Triptych

I will have to try it the next time I'm out on the water. Good excuse to have my punching setup always rigged up and ready for action. There are times I see a mat that should be punched but I never have my punch rod set up, so I end up skipping it.

I would try an 8 inch trout colored swimbait. The big momma's know those trout are packed with calories. I believe trout sleep shallow and start roaming when the sun comes up so look for the first drops from the shallows for large bass waiting to ambush.

All of my reels do this. But I came up with a solution a few years ago that has been working so far: - make sure initial new line is tied in the center of the spool - if using right handle reel, ensure the line guide travels toward the right first; if using a left handle reel, the line guide should start traveling left first - adjust spool tension to how you will fish on the water - adjust brakes to medium or what settings you fish most with - adjust drag to where you think you fish most with - use lots on tension on the donor spool until about half way, then medium tension the rest - pay attention the how the line is stacking; if it is higher on the left, move the reel to the right of the donor spool until it is even; stacking to the right, move reel to the left I think the key is to get a good even lay on the first half of the spool because that is what the fishable half uses as a base. If your base is uneven the top half will always reel back on uneven.

Hog farmer Spunk shad, but only at a faster retrieve. I found that the 3/4oz jackhammer hunts like crazy with a 4.5 or 5.5 spunk shad. Can't remember off the top of my head which size I use on it.

The ignorant guy happened to me recently. I was walleye fishing from shore in a channel and casting to the opposite seawall. Well, along comes this guy and his kid in a boat. He was going real slow to see where I was casting. He decides to spot lock 5 feet from the seawall that I was casting at and tells his kid to casts where I was casting. I could tell the kid knew right from wrong, felt uncomfortable, and was reluctant to cast but started casting into my spot because his dad/uncle/gramps kept telling him to. The guy never looked at me or even my way. I didn't catch anything that day and neither did he! The funny thing is that he would have had more luck at the mouth of the channel where the shore fishermen can't reach if he would have just thought a little instead of being a jackal.