Sphynx

No problem, I do suggest a trial run with an ice water bucket just to make sure you can manage it, worst time to test gear is when it is actually needed

Oversized ferro rod, and a can of sterno/alcohol stove would make a reasonable amount of fast heat combined with a mylar blanket, I'd normally suggest a Bic, but ferro rods work wet and lighters typically do not.

I keep a booboo kit, a combat application tourniquet, sanitizer, and a chitosan bandage in my pack, I also consider my pliers/multi-tool to serve as a bit of a first aid item, it isn't as though I'm going to be performing field surgery, but if we have a critical or life threatening bleed I should be able to keep myself or another person from getting dead long enough for the professionals to arrive, assuming I stay conscious of course, most of the time rubbing alcohol and a bandaid takes care of it, occasionally a hook has to get pushed through, but I haven't had a day get completely ruined for medical reasons yet.

I have used zigjigs for trout for several years now, if I remember correctly they are now making them sized for bass/bigger fish, they work well enough for me.

I don't honestly know, I go out and try things until I start having repeatable success, and stick with that, I couldn't tell you from one day to the next which kind of retrieve will work best, I let the fish tell me and I just follow the lead.

The best answer is to grab a couple of each size, as far as colors, I like the shad colors like Mouse, or in the south anything in a bluegill color tends to work pretty well, but the good old white or white and chartreuse spinnerbait in 3/8oz or 1/2oz has been a perennial favorite for years, and not without reason either, been buckets of fish caught that way.

Tubes are very productive for me when nothing else seems to work, pick your sizes based on the current, in the situation you described I'd probably go pretty light, I have done exceedingly well with a Dry Creek Double Dip in the Columbia Craw color, I like to pair them with the Bite Me flat eye head, 5/16 is probably my most used size, had several days where I'd be well into double digits of fish caught in under an hour with that combination. Other favorites are Sweet Beaver, Pacca Chunk's, Smallie Beaver, and I also use Vilecraws/Vilebugs, but typically those last two don't produce as well for me in the cold water.

Only good thief is a dead one...hopefully providence sees to it that such a fate befalls this one...ideally after the stolen goods are returned.

The colors on those are so different from the fish I typically catch out of the Columbia, I wonder why it is that they are so much lighter, oxygen or light maybe?

Oh I don't blame you for feeling that way, but I happen to live in a world where I have more time than money, and 15-20 minutes to sort out a few packs of flukes seems a small price to pay for the savings that Zoom and other budget flukes offer.

Typically I am not bothered by non-bass while targeting them, occasionally I catch crappie (usually big ones too, which is never a displeasing event) and the occasional catfish or monster trout/steelhead/salmon, I think the most unusual by-catch was a 6ft long grass carp on a crankbait...I am nearly certain that it was one of those stars aligned moments where the trebles just happened to end up in the right place at the right time, but it sure was an adventure.

A small titanium/stainless steel wood stove and a stainless steel cup can be an easy waterside solution to kinked flukes, depending on local laws etc, boil some water, dip the jacked up flukes for about 10-15 seconds, then leave them to cool in the proper shape.

I don't think it matters too much who's name is on a fluke, anything that looks/acts like a fluke is in extreme danger of being bit.

Oh man...I think a couple of those cranks and I KNOW that jerkbait are singing a sirens song to me...must...not...buy...

In my experience, there is a much stronger correlation to WHERE you are fishing, than WHAT you are fishing, if the actively feeding fish are up shallow, there are probably dozens of presentations and individual lure combinations that will get you bit, but looking out deep probably won't be as productive, my general philosophy has been if you can figure out what sort of cover they are on, how deep they are, and whether they are feeding on baitfish or something crawling on the bottom (craws, helgrammite's, gobies etc) then you can experiment to your hearts content with specific lures and it mostly won't matter...mostly.

I think I have 8 or 9 rods total, I'd eventually like a few more, mostly really high end stuff for my go to techniques (mainly a jig rod, finesse rod, and a jerkbait rod) but unless I was going to try to tackle professional fishing/big money tournaments I don't see much need in have 30 or whatever rods, I have all the time in the world to tie a new lure on, and I refuse to count the seconds or stress over that kind of stuff, but I also don't have my bread and cheese riding on the outcomes of my fishing choices/success either, so I understand where those guys would want almost any advantage they can get, and want to be as efficient as possible.

Depends on the time of year, there's times in the Columbia where you get to pick how you'd like to catch them, paddletail, poppers, spooks, Rat-L-Trap, jigs, worms, all work in the same area at the same time, I am pretty close to a 50/50 on baitcasting and spinning set ups, I like poppers on a spinning rod, but I like my spooks on a baitcasting rod...and if it's working at all, it'll be a topwater lure.

Mhf casting, MM casting, Mf spinning all roughly 7-7.5ft and I can easily and very happily get by on a typical day, I have a few very specific technique driven outfits (like my jerkbait rod) that have very definite uses, but I also know before I go if I will need it, if somebody rolls up and says grab your stuff, we're going fishing and I don't know where we are headed, I take those three rods.

A quick little stutter in the retrieve has gotten me lots of bites with followers, burn it in fast as you can then just dead stop for a split second and back to burning, dunno exactly why they nail it at that exact moment, but they sure do

I prefer to get the bill to just hit whatever I'm fishing it over if it's hard structure, little extra noise, relatively unpredictable changes of direction, looks a bit like a baitfish feeding amongst the rocks/brush, if it's a soft bottom area I dredge up the bottom pretty good, I have had a lot of bites from fish going after that kind of thing

They CAN spook bass, certainly, on the other hand there are no shortage of reasons to argue that those splashes can be exactly what gets a bass to notice/investigate your lure in the first place, I'm not saying that doing a cannonball off the dock is going to have you petting a bass on the head, but a bit of noise can be a very good thing if your prospecting for aggressive fish. If your targeting a specific fish that you see, I usually prefer to be a bit more subtle about it, but that doesn't always work either honestly.

This year I did pretty well on the Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap in a variety of colors, but I'd have to say that the star of the show was the Sexy Dawg Jr. and a Rebel Pop-R, the sexy shad colors produced pretty well in the summer, and the chrome/reflective colors tended to shine during the fall, I don't think many places are still working with much of a topwater bite, but what fish I have been catching lately have come off jerkbaits (both soft plastic and hard) Ned Rigs, Shakeyhead, and finesse jigs, so anything in those categories you've been looking at would be a great option too.

The bite has been awful for a bank beater the last few weeks here too, might be time to get off the main river and switch it up to fishing on the smaller (read: Wading possible) creeks/rivers on my time off instead, it's probably not a terrible time of the year to target a steelhead or two either, even if the bass are being less than cooperative.

The saying "breeding like rabbits" was chosen for a reason, they tend to be very prolific breeders, it's not terribly probable that any individual rabbit is living for more than a year or two, but they have a bunch of litters in that time.

I got my arse kicked on the Columbia last night because I just couldn't find it in me to wait until this weekend to try out my new fly rod...can't say that I caught anything, but it was an awfully pretty evening on the river all the same.