KSanford33

I completely agree. But for me, I’m going to take you at face value until you prove otherwise. Thank you sir. You’re absolutely right; we each manage our own risk. My wife always tells me I’m in danger of becoming a decent human being. I’ve still got a long way to go before that happens though.

Today I was driving to a work meeting, and I'm currently listening to an audiobook in my truck called Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink. It's about 20 degrees out today, and I pulled up to an intersection where someone is standing with a cardboard sign that says, 'Homeless Veteran, Anything Helps'. I don't know what layer of hell you go to if you're listening to a military audiobook and just look at a homeless veteran and drive on, and I don't want to find out. So I pulled over, rolled down my window, and said, do you wanna get lunch? He said sure and hopped in. I took him to lunch before my work meeting and we talked for a bit. He's had a rough go of it since he got back from his deployment (he told me what he was in, but I know nothing about that sort of stuff. He could've said he was in the lollipop guild and I just would've said ok). He finished eating and said, you know, I'm really grateful for what you did, but that's pretty dangerous. I smiled and said, well, you didn't shoot me while I was driving us to lunch, so it turned out ok. Fast forward to my wife getting home... She was less than thrilled by what I did. ? I don't want to turn this into some debate about politics, but there should really be some sort of support system for returning veterans so they aren't just left to their own devices. They're far braver than I am, I think they deserve better than that.

My current finesse rod is a 30 year old Loomis Premier rod. I found out they discontinued this rod in '93. The tip broke off, so instead of it being 6', it's now about 5'8" with another guide at the end. I have a feeling this probably isn't the best finesse rod, so I'm looking for suggestions for an upgrade. Or if you think this is still a good finesse rod, let me know. If possible, let's keep the suggestions <$125. Thanks everyone.

There's times when I'll drift down the river with a ned craw or something similar and I'm always amazed at the amount of times I'll catch a decent bass in areas that no one would ever intentionally stop at. I feel I need to add a disclaimer though: these are always smallmouth bass. I can't remember catching a largemouth in a 'dead zone' area.

Like others have said, I grew up watching Bill Dance, Jimmy Houston, Roland Martin, and Hank Parker. But the one I really liked was Al Lindner. I like fishing for multiple species, and I felt like Al did that more than the others. Plus his heavy Minnesotan accent used to make me laugh as a kid, "Ya haff ta find da fish." ?

Just about everything has been covered, but let me add one more. If you fish rivers or other fisheries with bridge pilings, drag one of these on an open jig head past the pilings. I've had numerous smallies on the Mohawk river just crush these when the pass the piling.

I'm in the same boat. My regular mailman is excellent, but anytime there's a sub, ehh... I may or may not get my mail. Like others have said, it doesn't really matter since I don't really have a ton of business transacted through the mail anymore, and no matter who is delivering they're still good with packages.

So I know largemouth bass have an ideal water temperature of 50-70 (yes, that's a big spread), but are bass more willing to withstand less than optimal water temps to be near forage? Basically, what I'm asking is which one governs where bass will be more: Ideal water temperature or access to forage?

One more vote for Tombstone. To this day if I'm at a golf course and someone is looking for a game, I'll say "I'm your huckleberry." Despite my vote for Tombstone, 1A is probably The Searchers. Incredibly underrated movie.

The Cotton Cordell Suspending Super Spot. I was a Bill Lewis guy for a long time, but the C2S3 is a monster. It sinks very slowly and has an excellent action.

That's the best way to do it, really. I know it sounds old fashioned in the days of 1 day delivery and all the technology we have today, but developing a relationship with a few trusted financial firms is really the way to go.

@Bankc I mean no disrespect, so please don't take what I'm about to say that way. But please don't go to LendingTree or Bankrate or any of those. I work in financing and can tell you numerous horror stories about them. Your phone will not stop ringing. It's very difficult to get sites like that to provide you with actual rates without having to enter your contact info. You're 100% correct that you should definitely do your homework ahead of time and to definitely take competitor's quotes to each other. As others have said, credit unions are an excellent choice. They're not governed by the same laws as traditional lenders because they're owned by their members. The NCUA is in charge of them, so they can make better offers than a lot of traditional lenders can. Also, if you're a good customer of theirs, oftentimes they'll make you an offer that they wouldn't make to someone coming in off the street.

I rarely wear cologne (I work from home and I’m married), but when I do, it’s Jordan 23. Yes, I know it’s probably the cologne equivalent of Axe body spray, but it’s my wife’s favorite, and that’s the only opinion that matters to me.

The only one I would add to these is: Buzzbait - Rick Clunn However, the only angler that is a knee jerk reaction to a certain technique is Denny Brauer with flipping.

Speak for yourself. Mine goes off as soon as I’m in an area with no ice. Then my PO calls and tells me we still have 3 solid months until ice out. ?

The same thing that happened to Hamlin happened to NHLer Chris Pronger in the late 90's. He was a big defenseman who stepped out to block a shot. The shot hit him in the heart and the impact stopped his heart momentarily. I've had a ton of injuries from hockey (broken bones, collapsed lungs, several concussions that now affect my memory, etc.), but I thank God or whomever that I've never had anything like that happen.

CT Fletcher is good too.

I've caught a ton of pickerel recently on bigger paddletail swimbaits. Like Deleted was saying, if it's something you can vary the speed of the retrieve with fairly easily, pickerel will be interested.

We have a certain amount of time here, and no one knows how much. If other people choose to be unhappy if they don't catch fish, that's up to them. I look at each day I get to spend on the water as a blessing, and I'm not even religious. I'm still insanely competitive, but if I know I gave it everything I could, whether it works out or not really isn't the point, now is it?

This was my first full year back fishing since about 1991. So here's the things I'll brag about: 1. I learned a LOT! You can't imagine the innovations that fishing has gone through in the past ~30 years. 2. I steepened the learning curve. With anything, it takes a degree of discipline to stick with something when you're not any good at it, because it simply isn't very fun. I fished in 3 in-person tournaments and caught one bass combined. But I've learned what works and what doesn't work, and I'm sure I'll continue to learn those same things every time I'm on the water. 3. I learned what I like and what I don't like. Fishing the nastiest cover I can find? Yessir! Throwing a spinnerbait? Not so much. 4. I found this forum! It's difficult when you're first starting out in anything, but having a wealth of knowledge to draw from on this site has truly been invaluable. I surely can't list everyone, but I often wonder if some of you guys realize how much the rest of us appreciate you. All in all, I'm absolutely thrilled with last year, as I feel it gave me a solid foundation to build off of. edit: I suck at math. 1991 was 30 years ago.

3 days.

Let's say the St Lawrence River over a long weekend, so 3 days. I keep telling my buddies that the biggest fish over the three days will be a largemouth, but like my wife always tells me, I'm probably wrong...

If you had to catch the biggest bass amongst your friends, and you're fishing a predominantly smallmouth populated fishery (think Lake Champlain, St. Clair, etc.), would you target smallmouth or largemouth? I have a feeling that just one big bass would probably be a largemouth still, but best 5 or something like that would likely be smallmouth.

Stripers. I have the Hudson River about a half hour away, but I’ll drive a little farther south to go after the early stripers.