fin

This video demonstrates how dichromatic vision can affect what is seen. This is about deer and tigers, and different color receptors than bass, but it can give you an idea of how to apply this info. It almost makes things look black & white. It helps to prove that color is not as important as motion.

A float tube might be better suited for you - get you off your feet so you can get some real wading boots. Just because someone said you'd get a season out of those shoes, I wouldn't bet $100 on it. I like New Balance, but that's actually the brand I've had trouble with coming un-glued.

It depends on the glue they used to manufacture, and who can say these days? They might last a while, they might come apart after the first time. I've had mixed results. Good luck trying to find an inexpensive glue to glue them back together.

I used the Improved Clinch knot for years with mono and fluoro, and I eventually found that small variations in how you tie it can cause it to break easily. I could never figure out exactly what it was that I was doing differently that would cause it to break, but after I switched to the San Diego Jam knot, the problem went away. I don't know how SDJ knot works on braid, so I'm not recommending that, I'm just saying I will never trust the Improved Clinch again. Try a different knot. Split rings can cut, but I don't think that's what's going on in your case. I second what @Cigarguy said about marking the line with a sharpie. I would mark it at the knot and about a foot back. It might help you figure out what's happening.

I can't believe you stumped this crowd. I don't think I've ever seen one of these type posts go unanswered. Maybe it's custom, a one-time thing. It looks like it might be to pinch the plastic and make the bait-keeper work better. I don't think it's a shaky head - line tie is too far forward.

Ouch. My worst nightmare. I've found so much stuff, I know my luck is going to turn one day. I've left my tackle bag at the lake before, but was lucky enough to get back to it before anyone got it. Sometimes lures come back. You may find one in a tree someday. I haven't been finding a lot of great lures lately, but a while back I found a 9mm Smith & Wesson sitting underwater a few inches from the bank. It was right next to the road, someone must have been trying to throw it out the window of a moving car into the lake. The serial numbers were filed off. Turned it in to the cops.

I found one of these a few months ago and fell in love with it. I lost it about a month ago, then one day I was walking along the bank and stopped to tie my shoe, and there was my lure, right by my foot. I caught no fish that day, but (re)finding that lure made my day.

So based on the variety of responses, it sounds like the problem here may not be due to manufacturing. It sounds more likely that the problem is distribution and/or decisions made by certain vendors to not buy tackle to stock, for whatever reason. I can’t blame the vendors, and I’m not saying they are making the wrong decision, but I hope they are not making a mistake that will end up removing another option from my short list of places to buy tackle locally.

I've been trying to get by just using stuff that I have on hand, and I haven't been shopping very much. Today I finally went in an Academy, and I was a little surprised to see the shelves were still pretty bare. Some things were getting restocked, but some areas, like terminal tackle, seem like they just can't keep most things in stock. It was the same at the local Walmart. The nearby mom & pop looks like it has closed the doors for good. Parts of Walmart look totally normal. What is it about the fishing supplies that is so different? I guess some stores are struggling so bad that maybe they can't afford to stock the shelves? Is the stuff just still not available? It seems like if they have to pay to keep the store open, they would want to get as much sales as possible. I guess maybe they might just be trying to keep expenses at a minimum, but I don't know what they're waiting for. Recovery is obviously going to be gradual. I just have a hard time making sense of it all. Is it still hard to find stuff online too? I haven't been around here much lately either. I don't see any recent posts that look like they cover this topic. I know there were some last year.

Well, you're very lucky if you don't have anybody trying to take out as many fish as possible, especially this past year. Count your blessings. Does the state offer any kind of program where they might come out and do a fish count?

Banjo minnow?

Legal in Florida, where I assume @N Florida Mike is. https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/habitat/invasive-plants/grass-carp/

I’m talking about sterile grass carp. I’ve had them literally inches from me, eating grass at my feet fishing on the bank, many times. They don't seem to fear anything, they are much less skittish than bass.

Here’s an otter I walked up on a few years ago eating a grass carp that was probably in the 10 pound range. They obviously don’t mind eating large fish. The lake I fish in is around 200 acres, and the otters come through every few months and stay for a week or so and then move on. They are not leaving because there are no fish left to eat. The same is true in the creek where this picture was taken, except they hang around in the creek longer. I think it’s easier for them to corner fish in the creek, which is way smaller than the lake. I’m sure it’s easier for them to catch carp instead of bass too. Carp are pretty stupid. I don’t know if you ever mentioned the size of your lake, but if the lake is too small and the fish have no where to hide from the otters, then I guess they could do some damage. Maybe you could provide them with some cover? Stock some carp? Also don’t discount the possibility that some human is doing the damage.

Keep it simple and cheap. All you have to do is tie a uni knot around them with something like 8# mono. Not true. It's tedious, but I do it all the time. Lay out the strands so they line up, wrap a piece of tape around them to hold them together, then tie them on. I make lots of nice custom color combinations.

I wouldn’t blame you if you thought I made up these rigs, but I swear they are just as I find them. This is a Jackhammer with a snap swivel attached to the jig instead of the blade. It looks pretty well used too. I haven’t been finding as many lures this year either. A lot of the people fishing this year aren’t using lures. A lot of them aren’t even using rods & reels. Plastic bottles and sticks seem to be more popular around here. Yesterday I saw a stick propped up by a pile of rocks with old fishing line leading out into the water, and when I pull it up, it has a plastic worm and a fluke on the end. No takers, apparently. ?

It’s definitely a major improvement, I like it a lot. It’s obvious a lot of work went into it, and it’s obvious you care a lot about the user experience, and that is getting rare these days. I especially like the “Quote Collapse” feature to reduce scrolling. If I could request one feature, it would be a feature like the one that allows a user the option to turn off viewing of signatures, but this feature would turn off viewing of member profile information that is shown with every comment.

Those are nice looking gloves, but I thought leather would shrink and harden when it gets wet?

That swivel snap is bigger than that crank bait. lol

Unless you have original packaging, those lures might sell better framed, like a display. Framing is not cheap though, so you'd be making an investment that might not pay off.

I have dangled a plastic craw in front of them and had them clamp on to it. I've even had them clamp onto the guide on the end of my rod. 40% of the time you have a 30% chance of catching 20% of the fish in 10% of the lake with 5% of your lures, so what is your actual chance of catching a fish?

How did you heat the bill? I've never had much luck with wake baits. They look great to me, the fish don't seem to agree though.

I’m laughing because I can relate to getting fixated on something like that. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t catch anything on them, you had a good time already. I love a good mystery!

Sometimes you might want to come back to something you haven’t used in a long time. For example, I’ve caught a few nice fish on flukes years ago, so naturally I bought a bunch. I never got to where I could consistently catch good numbers with them, so I pretty much quit using them. Recently I figured out some things and have been having great success with them. They have become my favorite thing to fish with. Another example, I had a bunch of worm colors I didn’t really like, so they would sit in the drawer and I would keep buying colors I preferred. A few months ago, I started running low on my favorite colors, and at the same time I was slaying spotted bass with worms. The spotted bass were also slaying my worms, I mean literally tearing them to pieces. I found they really didn’t care about color during that period, so I got rid of a bunch of my old worms and I saved a lot of money.

I have some Mann’s worms from the late 70’s to early 80’s that were a green pumpkin shade, but they were transparent, where Zoom is opaque. The worms aren’t in the original packaging though, so I don’t know what that color was called. There is no magic color, only magic colors for certain conditions. That study is often misconstrued. It’s not that they can see green better, it’s that they can differentiate between green and red better than other colors. They don’t need a talking fish to get test results. They explain in that study how they do it. But anyway, yeah, it’s all pretty irrelevant to the fisherman.