RPreeb

We made our own judgement as to what was a keeper and what wasn't. I feel that we made good decisions, and like David above, we also tossed trash fish out for the scavengers. Bag and size limits, where they existed at all, were quite liberal. We did fish for the table, but we didn't over fish - didn't take what we couldn't eat. Some people did though, and as population increased, it meant more fishermen on the water, and that forced the fish & game commission to start regulating limits. Now, like most here, I practice catch and release, so the limits don't have much impact on me. Although if I ever figure it out and hook into a decent walleye, it might just become fish 'n chips. That would be a rare exception.

I've hooked up my trailer battery when it's down to 50% (11.9v), which is the farthest it's ever supposed to be drained, and it charges up fully without any attention.

Up to you, but the Battery Tender (that's the brand) Plus is the most often recommended unit on the 3 RV forums I frequent. RV's use a wide variety of battery configurations, but all are deep cycle systems. It has been very effective for me.

I was at the Cabela's headquarters store in Sidney Nebraska yesterday. Didn't see any obvious changes from previous visits.

A Battery Tender is what you should have. See this link to Amazon: Battery Tender This is what I use to keep my deep cycle camper battery healthy during the winter and between camping trips.

When I was a kid in the 50's, we had a job sheet with the pay scale for each chore. My brother and I didn't get a straight allowance. We got 10¢ for washing the dinner dishes, 5¢ for drying, 25¢ for mowing each half of the lawn, etc. If we wanted more than that (and we usually did) we had the opportunity to cruise the ditches along the roads and collect glass pop bottles to return for the deposit. Regular bottles were 3¢ and the larger (quart maybe?) were worth a nickel. If we hadn't done it for a week or so, that could be the equivalent of a gold mine for us - might make a buck or two in a couple of hours. When the soft drink companies quit refilling glass bottles, it dried up a cash source for kids and it greatly exacerbated the litter problem along the highways. Back then most lures were $1 or less, so that, plus the willingness to go to great lengths to recover any that got hung up, was really all we needed to keep us in tackle.

I'm assuming that he means Facebook.

Mostly under 4# largemouth - maybe some smallmouth even smaller (Colorado isn't exactly a bass angler's Mecca ). Most of the local lakes also have walleye that will hit some bass lures, but that would be more of an accident. Just getting back into it, I want to focus on relearning a little about bass fishing. I use everything from poppers to cranks to plastics. No spinnerbaits yet - I had to draw a line somewhere. I'll try just about anything to get a bite. Anyway, the reel is mounted on a 6' medium Ugly Stik for the time being. Like I said above, I'm a novice with a baitcaster, so if I say something that sounds really stupid, correct me, but be gentle. The reason I limited my possibilities is just because I have those 3 spools just sitting around waiting to be used for something. I was leaning toward the 30# Power Pro, but then I thought maybe it made more sense to get some expert advice before I make a dumb mistake. If none of those lines listed in the first post is really appropriate, then I'll listen to suggestions. If it matters, my other rig is a 7' medium spinning rod with a Shimano Spheros 5000 series saltwater reel loaded with 10# Trilene.

I just bought a Tatula CV100XS 8.1 and I have 3 options for loading it. Consider me a 70 year old rank beginner with a baitcaster. I have Sufix ProMix 8#; SpiderWire Ultimate mono 12#; and PowerPro braid 30#. Looking for suggestions and the reasons behind them so I might learn some science from the exercise. Thanks for any assistance.

Total just an hour and a half north of us so we did the drive. We were on a friend's ranch in west central Nebraska, dead in the center of the totality. I took a bunch of photos of the climax, then we had a fried chicken and watermelon picnic as the light came back. My photo:

Fishing in the Bahamas, I caught both a mutton snapper and a jack together on a single popper. Even the local friend I was fishing with had never seen that before.

I used 30# (8# diameter) Power Pro on a Shimano Spheros 5000 spinning reel when we lived in the Bahamas, fishing for snapper, grouper, jacks, and the occasional barracuda. After we moved back to Colorado, I reloaded it with 10# Berkely Trilene. I'm heading up to Cabelas (Sidney NE) on Tuesday to shop for a learning friendly baitcaster, and I'll likely load that with the 30# Power Pro because I have the remains of a 3000 yard spool that needs using. That spool was bought in the US and taken to the Bahamas in my luggage with all of my other fishing gear, because availability of fishing gear in any variety is limited in the Bahamas in general, and nonexistent on the Out island where we lived (I used to shop for and bring back gear and baits for local fishermen on most of my trips to the States). I doubt that I'll generally need 30# in my current life, but since I have it, I'm going to use it. It should last until I"m too old to fish, and I'll dispose of what's left when that time comes.

I'm not that embarrassed to admit that I have an Ugly Stik baitcaster. It was inexpensive, and I figure that there has to be something to them to have been a best seller since the mid 70's. Since I'm a "general purpose" angler, it suits me just fine along side my BPS MH 3 piece 7' spinning rod. These 2 rods are what I'll be going out with my in my canoe. I don't say that this is right for anyone else, but it's fine for what I do.

This^^ When I was a kid, the hardest thing about fishing was being able to afford to buy any decent lures. If I lost a Hula Popper, it was a couple of weeks of chores to save a buck to replace it. If anyone offered me any sort of tackle, I'd jump on it.

I can't say that I actually remember anything about the first time (it was 60 odd years ago), aside from the fact that it would have been with a 10 foot bamboo "cane" pole with a length of line the same length rigged with bobber, splitshot, and hook with worm impaled on it. I'd have been after any of the several species of sunfish (bluegill, punkinseed, sunfish) that inhabited Balsam Lake (WI). I'd have been fishing from the end of the dock, and catching a few rock bass, perch and bullheads along with the sunnies. That's pretty much how all the kids I knew started out.

As far as natural size is concerned, I remember seeing all different sizes mixed together when I was growing up in Wisconsin. I recall one time we turned over an old rowboat that was upside down along the shore, and under it were about 30-40 crawdads, all different sizes from about 1½" to near 5". Those we found in the stomachs of bass we ate were usually on the smaller end of the scale. Same was true with the ones I saw while teaching scuba classes in the gravel pits in SW Denver metro area - various sizes seemed to be mixed randomly. So I figure bass just pick the size they prefer from the smorgasbord. I don't have any comment on color. The ones I saw while diving were about 20 feet deep in murky water, so color was a bit uncertain - they all looked mostly gray-green in that water.

That last sentence mostly summarizes my philosophy. I want to just be able to put my canoe in the water, toss in some tackle, a rod or 2, a cooler and PFD and head out. 5 minutes from arrival to paddling away. Would I enjoy using electronic assistance? Sure, but the cost is hard to swallow (even harder for my wife to swallow). I could get a cheap Garmin for peanuts, but I know myself too well. I'd want to see how much more I could do with something better, and onward and upward, all the way to divorce court. And then I'd have to hassle with securing a battery in the canoe and keeping it charged up. I have enough difficulty keeping up with my golf GPS. Half the time it's either in my bag dead, or fully charged at home as I arrive at the golf course. As others have mentioned, I am very grateful for the wealth of advice and information that is provided here by so many avid tournament anglers, and I enjoy watching some of it on TV, but I get my competition on the golf course, so I'll probably just keep on fishing for fun.

Dry fly fishing for trout on some beaver ponds about 20 miles north of Seeley Lake in Montana I caught a few frogs. Had to work hard not to catch gulls when fishing topwater in the Bahamas.

Does anyone here fish just for the fun of it? No tournaments, with no particular interest in slogging hard every time out to catch more than the next guy? Just hoping to catch a few fish, enjoy the time out on the water, and be happy that we have the privilege of living when and where such days are possible. I don’t own a boat – I’m stuck on the shore currently, but soon to have a canoe which will be my only access to the water. I’ve had one before as an adult, and I learned to fish growing up in Wisconsin fishing from a 50 year old Old Town mahogany canoe that my grandmother bought when she was a young woman. I had friends who had small boats with 5-10 hp motors, and they were fine for a change, but we seemed to have more fun when we took the canoe out on the lake. When the fish were being finicky, it was great for just exploring the swampy coves, paddling out to one of several islands to try new territory, catching frogs and turtles – it was even our swimming platform. Just doing the sort of stuff that boys did growing up in the 50’s and early 60’s. Back then nobody had ever heard of a fish finder – no side scanning sonar. Your rod and lure were your fish finder. There was a spot out in the middle of our part of the lake called sunken island. It was a shallow – about 6 feet deep – weed bed that we fished mostly for crappie, but also caught some nice bluegills, an occasional walleye, and even a decent northern one time. Never caught a bass out there. To find it you triangulated from 2 spots on shore and 1 cabin out on an island, no GPS waypoint. Most of the bass we caught were found by cruising the shore, casting under overhanging trees, fishing the edges of pads in the coves. We never cast out into the pads, because we could no way afford to break off a lure down in those rubbery stems. Never caught a lunker, just had fun times with one to three pounders caught most often on topwaters - my favorite was a Hula Popper. Anyway, I’ve always been puzzled by the relatively foreign (to me) mindset of the competition angler. I have never viewed fishing from that point of view. For me, it’s not hurry and rush and drag in all the fish I can catch in 6 hours (or whatever the time limit may be). I take at most 2 rods, neither is specialized for anything - one is actually a 3 piece BPS travel spinning rod that I bought for fishing the tidal channels when we lived in the Bahamas. I may say that I’m going fishing, but really I’m out to relax and enjoy the day. If the fish don’t cooperate, it’s no big deal. I’ll paddle around and explore like I did when I was a kid. I love taking my canoe back where the boats can’t go – sneaking up on wildlife, just getting away from the hurry out in the main lake. I just wondered if anyone else takes the same sort of approach as I do. I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers, but it seems like a lot of what I read here is about guys getting a bit overanxious when the fish don’t bite for a while, and coming here and trying to find that special secret bait or rod or technique. I’ve learned a lot since joining Bass Resource, but this is the one thing that sort of goes right past me. As I see it, sometimes I catch fish, other times I just go fishing, but it’s all good for me simply being there. Maybe I’ve just gotten too old.

If it's sunny or cloudy-bright, it's prescription polarized sunglasses. If it's overcast with flat light, then I'll be wearing my regular bifocals. I try to avoid pulling on a lure in such a way that it would snap back at my head. No guarantee, I feel like I keep the risk of catastrophic injury minimized.

This^^ Metal valve stems and TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitor System) sensors on each tire. Receiver in the tow vehicle. Lets you know that the pressure is dropping most of the time before a catastrophic blowout. It can be set to alarm when the pressure drops to a certain point.

Most 12 foot kayaks that I've looked at will take about 450 lbs. I'm about 300 lbs too, also with a bad back from whitewater kayaking 35 years ago, so I'm actually planning on getting a 13 foot Old Town Discovery 133 canoe so that I'll have a little more room to stretch out in. Capacity of the canoe is 800 lbs, dry weight is just 78 lbs. That way, I can take my wife out in it when she wants to go, but it's plenty small enough for solo too. As far as transporting, you can do a lot with a little ingenuity. When I was paddling whitewater, I started out with a '78 Corolla station wagon, and have piled as many as 6 kayaks on top. You should be able to work out one canoe or kayak.

Yep. I've seen a 5 pound brown trout landed on a #28 mosquito dry fly. Trout do tend to feed a bit differently from bass though.

Very dominant right handed man. I cast a baitcaster with the right hand, and it just feels natural to reel with the right too. I don't find that switching hands is really that big a deal. However, since I've spent far more time with spinning gear, for that I feel awkward even pantomiming a right hand reel. I open the bail, cast with both hands (but with my right hand on the rod with my fingers straddling the reel shank in my normal retrieve position), close the bail with my left hand, then retrieve with the left. I've landed 10+ pound jacks and snappers, as well as a few nice sized barracudas on spinning gear. My Shimano Spheros spinning reel can be switched from left to right in a few seconds, but I've never felt any desire to try it right handed.

I guess that in my limited experience, I have to say that it depends. Years back, I fished areas both from shore and from boats, and it "seemed" to me that I got noticeably more success when retrieving a lure away from shore toward the boat than I ever did fishing from shore. Same areas, same lures, different success rate. Even in an area where I waded out to waist deep water then cast back toward or parallel to the shore, I had better luck that just casting while standing on shore. This was the Wisconsin lake where I spent my first 17 summers, so I knew the shoreline in our bay so well that I could fish it blind. When I lived in Montana, I know for a fact that trout would take a Joe Hopper fly that landed near shore, while ignoring one that was cast from shore to a hole out in mid stream. I remember one day (late 1960's) when two of us were fishing from shore on the upper Missouri River west of Great Falls and had 3 small 13-14 inch rainbows in about an 8 hour outing. We had walked at least 2 miles of river bank that day with minimal success. As we were packing up the car, a couple of guys who had drift fished the same stretch of water (they did about a mile more than we did) in a raft pulled in to unload, and showed a stringer the guy could barely lift out of the water. All of us were fly fishing with hopper imitations. All this means only that I've had better success from a boat even when fishing near shore. I don't know that it would translate to any better luck for you in your hypothetical situation.