Kirtley Howe

Just scored an ARK 7' 3" medium heavy fast action casting rod from Dicks' Sporting Goods. $22.48 plus tax. Free shipping. Anyone have one of these? What are your opinions of this rod? I figure for $22.48 (cheaper than most of those weird brand Chinese rods) that I can't go wrong.

I agree that using lighter line can improve lure action, and for the most part bass don't seem to care much about seeing line. The only real exception to this that I have noted is fishing for inactive or neutral smallmouth bass in extremely clear water. Under those conditions I find that using the lightest line possible increases the bite. With largemouth I have never observed the fish being turned off by visible line. Of course, your results may vary.

In my stipulations, I did not rule out preparation. The pro could use maps, ask locals, check weather and water conditions, etc. . But they could only use the tackle I have and can only fish in ways I can. If I don't have a boat, they cannot use boat. If I have a boat but no sonar, then they can use the same boat, but cannot add any equipment to it,,,,and so on. As said, I am pretty sure any pro would still out fish me, but I would learn a lot about how to get better with the equipment I have.

Seeing blood, broken and/or protruding bones, and other gore does not bother me....AT THE TIME. I will deal with it and do what I can. LATER, I may fall apart, but at the time I just deal with it.

I would not think of that comparison. Dental Floss is pretty tough stuff. In fact, I carry a spool of it in my survival kit. I have used it as emergency tent tie down cord, fishing line, rope wraps, and much more. I also keep a spool in my first aid kit; On one occasion we used it to suture a nasty cut when we were out in the boondocks. Not necessarily the best for that, but it worked in an emergency. In case you are wondering, one of the people with us managed to sink an ax into his thigh. Short of putting a tourniquet on it (not always a good idea as it can kill all the circulation causing major tissue damage.), there was no other way to close the wound up. We left ASAP, and the doc in the emergency room we got to 4 hours later said that he would most likely have bleed to death if we had not closed it up. Nasty scar, but no other lasting damage. Very durable and handy stuff. 10 lb braid, as you noted, is not very strong or durable. Can be great for finesse fishing applications on spinning reels, but I would never go that light on a bait caster. My usual braid is #30 lbs, and I use that to fish heavy weeds.

I don't go fishing for suckers, but I am a sucker for fishing.

Braid in weeds. Floro in rocky/open areas. Mono in woody areas. I am really not a fan of braid, but it cuts through weeds much better than either floro or mono. I like floro in in the rocky/open areas because it is harder for the fish to see. I use mono in woody areas because it has more stretch which I find makes it easier to "snap" to get unsnagged from tree branches and stumps.

I have one that I bought for riding in cold weather on my motorcycle. I don't remember the brand name--Gerbing, maybe..., but it works great. I bought it on line. I did try them out for size in a local motorcycle store, and that was a good thing. If I had bought based on the sizes stated in their ads, the vest never would have fit. I ended up with a 2xl. I wear an xl in most shirts and jackets. Don't waste your money on a cheap one.

At 73 years old, I have learned a few things about fishing. I will list some of them, in no particular order. 1) Forget about all the various tables about when to go fishing. Go fishing when you can, as often as you can. 2) There is no such thing as a "magic" lure or technique. Fish with what makes sense for the conditions and what you have confidence in. 3) Don't be afraid to go against conventional wisdom. Sure, try doing what is supposed to work, but if that doesn't work, don't just keep doing it. Do something else even if it seems like it should not work. What have you got to lose? 4) Unless you are a tournament fisherman, the only person you are really competing with is yourself. Just try to get better each time you go out and don't get too concerned about how others are doing. 5) We all have bad days. Getting skunked does not mean the trip was unsuccessful. At the very least you learned what did NOT work. 6) While searching and scoping can be good for getting ideas, don't forget the idea is to go fishing. As the great Bill Dance says: "Wet lines catch more fish". 7) Unless you are in a tournament, or are in another persons' boat, or are taking someone else fishing and they really want to keep fishing, if you are not having fun, just quit for today. There always another day. Don't sour yourself on fishing by forcing yourself to have a crappy time. ? Maintain awareness of your surroundings and the weather. Don't put yourself at risk by being unobservant. 9) Be kind and considerate of others and respect others property. Trespassing or being rude will only make others less amenable to letting fisherman have access. 10) Always leave an area cleaner than you found it. Remember that the water is not a garbage can. 11) Always be willing to help a child or inexperienced angle. Grow the sport. I usually carry an extra inexpensive but serviceable rod and reel (Walmart sets up you can get for under $25.00, or one of my old but still working rigs) which I will loan to a young person if they don't have a working rod and reel. I don't give a set up away all that often, but I will loan one out just about every time I am around youngsters. 12) Always do the right thing, even when no one else is around. Respect the rules and regulations.

For me it is a solid NO. I only care about beating my own records, so I would have no interest in filing for a state or national record of any kind. Therefor I would not have to worry about giving away a honey hole.

I find tou can eliminate 99% of line twist by tieing a very small high quality barrel swivel onto your line aways above the lure...how far up the line is up to you, but I generally tie it about 8" up from the lure. By using a very small barrel swivel it does not adversely affect the lure action and adds almost no weight. This is not applicable in all instances, but it works in most cases when using a lure that will cause line twist. I don't find it necessary with crankbaits, jerk baits, jigs over 1/4 oz, or most stickbaits.

If I am in an area I don't know I will often tie on a bare hook and either tie a bass weight on my line, or put split shot on the line, and cast that out and reel it back a few times. The amount of weight is determined by the current and depth of the water. That allows me to determine the bottom composition and find out if there are a lot of snags without losing lures. It does not seem to disturb the fish. What can I say, I am cheap.

On a cold overcast day, I would fish the deepest, slowest current hole I could get to by drifting a weightless worm or by dragging a tube jig . If it is bright and sunny, look for large rocks or rip-rap in shallow water near a deeper channel or hole. Smallmouth don't mind sunshine (may even prefer it to cloudy skies), and the sun will warm up the water and the rocks several degrees higher than the deep pools, and the Smallies will move up near them to feed. I find small minnow baits, jerkbaits (fished with LONG pauses), and weightless worms (4"), or small jig heads with grub tails work best for me. Of course a small beaver or other plastic that imitates a crayfish is also a good bet. Sometimes, a bucktail or feather jig is the absolute best bait. I will sometimes add a small grub tail or small minnow shaped plastic to them. Small tube jigs also are productive at times. Just move them very slowly.

I often use deep diving crankbaits that dive to 20-22ft in rivers that may only be 10-15Ft deep. It works only if there is a rocky bottom, or sand/mud. If there are a lot of wood snags, it is a great way to lose a lot of lures. The reason for using lures that can dive much deeper than the water depth is that that type of lure has a large bill which will bang off rocks better than ones that are rated for the "proper" depth, and actually...at least in my experience...hang up in the rocks less. In a sand or mud bottom, the deeper running crankbaits will churn up a lot of mud or silt, and I think they appear to be a crayfish trying to escape. That triggers a lot of strikes for me. Your experience may well vary, especially if you fish in heavy weed area or places with a lot of wood snags. I usually use 8-10 lb test mono as a main line but use a much heavier leader, often in the 15-20lb range as the lighter mono will get abraded to pieces pretty quickly. I check/change the leader often.

Shore fishing...Air temp I quit at about 15F. Water temp....if the river isn't frozen over, I will give it a try. I don't fish lakes (from a boat) after the temps drop down into the high 30F range, because around here (southern central NY state) the winds can pick up very quickly and it can get very dangerous...that temperature with that wind just HURTS my body. Hey--I'm 73 years old, cut me some slack <G>. Nice thing about fishing the Susquehanna River near Owego NY is that I can park near where I fish and just go warm up in the truck if I get cold. I find that the quantity of fish I catch in cold conditions goes down, but the quality (size) often goes up. Of course the days when I get skunked also increases.

Vicious Fluorocarbon, usually 8lb test, sometimes 6lb in super clear water, and maybe 10lb in heavy weed/small stick-ups. To me it is very sensitive, and surprisingly abrasion resistant. Retie OFTEN. I have tried braid and mono, but the fluorocarbon works best for me. Use quality hooks and check the point often, especially if fishing around rocks. You can get away with light line because using the good, sharp hooks you don't have to cross their eyes on the hook-set. Just reel up slack and apply firm pressure and you will usually get good hooksets and will not break the fish off. At least that is my experience. Oh....keep a close watch on your line, and often the bites are subtle. Any little "jump" of the line, or your line moving in almost any unnatural way can be a bite. In many cases I have found that I have a fish on when I go to pick up slack....no indication at all that the fish was there until I felt the resistance when moving the sinko.

I did not try to imply that my lack of resources has led to a lack of success...most times I do just fine (at least in my opinion), and even on my worst days, I consider it a success just to be fishing and learning and being outdoors. As Catt pointed out time spent fishing is the most important thing to getting better. But as I said, if I could fish with a pro who had to use nothing but my equipment I think I would learn more about how to maximize my success rate than if I fished with a pro who could use all his equipment. Yes, I would no doubt learn a lot from the pro no matter what resources he had at his disposal...but since it is very unlikely I will ever have access to his resources, some of what he could teach me would have little or no bearing on how I could actually fish. And I still think it would be a ton of fun to see how the pro would do with just my stuff and in the bodies of water I usually fish.

My point is that a pro would own all the best equipment...Several sonars, live scope, etc., as well as rods for any possible presentation, and just about any lure, in multiple sizes and colors, that exists. As a total amateur, I have 3 baitcasting rods and reels, and maybe 5 spinning set ups. I have a grand total of 3 tackle boxes admittedly stuffed) of lures, and about 10 packages of soft plastics. With my budget, that is about as good as it is going to get. For the past few years I have been limited to shore fishing, as I didn't own a boat. I do now have a boat, but it is not "water ready" just yet (again, budget constraints), so that doesn't really count. I do believe that the pro could, in most cases, out fish me even with my equipment and in areas I know. But I also think that I would learn far more about fishing with my equipment if he was limited to only that equipment. And I could come much closer to duplicating his success than I could if he was allowed to use all his equipment. I would tend to agree with you, but I still think I would learn much more under those conditions than I would if he was allowed to use all the resources that are normally at his disposal.

I am sure many of you are familiar with the Bassmaster Magazine feature called "Day On The Lake". For those who are not, the idea is a pro angler is taken to a lake they have never seen before, and are given a set time (8 hours I think) to figure the lake out and catch bass. They use their own boat and tackle, and any technique(s) they want. Everything they do is recorded (written down by the rep from Bassmaster), and then how they did is summarized. It is always an interesting read.. But, I would love to see a slightly different twist on this. I would propose that a pro angler would meet up with a total amateur. and would have to fish where the amateur normally fishes, with ONLY what the amateur angle has for tackle (rods, reels, and lures), and must fish FROM SHORE if the amateur does not have a boat or a kayak, or from whatever boat the amateur uses, and said craft must be used with only the equipment the amateur has installed. I would love to see how the pro would do compared to how the amateur normally does. To put it simply, the pro comes to my area, use my stuff, and sees if he can do better than I normally do. To me, that would be a true test of the pros' skills. It could also be an excellent learning experience for the amateur. While I enjoy watching a pro figure out a new lake or river, that is not really something I can duplicate given my lack of resources compared to a pro. Would you find that sort of thing interesting?

In all honesty, it sometimes got away from me, and my accuracy needs to improve, but I am very encouraged at this point. Time will tell if I get the accuracy I really would want in order to pinpoint my targets. And, I did have a few professional overruns. I still am working on getting everything set just right.

I had a flash of brilliance a couple of days ago; Well, actually I was sorting through all my fishing rods, and noticed that I had a light action trolling rod (Eagle Claw) that was pretty much what I was thinking of for a light baitcasting rod. It is 8' long, light (almost but not quite whippy) action in the upper half, but some decent backbone in the bottom half. I mated it up with an Abu Garcia Black Max 3 reel with 6 lb test line (which I quickly swapped for 8 lb once I got out on the water). I tried it out yesterday with some light lures (1/8 and 3/16th jigs, small crankbaits in the 3/16 to 1/4 oz range, and some unweighted plastic worms and beaver style baits, and some light jerkbaits. It worked great with the jigs, very well with the crankbaits and unweighted plastic, and just plain sucked with the jerkbaits. It was just too soft to work the jerkbaits well. I caught several nice smallmouth bass in the 1 1/2 lb range, a couple in the 3 lb range, and one that was a solid 4lb. Also caught some bonus Walleye. Overall I was very pleased with the results, and my wife was pleased that I did not spend $$$ buying a new rod.

I posed the question to both BASS and MLF as to why there were no females in the major fishing tournaments. Their answers in both cases was "We would welcome them if they qualified". Then I checked how you can qualify for either type of tournament....due to what it takes to qualify it is doubtful that many females would get the opportunity to successfully qualify as the whole system is rigged toward male competitors.

So, you already have 2 nipples on your face? <G>

Could be....but I caught a 48" Tiger, which was identified by a local DEC officer. I suppose he could be wrong, I just took his word for it. The biggest pure strain Musky I have seen is 46" that was caught by a friend of mine..also identified by the DEC.. The Tigers may not usually grow as big as pure strain, but they do grow faster, and since they have stocked them in our area, I think there are more of them then pure strain Musky. Of course, neither I nor my friend was targeting them. I know that there are some dedicated Musky fishermen around here, and they may well have caught bigger ones...but I can only speak from personal experience. I have caught a lot of Pike in the 25-30 inch range, and a few somewhat bigger. Don't forget Greater Sacandaga lake. Lots of great bass there too.

I live in Owego NY and fish the Susquehanna River often. Come on down here and you can catch pike, Musky, and Tiger Musky with great regularity. Pike to 38" and Musky to 42" are pretty common, and Tiger Musky (those are Pike and Musky hybrids) to 48" are not totally unusual. Most are caught as a byproduct when Bass fishing, but many people in the area target them.