jbmaine

I basically grew up on the water. We had a camp on a lake and we lived on the N.H. coast and had a salt water boat. Even so I took a CG safety/ navigation course and still carry the old battered certificate in my wallet. This course was taken back before GPS and we had to read charts/ learn compass headings, all of that. I still remember learning all about nun and can buoys and of course red right returning.

Back when I was a kid digging up a coffee can full of worms was a right of passage. My grand dad was lazy. He had made an electric " worm getter" . Soak the ground for a while, stick two probes in the ground, plug it in and watch the worms come shooting up.

Good luck and best wishes from the lower part of the state.👍

Don't forget the Whopper Plopper !

I think the word good is the key in your post title. My wife and I consider ourselves to be good bass fisherman and women. We rarely catch the largest bass or the most bass ( if any), but at the end of the day, on the way home from the lake, we look at each other and say " that was fun". That always has been good enough for us.

This may be an outside the box thought but ( outside of a sidearm) maybe carry one of those portable air horns with you, you know the kind that deafens someone at ten feet. Just to broadcast your presence for help should the need arise.

Hi all, I was going thru my tackle and came across a bag of these I had bought some time in the past. I never tried them and realized I don't hear much about them. Anyone here tried/ use them? if so what's your favorite way to rig them? Thanks, Jim

Life has thrown us many bad things our way, but never a bad day on the water.

When we were younger it was more about the chase. Had to be the first on the water, always went after the most fish, largest fish, just one more fish, etc. Now we really just enjoy the day on the water, catching fish is still the preferred result but any day on the water is a good day.

We try to give anybody on the water the same courtesy. That being said, we don't extend extra courtesy to anyone just because they are in a tourney.

Yes, we do from time to time. It can be very effective for all kinds of fish. I knew an old timer who only fished at night, trolling a jitterbug a few feet from shore. You'd be surprised how many he caught.

Most definitely there are " bite windows". I've experienced them many times. Most common to me is fishing a heavy overcast drizzly day. Fish hitting every where. The second the sun comes out the bite turns off, I mean dead off, not a bite to be had.

thunder---no rain---- yes, they make rain gear for a reason.

I use those features a lot. A couple of the lakes I fish have large areas of submerged weed beds in water 6-8 ft. deep stretching for hundreds of yards. I'll start at one end and set course and speed ( into the wind) and slowly move from one end to the other. As I go I'll fan cast first on one side then the other and cover the entire area. My favorite bait for this is a spinnerbait retrieved just fast enough to stay just over the weeds. This is how I caught my PB.

It's amazing how good a small fish will look, with the right perspective🤔

I met one a few years ago. Turns out he lives one town over from me. We've become really good friends.

A face only a mother could love😵

I'm not concerned with the last tenth of an oz. so I hook my scale to a gripper, works for me.

I seem to have the best luck fishing submerged weed beds on cloudy/overcast days. My first choice is casting a charthouses spinnerbait and running it over top of the weeds. That's how I caught the one in my picture, my PB.

It just hit 97 here in southern Maine. Too hot for me.🥵How hot is it getting in your neck of the woods?

I went from tossing a anchor out every time I needed to stop in a spot to an Ulterra with spot lock and all the other cool features, especially stow and deploy. My back thanks me every time I use it.

I know, it seems like everyone loves Subaru's. I wish we could have said the same.

We must be one of the only families ever to find Subaru a bad car brand. We had two Subaru Foresters. The first blew the head gasket at 60K. The second had a variety of strange issues. The radio crapped out at 20K, the sunroof at 25K and the weirdest electrical issue was every time we drove past a school zone in our neighborhood the door locks would cycle on their own over and over again. We also had an on going disagreement with the Subaru dealership where we bought it. We had a brake caliper seize up and eat the brake pads just after the initial warranty expired. We wanted the dealership to help with the cost as we thought it had to be a defective part. They refused and said it was because we didn't drive it enough. ( we drove it around 200 miles a week) We paid to have it fixed. A year later another caliper on another wheel did the same thing. We got rid of the car. We'll never have another Subaru.

You guys are making a good point for Toyota. Thanks

Unfortunately that happens all to often. Fish and game has a list of waters they would like to put a launch on ( and the public has a right to) but can't get anyone to grant them an easement.