sink.

There are a lot of reasons a body of water can be on fire one year and tough the next. Weather, aquatic vegetation growth, pressure, different class of spawned fish, and finally, it’s pretty accepted that bodies of water go through natural cycles and fluctuations that affect angling. You just have to keep at it.

Didn’t we put this to bed with the TV show “Pro’s vs Joe’s”? ? I had an Elite Series angler stay with me prefishing for a tournament on the St Johns river when I lived in Florida. We had a common sponsor and I was asked to help him out with a place to stay since I lived right on the river. I could not help him with any fishing info since I was relatively new and only started fishing a local tournament trail. But I could hook him up with some of my friends who were well known local sticks on the river. Some things I learned watching him….He fished sunup to sundown every day that was allowed for prefishing it was brutal. He never worried about catching fish, he worried about catching the right fish. His comment to me after he went out with some of the locals was that they all took him to spots that he could easily identify from reading a map. He wanted to find the spots that weren’t on the map/graphs. Every pro I have ever talked to has said that if they can find the fish, they can catch the fish. Time…..on…..the…..water.?