TOXIC

When I was heavy into guiding, I had clients on the boat or I was scout fishing for upcoming trips, usually by myself. I enjoyed solitary fishing but with as many days as I spent on the water, I burned myself out. When I went to Florida, I fished a couple of tournament trails and spent a lot of time by myself as well. I have always said that if you really want to get to know someone, spend a day with them in a boat. When it “clicks” with a fishing partner, it’s something special. I’ve had the same fishing partner for 25 years and since he’s still working and I’m retired, he makes me get out on days I would rather sit in the laz-e-boy ? Now I fish for the pure enjoyment and not to escape life’s trials since I’m retired. I find myself not needing the alone time as much and it’s total fun taking friends out or fishing with my longtime fishing partner. My wife could care less about fishing. ?

Give it a try. They slice the carp so that all of the bones dissolve during the cooking process. I hate bones in fish. https://www.joetessplace.com/

There is a place in Omaha Nebraska called Joe Tess’s. Best carp sandwiches ever. Never tried to clean and cook one myself but ate a lot of them growing up.

That’s a quote from your original post. I was just giving you an answer that maybe you hadn’t thought about. No debate, it’s a free country buy what you want, wear what you want.?

Weightless Texas rig Senko.

My fishing partner is a retired marine and I have been fishing with him for 25 years. We NEVER are on the water later than 7am and that’s on daylight savings time.? When we first started going to Michigan 20 years ago, the rest of our group who are locals, would wake up around 7, make breakfast, eat breakfast, make and pack lunch and then make their way out to the boats. Their reasoning is that smallmouth are no where as time sensitive as largemouth and if you put a bait in their face, no matter the time of day, they will eat it.?. Let’s just say in 20 years, I haven’t been able to have breakfast in Michigan.??

That’s the absolute truth! Welcome to the club! The changeover to retired life is a bit more difficult than I ever imagined but it’s been 2 years for me and I’m getting there.

Very lucky for those girls that they were picked up when they were. Not a life saving event but one spring when I was guiding and the water temps had not come up yet and mostly there were just fishermen out on the lake, I saw a couple of people swimming a jet ski in the middle of the lake. I watched more than one boat go past them without stopping. Something just didn’t seem right to me so I motored up to them and it was 2 college girls who had run out of gas. I offered to tow them to a marina where they could fuel up. They didn’t bring any money so I went ahead and paid to fill the jet ski. They made me promise to follow them back to one of their fathers lake house to get repaid. It was at the end of the day anyway, So I did. Let’s just say the father was a very prominent Washington, DC figure and insisted I have a cognac and Cuban cigar with him on his deck. Not wanting to be rude, I obliged and as a plus, he reimbursed me enough to fill my boat with fuel which was 56 gallons. ?. The downside was that every boat that passed these two up was a fishing boat.

Short answer is yes but if I’m not mistaken you have to also remove the dash plate from behind.

Pulled the Nike gym shorts out of the drawer today. Supposed to get up to near 80 this week. Common knowledge around here is that we aren’t out of the winter woods til Mothers Day.

It’s interesting, I know guys who keep detailed journals and spreadsheets and it seems to help them. I never have. I have a mental checklist I go through every time I hit the water because to me, no 2 days are alike. I’ve been amused at Facebook since my memories for the last 7 or 8 years come up and my fishing partner or I are pretty good about posting our trips and the results of the day. One year we are in winter gear and 2 years later we are in shorts and T-shirts. ?

You can always find a reason to get upset, especially if you fish pressured waters. When I was guiding, I had boats that would follow me all day when I had clients in the boat. Kayaks have just as much right to the water as anybody else but they are limited on where they can go compared to those of us in glitter sleds. I cut them a break and I cut bank anglers an even bigger break. We’ve all got stories of confrontations like the vid of Ike and the guy on the potomac heck I even know of an Elite series angler who came an 1/8th mile across a bay to yell at some of my buddies fishing a bank saying he was planning on fishing there.

Am I wrong in thinking that different parts of a deer taste different? Until the last one I mentioned earlier in this post, I was fortunate enough to just get back straps and tenderloins. Loved the taste of both those cuts. When I got those 2 separate rough cuts, I definitely noticed a difference between the 2.

I’ve been going to the lake for 20 years for a weeklong trip with friends. We rent a cottage on Harsens Island. In order to try and make the weather less of a factor, we have always gone in late May. Last year we went mid May and got extremely lucky with the weather and had the best year ever. Would like to try earlier but too much in cost and time to chance it. Good luck! It’s a magical place when the bite is on.

I used to carry some fisherman’s guilt and stopped targeting beds but one of my St Clair buddies made it clear that if you fish during the spawn at all, chances are you are bed fishing whether you know it or not. It’s one thing to avoid throwing at bedding fish but just because you move deeper where you can’t see the bed, doesn’t mean you aren’t pulling them off the bed. The window for prespawn is so small that in order to avoid bed fishing, you would have to stay off the water until mid summer to be relatively sure you are not pulling them off the beds. I fully understand the aversion to plucking them off the beds, we plan our trip to St Clair for the prespawn window but if we find them on the beds we will fish them. My favorite baits are as follows depending on water conditions and weather. Ned Rig Dropshot DShad Nose weighted Senko Jerkbait Flatsided crankbait

Good luck. I hear they are moving up over there as well.

You can use it shallow but there are some issues. We tried using it in Florida on Okeechobee but the shallow water coupled with the thick grass made it useless as well as the transducer catching loads of grass on the trolling motor. We ended up taking it off and storing it in the boat. My opinion is that for the best results, it needs some separation and that is best achieved in a little deeper water with isolated structure or totally open water.

Got back out on the hotside and I’m telling you this is the weirdest spring ever. Normally by now the bass have spawned and we are looking for them moving back out to their summer holes. Not this year. If I had to guess I would say it’s a combination of our wacky weather and the fact that one of the reactors has been shut down for a long time. Weather was crazy. Rained overnight, was cloudy in the morning, cleared out and then slowly built back up and rained on our way home. Never got over 50 degrees and windy. Water was 50-55. We are seeing more beds and actually caught a couple off them but for the most part, my opinion is that they are still prespawn and staging. We have seen beds for the last 3 weeks and if I had to guess, with the warm weather predicted for this week they will be on the move. Finally! It’s not that they can’t be caught. We had a 50 fish day and burned exactly 1 gallon of fuel in the boat all day from where we launched. Here are a few of our better fish. All were caught on a Ned.

My apologies then. I must have misinterpreted your response.

See. That’s the exact reason why people don’t offer an opinion or position the original poster didn’t think of. In selecting fishing sunglasses, I tried to offer some information to consider when choosing any model. Sorry you didn’t want to hear it because you like your glass lenses and wanted to debate the validity of my point. A simple google search would have given all the information. You could have scrolled right by but instead are doing the same thing you claim to not like. Pot meet kettle. ??

At the risk of sounding petty, I didn’t post the result of a simple google search of fishing related eye injuries. Recreational fishing is the #1 sports related eye injury activity. Without going too far down the rabbit hole I read that a lot of the injuries are from hooks to the naked eye and weights causing hemorrhage to the eye but if you dig deep enough there are some studies of glass vs poly. I’m sure my buddies recommendations are related to the number of incidents and the “odds” of something impacting your eye.

Totally your choice. I’m just relaying what 2 professionals told me. I know all government rated safety glasses are poly. I know all military sunglasses are poly. I don’t need to know how many have had an incident to know what can happen. I also am not willing to test the theory.

I know some guys like to play the odds and get glass because the clarity is a bit better than poly but my optician is also a fisherman and I have a buddy who works in a lab that makes Rx lenses in both glass and poly both tell me that a jig, worm weight or bullet sinker hit directly to any glass lense currently manufactured will shatter and put shards in your eye. My choice was Rx impact rated poly lenses. I’m not willing to play the odds.

In stark contrast to my guiding from my 21ft boat, I would take 2 anglers, load them up in my Jeep Wrangler and run up logging roads to fish native trout streams. Then go to the Shenandoah river to wade and catch 75 fish a day all on fly rods. For smallies, we used poppers and beaded nymphs, trout were much pickier and you had to match the hatch depending on the time of year. My rod of choice was a Sage 5wt in close quarters and a Scott Brightwater 9wt for everything else. I even caught striper in the Chesapeake bay on that 9wt. I learned very quickly not to palm the reel with striper. ?

A little late to this topic but seriously gamey is more often than not just a different taste due to the cut and location of the meat. I got a rough cut deer from a friend and I couldn’t tell which parts he gave me but the first cut I cooked was delicious and looked like a front shoulder. The second batch (from the same animal) looked to be from the rear leg quarter and cooked the same way it was much stronger. It’s no different than white meat and dark meat on a chicken. Different location, different taste. I know there are other factors like the rut and muscle damage but my point is that there is also different taste to different cuts.