RPreeb

Actually lightning has been know to strike ground up to 10 miles from the storm itself. A lot depends on the path of least resistance for a discharge.

Never had a boat trailer, but I tow a 24' camping trailer, and I pay attention to the tire speed ratings. The low quality tires that came on the trailer are rated at 65 mph, so that's the fastest I go when towing, aside from a few very brief periods when I have to pass another vehicle.

I like this last sentence. They see the bait falling, and if they are feeding or just generally in attack mode, they want to get it before the next guy - beat out the competition, if any. I remember fishing topwater in Wisconsin when I was a kid (usually a frog or black mouse Hula Popper - loved fishing them along the edges of lily pads), and having a largemouth nail a lure virtually simultaneously with the bait landing on the water, as if they saw it coming and started the attack while it was still in the air. That's really hitting on the fall.

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40' (that reads 40 feet)? Wow... that must have been some fight!

I'm probably the last one to be giving anyone advice, but I fish a very small pond (about one acre) that's all weedy, and my best success is weightless plastic Texas rigged, twist tail and stick. I can just let it drop, then mostly just twitch it. If it starts feeling like I've picked up some weeds, I'll reel in and clean off the gunk, then cast it back out. Caught 3 in about 45 minutes that way.

Just fished. We mostly fished the same lake all the time, so we covered a lot of it, and when we found a spot away from shore, we triangulated it with shore landmarks. We had a good crappie hole and another bluegill spot when food fishing. We had a bunch of spots on our part of the lake that were tried and proven for finding bass. Now and then one of us would hook up with a walleye or northern when fishing for something else, but there was never a real sweet spot that we found for them. I still don't have any electronics, but then I don't have a boat or even a canoe at this point, so it's pretty much irrelevant.

I hate jet skis even when I'm not fishing, mostly because those who use them lack even the rudiments of common courtesy. When I fished the tide channels around Long Island, Bahamas, it was mostly the lemon sharks. You had to haul a hooked fish in fast or lose it to a shark. Not only the ones I caught in the 2-15 pound range either. This photo shows a wahoo (lying on the dock) that a friend (in the green shirt) hooked, with it's back third lost to a good sized tiger shark before they got it to the boat (lying on the dock). This was a day's catch on a run to the Diana Banks, near Crooked Island.

Typical river rocks won't functionally damage a modern polyethylene or high end laminate plastic boat without a lot of abuse. I paddled whitewater for several years, and I can assure you that I hit a ton of rocks, sometimes a lot harder than I planned, both with the boat and with my helmet. Neither ever failed me despite a lot of battle scars.

My real issue with kayaks is that even with the seating systems they have now, I still have to sit with my legs out in front, and that is very hard on my abused 70 year old back. In the canoe I can even bend them up under the seat if I want to, or drop down and kneel for awhile for a change of position. It's also easy to rig a trolling motor on a canoe to assist with the maneuvering. It would be pretty easy to build my own mount. I've paddled both canoe and kayak in windy conditions, and neither one is exactly fun when conditions are wrong. It's not bad if you can go straight upwind or down wind - even a crosswind is fairly easy as long as you have your load fairly centered - but quartering bow winds are the worst, unless it just happens to be right to balance the torque from paddling on the side away from the wind. I try to plan my route to minimize how much I have to fight the wind, using shore or islands as much as possible when I have to work into a breeze. The wind can actually assist you if you do it right. Everyone has his own preferences. I just wanted to point out some of the potential advantages of a canoe for anyone on the wall and trying to make an informed decision.

I grew up fishing from a canoe, never even considered "stabilizing" it. A properly designed canoe has both primary and secondary stability built into the hull, but they are still designed for someone sitting or kneeling, not standing. We didn't fish standing up (I still don't), so if that's a requirement for you, I don't have a good answer. I don't think I'd ever have one with outriggers. Part of the attraction for me is the ability to get into and out of tight places, and they would just get in the way.

How much time do you have in a canoe? A canoe is a more seaworthy than a typical fishing kayak. I grew up paddling a canoe in Wisconsin back in the 50's and 60's, plus two 8 day trips in the Boundary Waters/Quetico in '62 and '63. I've also paddled whitewater kayaks on rivers from Colorado to Idaho. A canoe is definitely more comfortable than a kayak, it has a much greater load capacity (13 foot canoe 800 lbs vs. 12 foot kayak 450 lbs, both about the same weight), tracks well, floats when capsized (I've never dumped in a canoe except on purpose), and can be paddled when full of water (I've done it). I was looking at kayaks, but decided to go with the canoe (now I have to convince my wife, but it's partly her idea because she wants to be able to come along at times ). I'm looking at an Old Town Discovery 133 ($999 retail). It will take a bit more to outfit it than a kayak that is already set up for fishing, but then I don't require all the fancy stuff - a seat back, maybe a couple of rod holders, a small anchor, and eventually a lower end trolling motor. Never had a motor before, yet my brother and I fished from our canoe almost daily growing up and found ways to defeat the wind.

Amen. We battle with the d**n moles all summer long.

I've never done it to myself, but reading this thread has made me even more determined than ever to be super careful. Just looking at some of those photos makes my queasy. When we were kids I was fishing for sunfish off our dock in Wisconsin when, unbeknownst to me, my cousin came out on the dock behind me just as I was winding up to cast. I was fishing with bobber and worms, and I hooked him in the corner of the mouth just as if he was a fish. I think he was almost more bothered by the worm squirming around in his mouth than he was by the pain. My aunt took him to the doctor to have it removed. He was about 10 and I was 12 at the time.

6" Stik-O pack of 16 currently on sale for $4.63 each. A bit more than a dollar off the regular price.

They eat crayfish, small pan fish, almost anything swimming on the surface that's small enough to look like food. But the first thing I ever caught a bass on was just a plain old earthworm, using a cane pole with hook, sinker and bobber. I've recently come around to the soft plastic side of bass fishing. I went out a couple of evenings ago to a tiny pond (about 3/4 acre) a half mile from my house, fishing weightless with some Berkley Powerbaits (in pumpkinseed, the modern "earthworm") and in an hour I had released 4 and missed strikes on a half dozen more. It was a blast! And this from someone who, until this year, hadn't fished for bass since my family moved away from the Minnesota-Wisconsin area in 1963.

I've never owned a boat, so I've never been in control (I've only been out a couple of times in my life on a boat with a trolling motor, so position and control, front and rear, were usually a bit vague). I've never fished competitively aside from bragging rights with my buddy, and I've never thought it to be a good idea to cross lines, or even come close. Regardless of where I might be in the boat, I generally try to fish where the other guy ain't. Seems to keep the peace. In years past, I've fished with 2 and 3 in a canoe, working along a Wisconsin shoreline and the only issues came when a hooked fish got us crossed up before the other guy could reel in. As in so many things, a little common sense goes a long way.

No real family history for fishing. I'm certainly not the first in my family to try angling, but none had the passion to photograph their catches. It was just something they did when it was opportune, or when they wanted fish for dinner, but not something to go out of the way for. I don't have the bug that most of the forum members here at Bass Resource have, but I make an effort to get out when I can, even though it usually means at least a 30 mile drive. Kudos for all of you who have a fishing family and learned while holding on to your dad's belt. I certainly wish that I had had that advantage. Happy Father's Day to all of those family and fishing oriented Dads out there.

Good point. Hopefully a badger or raccoon or coyote - we have all three around town here - will get it before it's too far gone. Most of my evening fishing is in a very small pond 4 blocks from home. Not much going on with it, but I get to practice new techniques there, and now and then I actually hook one.

Or maybe 8 years?

This is certainly an issue here in Colorado. In most of the state water, size limit for largemouth is 15", but finding one that size can be a challenge (Colorado isn't exactly a major bass fishery ). I fish catch and release, but it puts the fisherman in an ethical quandary when he knows that the hook has killed the fish, yet he can't risk keeping it because of the large fine imposed for having an undersized fish in his possession.

I remember days when we were kids, 4 of us fishing for crappies with minnows, just hook and sinker straight off the side of the boat. No 2 lines were more than 8 feet apart, yet it always seemed like at least one of us couldn't get bit no matter what. Seems to be a "Law of Fishing" that no matter how good they are biting, there is always someone who gets skunked.

I don't tow a boat, but I do have a 24 ft camping trailer with tandem axles. The OEM tires say 50 psi cold and 65 mph max, so that's what I do. When the time comes to replace the OEM tires, I'll upgrade to a better load range so I can at least hit 70 when towing, but for now I stay with 65. It's risky enough with the cheap tires that they put on new camping trailers.

I grew up in the '50s fishing and swimming from a 40+ year old Old Town mahogany canoe that my grandmother bought when she was 20. I don't think we even owned a PFD. Learned at a very young age to just stay with the unsinkable canoe. I've been out on boats often with the PFD's stashed in a locker. That was probably more risky than the canoe, as there was more likelihood of an accident involving injury and not being able to find the PFD's when needed... and the boat doesn't float like a swamped canoe does. I rafted and kayaked whitewater, mostly in Colorado, for several years and wouldn't have been caught dead without my PFD. When I buy my fishing kayak this summer, I'll certain have a PFD, but my decision on when to wear it will depend on the circumstances of the outing - comfort balanced against risk based on where I'm paddling.

I've always just worn sneakers, usually an old pair so I don't care if they get trashed. Even back in the '60s fly fishing in Montana, I couldn't afford waders (and I didn't want the hassle or the depth limitation - were a few times when I was in water up to my neck when fighting a big trout), so I waded snowmelt and glacial melt streams in sneakers. It only hurt for a little while until my feet got numb, then some prickling as they warmed up again.