Tennessee Boy

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and research. You and @WRB can always be counted on to provide the history on treads like this. For those interested here is a link to the 1972 Charlie Brewer article in Fishing Facts. http://media.sliderfishing.com/uploads/sites/38/file_store/2067/151/5827/charlie-brewer-fishing-facts-do-nothing-fishing-july-1972.pdf

Yeah, I think that's pretty common. When I was a kid I fished for bream because they were easy to catch. I would occasionally catch a bass which was exciting. I slowly changed my techniques to catch more bass while still catching plenty of bream. I was finesse fishing and I didn't even know it until later when started reading about bass fishing. Charlie Brewer said he got the idea for his techniques one day when he ran into two boys who had caught a bunch of fish on very small tackle. Maybe those boys are the real fathers of finesse fishing. It just comes natural to downsize what you're doing when the fishing gets tough. Most people can figure that out on their own. I think the different regional finesse techniques probably developed independently of each other for the most part. In my world there are two regional forms of finesse fishing. There's Eastern Finesse, that I use when I go 50 miles east and fish the Cumberland Plateau lakes that Bill Westmorland fished. Then there's Southwestern Finesse that I use when I go 50 miles to the south west and fish the lakes of the Tennessee River that Charlie Brewer fished (Wilson, Pickwick, upper Kentucky). Being a world traveler has served me well.

Finesse fishing has a very long history and apparently has several fathers. I’ve heard several people referred to as “The Father of Finesse Fishing”. Charlie Brewer, Don Iovino, Ned Kehde are the usual ones that are mentioned. Ray Fincke is a name that is associated with early midwestern finesse. I’m not that familiar with midwestern finesse history because I’m from Tennessee and around here we recognize Charlie Brewer as the father of finesse fishing with a nod to Billy Westmorland. So who’s your daddy of finesse fishing?

I keep a back brace in the boat in case I need it. It really helps. Braces support your spine the way your core muscles are suppose to. The problem is if you rely on the support brace too much you're just allowing those muscles to get even weaker making the real problem worse.

I have two excellent small tackle stores within 5 minutes of me. Please don't hate me. They've had a very hard time getting product to sell lately. I hope they survive.

Momma Nature

Yep. Seems to come with age. It was a problem for a while. My lower back would start hurting after a few hours on the water. The solution for me is to do exercise to keep my core muscles strong.

His video where he tells the whole story of the tournament is worth watching. The guy was forced to just go fishing on water he had not prefished. As he put it, he was just junk fishing and he was doing it without livescope. He finished tied for tenth in the Toyota Series Championship doing that. We tend to think these guys are using their superior knowledge and expensive electronics to find the best spot on the lake. Most days they’re just like the rest of us and don’t find that spot. When that happens they just have to fish hard to catch the fish they do find. I think we spend to much time admiring their knowledge and their expensive electronics and not enough time admiring their skill when the rod is in their hand.

We had people at our reception. All they did was eat our food. They even ate our wedding cake! When the cake was gone they got mad and threw rice at us.

I’m glad they’re here. I’m more afraid of deer ticks than I am of cougars.

I have to ask. Does a Cat Cafe serve food to cats or serve cats as food?

I don't have proof yet but I suspect that @TnRiver46 is trapping coyotes in Knoxville and releasing them in middle Tennessee.

Yes 3 per day. It's not state wide. Only in middle Tennessee were they are overpopulated and some counties where CWD is an issue. https://www.eregulations.com/tennessee/hunting/deer-seasons-bag-limits

I haven't hunted in many years. I do lease the hunting rights on my property. The limit on bucks in Tennessee is 2 per year and the guy I lease to usually get his limit on opening weekend. There is a limit of 3 per day on antlerless deer. My guy doesn't take more than he can eat so once his freezer is full he stops hunting. He brings friends to hunt the property but the number of deer harvested every year is 10 at most. That's not enough to make a difference in the population.

On the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers I look at the release schedule for the dam below me unless I'm fishing the tail waters of the dam above me. I prefer stable water levels and it's my experience that current is what matters not rising or dropping water level. It could be different on other bodies of water I guess.

I have some property in the country and I have the opposite problem. The deer are over populated. I wish they would open the season on deer until the population is reduced by 80%. I've given up on there being a solution to the coyote problem. They will eventually kill us all and take over the world. Other animals are doing well. Lots of turkeys. Had one bald eagle nest this past year. I see rabbits but I don't know how they survive with all the coyotes.

I agree wind is good but more than anything else? If I had a choice between mother nature turning on the wind or the man at the dam turning on the current, I would take the current any day of the week.

I can't imagine why anyone would need 75 different colors. I can understand why someone would buy 75 different colors.

I think it’s more accurate to say you should avoid discharging more than 50% of a lead acid battery to maximize the life of the battery. To say you should never do it is an exaggeration. It will not destroy the battery if you do it occasionally, it will only shorten the life of the battery. I want to have enough power to get me though the most demanding day I can imagine. That’s true regardless of the type of battery I have. If I have that much capacity I will sometimes but rarely discharge below 50%. I’m not going to loose sleep over that. In 35 years as a boat owner I can think of three times when I probably discharged below 50%.

That's what I was thinking. A smallmouth that is a world class jumper and highly motivated might get to 5 feet. I've seen some gars jump pretty high and then there's the beloved silver carp that is probably the king of fresh water jumpers. These people have an interesting approach to going after jumping silver carp. I think a net would be more effective.

So for those very few anglers that can utilize the difference, can you explain the difference it makes for then? Are they catching fish they would not have caught with a state of the art $350 rod?

Those must be empty boxes. I can't believe they actually exist in the wild.

The question that you need to ask yourself is why are you going deeper into rods. If you are a connoisseur of rods and enjoy collecting fine rods then buy the rods that make you happy. If you are just trying to catch more fish, spending more on rods is not the answer.

Yeah what they said..Wow!!

When I was a little guy my grandfather tied a good size weight on a rod with a reel like this one. He told me to go out in the yard and learn to cast with it. I wanted to be a big boy fisherman so I stuck with it. It’s one of many gift my grandfather gave me. Some guys enjoy tinkering with the setting on their reel just like some enjoy tinkering under the hood of their car. If that’s you then you will probably enjoy utilizing the brakes on modern reels. If you just want to fish then the time spent training your thumb is an investment that will pay dividends for the rest of you life. No braking system can out perform a well trained thumb.