Kirtley Howe

I am in awe of your skills as an angler and as a storyteller. Great job....

Great story telling.

As you said, it could have been much worse. You are OK. You still have most of your equipment. Your Kayak is still fine. Also as you said, take it as a teachable (learning) moment and count your blessings. We all have those momentary brain freeze-ups at one time or another.

I have caught carp on several different lures. They include: Deer hair jigs. Ball head jigs with grub tail trailer. Texas rigged worm. Carolina rigged worm. Slow rolled spinnerbaits with various trailers. Suspended jerkbait. Flatfish lure worked digging into the bottom. Tube baits.

Possible, but doubtful. The flammable compounds in WD-40 evaporate very quickly. It is a solvent, not a lubricant. Solvents tend to be very flammable when first exposed to air and heat/sparks, but then become pretty inert.

Got down to the river at 11am today. Air temp was 55F (it warmed up to about 68F during the afternoon), sunny, light breeze. Started with topwater lures (Choppo, Devils Horse, JItterbug, and Chug Bug. Nothing interested. Tried a buzzbait and got one small (9") smallmouth. Then nothing. Tossed a frog over some weeds.....nothing doing. Tried a rattle trap in Rayburn Red color with no luck. Tried a squarebill in Sexy Shad and got two more dinks. Tried a jointed Rapala in firetiger type color and got a 17" pike but nothing else. Tied on a Texas Rig with a purple Ol' Monster 10" worm and caught a 1 1/4 lb. smallmouth. That was the only bite on that set up. Stopped for lunch, and while I was eating some cloud cover moved in and the breeze picked up some. Went back to the topwaters but got nothing. Tried a football jig with a chartreuse 3" Mister Twister grub tail. That got two more dinks. Switched to a Willow leaf jighead (3/16th oz) with a brown plastic leach style trailer. That netted my best bass of the day...a 3 1/2 lb smallie. that was the only hit I had on that. Went back to crankbaits and caught 3 more smallies...1 1/4, 1 1/2 and an even 1 lb. Things shut down completely then and I could not buy another bite. Moved to a different area of the river at that point At 6:30 pm I caught 2 Walleye on round jig heads with 3" white grub tail trailers. Both were right at 16". As twilight settled in I went back to using buzzbaits. Caught a short (20") Musky. Then tossed the Choppo again, and had a nice sized Musky...prob. about 38-40"...follow it in on 3 successive casts, but I could not get him to commit. Went back to the willow leaf jig with the leach style trailer and managed one more 2 lb. small mouth. Packed up and headed home. Altogether a pretty good day.

Glad you got it solved. Also glad you checked with others and a parts diagram so you did not buy a rev limiter like I suspected it could be. As I said, I am not by any means a marine motor expert.....

I used a pre-rigged worm with a propeller. I prefer the ones with the weedless hooks. I haven't used this rig in a few years. Don't know why I quit using it....it worked great. I may have to visit Amazon tonight and stock up on them.

Not 100% sure, but it appears to be the rev limiter. Goes for about $187.00. Please understand I am NOT totally sure, so I hope someone more qualified than I am will chime in with more info.

what is the motor serial number

Armorall actually can dry out rubber and make it crack quicker. It OK on vinyl, and leather but it leaches the natural oil out of some rubber compounds, or so I have been told. I do not think I would use it on a primer bulb.

^This^...maybe...probably true. But comparing Walleye habits and Bass habits is like comparing oranges to apples. Also, statements about bass behavior are not absolute either. The behavior of a bass in a large deep lake is at least in part different than the behavior of a bass that lives in a shallow river or creek. The type of forage plays a big role also. Where I fish has no threadfin shad, herring, or alewife as forage. We have minnows, bluegill, sunfish, suckers, etc. and that type of primary forage does not behave the same as shad/herring/alewife, which means the bass do not behave the same. There are generalities that can be made. Cooler water=feeding up for winter is true no matter the body of water...but bass movement and timing is controlled by so many variables that it is impossible to make a blanket statement about it. Be aware of the general rules....but remember to take into account the local conditions and the type of water you are fishing, and don't be afraid to go against "common knowledge"

I have a chance to pick up a Gander Moutain Vortex 1000rh reel, brand new in box with all paperwork for $30.00. According to whomakesit.com the reel was made by either Diawa, Abu-Garcia, Shimano, or Lews......anyone ever use one of these reels, and if so what did you think? Worth the $30.00?

Even tougher with gin. I HATE gin. But a bit of Vodka could work.

All you folks in the danger zone be careful out there. If you have never been in a hurricane before than be aware of some things that most people don't think of when there is high winds. I am sure most of you know how to shelter safely....but remember things like lawn or patio furniture, garbage cans, hanging decorations like windchimes and hanging bird feeders can easily become projectiles in high winds and can do massive damage. Plus it is no fun trying to collect them all after the storm. So try to stash all that stuff somewhere inside if possible, or at least try to get in the least windy place and make sure it is anchored down as much as possible. And don't forget to tie your canoe down or get it into the garage.......Be safe out there.

The section of the Susky I fish has a number of stretches that are always 4' or less in depth unless the river is in flood stage. I catch both numbers and size of Smallmouth in those areas from ice-out to when the river freezes over. The fish are more active in cooler water....say below 65F, and the big ones turn on in the fall when the water hits about 58F....or any day after a hard frost, no matter what the water temperature is as long as it is not frozen.

I am actually not much of a Chuck Norris fan, but the jokes about him are very funny. I am a giant Jimmy Stewart fan, and have mad respect for him. And Audi Murphy, while in my opinion was not a great actor, he was a full fledged hero and deserved every bit of his accolades.

Chuck Norris scored a 9 on the Man-O-Meter, so he just stood there and started at it. He then scored a 25. <G>

If the bass around here spawned shortly after winter solstice, they would be laying ice cubes instead of eggs.

I don't think I would even bother with it. You can pick up a brand new, completely serviceable spinning reel at any Walmart store for under $20.00. And a better quality one for under $30.00, so why mess with broken cheap reel? If you are on a super tight budget, look on Temu, or Amazon or Walmart.com for really cheap spinning reels.

It's ALWAYS chili season!

Went down to the river late this afternoon (Susquehanna River near Owego NY). We had rain late yesterday and last night, so I thought fishing could be good. What I didn't realize is that we had rain here, but upstream from here they had torrential rain...the river was up at least 4 feet and was super muddy and full of debris. Floating wood, branches, all kinds of grass and weeds, and tons of leaves. The main river was just about unfishable. I tried fishing some backwater areas where there was less crap in the water, but could not find a fish. And even in the backwaters, there was still a lot of stuff floating around and the water looked like coffee with milk in it. After an hour or so of trying a frog (which at least I could retrieve without getting fouled), a buzzbait (which did not work), and a 1/2 oz blue/black weedless jig with a ragebug trailer, and a couple of different crankbaits which just dredged up grass and weeds or fouled as soon as they hit the water I gave up on the river. I went to a small feeder stream that feeds into the river, and went as far upstream as I could and still have fishable depth of water. I started there and worked my way back downstream. The stream was still pretty clear, but was flowing pretty fast. Topwaters did not work at all. I ended up throwing shallow running crankbaits in brown/chartreuse and brown crawfish colors. Those worked. I walked and fished for an hour or so and caught 8 bass total. All smallmouth. 2 were 8-10 inches in length, and the rest were all 12-14 inches. Nothing to write home about, but lots of fun on light tackle and in pretty stiff current. So, the day that started off as a total bust ended up being a reasonable success at least in quantity. Wish I had found a few big fish, but what the heck.....

Haven't tried that, but when I was a kid (12-15 years old) I used a similar technique. Early in the evening I would water soak a 10 ft. circle in the yard. Then I would drive a metal pipe about 3 feet into the ground with 3 feet about still above ground in the center of the soaked circle. Then at dark I would smack the side of the pipe with a hammer over and over again (by the way, this is a great way to make your neighbors hate you) and the nightcrawlers would come crawling right out of the ground and I would pick them up. Much easier on the back then bending over with a flashlight and trying to catch them. I don't often fish with live bait anymore, so I haven't done that since back then. Your friends technique sound easier......

Great fishing. Scary situation. I am so glad you made it back OK and wrote this up. I'm sure in hindsight you would have done things differently...like not going out. But....you can not always predict what is going to happen with the weather. Anyway, glad you had a good day fishing, and glad you are still here.

While I am far from an expert at any technique, I am passable in most. My biggest limitation these days is physical. Having been run over by a truck (NOT a figure of speech), being a cancer survivor, and having pretty much abused my body with work and recreational activities (motorcycle racing being the biggest culprit), and of course being 74 years old, I just can't do everything I used to, or would like to. And some of the things I can still do I can't do as well, or for as long as I would like. I am just glad I am still here and can do anything at all.