Bubba 460

Looks like a "bush hog" or variant there of. Yes, still being made by at least a couple of co. Good bait

It was the middle of winter. I was slowly dragging a Ned rig along the bottom in 20 feet of water. I caught a five pound bass and netted it. When I removed the bass I left the net laying across the back of the boat with the net part dragging in the water and continued fishing. I went a bit further then turned around and went back the way I had come because the fish finder showed the fish were back there. As a side note, because it matters... this was the same area that I rescued a man and his wife that turned their canoe over a week prior in 42 degree water. I went over and took them to the shore as they clung to the side of my boat, (neither had a lifevest on) then went back out and gathered up what was floating as another boat secured the canoe. Anyway, back to the story... I was heading back through that area when I felt a possible hit on the Ned and set the hook. I had something on but it was sure not a fish; I figured it was a big branch. I reeled it up and it was a nice shiny landing net. It was so new I figured it was the one those people lost when their canoe overturned. I got the net and turned to put it in the back of the boat and then I noticed MY landing net was gone! Well silly me, my net had slipped off the boat earlier. I figured the net itself was hanging in the water and moving was enough to pull it off and it slid into the water unnoticed. What's the chances of losing your net over the side without even knowing and snagging it 15 minutes later without even looking for it? I've never bought a lottery ticket but that would have been the day to get one.

Could be, I didn't get any additional information on the link that sent to me. That was funny and now that you mention it, it was comedian funny.

I just love a good sense of humor and a happy ending https://youtu.be/XFoXmnBuLw0 [1]

Civil War relic hunting is very addictive. You can get pretty pumped when you make a great find. I have found several rare belt plates worth many thousands of dollars. YouTube?.. No, that's not for me, believe me when I say I write better than I talk... wife tells me not to talk in public. I have had head injuries and can fumble words pretty bad at times but thank you anyway.

Thanks.... I had a Civil War relic wall for many years but in the end you can't take it with you. Wife did not want to mess with it if I kicked the bucket so I ended up selling most of it (wife would have just given it to the Salvation Army). Confederate relics, particularly "marked" Confederate relics are worth a substantial amount. That dug Confederate Staff officers coat button is worth $300. (photo) All major battle sites are state or federal parks and relic hunting is not allowed. There are lots of other places to search such as march routes, skirmish sites, encampments etc... Of course you need to get permission first. Hundreds of thousands of troops in the field had to sleep somewhere every night ~ find those places and you'll find relics I always liked finding an old stone chimney in the woods (photo) predating the CW. Found some nice things around them.

On the water at 7:am. Started out with a blue & black senko around pilings, 30 cast with diddly squat to show. Switched to a cranberry wacky, WHAM, first cast, a 16" bass, third cast a 14" bass. Personally I've never done as well with a Texas rigged senko, a wacky seems to out fish it 5 to 1. Wood cover and grass are basically the only place where a senko "might" prove better than a wacky but then there are weedless wackys or just go with a worm. Caught a few more on the wacky then tried top water. Light fog drifted slowly across the lake with early sunlight flickering off the water. Picked up a rod with Whopper Plopper ready to go. Cast parallel to a gradually slopping shoreline in about 5 feet of water. Fifteen minutes later, nothing. Switched to a Sprinker frog over grass, "Hmmm, guess they don't want top water this morning. Picked up a 4" Z-Man, StreakZ curly tail on a weedless Ned head. Second cast "BAM", a 14" bass then several more including another 16" bass. Caught them hopping it along the bottom or swimming it over grass. Next I tried a craw colored spinnerbait, that just turned out to be nothing but exercise. Tried a square bill but after a half hour that only produces a 3 pound pickerel and a badly frayed line. Back to the wacky for two more bass then time to go. Ended up with 9 bass and the pickerel. Hey, beats a jab in the eye with a sharp stick.

Nope, never have I think was was mostly in the Great Lakes area.

I've had the White's DFX since it came out

Yes it is a lot of fun, especially when you are in a good area where relics are present such as an old camp or skirmish area. To me the the swinging of the detector is like casting and the good "hit" (detector response to a good target) is like the bass hitting, hence, "dirt fishing." Sometimes you get a dink (bullet) and sometimes you get a trophy ($3000 Confederate belt plate) ~ yeah, that will put a smile on your face!

A hardy breed. I did this when I was younger but not now.

Thanks. I mostly search along the last three days of the Civil War, approximately 35 miles. Where General Lee's Army marched from The Battle of Saylors Creek to Appomattox, where he surrendered to Gen Grant. At that time Lee only had about 25,000 men left and was surrounded by 125,000 union forces.... seemed like a good idea ~ surrender that is.

One of the reasons I wanted to move back to Virginia from Alaska, beside bass fishing, was to search for Civil War relics with a metal detector. I had started metal detecting for gold nuggets In Alaska and did okay finding nuggets as big as a Lima bean. But what really caught my interest was Civil War relics; I was making yearly two week trips to Virginia to search for them. I have found thousands of bullets, some of them where worth $300 apiece, uniform buttons (both Union and Confederate), belt plates, sword belt plates and other accoutrements.

Once a bottom crawler has reached bottom I want some feel as to what is happening with that bait at all times. I "feel" the logs, limbs, grass and rocks it comes in contact with and I waiting to feel that "tap" or "thump" that tells me a bass has picked up (small bass) or sucked in the bait. Even then, sometimes a bass will take it and you feel nothing, you might see the line going sideways or you may not feel your bait anymore which means a bass has it. That only increases the chance that a bass will be throat hooked because he has it too long before you set the hook. Yep, better to have as much contact with your bait on the bottom as possible for the sake of both you and the bass.

Then they grow up... I had just put my boat in the water and parked my truck. While walking across the parking lot I ran upon this adorable little baby crock... Then I remembered what they grow up to be!

How long was that bass, she looks really long , 24"?

The tip of a log stuck out of the surface 60 yards off a point in 8 feet of water. I cast a Texas rigged 10" ribbon tail worm to the left side and slowly brought it back with no takers. I then cast it to the right side of the log and let it sink. I had just started a slow drag/hop retrieve when I felt a thump. I set the hook and felt a solid fish. She did a few head shakes then I watched the line rise as she headed for the surface. When she broke water to jump I pulled her over with the rod and got a good look at her, a decent fish. Love to hear the drag working as she made a couple of short runs but really took off when she saw the net. A couple more runs then she ran around under the boat a bit as I stuck the rod down into the water to stop the braid from rubbing on anything sharp. She finally came out from under the boat, circled, and I pulled her into the net. The worm dropped out of the lip when I set her down... *whew* She measured 21 & 3/8 inch. A really thick wide fish packing some meat. Although I did not weigh her I believe she was 6 pounds, maybe a tad more. Ended up catching six, all on the 10" worm. A 3# was the second place bass. Not too shabby for an evening trip.

A spinner bait is just a mini umbrella rig.

I was about 18 when I caught my first Virginia bass over 8 pounds on a black Texas rigged worm. That fish remained my PB bass for many, many years ~ (hard to catch a bass while living in Alaska for over thirty years. Moving back to Virginia 17 years ago at the age of 56, I resumed bass fishing which I had missed very much. When I was about 65 my buddy and I were fishing on a cold January morning on a medium sized reservoir. We started trolling deep diving cranks, heavy spinner baits and swimbaits through LARGE schools of tightly packed shad. The water temp was 42 degrees. My first bass that morning a 8 pounder caught on a spinner bait , followed by a 7 pounder also on the spinner bait, another 7#, then a 5#, lost another big one then landed a 4#. My spinner-bait got hung-up and I lost it so I tied on a boot-tail six inch swimbait in the 'hitch" color and started casting because we were on the bass. First cast a bass nailed it. I could feel the big head shakes and nothing really moved when I pulled on her, just the Fenwick rod bending. Slowly she came to the surface and got her head out of the water shaking it with mouth open. It looked to me like the top half of a dumpster had just surfaced. She was cold and a little sluggish. My buddy netted her and she weighed 10.3. Took a photo and released her. So in the time-span of about a half hour I caught five bass that weighed a tad over 34 pounds. A good day indeed. My buddy caught some nice bass as well including an 8 pounder.

I was bass fishing when Eisenhower was President in his first term (1953 to 1961). Not having a father my older brother (15 years my senior) joined the Navy when I was three. When he got out of the Navy and being an avid hunter and fisherman, he landed a job in the big "Atlas Sporting Good Store" in Wash. DC. This would be the equivalent to Bass Pro stores of today on a smaller scale. One of his close friends back then was "Lefty Kreh", who went on to become a famous fly fisherman. It was my brother who would occasionally take me bass fishing with him as a young kid. He showed me how to tie knots, " Watch close boy cause I'm only gonna show you this once". As I got a little older he would take me more, we would wade the upper Potomac for smallmouth. Lefty Kreh went with us once with his fly rod. I caught the biggest bass that day and being a boy it made me feel like a big shot. We would fish for brook trout in the winter while it was snowing, made a fire and cooked them right on the bank in butter. My brother had an weekly article he wrote for a newspaper called "Cross Comments" about fishing or hunting tips. He put on fishing demonstrations/seminars with Lefty and other well- known local fisherman. My brother went to Florida in 1965 to manage a fishing resort. A year later I took a Greyhound bus to work there as well, which I did for a year. I was a boat handler for bass fishermen or take crappie fishermen out to one of our many man-made fish reefs. Good grief, look how long this is, maybe I just should have said, "My brother got me into bass fishing."

I don't remember them being 59 cent, they were a buck something where I bought them. They "might" have available in the late 50's, at a lower price, I don't know.

Okay, we're talking 1960's, a lure made in France called a "Lippy Lure" sometimes "Floppy Lure". It was a soft, hollow body lure that floated but dove when cranked. The lip was adjustable for shallow or deeper running. It came in two sizes, the smaller 5/8 oz was about 2.5" long and a 4" version. It had 6 hooks on it so misses were rare. For streams and creeks this thing was an absolute a killer on smallmouth bass in the 5/8 oz size. It was very versatile to work around logs, rocks and other obstructions. No other lure that we tried in those days would come close to strikes like this lure would generate and it could cover water fast. A small lazy Ike was a distant second but it lacked the action and versatility of the lippy lure. It did not produce as well in ponds and lakes but a small stream with runs ending pools, this was the ticket. There were better options as far as lure choice for fishing larger rivers for smallmouth. I could not tell you how many I bought or how many smallmouth we caught or how many MILES we walked up streams over the years fishing for smallmouth with this lure They would eventually get hard and the rubber start cracking but still worked even thought they didn't float as well but that was not an issue. Anyone else ever use this lure from the past? Great memories...

Under the circumstances I agree with that. I met him for the first time 15 years after he had left. I was 20 years old and in my army dress uniform just before shipping out to Vietnam. There was not much of a man left, the booze had taken a terrible toll.

There has always been good workers and slackers... always was and always will be; that's not really the point. They don't sing songs about nail gunners, or steam powered engines, they sing songs about people like John Henry, Paul Bunion and others. No, automation isn't bad thing, but it pales in comparison to certain times and men (and women) who excelled in a craft, skill or deeds. Life back then was about power - the individual's raw strength or determination that no automation system could understand or take away take from a man. Yes, John Henry died from his race with a steam engine but he beat it in the allotted time. No easy feat, and that is why we know who he is today. The power tool, the machine, is just an automated piece of equipment that can be run by most anyone... a nobody as you say that can easily be replaced by another nobody. Yes the machine can do it faster, longer, and for less money, but it does not take away from the "special individuals" that came before... the ones they sing songs about.

Well other than a slight facial twitch mud never hurt me.