KSanford33

What happened to Al?

I've only been to Rome, but a buddy of mine has spent time in the Italian countryside and said the food in the smaller towns is even better than in the larger cities, if that's even possible.

I'm sure if you happened to find out some of the members' email addresses here you could forward them. kensanford33@gmail.com in case you were wondering.?

I'm in the same boat. Between hockey over the winter and everything I do during the summer, I struggle to keep weight on. It was a real problem in my 20's where I could really get underweight occasionally, but now in my 40's not so much. And as far as it being healthy or not, I always tell people, I'm here for a good time, not a long time. As far as my favorite Italian food, my wife and I vacationed in Rome a few years ago and couldn't find a bad meal in the entire city. But my favorite by far was this arancini bar we found. All they made were different kinds of arancini. My wife almost needed to find a hand cart to wheel me out of that place!

You're 100% correct. I watch Fish the Moment a ton. I'm not saying they don't exist, it just feels like channels such as FTM are in the minority. There's a section in Bassmaster magazine called Day On The Lake or something to that effect that's very helpful. It's obviously in print and not video format, but it delves into why they're trying what they're trying, which is what I want to know.

I work from home, so in the downtime I end up watching a lot of YouTube videos, mainly on fishing. I understand the desire to learn different techniques, but I feel that 99% of YouTube videos are focused on techniques and very few on actually finding fish. I feel like there should be a lot more videos focused on finding fish, since that's essentially the first step to catching fish. For example, one of the channels I watch reasonably frequently is Matt Stefan's channel. I was watching a video on Carolina rigs since it's a technique I want to improve on this season. He said it's one of his favorite offshore structure techniques. That's great, but he should expound on which offshore structures he uses it on. Humps, points, saddles, channels, etc. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I'm definitely more interested in learning how to find fish rather than how to use different techniques.

I've still got one of those heifers in my soft plastic box. I've only used it for pike occasionally, but you're not kidding; that thing weighs a ton!

Thrown more easily on a baitcaster. I’ve used weighted hooks, but I don’t like the fall rate.

Sinking.

In your experience, what would you say is the heaviest fluke-style bait you've used?

So this post will start pretty dark, but it'll make sense as I go. You're right. No one likes being called names. But it doesn't affect me. In 2002, my Dad passed away. I had the misfortune of his funeral being on my birthday. Four years later my Grandmom passed away. She was the most important person in my life. I never thought that those two events would eventually be blessings in a way, but they've become that to me. Because I know what bad days are now. So when someone calls me a name or cuts me off in traffic or whatever it is, I don't think it has the effect on me that it may have on other people. These things don't make bad days. I feel like my spectrum of emotions has shifted towards the positive since I've come to terms with the actual bad things that have happened. It just makes you realize that 99% of the things people get upset about don't amount to a hill of beans. I apologize for the darkness of this post, but if I could catch a world record fish at the cost of some people being less than friendly to me, that's a trade-off I'm willing to make.

This! I’d go with the largemouth and would be more than happy to give the Mr. Tony salute to anyone who gave me a hard time about it. I have about a half dozen people whose opinions matter to me. Outside of them I couldn’t care less. It makes me chuckle when someone says ‘I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but…’ The vast majority of people don’t have the ability to hurt my feelings. Oh, and getting back on topic, I’d want this magical largemouth to come out of NY.

Unfortunately no, both are extremely rare around here. We have plenty of yellow perch though.

Thanks Jar! That's what I'll do then; take him to the dam and see if we can hook into anything.

I'm trying to get a buddy of mine into fishing, so I'm taking him out on the Mohawk River this weekend. The high will be 40 and the water temperature might hit 35 if we're lucky. Yes, before you say it, I know taking him out in these conditions isn't the way to get him into fishing, but he wants to get out of the house. So I figure if we're going to be outside we might as well get on some fish while we're there. Any suggestions?

This! I'm by no means an expert, and the majority of the members here know more than I do, but I've found that if I can figure out how to get on fish on one body of water in any conditions, that usually translates to other fisheries as well. The one thing I would add to this is, if you really want to be unstoppable, learn one fishery of each type well. As an example, within a half hour of me, I have a river, a natural lake, and a reservoir. My goal this year is to be able to learn each of them very well so that if I travel to another fishery, I can take what I've learned on my local fishery of that type and apply it to wherever I'm going.

It's funny you referenced other species. I fished in my first bass tournament last year and couldn't get on a bass bite to save my life. However, I was catching a bunch of perch, so despite the fact that I was tied for DFL along with everyone else who didn't catch a bass, I still had a great time on the water.

This is what interests me. Is it just a matter of luck in that case or are the anglers who catch something doing something the others aren't?

Are there any times when it would not be possible to get a bite on a body of water? Or is it just a matter of getting the right lure in front of the right fish?

I believe you'd have to ask Bob and Doug McKenzie on that one:

I work from home, but I've always followed the mantra "Never fish off the company pier." Although I don't think they are actually referring to fishing.

That’s what my t-rig was. Still came up with nothing except pond scum.

I got skunked twice this week. I was in my hometown and fished a small pond. The pond is long and narrow (you can cast across the pond if you wanted to, but it's about 1/4 mile long). It's only about a week or two after ice-out, so the water temperature is probably <40. There was already a decent amount of pond scum on the surface. I first started deep and slow with a ned rig and then a texas rig. Nothing. I tried flipping into the heaviest slop. Nothing. I tried a jerkbait bite. Nothing. The weather was 70* and bluebird skies. I know the majority of you and amazing anglers, so what would you have done in this situation?

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you knew me. Here’s me in a former life:

Oh no, please don't tell me male Karens are now referred to as Kens... I don't get involved in that sort of stuff anymore. I fish to get away from it. So if someone jumps in front of me at a fishing spot or gives me lip about being too close to their dock, I just move on. It's hard to describe because I used to never back down from a confrontation, but now I just don't have the emotional energy for it.