Russ E

I agree bird shot is probably the most effective at close quarters and the safest for anyone else in the house.

I caught a few dinks up shallow. when I backed off to the outside weed edges in 10 to 15 foot of water the average fish was bigger.

living in California, I would think hard on using handloads. You do not live in a gun friendly state. Most gun experts advise against using handloads for self defense. If you ever had to use the gun in a self defense situation, it would be one more tool for an anti gun lawyer to use against you.

I am curious how hot the new flooring gets in the sun. Three years ago I was looking at a Lowe with a nonskid floor. It was outside when I was checking it out. the floor was extremely hot from the sun. After that experience I decided to get a boat with carpet.

Your best option is to try to sell it to someone you know. Most gun owners want nothing to do with someone else's custom build. Too many variables involved. I just traded in a CMMG lower with a hardened arms upper in .300 blackout. It cost me $550.00 total 3 years ago. they gave $525.00 for it on a trade. both upper and lower were complete builds from the factory. While I was at the gun shop a guy was trying to trade in a custom build. it was loaded with high end components. They would not even look at it. like mentioned above I would not try to compare it with a 270 when trying to sell it. I shot a few 6.8's and currently own a 6.5 grendel. They are both closer to a .243 than a 270.

yes

had a surprisingly productive day on leavenworth state fishing lake today. caught around 3 dozen bass in the 1 to 1.5 pound range. Plus these two. Not trophies, but fairly decent for this lake. most fish were caught on an ol monster worm, fished along outside weed edges.

Sometimes colors can be over rated. Bass are opportunistic feeders. Special Colors often times catches more fishermen than fish. If you look on the keitech web site they have multiple variations of sunfish and perch.

i use fluorocarbon for flipping/ pitching jigs also. Forgot to add that. Swimjigs I use copoly. Don't see any advantage with fluorocarbon for them.

I only use flourocarbon for 2 techniques. Weightless fluke and Texas rigged worm. In my opinion the enhanced sensitivity of flouro on a semi slack line works perfectly for these 2 baits. All other applications get braid or copoly. One thing I have learned about flourocarbon line is do not use cheap line. It is sunline sniper or tatsu for me.

I agree with @Bluebasser86 Bought a couple of their baits over the years and still have not caught fish on them. Live target baits usually have a good presence in the Cabelas bargain cave.

I would buy a diawa fuego. If you look around they can be found for around $75.00. In my opinion it is the best reel in its price range. If your budget is $150.00 for the combo, the Tatula sv will go over budget. I have 2 Tatula Sv reels and 3 fuego's. The sv is more refined and better at skipping or casting light lures. The fuego still has the magforce brake and is a quality reel. On techniques that I have my finger on the line. (worms and flukes)I prefer the fuego. The TW level wind on the tatula will put all your line on one side of the reel if you finger the line.

Same here. One thing I have noticed since moving to the kc area 6 years ago. There are a lot of nasty storms with hail and potential tornadoes. We had storms in Iowa, but nothing like Kansas.

Problem with the South side is it gets extremely shallow, with no deep water around. Around all of those lily pads, you can barely float a boat. In late fall and spring bass will head back to those shallows, chasing Baitfish. Most of the bigger fish I have caught there were in 5 to 10 foot of water, but there was always deeper water nearby. The cove across from the marina/boat ramp is Wilson cove. It is probably the best place on the lake if you are on shore. Early morning there is usually a good topwater bite. Later soft plastics produces more for me. Most fish you catch there will be under 15 inches. There are a few big fish. Caught my personal best smallmouth of 4.8 pounds there. Personal best wiper of 7.5 pounds. A few largemouth over 5 pounds . 6.2 pounds was the largest.

fished all over the north half of lake. any healthy weedbed close to deeper water holds a few bass. If the weeds were brown, there were no bass. dinks were in shallow water. bigger fish were in 6-10 foot on the outside edge of weedbeds. don't fish the south end of the lake much in summer. It is usually full of 6-10 inch fish, this time of year.

Oak mites usually eat the upper half of your body and chiggers eat the lower half. The KC area has plenty of both, this year. One mite or chigger can bite you multiple times before you realize it. The bites only take a couple weeks to go away. Just for fun we also have a bumper crop of ticks this year. I finally broke down and sprayed my yard last week, so I could go out without getting eaten alive. If I am going out into the woods, I spray my clothes with Permethrin. I was at Wyandotte this morning. Caught quite a few bass in the 1 to 2 pound range. none of them were very close to shore. morning they were hitting a whopper plopper. later they were hitting a texas rigged worm on the outside edges of weedbeds.

When I see the strike I keep walking the bait until I feel it. often times the fish misses the bait on the first strike. if the fish misses the first time, it will often hit it again.

it depends on the baits I am using. I use braid for topwater. copoly or mono for most horizontal baits. spinnerbait, crankbait, jerkbait, etc. jigs, worms, or soft jerkbaits, I use sunline sniper fluorocarbon.

The 735 should work fine for frogs. Dobyns rods actually run a little lighter than most others for their ratings. I use the 735 for frogs and flipping heavy cover. I know a couple guys that use the 736 champion for frogs.

I don't own a G force. my experience with them is just handling them in a store. They seem well balanced and get good reviews for a $99.00 rod. I do own 4 fury's. they are in my opinion some of the best rods for that price range. They also take a lot of abuse. Not as fragile as other rods I have owned.

Decided to take a labor day morning trip to Smithville. I was hoping the pleasure boaters were done for the year. caught 9 bass in the 15 to 17 inch range from 8 to 11:30 am, pitching to shallow brush. then the big boats and jet skis arrived. I actually got buzzed by 2 jet skis in flooded timber. I was surprised one of them didn't hit a tree. Don't know if they were drunk or just stupid. After that I decided to head home. Even though it was not windy , the lake had constant 3 to 4 foot rollers on the way back to the boat ramp. It felt good to get the boat on the trailer. Hopefully this was the last major weekend for the pleasure boats.

nearly every lake in the KC metro gets hit pretty hard by bank fishermen. One lake I have had some success from bank is lake Olathe. The west side has decent shore access. The fish tend to hang out near shore in the water willows. getting bit is not usually too hard. getting them out of the water willows can be tough from bank.

The 733c is a good fluke rod, if you don't use heavy wire hooks. If I am using heavier hooks I go up to the 734c. For fluke fishing I use 14 pound sunline sniper. It is pretty sensitive with the semi slack line of fluke fishing. Plus it sinks, which allows the fluke to run a little deeper. I have tried a few copoly lines, but always go back to flouro with the fluke.

Retired my assassin for the same reason. I think the screeching in mine was the centrifugal brakes. If I kept the brake drum lubed it was ok. Whenever the reel got wet it would start squealing again. Don't think it affected casting distance much. It was just very annoying.

With baitcasters 30 pound braid is the lightest I would go. I prefer 40 pound and above. Personally Spiderwire is the worst braid I have ever used. It may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for. I have had strange breakoffs and a lot of fraying of the line. It seems to fall apart after minimal use. power pro or one of the suffix lines are much more reliable. power pro is my favorite. I have a few rods that have had the same power pro spooled after 3 years of heavy use.