fin

I drink my coffee black, and use the same coffee cup over and over for a week or so, just rinsing it out between batches. After a week, it has built up on the porcelain cup to the point that you have to really scrub with a rag to get it off, so I think yeah, it will adhere to the plastic eventually. I really doubt it will attract fish, but it might make them hold on a microsecond longer. It also might make them spit it out though. You'll never really know.

Anyone know what kind of swimbait this is? It had a couple of small chrome hooks when I found it, but when I tried it out, it got sideways at any speed other than wide open, so I put bigger hooks on it. It’s much better, but it still gets sideways. Found a Whopper Plopper 75 in ‘loon’ color with a weird double knot. Anyone know what kind of knot that is? I don’t understand the logic there. I guess they’re thinking if the first knot breaks, the second one will hold? This one had about 30 feet of line with it when I found it, so the knot wasn’t the problem here. I don’t know about that loon color. Kind of weird. No loons around here. No luck with it so far. I might just make it all black with a sharpie. One of my most successful colors for WP’s is a ‘Blue Blood’ I found that was so old and nasty that it was almost black. I’ve used it so much and caught so many fish on it that the stain is getting worn off. I wish I knew of something I could dip it in to make it darker again. Here it is above another one that I found that was almost new. The picture doesn't really capture the difference very well.

Rather than try to explain it with words, show him what it feels like by actually pulling on his line on dry land. Have him cast a plug with no hooks 30 feet or so on the lawn. Show him how it feels when you tug on slack line versus tight. Show him what it feels when you just slowly pull the plug, etc. He will be able to see what you are doing and his mind will make the connection. It won't feel exactly like it does when his line is in the water, but he'll learn a lot quicker than listening to you.

I wish I would have used Excel, or some other spread sheet software to do my record-keeping. If you're young starting out, that is the way to go. Otherwise, it's more difficult to learn from the records. Not impossible, just more difficult. Excel can make it much easier to analyze.

I don’t think there is a lot of science that goes into deciding what to manufacture. Berkley seems to do a lot of testing, but I don’t know about others. I think what sells well determines future manufacture/stocking.

Not anymore, apparently.

A little over 5/8 oz.

I've found a bunch of those Ozark Trail squarebills. The only reason I pick them up now is so I won't pick them up again the next time I see them lying on the ground. Those lures are a good argument against the availability of cheap lures. If they weren't available, I would be finding some nicer lures. lol

I still have a few in an unmarked box, but I had forgotten what they were called. I hope I don't get that desperate!

I’ve argued with people and I usually end up getting angrier than the situation calls for. I’ve walked away and let people have the spot I was fishing, just to avoid the confrontation. Then I feel like I’ve let them push me around. I’ve tried to talk with people nicely, but I’ve never had one person really ‘get it’ and move on. I’ve tried to ignore them. I’ve done passive-aggressive stuff like cast right in front of them to try and make them ‘get it’. None of that really works well. The only solution is to avoid people all together. Get there when there’s nobody else there, and if someone comes, move. It’s the best you can do. I fish a 200+ acre pond with fishable banks most of the way around the lake. I have had people come fish right next to me when we were the only two people on the entire lake. Once I was standing on a culvert, a space about 1 foot wide by 6 feet long (slippery and not easy to stand on), and had a person come get on the culvert behind me, cast over my shoulder, and catch a 5# bass. I had been fishing there for over an hour with no luck. I had to get off the culvert and out of his way so he could land the fish. I had been angry up until that point, but the situation was so ridiculous, I left laughing.

A couple colors of flukes Several colors of worms A shad-colored spinnerbait That, terminal tackle, line, and tools is all I'm carrying here lately. Took a long time to narrow down that list though. Most days I'll also take a wild card, just to break up the monotony.

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I left my tackle box at a high traffic lake once. I drove home, cut the lawn and then realized I had left it. I drove like crazy back to the lake and found a guy fishing right next to where my box was still sitting. If I had been a little bit later, I’m sure it would have been gone. I have found so much stuff over the years, I could afford to lose a lot and still come out ahead. It’s amazing what people will leave behind. I've found hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. I’ve actually found cash before. I used the Improved Clinch for years, but eventually got fed up with the occasional "bad knot". I kept thinking I had figured out what I was doing wrong, but sooner or later I would have problems again. I switched to the San Diego Jam Knot a year or two ago, and have not had a single problem since. It's a little more awkward to tie, but I highly recommend making the change.

All good advice. A couple tricks if you do gut hook one and you don’t have cutters - pinch the barb shut if you can. If you can’t, cut your line and push the hook through instead of trying to pull it back out. The eye of the hook is bigger than the barb, but it will pass through meat a lot easier than the barb. Just curious, what kind of worms?

Ordered a rod through Amazon a few months ago and UPS delivered it to the wrong address. Neither one of them are set up for that mistake. They see that it got delivered, and the delivery address in the computer is correct, so “case closed”. They just assume the UPS driver never delivers things to the wrong place. There’s no button to click on to report that problem, you have to go through customer service, and it takes a good bit of time and aggravation. Once you finally get through, Amazon will ship another at no charge without blinking. The day after Amazon shipped my replacement rod, a neighbor that got the original shipment finally brought it to me, so I got two rods for the price of one in the end.

It depends on the type of lake, and the location within the lake. The point(s) where water feeds into the lake is the worst. Silt can quickly bury a lure, sometimes within days, like after a storm. Even after draining, they can be buried so deep they are never found. On the other hand, I have found lures that appear to have been lost over 10 years.

Debatable ? I've never used one either, but I've used a big magnet made for a CB antenna, and I learned two things: it ain't easy to get the magnet to go where you want it to go, but it is easy to get snagged on stuff like rocks and branches. You might lose the magnet if you're not careful. Hard to use from the bank. Also, people sometimes drown using those magnets. Be careful. I'd like to see the magnet if you have a link or picture.

On the other end of the spectrum, I sometimes find myself going through way too much trouble trying to retrieve a lure someone else has lost. Once I get started trying to retrieve one, I have a hard time making myself give up, even when it's a lure that I don't particularly want. There's a walking bait about 20' up in a tree that I've probably spent an hour trying to get, and I already have a bunch of walking baits that I never throw anymore. I just want to win the game!

They don't talk about it until around 50 minutes into the show, and then only talk about it for about 10 minutes. To sum up his answer: it's complicated. He said some manufacturing was interrupted of course, orders couldn't be filled at the peak of the season, and then some wholesalers/retailers didn't want to buy it once it became available because they only buy at a certain time of year, or because of fear or crackdowns on purchasing from above. Some items like reels are even more complicated because of parts coming from multiple locations. He didn't offer any forecast, or at least I didn't hear it. I did a lot of fast-forwarding so I might have missed it.

It would be good for someone to do an investigative article about it. Do some calling around up the food chain to see what’s going on. Has anyone seen any articles about it on other sites? I’ve been wondering where the problem is in the supply chain. Are manufacturers closed down? Is anything getting manufactured? Distributors scared to stock? Retailers scared, or unable to afford, to stock? Can the Chinese really not get anything shipped? Plenty of people are available to work here.

For someone starting out, the 50# test cost the same as the 10# test, so they think they're getting a deal on the 50#.

This was probably a nice spinnerbait back in its day, but I can guarantee the owner never caught a fish on it ?

Academy is having a two-day sale. Some of their rods, Lowrance, one Garmin. https://www.academy.com/shop/browse/shops/summer-deals/fishing-gear-up-to-25-off

You may not be keeping your line tight, which wouldn't surprise me, because I've noticed some people recommend a slack line with senkos. I don't hardly ever use senkos myself. On the occasions that I have gut hooked bass with a Zoom worm, it has been due to a fish running off with my worm before I ever got my line tightened after casting, like when the worm is floating downstream towards me and the fish grabs it and runs downstream too. You also may need a more sensitive rod. Or you're just reacting too slowly, like everyone has already said. I don't think there's any way you can put any style of hook in a worm so wrong that it gut hooks a fish.