TOXIC

I have a lot of microfibers for wiping the boat and truck. If they are super clean, I will use them to wipe off my Rx Oakley’s. I have a pair of microfibers that I found in my boat when I bought it that have Lowrance embroidered on them and they are totally different than all my other microfibers. I have all grades of microfibers from washing to polishing and none are like the Lowrance ones. They are super fine and I assume made for graph screens. They work super on my sunglasses.

Time….on…..the…..water.

You don’t get to be my size without some high respect for food. ? Personally I concentrate on BBQ and the smoker. I was selected to be a judge at the American Royal BBQ competition in Kansas City but I got transferred out before the event. My father at one time owned 5 restaurants, everything from a truck stop to a restaurant that had a breakfast spot/short order on one side of the building, a steak house on the other and a bar in the back, to a fine dining restaurant in a downtown top tier hotel. The only one I ever got to cook in was the breakfast/short order joint. I was pretty young but I could sling hash with the best of them and threw a pretty mean pizza. I’ve BBQ’d on stick burners, off sets, electrics and propane. Have never done pellet. On our annual trip to lake St Clair I usually bring 6 racks of ribs but we have had 20lbs of King Crab, Russian Boar, venison and a lot of more normal meals like jerk chicken and homemade pizzas on a pizza maker brought by one of the crew. My latest was a couple of 7lb yardbirds for a group of women my wife was having over. Couldn’t do anything spicy so I smoked them with mild cherry wood and did a citrus rub mixed with some Rufus Teague rub and stuffed them with lemon, lime and oranges. 7 hours low and slow. I don’t spatchcock or de-spine my birds.

I tend to keep my inner circle of “friends” relatively small. They are friends I’d trust with my boat??. I’ve seen too many instances in todays world where people you thought were friends…..were not. I have a lot of acquaintances, some closer than others but very few friends.

Bank on this. Only change I’d make is to use a Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm on your dropshot. Goby or Perch colors. ??

Go to on St Clair is a Nichols white spinnerbait, 1/2 oz, double willow blades. White grub trailer. Problem is…..it’ll catch every other fish in the lake as well. ?

Don’t get me wrong here, you have the total right not to clean up after others and I’m no eco freak but where I live the areas I fish can get trashed because of the way rivers and feeder creeks flow. Many coming through heavily populated areas with large trash or recycling plants that unfortunately get trash runoff. If you want to go a little deeper, we only have one planet and it’s all of our responsibility to care for it. Just like I pay taxes for public schools when I don’t have any school age kids or I pay taxes for unemployment when I have worked since I was 13. It’s part for being a member of society.

Grew up in Nebraska, lived in Massachusetts, moved to Northern Virginia 30+ years ago. Winters here are tolerable. When in Massachusetts we bought our house in the fall moving from Kansas City. I had 5 acres on a mountainside with a long access road to a circle driveway and a spur to the garage. First snowfall we were outside marveling at the size of the snowflakes. Went to bed and when we got up the next morning, I told the wife I would shovel to the circle drive and then we would call someone to plow us out. I went into the garage grabbed the snow shovel and pressed the garage door open button. As the door slowly rose, all I saw was snow. There was a 1 foot gap at the top of the garage and the snow. I climbed up and my knees were even with the roof gutters.?. I heard a honking down at the main road and there was a truck with a blade. I waved him up and went back in the house and got a cup of coffee. Best $200 I ever spent.?

Original daily driver was a 1993 Jeep Wrangler 4.0, 5 speed I bought when we lived in Massachusetts. My daughter learned to drive on it here in Virginia, then took it to college and now it’s on her farm with 475,000 miles. When I went to Florida, I took my 2004 Silverado 3/4 ton, 6.0 HD and my bass boat. While there I bought a 2002 Lexus SC430 V8 hardtop convertible to tool around in. Both came home with me and I traded the Silverado in on a new 2016 High Country. Since I am now retired, the Silverado is my daily, it has 70k on it and will probably be my last truck. Just got the Lexus back in running shape, it has some leaky valve cover gaskets and I had to drop a new battery in it. Wife drives a 2016 Highlander.

It was his time.

And……depending on your manufacturer, you might need to check your LU oil mor frequently than others. The lower unit seals on my 2005 Yamaha HPDI 250 are manufactured so that it naturally looses oil over use. Mechanics have described it as the way the seals are designed, inner lip, outer lip, etc. I have to check it more often than others.

Congratulations ?!

Depends on whether you are evaluating technically or preferentially. To me it used to be a technical issue because baitcasters were not able to perform the way spinning gear does in finesse presentations. To some degree I still believe that to be 100% true even though there have been advancements in baitcasters that allow the light weights of finesse fishing to be used. So that allows you to move to the preference side of the equation. If you prefer baitcasting gear then manufacturers have made that possible. Generally, I would think that if spinning gear was not valuable in some way, the upper level pros wouldn’t utilize it in so many ways (aside from sponsor sales). Bottom line, use what you prefer.

While I don’t disagree, then by your logic, every glass hull boat that uses carpeted bunks should be scratched. They are not. I’ve looked at my hull underwater off the trailer and there are no noticeable scratches. I assume it’s because when the boat is loaded and the carpet is compacted, it is still taller than the normal buildup of grime/sediment/dust that collects on the carpet and that by dunking the bunks a lot of that buildup gets flushed off prior to loading. I would not hesitate to use the synthetic bunks but as you mentioned, I would wipe them since there is nothing between the grit and boat hull with them.

The only complaint I have heard about them was that when used in dirty water, you need to clean the bunks. That’s for us glass boat guys. Loading and unloading with the big motor, you can backwash gravel and grit on them. I’ve seen some pretty scratched hulls claiming it’s from the synthetic bunks.

I had a 2000, 225efi Mercury that had a pull cord in the cowling. I chuckled every time took the cowling off to work on it.

A 4 to 5lb smallmouth on 6lb test dropshot will make it an issue. ??

I watched one where his graphs showed a school of bass dive down on a school of baitfish, then get under them and drive them to the surface and then he showed the water out to the side of his boat boiling as they fed on top.

All this crazy talk about banning the latest and greatest in electronics. Do you really think any organization is going to go against all of the electronics manufacturers to just even the playing field? Just look at the cost of these units and who gets the $$. I’ve been around long enough to remember when the dropshot was illegal on St Clair. I personally think it’s silly to ban the A-Rig. Sure, limit it to the legal number of hooks vs just teasers but hard baits have 3 trebles, spinnerbaits have trailer hooks and some swimbaits have multiple hook setups……but I digress.?

Or…..to be absolutely sure, swing by the shop and have them pressure test the lower unit.

Another point for a dual purpose is that they are designed to give that high output blast (on some mercs 1000 MCA) whereas the straight deep cycle are designed for a slow discharge. As for pull starting, with todays modern boat mounted battery switching devices, if you drain your starting battery you can get the juice to start your big motor from your trollers with the flick of a switch. Let’s not even talk about lithium, those are game changers.

Lovely Facebook memories came up in my feed and reminded me of how good the fishing used to be on the chain.

Some hulls are designed to power load. My 21 foot Ranger will float load but my old guide boat, a NITRO 929 absolutely, positively, guaranteed would not. I’m no rookie at loading and that boat wold not float load. If I wanted it to I have no doubt I would have to totally disassemble the trailer and rebuild and even at that I’m not sure it would help.

When I was fly fishing more than boat fishing, I would wade the Shenandoah and it was a tradition on the way home through the Blue Ridge mountains, I would stop at a roadside custard stand. After a hot day guide trip in my boat, I would stop at the corner store by the lake for a Code Red Mountain Dew and a bag of cheese curls.?

You still added another failure point. That’s my big problem.