Glaucus

Most typically this is live bait anglers who probably aren't experienced. Sit and wait and let the fish swallow it. Something goes wrong and we get this result.

Right, but I read this as asking about capability. I'm certainly capable.

I don't anticipate ever hooking into one, but yes, there's no reason I wouldn't be able to land such a fish.

Repetitive use injuries would occur regardless of what he's using. Nature of the beast. Some people get it, some don't. If you could just "buy away" these types of injuries, nobody would get them.

There are some months where I can't use anything but a 4" wacky senko or a ned rig if I want to catch a bass. The pressure out there is very high these days.

Can't beat airmailing a lipless.

Pulling up to a northern state pond in January before the ice hit. Temperature in the high 30s. Bass busting. Blew my mind. Caught more than 40 on topwater. Never seen anything like it again.

Most water was unfished or hardly fished (especially by today's standards where everything is pounded). Seemed to work out throughout the entire history of the planet without man telling us how to control lakes.

Infections are as serious and as deadly now as they always have been. We're just very good at treating them. You never know when a simple scratch or poke will turn into something much more. Bacteria is a nasty thing.

Deep clear water SMB fishing. Those lakes just look like an endless empty ocean to me and I wouldn't know where to begin. I fish rivers/streams for SMB. But primarily I fish the nasty stuff for LMB.

You expect an Illinois lake that has frozen over to be thawed after 4 days in the 40s at the beginning of February? Take a break man.

I don't know why I'm shocked by how colorful and detailed this is.

I literally don't lie or cheat and I would fail a lie detector test 100/100 times for a variety of reasons. This is garbage science that's inadmissible in court and should never be used anywhere outside of The Steve Wilkos Show. My anxiety would destroy me instantly. So dumb. I don't fish tournaments because I tried once and the experience sucked all around. But primarily because tournaments defeat the purpose for me, which is something I immediately found out the first and only time I tried it. I fish for peace.

Our sport isn't like most sports where the best athletes make it to the big league based on pure skill. People who make it big in bass fishing are good at marketing and, nowadays, started with a lot of money and time to lose. Several pros have covered this topic in recent years. It's a money game. I'm very sure that there are many anglers not even fishing in tournaments on any level who would beat the socks off the pros on the water. Similar to my belief that almost every record has been broken, but hardly anyone is prepared for that event on the water, and many don't care to hurt the fish or the fishery by seeking to verify. Many probably don't even know they have a record. Meanwhile, in almost all other sports, talent and merit alone gets people to the top. Despite the random film here and there, there aren't really any phenoms out there not known to NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS/EPL etc etc teams. In sports like pool, nobody needs a lot of money. I used to play league. Perform well at the local level which costs nothing, advance to state which costs nothing, advance to nationals which isn't that expensive. I was never great but my dad was. He made it to Vegas on several occasions and it didn't cost much. Nobody gets into the big times in bass without tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The fees, traveling, and equipment needed is insane.

Forgot to mention the crystals and swelling pressed on and irritated a nerve in one leg and spent a few of those days with uncontrollable twitching and kicking from slightly above the knee to the foot. It can get unimaginably bad. I've had bad flares but nothing like this. In the beginning the doctors thought my veins were swelling in the lower leg because that can happen during a gout attack from the inflammatory response and the increased blood flow to the region, but turns out I was quickly losing muscle mass. Don't skip those meds. I'll be lucky to recover without some kind of permanent joint damage. Hopefully muscle loss isn't a permanent thing and didn't damage anything. Oh that's another thing. If you can't move because a gout attack is severe, and you lose muscle, that continues to make the attack worse. Your body breaks down the muscle and you get flooded with purines and a higher uric acid level. It's like a never ending nightmare and everything is working together to destroy you. Most people don't have a clue how bad it can get. I pray you never get hit like this.