Norm M

Al You are right about that , it will cut down your numbers of fish . Big and bulky is an advantage in chocolate milk . Then again there are some folk especially in Illinois that just aren't quite right . Well , maybe most folks that live in Illinois instead of Missouri or Arkansas .

Definitely not too big , I have caught smallmouth on magnum flukes , 6 inch swimbaits and crankbaits in the 5 to 6 inch range .

Mitch I did not make it to the top of the food chain to eat like a rabbit or a deer . Rabbit and deer are there to be eaten .

Mitch The river has been so high lately that I have not put the craws and jigs to the test yet . One more thing to do that will give me added incentive to beat this . I will be envisioning an Illinois state record smallmouth bass inhaling your wonderful creation .

My prayers are with you for nothing radiating . May all go well with you .

Thanks for all your support, it means a lot . When they did the surgery on the tongue they took all the lymph nodes on the left side out . The tests all showed no cancer in them or any where else in the body . The current cancer is growing where they took the lymph nodes out . My oncologist said all it would have taken was for a single cell of cancer to have been missed and restart the process . All the docs and tests agreed that there was no need to do chemo last time and that putting someone thru chemo with no apparent medical need just isn't done . I don't fault them , one cell would be very hard to find the way I see it .

It seems a cell or two of cancer escaped detection by a multitude of tests last year . It's back, this time it's chemo and radiation to kill it all . It has been caught early and is localized making treatment easier . i know the process won't be easy but I will persevere and live a normal of life as possible throughout . More importantly I will survive .

going to retire soon, been on second shift for about the last 20 years, any advice on transitioning from other than daylight work shifts ? looking back, anything you would do differently to transition from work to retirement ? i've been told to hold off making major changes like selling the house and moving right away to give my wife and i a chance to adjust to the new lifestyle, your thoughts ?

all the good stuff happens when you have to go back to work .

free handouts on river rights https://www.nationalrivers.org/river-law-handouts.html

kirb it and open up the gap , would think about a single siwash hook for the bottom , if I was going to use it .

He was afraid he might be sued for discrimination if folks saw us fishing there but then he refused them permission. We didn't press the issue , figured it was better to bow out gracefully .

My friends and I had permission from the land owner to fish the creek from the mouth to the end of his property line. We not only never abused the privilege but helped him while he was seining the river for bait or picked up trash others left . We got there one day to find all sorts of trash from fast food joints, empty booze containers and multiple piles of human excrement and male birth control devices laying about . We were in the process of burying the rather unsavory crap and picking up the other stuff when the land owner showed up . He thanked us for our efforts but said that the piles of excrement was just too much and he was posting the land . While we were not happy about losing a fishing spot we could see his point of view . Shoot we even helped with posting the signs and putting up the gate . He was so pleased that he not only took us into town and bought us lunch but called a couple of neighbors that lived upstream and got us permission to fish up there . As far as the navigable river issue is concerned , a number of us that were concerned about that issue meet with the IDNR director . We gave him copies of the national law that a national river water rights website made available to print out . He said he would give it to the dept lawyers and get back to us, still waiting for that to happen .Never got answers to follow up letters, calls or emails about the subject . The river I fish , the Kankakee River up in Illinois, is a navigable river by an act of congress . That was done 40 some years ago as there was a court case brought by Illinois against a neighboring state regarding their attempts to make downstream flooding even worse than it is. The good guys won that case , from what one of the lawyers told me that helped . I have spoken to law enforcement folk on multiple levels when the issue of crossing private property below the historic high water mark when river conditions made it unsafe to stay in the river . Most of them including some CPO's said they knew nothing of the federal law regarding that right or the fact that federal law makers made the river navigable even though it has already meet the standards of navigation. Shoot we had shallow drafting commercial boat traffic that not only carried freight but passengers from the train station to various resorts back in the day . I was never cited for trespass although I suspect in a couple of cases it had more to do with not wanting to do all the paperwork and appear in court for what they perceived was something they thought they shouldn't be involved in . The rest of them told me and the land owner that it sounded reasonable that it was a law and went on their way .

Thanks for the photos, that is a big help . I routinely use a 7 ft medium action spin with 12lb test and a 7 ft med heavy spin with 14 lb test so that is covered . My river is 4 ft deep on average, 12 ft of depth is not real common . Right now the river is out of it's banks, I'll see how it goes with the jigs when the river is wadeable . I'll figure something out . Seeing as how I wade fish and don't use a boat, keeping the craws in the original package would be a bit awkward . Again, I'll figure something out With all the tackle storage options on the market , I should find something that will work . I'm thinking maybe those larger soft sided packs for keeping plastic worms in would work , if they still make them . Meeting and solving challenges is what makes life interesting .

I did, paid in Euros .

My package arrived today , everything there . They look better live than Memorex . One thing, there was a lunch tab for 5 included , said it was a special Yankee surcharge .

well worth the 46 minutes watching the presentation , I learned a lot . I will most likely be in Al's camp as far as how I fish it . I plan on trying them on the Mr. Twister weighted keeper hooks as well . I may have to open the gap on the hook , shave a little of that extra meat off or both . With the weight on the hook shank , it tends to give it a keel effect and it tends to glide over cracks in the bottom . I use it as a search bait but a slower search bait than a crankbait , rattlebait or spinnerbait . Those jigs coupled well with the out of production 4.5 inch Berkley Power Pulse worms so your craw should fit right in . I'll have to see how the 5/16 oz head works on my river as usually I use from 1/16 to 1/4 oz jigs . I wonder how much the extra 1/6 oz will affect both the drop rate and forward speed of the rig . I couldn't see how much you opened the wire guard for fishing rocks, could you give me an estimate on how much . Also have you tried super glue if the wire guard starts getting the frizzies ? Seeing as how the gel scent penetrates do you think putting the craws in a ziplock bag full of thawing soft shells would be effective ? That way you could get the look and scent of softshells if you fish them as Al describes . Are you using glass rattles on the insert and do you take a small bit of the cored out plastic to seal the top of the hole ? Instead of gluing the plug in place you can peg it with a short piece of mono running thru the craw and the plug . I used to peg plastic worms thru the eye of the hook like that back when I was worming heavy weeds in still water for largemouth . Also you can use the coring tool to insert pieces of alka seltzer instead of inserting a rattle, give the bass a little fizzing action while they are eyeballing it . Sometimes that will get them to commit a little sooner as it sits next to the cover .

The river is still out of it's banks with zero visibility . Outside of spitting rain, some wind and overcast skies it wasn't too bad outside . I noticed a lot of road killed possum , thankfully no dead skunks in the middle of the road . Large formations of geese above and on the water . I shore fished, too dangerous to wade at the current flow rates . I was real careful about avoiding sloping, muddy areas to avoid slipping into the river as well . I'd rather miss a few spots and catch fewer fish than take a chance on dying . I was using a jig/pig in shoreline related slack/slow spots with basically a lift/drop/set a spell retrieve . Four smallmouth and one small walleye liked that. For the most part it was soft bottom and flooded grass/brush/tree cover . I also used a slip float with a 1/16 oz jig/2 or 3 inch plastic set from 1 to 1.5 feet deep . I got a fair amount of crappie and a few sunfish in the same areas I was fishing with the jig/pig . Being as how I was on shore I used a 7 ft medium action spin for the jig/pig and a 7 ft light action spin for the bobber/jig . After that I moved downstream a ways to fish a side channel with a singlespin for some pike . It took a bit of walking and casting but I ended up with three decent sized pike . While the weather wasn't as nice as earlier in the week it was much nicer than the usual January fare . Too good to pass up .

Does that mean I'll find a cold beer inside ? I added your site to my favorites list as well . You guys have the perfect reason to fish even more. Honey, it's not really a fishing trip, we are field testing for the business , that's all .

Congratulations on the new business . I know you all put your heart and soul as well as more hard work than most will ever know to get to this point . May this become everything you wish it to be . Very cool, if you order one of each color of craw and one of each color of jig , you qualify for free shipping . So I did just that .

Congratulations on the new business . I know you all put your heart and soul as well as more hard work than most will ever know to get to this point . May this become everything you wish it to be .

I had a lot to get caught up on today , only got 3 hours in this afternoon . River is definitely out of it's banks everywhere I checked with zero visibility . Gauges still non functional as is personal thermometer . Basically just fished a couple creekmouths and a few shoreline related slack/slow spots . I used a 1/8 oz jig with a 3 inch swimbait everywhere . I just swam it slow and steady as close to the bottom as possible with minimal bottom contact . One smallmouth in a foam covered slack spot between two big flooded trees . It was holding next to a clump of flooded brush . One rockbass from behind a tree laying from shore out to the current seam . It was holding right where the branches started coming from the trunk . Two walleyes laying on the downstream side of a bar that dropped from about 6-8 inches to about two feet on a moderate slope at a creekmouth . With the warmer air temps it's always good to be able to take advantage of them in January

a wise decision I also would have made

true, tis true

I needed it, skunks and no fishing were getting to me . I kept replaying the skunk trips in my mind , trying to figure what I did not do right .