DanielG

Ya, I always want to stow mine in the boat... I end up walking in the house with it. The wife says, without looking up, "you forgot again".

Life vests... I thought about it a long time. I have an open side platform boat. The two factors: Comfort and safety. I grew up at the lake where I live and spent more time in the water than on land when I was younger. I could tread water all day. We were actually taught how to. If I fell overboard I could easily get to shore, no more than a half mile in any location on the lake. That being said... I'm now a healthy 65, but still I'm 65. Still not worried about being able to swim but as we get older we often wonder if something might occur that would make it difficult to swim. Stroke? heart attack? etc. And spring fishing in Maine is some very cold water, hypothermia or cold shock causing some health event could be an issue. When deciding on a vest, comfort was still a big consideration, but safety was more complicated. A vest that turned you over and kept your head above water even if incapacitated or unconscious was a consideration and not easy to find for comfort. I opted for a decent quality auto inflate life vest. It sometimes feels like you're not wearing one, and they have a large back of the neck inflation so they will turn you on your back. Well maintained they're Coastguard certified so I'm expecting it to work properly (you can inflate it by hand too). It seems that only the bulkiest life vests otherwise will roll you over on your back. This is a good solution for me.

I have a crank bait I made early on that has a really nice action, deep and thumping and I've had great luck with it lately. I’m duplicating it with different paint patterns. This one is a sort crayfish pattern… sort of. Anyway, it also has wonderful action. So, as usual, everything is handmade except the hooks.

Dobyns 735 champion mh glass, Curado DC, 30 lb superslick braid, and these days some version of crank or glide bait I've made.

Ya, I think you're right on here....

Ha. I don't know if I'm qualified to answer that question. I will make a few more in different color schemes that should behave the same though.

The original is in my first post. These are four of them I've been using kinda regularly. All getting some bites. The orange one has been better than the others. I've been trying to use just the baits I've made to painfully find out if they actually will catch fish.

I made a handful of lures since I started making baits for the first time this winter. My first was a disaster because of a poor mixing of the finish epoxy so it was never usable. I made this lure second. I consider it my first lure because it was the first that actually worked out. I've been fishing the few that I think look and move right in the water and have caught a few fish on a variety of them. But every time I put this lure in the water the fish hit is a ratio of about 3-1 compared to any of my other ones. I didn't use it right away because I have some others that just look right in the water to me. This one looks good in the water too but it's different. It's wide (my sort of naivety at the time, I've since narrowed them down a bit) and as a result it wobbles so strongly it thumps the end of my pole when trolling or reeling it in. It has a ton of drag in the water. It dives about 3-4 feet down. I'm writing this now because I just went down to the dock to take a couple of casts at dusk. I hit three pickerel in a row casting in the same place. Do these very predatory fish run in schools??? The other day it was three bass while casting from the boat three times in a fan pattern towards the shore. I know some of you catch a dozen fish in an outing, but getting 3-4 in a few hours on the lake I live on is pretty good. It seems... right now anyway, that if I want a fish I put this lure on. Another weird thing... I've got Mustad hooks on it. They're a pretty good hook. I also lose fish more when they surface or flip, when out of the water, with this lure more than others. All this is a sort of mystery to me.... I have notes and videos of the build of this lure. I'm tempted to duplicate it exactly a number of times with different paint jobs. Strange question but anyone have any idea what gives here from your experiences?

Man, a tough situation for sure. I hope it all works out for you. When I was 10 yrs old I made a vow to myself never to drink. I was living with it and it was a no brainer. I haven't had any alcohol at all in 65 yrs. If you don't drink and never have, being in a culture of drinkers is sort of like being a loner. The closest I can come to it is like when I was in college when everyone had a nickel bag of pot in their dorm. You'd walk into a room where a half dozen people were high and they'd pass it to you. I'd refuse and they'd laugh it off and wonder what was wrong with me. Today I feel like I live in a world of self medicators. If I tell people I don't drink they often back off because they think I must have been through a 12 step program and they don't want to upset the plan. When I tell them I don't drink and never did, they look at me in disbelief..as if I had just told them I don't breath.

My latest attempt at a bait. A segmented bluegill similar to the Blackdog Shellcracker. It came out pretty good but I think it will be awhile before I make a bait with such a tall profile. I managed to bring it under control but the tall profile makes stability more difficult to attain. I used an internal think aluminum hinge that some of the commercial ones have. Not the easiest to get right, and I don't know if I actually did!

Gee Jim, I just saw you and your wife on the water last week. Things happen fast. Hoping for the best with this. It will all work out. Take care. Dan...

I'm in Southern Maine in an area that host people from Mass, NY, and Canada. I live on one 4.6 mile lake amoung a cluster of 22 of them. So far the lake is pretty much mine. Few fishermen and very few other recreational people. Memorial day... summer never started. June has been dead. I'm thinking the 4th will be the quietest I've probably ever seen. Maine: 14 day quarantine for any out of state visitors. And we're a very heavy tourist state. Not many takers. Then again we've got a fairly low number of infections so far. I noticed today that uptick on the end of the graph from the John Hopkins site. That's just the phase one opening up. It doesn't even reflect the protesters yet. I think my area will stay even quieter in the near future.

I picked that one up on sale a couple of months ago.... very satisfied with it. Well made and nicely appointed.

All I can say is that with their one size fits all setting caused occasional backlashes. It has to be adjusted for the weight of the lure. Put something light on it... do the shake thing, and the tension is less so it casts properly Put a heavy crankbait on it and the tension is set tighter using the same method and it casts good. Using this method I've been able to cast little plastics or big wobblers without a single backlash. Of course once I smacked a big bait right in front of me on the water because I pulled the trigger too late but the backlash was still minor. I've got videos on here someplace where I heave overhand as hard as I can big and small baits, over and over again, into the wind with the camera on the spool. My hand and thumbs are down low on the handle. I don't even get any fuzzing. Now, does the thumb thing really matter if someone uses a standard caster? Not really I guess, but it does to me.

I pressure wash each year or so but don't put anything on it. The deck by the water was put on by me and my brother in 1972. I rebuilt railing obout 5 yrs ago and just unscrewed the deck boards and flipped them over to look newer. All my decks and the ones I built for my relatives vary from 5 yrs to 50 yrs old and have never had any stain or sealer on them. We just clean them and the look good. And they get a variety of weather here in Maine. Any popular sealers if you notice, puddle the water for about one month.

I don't drink... never did, but I come close. Maine's official drink, Moxie. Guaranteed to put hair on your chest and appreciate the idea that you're not dead. My mother in law used to describe it as carbonated tar.

Put it on 2. Then forget the rest of the adjustment that Shimano provides. Put a lure on and adjust the tension knob so that when you give it a shake it drops a foot or so each time. You need to readjust with the changing of lures if they have different weights. When I got my dc a couple of years ago, I did the Shimano method by tightening until the spool didn't have side play in it. Things didn't work well. Then I changed after finding the drop method online and I haven't had a nest in hundreds (thousands??) of casts. I went from considering returning it to it being the a reel I would replace if I lost this one.

I'm interested in the construction of the hinge joint in a blackdog shellcracker. It's been around for awhile but I've never seen one. Does anyone have one and can show or tell me the mechanics of it? In this picture it looks like the front half is solidly embedded and the rear half has an recessed embedded joint.

Well, I did something I'd been thinking about for awhile. I built a lure to test lures. I call it convertible because it has interchangeable parts sort of like Mr. Potato Head. You can change bill, line tie locations, weights and their locations. The video has a short part about what it is and it's build, and later on I try it with many different configurations. My goal is to be able to try things out before I put the time in making lure. Sometimes I'll want to alter something about my bait build, make it, paint it, and find out that the variation is a bust. I've got a handful of crank baits that are some of my best artwork. They're very pretty, but behave horribly in the water. I've got some ugly ones that move like a ninja.... go figure. I don't know if this build is good or just plain weird... but here it is anyway... Note: There are no like or subscribe indicators in the video.

You just might feel young at heart... wait, from my perspective you are young.... I taught 12-13 yr olds for thirty years. That age often has a definite personality all its own. One thing I've noticed is that I've met some adults that never leave the age of about 15. They live like a 'grab all the gusto you can' Budweiser commercial. It's all well and good but two things usually sober people up. One is marriage and the second is being responsible for the life of a child when you have children. Most live up to those standards to one extent of another. There are a few I've known... the ones who never leave adolescence that don't... their lives, in my observations, don't end up well. Especially if the spouse is an adult who finds that they're married to a perpetual teenager. I'm sure you're not that person but that's what I've seen.

This story is on a thread someplace else here... Last year I was about a mile away from my place on the lake. I have an electric boat... trolling speed pretty much. I pulled in about a 1.5 lb bass and when I was unhooking the lure he flipped and one barb stuck me in the belly through my t-shirt. It was stuck good, and he was flopping around so I couldn't get it out no matter how hard I tried. I stood up while taking the slow ride back home. A bass stuck on my belly looking up at me with that big eye. After I got home I managed with pliers to rip it out. Didn't hurt that much either. The fish died. I survived. I never hold a fish close any longer.

I wish!.... it's on that branch off the the right... About 20 ft up... don't ask.

The reel is powered by the cast. And the microchip is a wafer that looks like a white washer loosely mounted in the mechanism where the brakes would be. So, it must be easily replaceable should it ever go bad which it probably won't. When they put computers to monitor the engines combustion in cars in Detroit everyone thought they'd have to reboot often to get home. What it did was make them run more reliably and smoothly without having to adjust the timing, worn distributors, and all the other stuff we used to have to do. Some people comment after having tried one for awhile, but I think a lot of people have anecdotal information and comment by what they imagine it would be like.

The past couple of days I made different sized of the same shallow crank bait. I've got one with a less than desirable color scheme that just flitters so well in the water. I figured I'd make a few with the same characteristics but better colors. You can look up my channel on youtube to see the complete builds.

The big question begs... If he was brought up in captivity and has been domesticated, will he be able to survive in the wild? Will he be able to join a bass herd or will they reject him? When he sees a minnow will he be able to chase it and catch it or will an experienced bass need to take him under his wing...er fin... and show him the ropes. And can he learn before he becomes emaciated? These are all questions to be pondered before your just dump him off in some random pond. Maybe, just maybe you shouldn't have removed him from his natural habitat to begin with. That thought should weigh heavily on your mind. If you've pondered all of this and decided that you might just have to keep him for his own good... well, there's always the frying pan right? ?