Johnbt

Sure, or in porous or cracked cork, or under the guide wrapping, or in the metal threads. I'm not saying it will happen, but the eternal dampness in this neighborhood is a concern. Every time one of the garage doors opens after it's been cold for a few days condensation forms on the floor and quite a few other places up higher. Due to the high water table ( she has a 20-foot well that's never run dry in 24 years) and heavy clay soil, the garage required an exceptionally deep concrete foundation that holds the cold. It's great during the summer, especially stretched out on the floor under the riding mower or boat trailer. "Yes dear, I'm working, can't you see?" After some of our frequent thunderstorms I've been known to throw duck decoys into the big puddles that form in the front and back yards. Sometimes they don't drain for a couple of days. I even fooled the farmer next door the first time the driveway flooded enough to float a few decoys.

I've been swimming since I was a little kid in the '50s. "Try swimming with your cloths on including shoes" Did it in the Boy Scouts. You have to shuck the shoes, lose the pants, and then tie the legs in knots to make water wings.

I am more concerned with putting a wet rod in the garage and getting some small damage here and there when the ice swells. I'd really worry about putting up a wet reel. My girlfriend's 3-car garage isn't attached to the house and with the temps having gone as low as -2 recently I don't want to find out if it's safe or not. Three rod racks don't take up that much floor space in the house. (Okay, the big surf rods do take up some space, but what can I say. They delicate tools. ) And being quite close to the James River there's the daily dose of heavy dew to contend with. Pretty, but it even makes mowing difficult in the middle of the summer. There are some plastic 5-gallon jugs of water in the garage for flushing the toilet when the power goes off and the well isn't working. They froze solid. Okay, time to get ready to take her to her 7:45 appt with the dental surgeon for a little gum work.

Which Spiderwire braid? www.spiderwire.com/spiderwire-line-superline I've been using Invisi-braid for years - since my buddy bought a jumbo, king-sized spool of 10-pound/2#diameter many years ago for 75% off. It actually breaks at 20 to 22 pounds and lasts for years on the reel. PP is fine too, but the Invisi-braid works well and it's free. Heck, I still like Trilene XL and the old Triple Fish camo mono too. The fish don't seem to care.

My Varilux progressive lenses are polarized. They came out with it the end of last summer. Dreadfully expensive lenses, but I need them if I don't want heavy, Coke-bottle bottom thick eyeglasses. I believe they can polarize any kind of lens you like. Ask your local glasses maker.

Another vendor called me when I ordered 2 expensive reels with shipping to my girlfriend's house. Told me to add her address to my Visa account at my bank. Oh great, a hassle. So I logged in to my Suntrust account, clicked on my Visa account and lo and behold there was a place to add a second shipping address. Now when I use the Visa card for ebay, amazon, chewy.com, etc. I'm automatically given the shipping option of my house or her house. Just yesterday I ordered her something on ebay and clicked my address without thinking. I sent the seller a message asking if he'd ship it to her address and he replied sure. The joy of verified shipping addresses.

Advances in technology can run the price of anything up. Sometimes the product actually performs better, too. Williams-Sonoma is having another sale on All-Clad brand Copper Core cookware. The 15-piece set (11 pans & 4 lids) is marked down from $2960 to $2199.95 www.williams-sonoma.com/products/all-clad-copper-core-15-piece-cookware-set/?pkey=call-clad-copper-core&isx=0.0.600 The 33-piece set is marked down from $5439 to $3999.95 It's made by the company that developed the bonded layered metal the government makes coins out of. "He was awarded more than 50 U.S. patents for bonded metals and secured a contract with the U.S. Mint to make dimes, quarters and half dollars. He was later instrumental in the nation's conversion from solid silver coins to bonded layered metals used in coins today."

$400 is nothing. 1929 ad... Gold and topaz accents on the rod. The reel is solid gold with a topaz handle.

"Regardless of cost, it is cheaper than therapy!" Works better too. But if the day ever comes it doesn't work better for me, my girlfriend is a licensed counselor.

"First, the spoiled rich person with too much money where the extra $300 is like the average person buying a 25 cent pack of bubble gum. They can afford it, so why not?" I'm 67 and I woke up one morning after 5 years of retirement and said, "Why not?" So I ordered a Metanium MGL and a Steez SV TWS, just in time for winter. I have a nearly new St. Croix Sniper Spinnerbait LTB, but I think I'll look for a couple of nice rods to go with my nice reels. I've never fished a tournament, so there are only a few guys who will ever know what I bought and one of them will probably still outfish me 9 days out of 10. I have a fair amount of fishing gear and still have two of my original casting outfits from the '50s and '60s - you know, metal rods and heavy reels better suited for worm fishing. Real worms. I've caught black sea bass with them and a variety of other things salty and fresh. But I'm not a child anymore living in a row house in Baltimore. I'm also not 16 and working at McDonalds in D.C. for $1.15 an hour hauling big burlap bags of Idahos up from the basement and turning them into fries. Thank goodness I'm not. My girlfriend says I'm rich and she's always right. John

Jumbo shiners. Where can I get a heated bait bucket? I was just at Cabela's looking at boats and didn't see any heated live wells. Or icebreakers. For the record, all I bought was a package of red licorice and 3 floating/shallow/rattling Strike King & KVD crank baits - gray with some yellow. I had to return a gift, a pair of 2XL fingerless gloves that wouldn't fit on my XL hands. Junk like I'd expect from BP. I used to buy a lot of stuff from Cabela's. Enough stuff that they were sending me hardback catalogs every year. They don't make 'em anymore.

I've used 3 Schumachers for the past 4 years on my 3 $99 Walmart deep cycle batteries. I run them on the 2 Amp setting most of the time. Worked on my zero turn Toro too. The one time I tried to start a dead 2003 Camry nothing happened. It had been sitting a garage for a few months. Luckily I have an old, heavy, metal, charger I found at a pawn shop. Fired it right up. Schumacher SSC-1000A SpeedCharge 2/6/10 Amp www.amazon.com/Schumacher-SSC-1000A-SpeedCharge-Battery-Maintainer/dp/B0009IBJE4 $48

An ocean pier in Virginia Beach Virginia 30 years ago. I'm with friends fishing off the end of the pier and it's crowded - shoulder to shoulder crowded and we're all fishing heavy gear for cobia. After a couple of hours go by an old guy makes a cast and throws his rod and reel in the water. Oops. We have shipyard workers, lawyers, mechanics, all sorts of people there and not one person made a noise. A few people started turning blue from holding it in. The guy's wife was sitting behind us on the bench. We found out when she said, "That's the second time you've done that this weekend." - Silence on the pier We started dragging the bottom with 4-ounce metal lures with treble hooks and after 20 minutes a foreman from the shipyard snagged a line. After about 200 yards of mono he looked at the guy and said, "You did tie it on the spool, didn't you?" Then we laughed. And the man got his gear back.

"And honestly, who catches enough true trophies to even know?" My buddy catches a lot of largemouth over 8 pounds. One year he caught more than 50. Weighed with pics, etc. And that wasn't one of the years he went to Florida and caught twelve and fourteen pounders. Once we both had 8 pounders in the boat at the same time. He said it was only the 3rd time he's ever had that happen in more than 30 years. We weighed them. He's pretty good at guessing the weight of a fish. He'll miss by a half a pound or so from time to time, but I weigh all of our larger fish just to see how close he is.

I have a Tracker Grizzly 1648 with a Maxxum 70 on the bow and either a Merc 9.9 or a 12v trolling motor on the back. It's worked well for almost 4 years of pond and reservoir fishing. I've been debating whether to get a 25 hp to add to the rotation or simply buy a second boat and leave it set up for bigger water. There's a floor crane in the garage, but moving things around is still a minor pain and I'm retired and lazy. A second boat means I could go larger. The pic was taken in my buddy's garage before my boat ever got in the water. We decided it would be easier to rig it while it was still clean. His antique camo 1648 Polar Kraft is in the background. The major problem with his boat is the lack of floor space because the seats are too close together. The seat posts on mine are 9' apart.

"Think about this, the record bass caught on the MLF circuit is 8lbs 5 oz. These are the top pros fishing the best lakes year round. " Okay, I've thought about it. They don't fish year round like a recreational angler can. Speaking of their chances of catching an MLF record fish, they only fish on scheduled tournament days and they are told where they are allowed to fish and what hours to fish. I'm not restricted - I can pick my days, my hours, my body of water and who I fish with. If I want to fish the full moon in July I might just catch a 10 pounder at 3 a.m. when it's nice and cool. I don't even have to try to fill a limit - I can throw nothing but big baits for big fish and if I don't catch anything it's no big deal. There's always tomorrow - I don't have to wait until the next tournament. Heck, it's amazing they've managed an 8.5. John

I'm not nearly as good at eyeballing a bass as my friend. A few years ago I thought this long one was going to make 10. Nope, only 9.25. Some days I think I should just leave the scale at home and round them all up a pound or two.

Okay, found it, here's my weighed 10 pound 2 ounce fish.

I have one that weighed 10 pounds 2 ounces on my digital scale. It was caught in VA. My buddy has caught a lot of 10+ fish in VA and some 12+ fish on vacation in Florida. I've weighed 3 of his 10 to 11 pounders on my Rapala digital scale. He's been fishing a long, long time. He's caught more big fish since he quit fishing for money in the '80s. They seem to bite better on slow, slow, slow retrieves than on the run and gun tourney tactics. This 10.5 was the only fish he caught that day back in the early spring. I kept telling him to take that 6" grub tail off the spinnerbait...he never did.

At least they're sterile. "Accordingly, the VDGIF stocked triploid (sterile) grass carp (N = 4,900) in May 2008 to reduce plant coverage (estimated at 40%). Grass carp generally take 2- 3 years to be effective in controlling macrophytes." www.dgif.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2008-Briery-Creek-Biologist-Report.pdf

"Any of you remember the massive fish and bags that used to come out of Anna in the 80s and early 90s." I remember my buddy talking about them back before he got me seriously interested in bass fishing. He never had any of them mounted; only the giants he caught in Florida. Here's a 10.5 he caught earlier this year at Sandy River Reservoir. I weighed it. Well, let me try that pic again. The file size it too big I suppose since the upload failed. My pc says it's 25 kb.

Still enjoy? I'm 67 and have been fishing since I was 5 and I've never fished a tournament. My buddy fished bass tournaments for 15 years, but hasn't fished one for at least 20 years. He got tired of practice fishing, tournament fishing, running his business and then having to work a show the next weekend. The free stuff was nice, for me anyway, but they worked him to near to death. He was younger then. I still have two of the original Shimano baitrunners he got me for next to nothing. I surf fish, too. We talk about it sometimes and then forget about it. Like Wednesday, we mentioned it Wednesday morning after we got my boat over the bank into the pond. Thirty acres and two trolling motors - both ours. Even the great blue herons didn't object much as we drifted around.

I used to use an insulated camo cooler bag. It had a shoulder strap and was rain and puddle proof if it was zipped. I gave it away when I started using a much nicer blind bag left over from duck hunting.

I'll look at them when they get cranked up. I'm still looking, but I'm in no hurry. The chart explains why the local Allison dealer didn't have a bunch of bass boats for me to look at. Nice stuff though.

I used my Rapala digital scale to weigh pots and pans last month. My girlfriend was looking for lighter weight cookware and we knew how much her too-heavy cookware weighed. We hit Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, Bed Bath and Beyond and a couple of other places one Sunday. Funny thing, the store staff loved the idea of having real numbers to compare of instead of just having customers stand there shaking pans and guessing.