RPreeb

I really don't get this post. It seemed to me that this thread was about not doing things that bother others, yet you made the effort to fish in an area set aside for those who can't get off shore, then when one of them made a move that was a bit selfish, you reacted in kind, taunting him with your ability to fish where he couldn't. That seems to be in direct opposition to the "Golden Rule" theme of the thread. My Golden Rule states "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and do that in spite of any jerk behavior from them." I can usually find a way to shrug it off as long as there is no physical threat in their actions.

Like many others have said, I will fight as necessary, but I have never "skied" a fish to land it. It depends on my rig and the fish, but I don't play it any longer than is reasonable - I don't want to do any more harm than is necessary. Around here the bass are mostly not that big, so I don't worry too much about them taking control. I don't fish 50# line either. I spent quite a few years trout fishing when I lived in Montana back in the 60's and early 70's. I fished a flyrod always with about a 2x (6#) or 3x (5#) tapered leader. The lighter the tackle, the more fun it is playing smaller fish. The heaviest line I have on any reel right now is 12# mono. My best fight ever was a 4 pound rainbow in fast water (Swan River near the Piper Creek bridge for anyone familiar with the area), caught on a perch streamer and 2x leader. That was a tail dancing beast, made me work downstream about 300 yards before I could bring him to shore - I almost had to swim a few feet through a 5' deep hole to get around a tree. Nothing like the feeling of landing an active fish under those conditions. Had some good but brief fights with some 8-10 pound mutton snappers and jacks when fishing the tidal channels in the Bahamas too, but those I tried to haul as fast as possible to keep them away from the ever present lemon sharks. I had 30# braid on a Shimano spinning reel for that.

That was us growing up in Minnesota. We raked up huge piles of leaves to jump in. It was always a bit of a shock when those big piles weren't nearly as soft and cushiony as they appeared to be.

This^^ +1 For my photography, I sometimes just want to work on a single lens to practice technique, but I've found that if I head out with only that combo, I'm doomed to stumble across the perfect setup for a lens that's sitting at home. Therefore, I take my camera pack with all of my lenses, even if I only intend to use one of them. The same thing is true of my fishing tackle. Every time I've left a particular type of bait at home, that seems to be what I ultimately want to use, so I mostly take it all. The good thing is that since I'm just getting a start on bass fishing, I don't have all that much stuff yet.

A few wildlife photos from the last few years: A big bull moose we saw on one of our camping trips in the Colorado mountains this year. Photo of a least chipmunk taken on the same trip : One from our 3 week safari in Africa in 2014 - I'll post a few more from time to time. We went to Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This is a leopard that was watching over the remains of an impala to keep the scavengers away.

Skippy Superchunk for me, but I only do PB with jam (usually grape, and never jelly), and not that often. Was never a PB junkie even as a kid.

My camping rig. The view from our last campsite this year:

Now that's a contented dog.

Yep, definitely a scorpion fish. Stone fish are mainly a Pacific and Indian Ocean species as far as I've read. They are related to scorpion fish, and to the lionfish (there are over 300 related species in the group). Lionfish are also an eastern hemisphere species that unfortunately has been introduced into the Caribbean region (supposedly dumped by Florida aquarium hobbyists who got tired of them eating every other fish that they put in the tank). With no natural controls on their voracious feeding habits, lionfish are having a negative effect on many reefs in the Caribbean and the Bahamas. Fortunately people are discovering that they are great eating, a delicate, flaky white meat. I know that the Bahamian island where we lived holds semiannual lionfish hunts, then a seaside feast afterwards. Lionfish fillets will rival the best fish you've ever tasted. Humans may end up being the best control over a problem that we caused in the first place. This my only lionfish photo, one taken on a trip to the Philippines in 2008. It is out of focus, but nothing I can do about that now.

Here are a couple of non fishing fish photos, both taken in 1990 on a dive trip at Bloody Bay on Little Cayman. Photos taken with Nikonos underwater camera on Kodak Ectachrome transparency film. First is a scorpion fish, shot on a night dive: This second one is a pair of juvenile spotted drums (they don't develop the spots until maturity).

Yep... me too. I only seem to get flare ups in my big toes. I've taken the allopurinol daily for the last year and a half and I've cut way back on my alcohol usage. My last bout was quite brief, and not nearly as acute as when it first appeared about 6 years ago. I'm 70, and the doctor hasn't given me any warnings about liver or kidney issues.

Fun to read - now I may know a little of what NOT to worry about when I go shopping, although I mostly haven't a clue what you said.

Just stumbled across this thread today... for some reason it never caught my eye. Some good photos, some funny ones, all interesting. Thanks to all who have contributed. Since it's Veteran's Day, here is my first contribution to the thread:

Another point - most of the so called "deep cycle" batteries used in boats and camping trailers are still limited in how far they can be drawn down without causing damage and shortening the life of the battery. Most of them, group 24 to group 31, are only designed to be drawn no more than half way. Basically that means when power drops below 12 volts, you start doing damage. I've learned a lot of stuff I never knew since buying my camping trailer last year, and the battery thing is just one. Most camping trailers don't come with a strong enough battery to really do what is needed, and as a result, it's often the first thing to be replaced. Most trailer manufacturers cheap out on batteries and tires. I've been very careful with the group 24 that came with the trailer, but when it comes time to replace it, I'll probably go with 2 group 31 batteries in parallel to give more draw without having to fire up the generator. I also have a 100 watt solar panel that I set out as a trickle charger, but it's usefulness diminishes when the clouds roll in. I hope to get set up so that I can go for 4 or 5 days of minimal conservation without ever needing the generator.

I have that same abnormality. Must be a genetic defect.

I don't think you had to worry too much about your sandwich meat spoiling while ice fishing. I packed a lunch for work for some 40 odd years with never a fridge available. Never had an issue with spoilage, even with meat and mayo. The lunch didn't sit out in the sun, but it was never in an air conditioned building either. A lot of sandwich meats are tougher than you think. When I've taken something like that out in the canoe, I usually have it in a small cooler (6 pack sized) with an apple and a soda. I rarely leave the house without a container of water, and I have a jug just for days when I'm going to be away from civilization over lunch. Water is my drink of choice - I don't drink coffee or tea or iced tea. I limit myself to no more than one Diet Pepsi per day.

I still use the 3 piece spinning rod (BPS Ocean Master) and Shimano Spheros 5000 that I bought to use when we moved to the Bahamas. I didn't see any reason to dump a perfectly good combo just because I now fish freshwater. I've used it with weightless worms as small as 4" with no problems.

When I was a kid, we used go 2 and 3 in our 16 foot canoe. That one was a 50 year old Old Town mahogany canoe, originally canvas covered but later fiberglassed over the wood. It was just about the heaviest canoe I ever saw, but we never had to transport it anywhere as it lived at the lake in Wisconsin year round. We didn't do much casting when we went out with 3. That was usually just a crappie or blugill day. With 2 it was no problem. I don't see why a 16 foot Saranak wouldn't work.

Beautiful photo! This is my most exotic fishing photo. This is a catfish caught in the Lufupu River in Kafue National Park, Zambia, Africa (the Lufupu is a tributary of the Kafue that joins just above our camp). I had the chance to go fishing for one of the three days we were at the safari camp in Zambia, so I took it. We caught several African Pike, similar to pickerel, but the guide and I both hooked one of these big cats. He said it was actually quite unusual to even see one cat on a 6 hour outing, so 2 was very rare. it was an interesting day, finding fish while keeping away from the hippos that were numerous in the river. This is the cat that the guide caught... unfortunately I didn't get a photo of mine, although it was virtually identical. The second photo is the sunset over the Kafue River that night after we got back to camp.

I don't really have a lot of choice here. I have 2 ponds, with a 25 minute drive between them. Generally I try several things and if after a couple of hours not much is happening, I just bag it and wait for another day.

If the only way to catch bass was with $20 lures, I'd find something else to do. While it may mean that I miss out on some opportunities, I'll never pay that much for a single lure. It just isn't necessary. If we all took that tack, the prices would have to come down or those offering at those prices would not be in business very long. I'm not saying that this is the thing to do for anyone else, only that it's MY thing. I'm happy catching a few bass on my $2 sale bin cranks.

51 years ago (summer 1966), I spent that summer working for the Forest Service in The Swan River valley in Montana, south of Glacier National Park. A friend and I would usually take at least one of our days off and hike back into the Mission Mountains fly fishing. I was a pack a day smoker then, so on a 5 mile back country day hike to some pretty remote lakes, I always made sure I had enough smokes for the day. On one of those trips, I was fishing a big log jam at the outlet stream of the lake. Water was about 6 feet deep, and about 50°. I was crossing a log and managed to step in some slime on a wet part of the log. As I got back to dry wood, apparently some slime from the wet area was still on my shoe. My feet went out and I was dropping into the lake. Without even thinking, just reacting and I still don't understand it, I dropped my flyrod and grabbed the pack of cigarettes out of my shirt pocket. I held them over my head as I hit the water, high and dry. I swam to a safe dry spot and put them and my lighter on the logs, then swam back, dove down and recovered my flyrod, safe from nicotine withdrawals for yet another day. My buddy just about went into the water himself, he was laughing so hard. In the end, all that I did was get wet and scare a few fish.

More of my ignorance showing, but what does all the alphabet soup actually mean? What is the difference and why would one be better than another for a given application?

If anyone is interested, look up Fishing Planet. It's advertised as a simulator, at least as much as you can simulate fishing using a mouse and keyboard. On some of the lakes you can fish from a kayak, but most are just shore at the moment. It's free to play, but be warned that there are in game purchases which can be made, some for significant cash. Such outlays are not essential to get fishing, although you will start out by catching a lot of panfish with hook and bobber to climb the first levels and earn in game credits. Here are links to a couple of You Tube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dde27vcdSBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWJbyL5ZwhI Since I downloaded it this morning, I've caught Bluegill, green sunfish, redear sunfish, several species of shiner, spotted bass, Yellow perch, grass pickerel, chain pickerel, redfin pickerel, and one small northern pike. That is less than half of the fish species available, although not all are in all lakes and it costs game credits to travel around the country, so you usually have to stay at least 3 days in a location to save enough to move on. It has a multiplayer feature and fishing tournaments where you compete against other real people.

It may be that because of work or whatever, the friend only has limited opportunities to go fishing, so the two of them made an agreement that he would have the choice on those days when he can go. The boat owner may still have full choice of fishing companions most days.