DitchPanda

Maltese falconing: Humphrey Bogart plays a detective who has a penchant for taking on strange and unusual cases..but that is his day job. His side gig is working with birds of prey to keep pests at bay in the surrounding farmlands.

Bandit 100s are a very solid crank. I also love the bomber square A. Last summer we had a bad drought so my local lake was very low...several times I smashed em on a KVD 1.5 shallow.

Night at the Roxburying: Two nitwit brothers well into there 30s still living at home love one thing- getting drunk at clubs and aggressively hitting on women. One night things go to far and they end up killing a girl celebrating her 21st b-day. They spend the next several hours hiding the body in a shallow grave. Haddaways what is love can be heard blaring over the sound of there shovels striking the dirt.

House of Waxing: A group of college students run into some car trouble while traveling to see the big game. They run to a nearby rundown town to fetch a fan belt to fix there ride and get back on the road. Before you know it there friends start disappearing and everybody suspects the creepy brothers that live in the old wax museum fearing the worst. But when they get to digging into it...turns out everybody was just at the salon getting long overdue brazilians.

Only dobyns I have is a Sierra 702 spinning...it is a fantastic rod.

China beach sounds familiar...think my mom.watched it when I was a kid

This is dead on right here. Living in ice country is unpredictable to say the least. As I said above last year we had ice out in early March...I caught my biggest largie of the year (7lbs) on April 5th. Several years prior they were worried bout the ice not being off some of the bigger lakes for walleye opener which is the first weekend in May. We made it but it was the end of April. That's a 7 week swing so there is no way to know until its here. Case in point if you asked me last month I'd have predicted early ice out like last year...now we have been hit with one of the coldest winter storms the country has seen in forever.

My current rundown is: Braid on frog rod Braid to leader on Ned rod Straight mono on small crank rod Copolymer on the other 92 reels!

Glad you made it thru ok. Hell of a fish!

Last year was strange for us. We had crazy warm weather in February which led to the earliest ice out I can remember. Then the temps dropped back to low 40s highs and 20s for lows which left us with open water but very little warm up which kept the fish in a funk. Stayed that way for a month probably then it just bypassed the 50s and warmed up super fast with days in the 70s and even some touching 80s. Even with the funk I managed to get into alot if quality fish including 3 big fish for my area (2-6s and a 7) pre spawn. I really feel that the fish will hold off for weather a while but eventually the draw from sun angle and day length start pulling them up regardless.

Well here in Iowa it ain't looking good for early ice out. Last year it went out the first week of march but there's no way that's happening now. It looked like it was possible but we have been below freezing non stop for like 10 days in a row now..the last few days we've had wind chills approaching -40. Even when we get out of this the warmest days look like low 40s for the next few weeks.

That's a great idea..thank you sir!

I do not. I think your right. I bought some optimum baby line thru and they came with a treble but no split ring. I saw places where people said add a ring and I think its about movement of the hook...not binding it up or affecting the action of the bait.

I'm talking about adding a split ring to the treble for a line thru swim bait. Guess I'm not sure what your asking.

What is the reason for adding the spit ring to the treble on a line thru?

I use an old Berkley lightning rod shock I got on clearance for $12. Its 7ft medhvy mod fast its fairly parabolic but not a true cranking rod as it still has good backbone power to drive a hook. I also use this rod for spinnerbaits and buzzbaits. I'm all for quality gear and would never discourage someone from buying an upper end rod...but for me I don't spend alot on moving bait rods or top water rods...I save that money for finesse and jig rods.

This is my life to. I ask my lady"how much have you spent on zyia this winter?" She says "well how much have you spent on tackle warehouse?". Well we aren't talking about that so shut your dirty little mouth!

Pretty diverse forage supply honestly between stocking and relocation from the river that borders it during flood scenarios. I've seen shiners and various river minnows,bluegill,green sunfish,crappies,some small perch,shad and a couple types of crawfish. All that said I've got some small blades baits and hair jigs I will try. Also some finesse tubes. Cool video. Guess my biggest deal is I'm shore bound...don't really know how shallow they get right away.

Max depth is about 16-20 ft depending on year. This past year we had no flooding and actually experienced a pretty bad drought so its on the low end. The north end of the lake is sand and rock with riprap on the shore the rest of the lake is fairly standard stuff just a few lay downs and manmade brush piles. oh its a very small watershed...more of a big pond...maybe 10-12 acres of water tops. that's weird ...opposite of what I've always heard.

Have you ever had a TV show sneak up on you and sink its hooks in? You know maybe you gave a show a try without much expectation or stuck to it with mixed feelings a few episodes in and ended up loving it? For me a show that sticks out like that is Frasier. Had a buddy watch it last winter all the way thru on Hulu and he ranted and raved about how funny it was. So me and the old lady usually pick a new show to watch during winter since I fish constantly the rest of the year and lets be honest there isn't much else to do here in winter. She was all for trying Frasier based on his recommendation and for the fact that we had watched Cheers all the way thru the winter prior. Well I reminded her that Frasier was my least favorite character in Cheers but she insisted so I gave in. A few episodes in I was feeling exactly like I thought I would...the characters seemed stuffy and snyde and I was not enjoying it to say the least. Well I told her I would stick with it and at some point I got sucked in by the humor and character dynamic. Before I knew it we were 4 or 5 seasons deep and I realized I liked it more than Cheers. Anything like this ever happen to you?

The Relicing Tom Sizemore stars as a detective tasked with tracking down a killer loose in a huge Chicago museum. Turns out the killer is an ancient monster from tribal South American jungles with two hobbies:consuming human flesh and distressing new guitars to give them that worn weathered retro look.

So I don't have alot of smallies available locally but I do have one small lake about 2 minutes from my house...what I call my local...that has gotten a small population of smallies from flooding over the past 3 years. Last year I only caught a couple but the year before I caught probably 20-25 mixed in with largies..had several in the 2-2.5lb range. My question is I've never targeted small mouth at ice out but it is my understanding that they are reading to roll pretty much as soon as the ice is gone. Where do you target them at ice out? What baits should I focus on?

Live bait? Shame on you sir....just kidding man nice fish. I'm freezing up here!

True that! Ha...man I tell you what I woke up late this morning and looked outside...nice and sunny with a light breeze. Ok that don't look to bad. Opened the door just to get a feel for it..good gravy Marie! Look up to current feels Like temp...-34. Wowwie zowwie!

My #1 bladed jig rod and reel is also one of my cheapest. Abu Garcia black max I got at wal mart for like $30 and an old model Berkley shock 7ft medhvy modfast I got on clearance when the new model came out a few years back for $12. Love that rod for this application.