OldManLure

Definitely a bad take, but Roll Tide anyway.

I used to do that. Then I tried praying first and then casting. Next season I’m going to try confession before every trip.

It does. With water temps trending down, metabolic rates are slowing so bass slow and become more selective. They may ignore fast moving or erratic baits. With water temps trending up, their metabolic rates are increasing and they become more aggressive, less selective and more willing to chase. So their behavior at 50° in the fall is different than their behavior at 50° in the spring. While their metabolic rates may be similar at 50° in the fall and the spring, their behavioral adjustments differ as they are responding to the direction of temperature change and its meaning for what’s to come.

Think of copolymer as a chain with alternating links being a different type steel. One type of steel offers more strength, and the other offers slightly more flex. If more resistance to corrosion is desired, it may be coated with a different material that doesn’t compromise the desired properties of the links. A copolymer line (chain) is made by linking molecules (links) of 2 types of, say, nylon with each having slightly different properties (e.g., strength and stretch). A coating like fluorocarbon may be added to provide resistance to abrasion and/or water absorption.

Hmm. If that is the case, it seems to imply those guys made calls/texts from their boat. I wonder if it was a competitor or a marshal who made the complaint. In either case, a simple solution would be to prohibit competitors from possessing communication devices during ‘tournament hours’. But then I wonder what the rules are about making the same type of call or text after hours from a restaurant, motel room or RV.

When the river falls into the 50s, I’ll only fish when someone else comes along. I’m more selective of which stretches to float, avoiding those with whitewater, drops and in low water, areas I know we’ll have to get out and drag kayak to deeper water. When the temps hit 50° I’m done even if someone else is willing to go along. Water temps have inched down this week and are now at 51°. I haven’t been able to talk anyone into going out tomorrow so it looks like my season on the river has ended. I’m sad, but that will change in a couple weeks when I start prepping for the holidays and new year.

I’m curious how “tournament hours” is defined?

Penn Battle III and IV are excellent reels. The Battle III 2000 is available at Sierra right now for $79.99.

I don’t think any color on spinnerbaits is essential, but I do think chartreuse comes very close. I’ve tied skirts and experimented with color combinations for quite awhile. Over several seasons on the rivers I fish…for dirty water skirts I’ve settled on 44 gp strands with 5 white and 22 chartreuse. For clear it’s a toss-up between 22gp, 5 white, 33 chartreuse, and 22 white and 33 chartreuse. I hold 5 whites long to create a teaser which I’ll trim if I decide to add a trailer. While I don’t throw them an awful lot, these colors seem to also work on chatterbaits, but I’m still experimenting.

If I fished them, I would use at least a 3/4” wood dowel cut to about 2”. I would drill a small hole in one end to insert and hold the hook, and then wrap line snugly around the dowel. I would probably wrap away from the hook and then back, and tuck tag end of line through hook eye. Small, stiff tubing would also work. Whether a dowel or a tube, I would want the largest diameter that allows easy storage.

I hear you. I’ve got a half-dozen friends I used to fish with pretty regularly who met and married beautiful, thoughtful women. When I’m on the river, I often wonder how they’re doing.

Rapala Skitter Prop-Shad Rapala floating minnow - silver, live smelt Rapala Skitter Pop Silver Blue Heddon Torpedo - Black Shiner Glitter Buzzbait - my skirts

Most likely a simple misprint.

There is not a thing about the Bomber cranks that prevents or limits their ability to catch fish. I have friends who regularly catch fish with them, and believe them to be their best baits. If pricing was an accurate measure of a bait’s success at catching fish, then some like the Rebel Wee Craw would be twice their current price.

4 rods and 4 Ozark Trail 3500 bags for the river whether I’m in my 9.5’ or 11.5’ sit-in. 1 bag w/ 3 boxes of lures (top, shallow and medium depth). I have duplicates of my ‘best’ topwater, cranks and jerkbaits. 1 bag w/ a box of bladed jigs and a box of spinnerbaits. I include a small travel box for bar soap to hold 4 or 5 blade baits. The remaining space is stuffed with bags of plastic trailers. 1 bag w/ 2 boxes of jigs, jig heads, weighted hooks, etc. In the remaining space is several sandwich bags of skirts I’ve tied. And a final bag, no boxes, filled with packages of plastics…worms, neds, flukes, tubes, and creatures. I keep two filler spools of line and a spool of leader line in the front pockets of three of the bags, and an assortment of stuff in the pocket of the 4th one. And behind the seat of my truck is a tackle store in case I need to replace anything lost to rocks or laydowns on the previous trip. It has been years since I wanted to tie on something and not have it.

Weird, huh.

A synesthete might be able to tell you.

Manufacturers’ # rating for lines is not a guarantee. It is at best a guideline, and almost always understated.

Do registration fees for boats also go into the general fund?

In the US overall, participation in fishing had been experiencing a steady but slow decline for nearly 30 years. COVID interrupted it, and as we know caused a well documented explosion in new anglers. I agree that the current “50%” drop in renewals is largely a result of many of those casual weekend anglers moving onto other activities. For many, the excitement and reward of fishing never lived up to the hype. I think there are a few other reasons, not the least of which is the cultural shift we’ve been experiencing for a number of years. Did the explosions in participation and its supporting industry benefit me? No. In fact, I could argue it ‘harmed’ me. In 40 years of fishing from a canoe or kayak, it’s been in only the past 5 years I’ve had dangerously close calls with boats including being swamped by them twice. And these were ‘fishing boats’. It is disgraceful the amount of fishing line I have hooked and pulled from lakes and rivers in the same 5 years. And the increased amount of garbage and trash left behind on banks, at ramps and in the water has been infuriating. If less participation means a safer sport and a cleaner fishing environment then I’m all for it. I disagree that reduced participation will be bad for the sport. I think the sport is in need of a reset, and fewer participants may just be the catalyst for it. There may be short-term effects but not necessarily harmful, and will lead, I believe, to its longer-term health. Will the industry suffer? Probably, but only for those in it who saw the opportunity presented by the increased participation and chose to simply exploit it rather than cultivate it. In fact, some of the decline might have been avoided if more in the industry had promoted lakes, rivers and streams as the resource they are rather than the playground they seem to have become. The industry had a captive audience and seems to have either taken it for granted or decided to just strike while the iron was hot. The industry has, in part, become one of excess rather than of purpose. Those in it who have a proven track record, a sound business model and invest in the sport, not just its trappings, will do just fine. Will I suffer if the industry suffers? Not unless I find having only 50 different spinnerbaits to choose from instead of 150 is painful, or being told that not having a rod/reel “dedicated” for throwing it is crippling, or if not having an app that tells me the day and time to use it results in sleepless nights. And in reality, there are greater threats to the sport than participation, but this is not the forum to discuss them.

It depends. There is no formula.

It seems to me there are a couple fairly simple fixes for the issue of screens being an obstruction and/or a distraction. One would be to simply enact a tournament rule governing placement of the screen(s) relative to the console. The 2nd would be to require a device that would cause screens to go dark when a minimum speed is reached/exceeded. A participant could still search under power, but at a significantly reduced and safer speed. Since both rules would apply to every competitor, no advantage would be gained or lost. And I don’t think it would the end of the world if states enacted laws with similar intent on their waters.

I think you have a good plan. But beware. I did something similar, “home base” that is. That lasted less than a season. I got tired of transferring tackle and stuff for different trips. And it was especially irritating to reach for a lure and discover I hadn’t transferred it to the bag I was using. So I ended up stocking small bags for my kayaks, a sling pack for bank fishing, and larger bags for my boat. Consequently, I have duplicates of everything I consider essential. And when I do find something new that I want, I often feel compelled to buy 3 (1 for kayak, 1 for boat, and 1 for the bank). It’s insane I think, but I’d like to think I’ll have what I think I need regardless if I’m on the bank, floating or jetting.

As long as air temps are forecast to warm above freezing, I’ll take my kayak to the river and fish alone when water temp is in the low 60s. Once it falls into the 50s, I’ll fish only if someone is floating with me. Once the water hits 55° I don’t go, regardless of air temps.

10lb works, and so will a drop shot around cover and/or current breaks. I have done it a few times as kind of a last ditch effort when little else was working. I used a GP/orange tube about 1’ off the bottom. My thinking was current would keep the tentacles moving. I was surprised when it caught a few fish but then, I guess, why wouldn’t it. I should probably do it more often.