Lures'n'Liberty

Seeing the winch discussion (and not being sure what you drive), I'll ad an idea. You could also attach a pulley to the wall and mount a winch to your truck. They make a not so intrusive looking receiver hitch mounts front and rear or multi vehicle applications worth checking out as well.

I so want to go on a political rant right now about import tariffs and Austrian Economics but it's against site rules .

Has anyone here taken the bank trash challenge? If you're ever looking for a challenge that will hone your skills, bring terminal tackle and a garbage bag. You can use your own hooks and lead, and the rule is to only use trash as bait. While any tournament rules can apply, each 30 gallon bag of turned in is counted as a 5 lb bass at weigh in.

It's both sad and resourceful that you can always start a fire with the garbage lying on the banks of the mighty Monongahela river, I know I have spent many a night along the banks burning the trash that washes up on shore.

I don't have a boat, nor do I generally carry for self defense while bass fishing, however when catfishing on the river at night, absolutely, and so do 90% of my friends. I've been out with 8 people and seen 8 handguns on their hips with a shotgun in everyone's truck except for Dave. Dave's got an AR-15 and he likes to show off. On another note, I do have a fishing gun. A few of my favorite places up near the camp have a few too many snakes for my liking, so I bring the Heritage Rough Rider .22 LR/Mag I bought years ago for farm varmints. There's also a little hollow where I always go shooting right off of a hole that always holds trout so it's a 2 birds one stone sort of thing.

Once upon a time, my father gave me some great advice. He said "Son, If you're gonna be dumb, you've got to be tough." While what I did before that isn't very important right now, it has proved to be quite useful in several situations.

I couldn't deal with that. I don't have a HOA where I live, but residents are still fought by the city on a lot of things like this. Last year I went through a huge ordeal when someone complained about my chickens and am really wondering what they'll do if they ever find out that the neatly landscaped little pond I have in my back yard serves double duty as a place to store live catfish bait!! My girlfriend thought she was getting Koi, she was a little surprised when I came home and threw in a bucket of bluegill.

I have a cheapo inflatable Intex Challenger K1, as mentioned earlier. While I would not take it too close to any brush, I will note that it is extremely easy to transport without the aid of a roof rack. My Kayak bag, complete with paddle, air pump, and PFD weighs about 10 lbs and it's easy to carry to a lot of places where most 'yaks will be a pain. While one piece rods can be a challenge, it's easy to pack this 'yak on my motorcycle, no roof rack necessary. It was also only $70, shipped. When I eventually upgrade to a fiberglass kayak, I am sure the challenger will still get some use. As far as tips on the inglatable go, I built a crate with PVC rod holders similar to the ones all over YouTube and glued foam pipe insulation around the bottom of it to prevent abrasion and I lash it down with paracord before inflating it so it's nice and tight. The crate also features rod leashed made from old phone cords and there's a big old speaker magnet glued to the side that always keeps my pliers (also on a phone cord) handy.

Looks like a nice neighborhood, HOA probably frowns upon boats in the driveway or carport construction good luck with the next boat.

A day on the water with Bill Dance would be just plain fun, and it wouldn't matter if we caught a single fish.

Trailer Dollies - Don't use them on even the slightest grade. Without brakes, your trailer can easily take off and run you over before rolling over the hill and getting all busted up. Don't ask how I know that. Traysliding - google it. As a teenager, we used to put fast food trays under the back tires of a front wheel drive car, lock the e-brake, and slide it around all over. I'd imagine these trays would work just as well as the cutting boards mentioned throughout the thread, if not better, at a significantly lower cost. Single Axle Conversion - This could be a big deal or it could be as simple as changing springs, depending on your trailer manufacturer. A little research could find you a leaf spring that bolts up from the front shackle to the rear, bypassing the center 2. If the trailer has brakes on one axle, you could probably re use it if it's rated to hold your boat. If I were in your predicament, I'd be comparing part numbers and diagrams of your trailer manufacturer's single axle model with the same weight capacity to see if this can be done with off the shelf parts or contacting the nearest authorized repair facility for your particular make of trailer before selling the boat.

I have a good friend that lives near some really popular stocked trout waters in a state park, most of which is pretty heavily wooded with branches overhanging 7-12 feet above the water. By the third week of trout season, the branches look like they're decorated for Christmas from all the people who trout fish with hangovers one weekend a year. I went lure hunting with him one day. We covered one side of the creek for about a mile pulling down branches with a homemade grappling hook tied to some paracord and scored over 150 various lures in one day. He said his best season was 1500 lures, mostly Joe Flies and other small spinners. While my friend lies a lot, I am inclined to believe him. He works in the ski and snow industry so he spends most summers hunting, fishing, and collecting unemployment. He takes the found lures to the flea market and it's a real boost to his income.

For cheap rods I've used JB Weld's faster drying epoxy (not the putty kind, the clear stuff that comes in the 2 part syringe) and sewing thread to put eyes back on. I have used this same method to put a little hook eye made from stainless wire near the handle on nearly every rod I own as well. I use the JB Weld brand epoxy because I always have some at work. I also use the box rod wrapping station as described above.

My girlfriend and a pencil, but she's not for sale!

The ugly stik may never break but it seems like the rod tip fairy will come and take the ceramic out of the eye eventually. I have 3 of them in the corner that need rod tips and only buy them at the flea market, which comes to another subject. You have to wade through a lot of junk but you'd be amazed at some of the used rods that you can find at the local pawn shop or flea market for 5-10 bucks. My last score was a bundle, I think I got 8 rods and reels. Most were total crap, but one had an SC/33 (this is a GC120 with a Sears brand name on it), a GC80 underspin, a vintage Zebco 33, 2 nice Ugly Stiks, one Cherrywood and one nice Fenwick ultralight. This was one big bundle, wrapped in duct tape. I couldn't see all the rod brands but at $15 for all, I got enough decent rods that I can absolutely outfit a friend who only has one rod and wants to fish more than one bait and the kids have a ball with the junkers. I put some 30+ year old mono (I think it's 15lb, no label though) and 1 1/2 oz sinker on a '70s vintage shakespeare combo from that collection. My girlfriend's 8 year old son now practices casting that rig from his treehouse into an old coffee can about 40 yards away and he's getting really good.

If you've got a hatchery up the road, give them a call and see if they offer a pond management program. They will come out and zap the pond with an electric shock in a few places and get a good count of any fish that are naturally in the pond whether you can catch them or not (this is a lot like fishing with M-80's, they flat to the top, stunned, and after a few minutes they swim away unharmed). They will also know the best ratio of bass-panfish-catfish for your particular area. Be wary of stocking yourself, as you want to avoid invasive species. That 40 lb flathead might seem like it will be fun to catch again but it will eat all your bass in the meantime, same with MANY other species.

I've always had a theory that directly compared the size of the stacks on a diesel pickup truck to the size of "other things" (don't want to go violating site rules, lets just call it a wee wee with emphasis on "wee"). I guess the same goes for power poles and will in turn hypothesize that this dude was angry because he's hung like a tic tac. As far as the phone thing goes, I have used that line several times in a previous life working as a repo man. If they said they'd call the cops while I was there with a legitimate repossession order, when the cops came I always left with the car. That said, I handed them the company phone, not my personal one. I never had one thrown and I did have the police find 56 stamp bags of heroin and a couple needles in a debtor's car after they called the police on their own phone. They went to jail and things got complicated, as the police had the car impounded and I didn't get to pick it up for 2 weeks until their preliminary hearing was over. As an employee of a big company, though, I was threatened writeups for refusing to do unsafe things a couple times. Each time I heard "I'm going to have to write you up," they heard "here, use my pen." Never once did they take the pen.

I get that, although I was looking specifically at an additional rider for my homeowner's insurance. The way it is now, my gear is only covered if it is damaged in conjunction with my home or stolen from home. I'll definitely talk to the agent soon, although I would love to hear what the rest of you are paying so I know whether or not he's going to give me the shaft.

The bass bug bit me pretty hard starting late last year and I've worked pretty hard to put together a reasonable beginner's collection of reliable and functional rod/reel combos and tackle. As far as the rods and reels go, I've bought some new, some used, and I've put some of the things my dad hasn't touched in years back into service. As for tackle, same deal, I've bought some nice things, some things from the bargain basement discount bin, and some really good stuff at the flea markets. I'd say I've built a tackle bag and rod locker that is well above and beyond what most novices have at their grasp and I've done it on a pretty low budget. I'll be upgrading all of this gear and then some, no doubt, and probably handing most of what I have now down to my girlfriend's sons as I do, but when I loaded up my 25 year old Chevrolet, I came to realize that my bass fishing equipment is worth slightly more than my pickup truck, and that doesn't even begin to take into consideration all of the trout and catfish gear that I had before. Do any of you insure your gear and if so, how? I'd really like to start thinking about this before upgrading my entry level equipment with higher end gear and since I saw a thread the other day about a pair of pliers that are also worth more than my truck, I'm hoping someone else has some input.

Got you there. We've got 50+ lb flatheads in my back yard and the river is about 1000' wide, so I'm usually casting a 3oz weighted slip rig with a bluegill as bait and trying to cast it a country mile. For one trip a year or building the cat/carp gear, those cheapo tiger combos don't suck. Make sure you bring as many rods as you can legally put in the water or reasonably handle the next time you make that 90 minute drive, you will get more bites that way.

King Kats are great bang for 30 bucks. 80% of my flathead chasing friends use them and the other 20% used to use them but have since upgraded to rods the rest of us can't afford (most of them have Mojo Cats). As far as the reels go, the ones that bought the salt striker combos mostly regret it and bought Okuma Avengers or Trios. I just picked up a couple of KastKing Sharky baitfeeders and would compare it to the higher end Trio or Emcast at half the price. Gotta ask, though, how can you have just one catfish rod? Here in PA, you can fish 3 rods at once, therefore I have 4 catfish rods, 3 to fish with and one in case something breaks (err, technically 7, but 3 are $19.97 off the shelf shakespeare Tiger combos from walmart bought for my girlfriend and used once, still spooled with factory 15# mono).

My backup cat/carp rod is also my heavy cover bass rod, a heavy action 10' telescopic spinning rig (If I had it to buy again it would be 8') with 40# braid that is pretty much always strapped to my backpack. I run 50# braid on 10' King Kat/Baitrunner combos for my primary catfish rigs and love it, but that's pretty irrelevant to this conversation.

Some TFO rods are mass produced, based similarly to a Gary Loomis design, some are designed by others, some of the higher end rods are all Gary. North Fork Outfitters relationship with Gary is similar and while I believe he has quite a bit of stock in the company, it is owned by Russian investors.

I see much great information, but no reminder that if you want a brand name, buy g Loomis but if you actually want a rod that Gary Loomis designed, you should look at Temple Fork Outfitters gear, which is the company that now employs Gary Loomis.

You aren't fishing 3 mile island, are you?