schplurg

I made a cart our of PVC pipe and hand truck wheels for $40 or so for my WS Ride 115. Works great even fully loaded with gear. There's a pretty recent thread about DIY carts here that someone else started. I considered a TM but I think at that point I may as well get a small boat. Your fishing day does not have to end with a dead battery if you have a paddle. A paddle is my only means of propulsion and, by golly, it seems to work!

I wonder how a tow service could even work, logistically. Seems like you'd be waiting for hours and it also sounds expensive. ?

I don't understand the bleeding thing either. Only fish I've ever had bleed was from a swallowed crankbait tail hook getting in the gills, or a hook that caught the bottom of the neck, outside not swallowed. I don't remember ever seeing a properly hooked fish bleed at all. I almost always use 4/0 EWG hooks, but both the above examples were crankbaits/trebles.

You are awesome! You described what I see here as well, except for the 8 rods. A lot of the "bucket people" where I live are going for carp but I, and everyone else know darn well they'll eat anything they catch, often don't have licenses, and don't go barbless as required in these areas. They scatter when fish and game or sheriffs show up. I love it when they show up. Just got checked this morning. The fish and game people know who they are too, we've discussed it. I can tell where they fish by the type of litter they leave behind. If bass weren't so scarce here I wouldn't care, as long as they're doing it legal. A lot of it is cultural, but I really don't care for that excuse. Leave that culture behind please. Just my personal feelings on the matter. By the way I would not eat a fish caught anywhere near here due to mercury levels and who knows what else. Then again this is California where even coffee gets a Prop 65 warning for cancer, so pffft!

You are awesome! You described what I see here as well, except for the 8 rods. A lot of the "bucket people" where I live are going for carp but I, and everyone else know darn well they'll eat anything they catch, often don't have licenses, and don't go barbless as required in these areas. They scatter when fish and game or sheriffs show up. I love it when they show up. Just got checked this morning. The fish and game people know who they are too, we've discussed it. I can tell where they fish by the type of litter they leave behind. I'll not finish that thought. If bass weren't so scarce here I wouldn't care, as long as they're doing it legal. A lot of it is cultural, but I really don't care for that excuse. Leave that culture behind please. Just my personal feelings on the matter. By the way I would not eat a fish caught anywhere near here due to mercury levels and who knows what else.

I think I've replied at least once already, but after fishing for an hour this morning at a local pond - litter. Always litter. I think littering is probably just one symptom of a larger personality problem with anyone who does it. If you litter, you are probably trash yourself in general. I feel safe in judging a person based solely on that. My truck is a mess with napkins and crap all over the place. Not proud of it, but if someone comments I say, hey at least I don't throw it out the window.

Hanging the rods out the back - you better make sure that door can't slam shut and snap them

Do they spawn this late there? Usually when I see bluegill near shore here it's because they (gills) are spawning. By that time the bass are pretty much done. I'm still pretty new at this though so hopefully others will chime in. I can't catch anything this year (yet), literally nothing

I'm going to Salem in 2 weeks to visit my sister and check it out. Gonna bring a telescopic rod (I'm flying so don't know about taking two-piece rods) I have and maybe use a rod she has as well. I'm not looking at jobs or places to live, just fishing If I like what I see THEN we'll talk homes and all that other trivial stuff! Thanks for the advice on a fishing spot. She doesn't fish so I'm on my own in that regard. Should be fun if the weather cooperates. Big "if" though.

There are explanations for it, but it's probably too off topic. Briefly - sometimes people see what they are expecting to see or what they want to see. The subject is something I've been interested in for a long time. If you'd never heard of bigfoot and saw a dark shape moving in the woods you probably wouldn't think it was bigfoot. Why would you? If you knew bears existed you might think that's what it was. But if you are with some bigfoot enthusiasts, every tree branch snapping sound is probably a potential bigfoot, at least to them. And every culture has its bigfoot - chupacabra, tazmanian devil, yeti...bigfoot is not unique. We will even make stuff up if we can't explain something. The brain needs an explanation. I thought I saw a neighbor standing near my house a few weeks ago as I drove up the road. Turned out to be a shovel leaning on a truck, the side mirror being the person's head. My brain interpreted it as a person. Closest thing it resembled at that distance, but it really didn't. Your brain sometimes fills in the blanks so things make sense to it. There are many reasons people see, or think they see these things. Okay back to fish stuff! Cool Fishing Story: Not too cool but to be on topic, I once was walking up the Delta levy and saw a jackrabbit run by from my right to left along the side of the embankment. It was out of sight in 1.1 seconds. Not even full speed but wow! 5 seconds later a ratty looking large dog comes running from the same direction and passed right in front of me. He looked at me with a crazed dog smile and I said, "My friend, you are not catching that rabbit" He said, "Oh ya? Watch this!" and turned 90 degrees left of the rabbits direction and ran off. And yes, I met a talking dog (but bigfoot is fake).

And the side effects of many prescription drugs are nothing to laugh at either. "Get rid of toe nail fungus NOW with JamBeGone! Possible side effects are stomach cramps, sudden death, agonizing painful death, regular ol' death, suicidal thoughts and murderous rage and headaches" Pot and CBD side effects are feeling better, short term...umm....gimme a minute I forgot, but I know it's short term!

Renato Massei - WW2. My great uncle (grandfather's brother). Battle of the bulge and was there for concentration camp liberation. That part haunted him for many many of his 95 years. I know little else about his service. Came from Italy, joined the circus and was a sword swallower and razor blade eater (yikes!) while he learned English, then joined the military when the time came.

Thanks man. Ya it seems a bit too much like Cali. Governor is even Jerry Browns sister, so hmmmm. I have to move soon and my choices are Cali near the Delta again (and many good lakes too), or be nearer some of my family in Salem, where like you said, there is great fishing for many species. I'd like to move away from the west coast but it's hard to be that far from family. Well it seems like it would be. Thanks for the response

It was probably me. My feet are small but I'm hairy enough that I could probably come up with some great bigfoot hoaxes. And I tend to look blurry when photographed and I'm always in bad lighting so I usually look like a blob in photos. People's cameras seem to stop working properly and get really shaky in my proximity too. Just like bigfoot! I saw a bigfoot photo once and the "creature" literally had less body hair than me. I stay away from forests for fear of being shot at. There are people who make pretty convincing feet out of rubber, put short stilts on them and walk around making fake footprints just for fun while fishing. Saw it on the interwebz. I guess they can't (or don't bother to) make fake bigfoot hair, scat, carcasses or anything else that would be easy to find if bigfoot actually existed. And anyone who hunts knows you need a population of animals to maintain a - uh - population. So if you see one bigfoot there are probably hundreds more nearby. A nice clear video or even a capture should be reported in the news any day now...

Just my opinion, but I'd bow mount the trolling motor. It's so much easier to steer. I ended up trolling backwards on a windy day with a transom mount because it was waaaay easier. That's how I figured out I wanted bow mount (so I can go forward ). Casting deck can be super cheap. Roland Martin can buy anything he wants probably, but he has a sagging plywood homemade deck on his jon boat with a motor in the front. He even made a video or two about it. Sits his butt on a cooler and catches many fish. It's not a big deck either.

I'll guess this is due to our illustrious, extremely well thought out Prop 65. Who knew a crankbait could cause cancer? Poorly written piece of crap that nobody will ever bother to fix it seems. Cali sucks.

And this seems to be about as much evidence as we'll ever have for so many bass fishing questions. The human brain looks for patterns in things. Like seeing faces in clouds. One person may look at the clouds and see a race car. Someone who has never seen a race car might see an animal in the same clouds. The brain looks for the closest match based on its own experience. Like a psychic who gets almost everything wrong, but the believer will latch onto the single thing they got right and hold it as evidence of the psychics powers, especially if it's what we want to hear.. It's how we are wired. Some more than others maybe. Critical thought is something we have to learn for the most part. I am skeptical of a lot of things in the fishing industry, mainly because so many things have not been proven, and many probably can't be. Saw a video posted a few days ago of an old angler (I don't know who it is but it doesn't matter) talking about a product - livewell additive. I won't mention the brand. He says (paraphrased) "I was given a case of this product years ago and it's kept many fish from dying in my livewell" How do you know? I read some old threads recently and a whole lot of people feel the same way about livewell additives as me, but they are still used in tourneys by the fish/tournament handlers, and by some anglers with no evidence and no knowledge of what the additive even contains. Is it safe if someone catches and eats the same fish the next day after it's sat in a tank with this stuff in it? Is it safe for the fishery? Shouldn't we know this? Lotta claims - some really wild - with little to no evidence. I think additives are mostly a scam, unless you are using tap water in your livewell maybe. I've contacted a few manufacturers and was given baloney answers. Same kinda reasoning you'll find in homeopathic "medicine" ads. I did my research and concluded that most livewell claims are completely bogus. I'd love to get into more detail but I may be pushing the forum rules. I just hate seeing misinformation go unquestioned. Last word --- question everything, ever.

You should see the dude with the big square white face in the "Any guesses on the weight of this largemouth bass?" thread! Whoa!!! Rocky Dennis over here! Edit to add: Then again - look at my avatar photo. Yikes!

Nothing too crazy. Me and a friend were surf fishing for perch. We both threw our fish back in the shallow surf and a bird dove for my buddies fish and barely missed it. Second try and he flew off with an easy meal. Poor fish didn't ride the wave back out and got kinda stranded in an inch of water. I wondered if that was the bird's first time doing that. I have video, very funny moment and memory. I'd guess it's common. Bald Eagle diving down and grabbing a fish then flying away to its nest with it. When it hit the water it sounded like a huge rock, and I didn't actually see that part - there were weeds in the way. Darn. As it flew away I could see it adjusting its grip on the fish to make it more aerodynamic during its short flight (facing it forward or back). I saw a deer punch another deer while paddling by in my kayak last summer. I didn't know they did that I guess. One was standing on a small high spot about 30 feet up shore, and another kicked/punched it with its front leg and took over the spot. Coyote Lake. Saw a cow chase a cat all the way cross the corral on our property recently. That was so cool! I hate cats. Wasn't while fishing though. She ran after it fast, even lowered her head when the cat tried to hide in the weeds.

Interesting. It doesn't look that bent in the photo I see, but enough to make a difference I guess. Very cool! For tomorrow I picked the lake with the shortest distance from the launch to the area I want to fish, so it should be an easy day. I've been not fishing for a month to heal up a bit, been a long wait. Sucks. Also, in your Ride do you still kinda wobble back and forth a little when standing? I can't stand up without that happening. To the OP, my earlier post said you may not like kayak fishing, but you probably will! I say I didn't like it in some ways but here I am going out again, and I upgraded it with a Garmin Echomap 6 and some other doodads. I can use that in the boat though if I switch And also I've only had one successful outing on the kayak (caught fish), so that may affect my opinion too. And it was one of the most fun days of fishing I've ever had. I also didn't paddle far to get there. I'm undecided still but I want it to work for me really bad! It IS pretty awesome!

If he hasn't figured it out in 12 years then there's no hope!

Handles water better. You could seal the wood yourself, or use something like Starboard instead of wood. I used that to make my kayak sonar mount.

I wouldn't buy a real expensive kayak unless you've at least tried kayak fishing. I didn't read every post so maybe you have done it already. The first reply has great advice, but you may not like kayak fishing. Try it if you haven't yet, or buy a cheap yet comfortable one (good seat) if you aren't able to try it first. Buying a more expensive one is a good idea if you KNOW you're going to like it a lot. I didn't like it after a few trips, however it's partially due to tendinitis, and partly to me wanting to be able to move around in the boat more. It was fun but I got frustrated too. It's a Ride 115 with a super comfy Air Pro Max seat for $500 used. Very comfortable. I'm trying it again this year though, in fact first trip is tomorrow. Very stoked, but if my elbows etc start hurting I'm gonna be looking for a small boat. I hope it goes well!

Pretty much everything has been suggested already. Do you have a vehicle that can carry a kayak? I think the cheapest is a float tube. No truck needed. You can spend a lot of money on any choice you make, but float tubes are easy to haul and potentially very cheap. Some other inflatable, maybe an inflatable kayak can be cheap, especially used. You're not dangling in the water, and you don't need a truck, trailer or roof rack. Personally I'd wait on the kayak unless you find a great deal, but I'm older and could not fish out of one of those cheap Tamaracks because they don't have a real seat. If you're young that may not matter. For me - deal breaker. I've never even used a float tube, but to me it seems the cheapest not only for the vessel, but also for the paddle and other accessories you may need. I'm sure one could dump a bunch of money into one of those too.

Got photos? Trolling motor, big YES. Does it have (and do you want) a casting deck? That'd be top of my list. Photos would help narrow it down. Oars/paddles?