Johnbt

"You guys know a gym membership is like $10 a month right? " Can't afford it. I ordered my 4th Conquest this week, an 844 to go with the 3 MH's. And another Metanium since I had the guy on the line with my credit card info already. They make a fairly light extremely well balanced rig. And I got married this past November. Retirement is exciting and expensive.

Sometimes it's just easier to chuck one way far back into the weeds than to slowly tear up the plant life and repeatedly foul the trolling motor getting the boat closer. A big rod and braid can help with the fish as well as getting your snagged lures back.

"Monofilament line takes a set deforming under pressure and weakens the line, you should change it often and at 1 cent a yard no excuses." I bought 6000 yards of Trilene XL from Dick's when they sold 1000-yard spools for $5.50. And it was this year's line. What's that, a half a cent a yard? I love XL too. I love good braid more and it does last decades.

I don't catch as many fish as I did when I smoked. Set the rod down, fish out the pack of smokes, find the lighter, light one, put the lighter away, stretch, look around, smoke some, pick up the rod. Worked in saltwater, too. I've had bass pick up a spinnerbait off the bottom and hook themselves. It was probably the trailer they were after. It's just a jig with moving parts.

Looks like they're shipping. This is from Michigan, not Virginia. I just happened to see it while I was shopping.

"Interesting boat with a deck pedistal seat mount and no other seats. Several rod holder brackets and what appears to be a bare place in the stern for a seat?" Looks to me like it was rigged for waterfowl with brackets around the edge to attach the blinds, etc. I helped a buddy camo paint a boat once upon a time and cover it up with burlap, reeds and cedar limbs so we could sit on one side and then both stand up in the open floor and shoot through the top of the blind. Nothing fancy, just homemade. It was still a lot easier than sinking cedar trunks in the river bottom, nailing boards to connect them and then using salvaged dock deck sections for the floor. And then brushing it up with cedar. I was younger then. A lot younger. And the tidal ice would eventually uproot the whole thing and take it downstream to the Chesapeake. The good old days.

"should at least have come with some line on it." That'll happen when hooks come with fish on them.

'16 4Runner Trail Premium & a '14 1648 Grizzly. What I really want some days... (taken near Cape Hatteras.)

I admit the Chesapeake Bay has some nice bass, but why limited yourself to largemouth when there's something much tastier - and larger - to chase... "The recreational record for Chesapeake Bay striped bass is 67 pounds, 8 ounces. The largest recorded striped bass was a 125 pound female caught on the North Carolina coast in 1891." https://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/Pages/Fish-Facts.aspx?fishname=Striped%20Bass

Okay, they managed to put Virginia in the Northeast. The census bureau only includes 9 states in the northeast and Maryland and Virginia aren't included. But anyway, I clicked through the list of the region's best 25 and what do I find in addition to the Potomac River. Jeez, the entire upper Chesapeake Bay. That's no lake either. 2019 List Of Bassmaster Magazine’s 100 Best Bass Lakes RANK FISHERY STATE Top 10 1 St. Lawrence River New York 2 Lake Guntersville Alabama 3 Sam Rayburn Reservoir Texas 4 Clear Lake California 5 Lake Fork Texas 6 Chickamauga Lake Tennessee 7 New Melones Lake California 8 Lake St. Clair Michigan 9 Santee Cooper Lakes South Carolina 10 Lake Erie New York Northeast 1 St. Lawrence River New York 2 Lake St. Clair Michigan 3 Lake Erie New York 4 Lake Erie Ohio 5 Burt/Mullett lakes Michigan 6 Lake Champlain New York/Vermont 7 Bays de Noc Michigan 8 Saginaw Bay Michigan 9 Lake Charlevoix Michigan 10 Grand Traverse Bay Michigan 11 Potomac River West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland 12 Oneida Lake New York 13 Cayuga Lake New York 14 Presque Isle Bay Pennsylvania 15 Upper Chesapeake Bay Maryland 16 Smith Mountain Lake Virginia 17 Webber Pond Maine 18 Green River Lake Kentucky 19 Lake Cumberland Kentucky 20 China Lake Maine 21 Great Pond Maine 22 Candlewood Lake Connecticut 23 Chautauqua Lake New York 24 Lake Winnipesaukee New Hampshire 25 Kentucky Lake Kentucky/Tennessee Western 1 Clear Lake California 2 New Melones Lake California 3 Lake Perris California 4 Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta California 5 Diamond Valley Lake California 6 Don Pedro Reservoir California 7 Lake Berryessa California 8 Lake Coeur d’Alene Idaho 9 Shasta Lake California 10 Lake Havasu Arizona/California 11 Roosevelt Lake Arizona 12 Lower Colorado River Arizona/California 13 Alamo Lake Arizona 14 Potholes Reservoir Washington 15 Lake Washington Washington 16 Brownlee Reservoir Idaho/Oregon 17 Sand Hollow Reservoir Utah 18 Elephant Butte Reservoir New Mexico 19 Lake Mohave Nevada/Arizona 20 C.J. Strike Reservoir Idaho 21 Siltcoos Lake Oregon 22 Owyhee Reservoir Oregon 23 Lake Pleasant Arizona 24 Lake Mead Nevada/Arizona 25 Columbia River Oregon/Washington Central 1 Sam Rayburn Reservoir Texas 2 Lake Fork Texas 3 Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin 4 Toledo Bend Texas/Louisiana 5 Mille Lacs Lake Minnesota 6 Lake Falcon Texas 7 Lake Conroe Texas 8 Lake Minnentonka Minnesota 9 Caddo Lake Texas/Louisiana 10 Table Rock Lake Missouri 11 Lake Lyndon B. Johnson Texas 12 Millwood Lake Arkansas 13 Caney Creek Reservoir Louisiana 14 Lake Dardanelle Arkansas 15 Lake Ray Roberts Texas 16 Lake Texoma Texas/Oklahoma 17 Lake Ouachita Arkansas 18 Lake of the Ozarks Missouri 19 Lake O’ the Pines Texas 20 Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees Oklahoma 21 Lake Columbia Arkansas 22 Bull Shoals Lake Arkansas 23 Lake Wanahoo Nebraska 24 La Cygne Reservoir Kansas 25 Newton Lake Illinois Southeast 1 Lake Guntersville Alabama 2 Chickamauga Lake Tennessee 3 Santee Cooper Lakes South Carolina 4 St. Johns River Florida 5 Lake Seminole Florida/Georgia 6 Pickwick Lake Alabama/Mississippi/Tennessee 7 Jordan Lake North Carolina 8 Rodman Reservoir Florida 9 Lake Murray South Carolina 10 Falls Lake North Carolina 11 Lake Tohopekaliga Florida 12 Shearon Harris North Carolina 13 Lake Eufalua Alabama 14 Lake Istokpoga Florida 15 Watts Bar Reservoir Tennessee 16 Stick Marsh/Farm 13 Florida 17 Lake Wateree South Carolina 18 Lake Okeechobee Florida 19 Wheeler Lake Alabama 20 Cherokee Lake Tennessee 21 Clarks Hill Lake Georgia/South Carolina 22 Lake Jordan Alabama 23 Fellsmere Reservoir Florida 24 Roanoke River North Carolina 25 Lake Lanier Georgia

Top 100 lakes and the first one is a river? Color me confused.

Only $9.49 at Harbor Freight. Yeah, it's cheap, but handy. www.harborfreight.com/100-pc-security-bit-set-with-case-68457.html Slotted : 3, 4, 4.5, 5 (2), 5.5, 6 (2), 6.5, 7, & 8mmPhillips: #0, #1 (2), #2 (5), #3 Pozi: #0, #1, #2 (5), #3 Square: S0, S1, S2, S3 Star: T8, T10 (2), T15 (2), T20 (2),T25, T27, T30, T40, T45Hex (19 pcs, 2 pc each): 1.5mm, 2mm, 2.5mm, 3mm (x3), 4mm, 5mm, 5.5mm, 6mm, 8mm Slotted with center hole (4 pcs): 4mm, 6mm, 8mm, 10mm Star with center hole (9 pcs): T8, T10, T15, T20, T25, T27, T30, T35, T40 Hex with center hole (6 pcs): 2mm, 2.5mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm Butterfly (3 pcs): #1, #2, #3 Tri-wing (4 pcs): #1, #2, #3, #4 Windmill (3 pcs): 6, 8, 10 M-type (3 pcs): M5, M6, M8 60mm magnetic bit holder 1/4 in. x 50mm socket adapter 1/4 in. x 25mm socket adapter 1/4 in. x 25mm coupler Y-shape hook driver You'll need a handle if you don't have one or two already.

"Pittsburgh" = East Penn/Deka I thought I'd toss this in here for the heck of it. Their 500+ acre manufacturing facility. I have two of their Duracell Ultras from Batteries+ and so far they're great - every bit as good as the Everstart Maxx batteries were when they were new. You get 10% off if you buy online and pick up at the store. I used 3 of the $99 Walmart Maxx batteries for 5 years before I replaced them with the Dekas. Otoh, 2 of 3 still hold a 90% charge. One of them is in the back of the boat to power the fishfinder, lights, bilge pump and 35# trolling motor that's mostly used to back up to retrieve snagged lures. The other one is sitting in the garage as a spare since I had 2 old car batteries to trade in for the core charge. They gave me the deep cycle price on trade in for some reason. The Dekas power a MK Maxxum 70 on my carpeted 1648 Grizzly.

"The 10.5" Ole Monster" I had a black one on a 3/0 hook last week for about 5 minutes and landed a 7-inch largemouth. How he found it that fast in the heavily stained and muddy water in the middle of a mid-morning wind storm is my second question. The first question is where did I put the bag of black 12"?

"I don't know of a single trophy bass angler who leaves their sonar units on while targeting giant bass" I keep suggesting this to my largemouth bass mentor. "Let's try fishing with less depthfinder and less trolling motor." We catch a good number of large fish and he reminds me of the one recent year he caught over 50 bass from 8 pounds to 11.5. And all in Virginia. After he repeats that I always ask, "But what if we're chasing the big ones away?"

There are other brands that also rely on clear zinc oxide as the primary ingredient. It isn't white like the old lifeguard's nose paste because they use some variety of nanoparticles.

Age 5. Well, maybe 4 because the trip I remember was the summer of 1955 before school started. Okay, we'll call it age 5 because the trip would have been, at the very earliest, just two weeks before my birthday and the first day of school. Nightcrawlers, catfish, etc. Cleaned them and cooked them over a fire and I was hooked.

I've never run into a kayak or even used one for that matter. Maybe the guy thought that bump in the water was a barely submerged floating log or soggy piling or board off a dock or something. I know I would have been curious about what I'd hit and what the damage was. I know what a 32' Trojan flybridge sounds like when it hits a big floater head on and holes the hull. It's not pretty.

This is NOT my fish. I recently posted a couple of pics of 22" and 23" fish that I called skinny because they were only 5 and 6 pounds. To claim a Virginia citation/trophy largemouth a fish must be 8 pounds or 22". In the good old days it was 8 pounds or nothing. Although I'm leaving for Ocracoke Island NC to do a little surf fishing and hang out with my wife and friends, I still have bass fishing on my mind. Will the bullfrogs be huge when I get back? Will the dinks stop slapping my frog and annoying me? Will the copper/chartreuse spinnerbaits still work? Who knows. My buddy and bass mentor caught this one last summer on a frog and I've been thinking about it while I've been landing those skinny fish... Will he catch it again before I get back? How big is it this year? Is its momma even bigger? Stay tuned. 10 pounds, 26 inches, and a 7-inch frog leg sticking up in its throat. How many frogs did it eat before it ate the fake frog?

"I find 50lb braid with a 2 ounce weight (...and accurate cast) can take care of many jet skies" I have an 11-foot spinning rod you can borrow. It will toss an 8-ounce pyramid sinker a good ways with braid if you'd like to try for bigger game. I'll be back from Ocracoke Island in a week or two.

"Many will bite if it's thrown on their head, but many also won't." Sometimes you have to hit them in the head 3 or 4 times to make them mad enough to bite back. Try a big, ugly, gaudy lure - chartreuse spinnerbait maybe with a chartreuse silver flake trailer - and throw it at them hard few times. I was amazed when I first realized how often the guy in the back of the boat could catch a big bass on the 5th or 6th cast to the same spot as the driver up front was giving up and moving on. You just never know. And always fish it all the way back to the boat.

"I use mostly 6's - feels very fast compared to the old Langley Lurecast's and Shakespeare tournament no level wind reels I started out with." That's the truth. I still have the two I started with back in the late '50s, early '60s.

https://stcroixrods.com/pages/service-warranty Under Rod Repair Parts. You have to call them with your serial number so they can match the right upper half. "To get you back to fishing as soon as possible and avoid having to package and ship your damaged multi-piece rod, we now have pre-built top sections for many of our models. These are available in our on-line store for with free shipping within the USA and Canada. To find the right tip section, please call 800-826-7042 and speak with one of our Customer Guides. To order your pre-built top section, you will need to know the model number and serial number of your rod. See serial number information on main Service & Warranty page. Pre-built top sections are not available for rods built prior to 2001."

Uh, everything I own is a 6.x. I hook so many bass halfway back to the boat or almost under the boat that I'm never in a hurry to crank it in and cast again. Tuesday morning around 10 I had a 1.5-pounder bite the spinnerbait 10 feet from the boat and there was another one the same size trying to take the bait from him right up until the moment I pulled him out of the water.

I had 3 Group 29 Everstart Maxx batteries from Walmart - the $99 ones - and they lasted 4 years. Actually they were still doing pretty well and holding 90% of a charge when I got tired of them. I don't know if the current ones are as well made, but everyone I know used the older ones and liked them. I kept two - one for the rear trolling motor(used for backing up to retrieve snagged lures) and accessories, and one for the heck of it. I traded an Everstart and an old car battery in for 2 Duracell Ultra Group 31 batteries at Batteries Plus. As best I can tell, they're made by Deka and I like them even better than the Everstarts when they were new. www.batteriesplus.com/battery/marine-and-boat/deep-cycle/bci-group-31m/sli31mdc If you buy online and pick up at the store you save 10%. There's an additional $10 per battery rebate. That gets them down to about $100 each. I was told months ago that Sam's Club carried Duracell deep cycles, too. And fwiw, I have a Merc 9.9 for the reservoirs around here, but 95% of the time I'm all electric, so my batteries get a lot of exercise.