CountryboyinDC

It all depends. If you haul your kayak to the bank in your truck and then do little paddling/pedaling, surely you can't count that as much exercise. If you attain several miles against current that requires ferries and hard paddling, there's no way of saying it wasn't exercise. Especially when I'm not having great luck with the fish, I'll go play in an easy ledge hole or cruise around looking for something cool to see. I end up getting a little exercise. May not be Zumba at its highest level. When I go out on a whitewater boat, I almost always get exercise - not all of it planned.

Bible (only version I've read in its entirety is the Standard Revised version, but these days my go-to is the NIV) and The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes.

Tournament MBs or now MPs, BB1s, and Curado 70s. I honestly wish those were the only ones I had - the Tatula SVs, Revos of various ages, and Chronarch MGL are still ticking, so I use them and service them annually, but I won't buy more.

I use a crate I made from modular cube storage, PVC, and zip ties and 4-5 3600 boxes usually. Also some terminal tackle in (1 or 2) 3600 boxes in pouches under the seat. I always have soft plastics in a binder in the front hatch to keep them from melting and the ones I use under the seat. It seems like a lot until you run out of whatever they were hitting.0

Got a couple of Lowrance graphs on sale if anyone's interested at Wally World: Lowrance Elite-12 Ti2 FishFinder - $998 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Lowrance-Elite-12-Ti2-FishFinder-Active-Imaging-3-in-1-Preloaded-C-MAP-US-InlandMapping/179481355?irgwc=1&sourceid=imp_wFiXcwzfVxyIRpRS4ww%3ALVR9UkG0MEXtuWvWQU0&veh=aff&wmlspartner=imp_10451&clickid=wFiXcwzfVxyIRpRS4ww%3ALVR9UkG0MEXtuWvWQU0&sharedid=&affiliates_ad_id=567111&campaign_id=9383 Lowrance Elite-9 Ti2 US Inland FishFinder - $598 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Lowrance-Elite-9-Ti2-US-Inland-FishFinder-Active-Imaging-3-in-1-Transducer/941024111?irgwc=1&sourceid=imp_wFiXcwzfVxyIRpRS4ww%3ALVR9UkG0MBXNuWvWQU0&veh=aff&wmlspartner=imp_10451&clickid=wFiXcwzfVxyIRpRS4ww%3ALVR9UkG0MBXNuWvWQU0&sharedid=&affiliates_ad_id=567111&campaign_id=9383 Both come with the 3 in 1 transducer

I'm in a kayak or (less often these days) canoe. I have a NRS rescue knife on my PFD and usually my pocket knife in a dry bag with other things. I rarely use a pocket knife, though. I either use the Boomerang tool or kid's scissors.

Which one's best between the Menace and Rage Bug for a chatterbait? I have only been using the Zako with any success, but they don't make one that really matches the Firecraw. I'm thinking of spring already, and it's just fall.

Fishing rubber ducks (or whatever type of inflatable kayak you have) is probably like fishing from a whitewater canoe. The 'equal and opposite reaction' thing reveals itself big time. While big fishing kayaks hold in place against jerkbaits and things that pull as hard, a deep crankbait can pull a Predator PDL. It's easier to see when you throw out some marker buoys. I think @Hammer 4's advice of trying to use retrieve off the bow is probably your best bet. He actually had a propulsion system he could use while his arms/hands were tied up with the rod/reel. Since you won't be that lucky, about the best thing that you can do is us an anchor that opposes the tendency of your boat to drift. This will be really slow, and infuriating to watch the people in their Hobie Pro Angler 360s easily maneuver and position themselves, but if you need a boat to roll up and fit in the trunk of your car, that's the trade off. For me, I like fishing the shoals of shallow rivers. You might find they're the best place to fish from an inflatable too. It's a little bit of a learning curve, learning how to use the river to ferry to where you want to go, and fishing the river rather than fighting it, but it's way more fun than the crowded still water places around here, imho. I was out on the South Fork of the Shenandoah Wednesday for a 6 hour float with only 3 smaller brown bass to show for it, none over 14". I saw 2 other boats the whole time, neither of whom had a fishing rod. It was still a good day.

I use the Nocqua 10 AH. It fits fine with the padded case it comes with.

Just a note about the Cell Block - I have it and for my purposes it's the most practical solution that I've come across. The whole graph/battery/transducer comes off and can be used on another boat (I don't really). It allows me to mount a transducer (Lowerance 3 in 1) that wouldn't fit in the transducer scupper of my pedal drive kayak (Old Town Predator PDL, the one this gets mounted on). It has some drawbacks. In my paddle kayak ( Jackson Coosa HD), it causes the kayak to list a bit. It gets in the way of my forward paddle stroke, even with the seat slid way back. A 41" wide kayak would probably take 50 lbs on the gunwale to make it list significantly, and you may have some track rail with yours that allows it to be mounted out of the way of your forward paddle stroke. In the end, it'll be you who decides how to go about it, depending on what's important to you.

Kayaks are rarely made of cross linked polyethylene these days - I think Jackson even quit making whitewater boats of XLPE about 8 or 9 years ago. https://coloradokayak.com/blogs/cks-blog/the-truth-about-cross-linked-versus-linear-plastic/ The old Jacksons crack, good luck finding a plastic welder who will touch it. It won't hold much of anything. The WS boats, to my knowledge, never used XLPE though. I'd like to hear how that Gator Guard works. I see it in on banner ads pretty often.

There's Gorilla tape (the stuff you use to fix pool liners) in every kayak and canoe I paddle, if it's a tough walk out where I'm going. Unfortunately @WGentry, I suspect you're right, the keel toward the stern is wearing thin. that that happen with my WS Ride, and I tried the plastic bucket thing, which made it last several more trips. WS does sell welding rods, I suspect they're little better than the ones from Walmart, but they may match your boat better. https://www.wildernesssystems.com/us/products/weld-rod-stock-wildy-kayak-repair-10-pack-blue Welding polyethylene has some of the same principles as metal. Relief holes at the ends of the crack seem counterintuitive, but will keep the crack from lengthening. It's best to bevel the edges of the crack if you can. I agree with @Bankcthat epoxies are hard to get to adhere to polyethylene, but if you wanted to try one my choice would be G Flex. https://www.westsystem.com/specialty-epoxies/. I've helped my neighbor fix a crack in his Royalex canoe with G Flex that has held pretty well.

My bumper sticker says it all:

Honestly rather than run a piece of cord to your stake-out pole, I think you'll be better off and tangle-free by just hooking a carabiner to your anchor trolley and clipping that to the stake-out pole. Unless there's a significant depth change between where you set your pole and where you want to fish or something like that, that's what I find to be easiest. Also, you'll stay in one place and be able to yank 'em out of the grass better. Of course, that's just what I'd do. The other way works fine too, and is about what I do with an anchor.

Definitely have heard that one in many instances for many reasons.

I think that's a pretty common comment coming from country folk. I'd answer, 'no, but I'm hoping it will soon.' Never got old, and he'd of course say the same thing when I missed a nail or a fence post with the sledge. Good luck getting the handle off. I know I've gotten punches stuck in those things trying to drive the little wedges out that I thought I was never going to get unstuck.

Yep, it turns out it's a hair over 5/8. Surprised me. I think they make a lighter one, but where I fish they just blow out and tumble in the current. I feel like both of those rods are about the right power for that spinnerbait.

You should quit missing the log. I remember what my dad used to say every time I missed a log when I was splitting kindling.?

I throw these on a St. Croix LTB spinnerbait rod rated for 5/8 oz (I think this rating is a little light IMHO) and a Falcon Finesse Jig rod that's rated for the same weight, but is definitely a little faster action. I don't dress mine these spinnerbaits with any type of trailer, and I trim the skirt slightly (doubt that affects the weight much). Both of those rods work fine. Just got a new one in my TW order, here's the actual weight.

If I'm in current and not anchored or don't have the drag chain down, I sit and try to get the paddle in my lap. Otherwise I try to just bend down down and lip it or get my hand under the belly. When I'm fishing where there's also snakeheads, I'll bring a net. The snakeheads go into a net, and I guess a big enough bass could too. I don't necessarily sit to net them, but I do sometimes.

For baitcasters, I oil the spool bearings before I go out. I use a really light oil for that (the stuff I now have is Abu specifically for spool bearings). The rest of the reel only gets disassembled and relubed in the winter time unless there's a really compelling reason. I use Penn grease and about any oil (3-in-1, stuff I use on bike chains, whatever is around) except for on the spool bearings where oil goes. Spinning reels are a once-a-year affair for me. If I feel that the the reel needs disassembly all the way that requires removing the bail spring, etc., it goes to a tackle shop. Same grease, pretty much same deal for the oil.

I would trust @Bluebasser86's response in this thread. I haven't caught all the species of catfish that he has, but I generally get the gripper for bigger channel cats (the main type I that end up as bycatch for me).

I was in a lab at the University of Virginia in the Old Medical School. Someone from the office came down and myself and the principle investigator wondered how a plane could ever so far off course; Newark, La Guardia, and Kennedy are so far from there. We rigged a TV we had been using as a instrument display (our lab was pretty poor at the time) back as a TV and watched as the second plane crashed into the south tower. When the plane hit the Pentagon, I told my boss I was taking the rest of the day off. I went to the recruiting stations, and found the shortest line was in the Air Force one and hopped in line. It was more than 2 years later when I shipped out (not to the Air Force either, but that's a different story), but those events were still what motivated me.

Man you need to come fish the Shenandoah. Don at Front Royal Canoe has all the Nikko baits, every color of the helgrammites, and some other ones I've never tried. I haven't seen them too many other places - the sales rep from Nikko comes to our fishing club's meetings on occasion and sells them for a discount. They last a while - I've never had one that needed replacing before I get broken off snagged.

Nikko ZaZas are almost always on one of my road when I go smallmouth fishing these days. The Case was a mainstay before that. Hard to beat black, that's the closest color I believe before they turn into a Dobsonfly. They must have sissy helgrammites in Tennesee. The ones that I made the mistake of catching drew blood, nothing like a crawdad the same size.