Ham

I wish I could show you how in person. It's a lot easier when you see it done slowly. Make the loop with your leader, run your braid up thru the loop from underneath, I wind 7 times down and then 7 times back up, pass your braid back down thru the loop., wet the lines and slowly pull tight. IF you are going to have a failure, it will happen when you pull the lines tight. The knot will fail if you don't get the line passing back through the loop in the correct direction. The good news is that the knot either fails completely right then or its good to go. You won't have a knot that looks good at first only to fail on you when you hook a fish. I have NEVER had an alberto fail on a fish.; I've been using it for years at this point and have literally caught 1000's of fish using an Alberto knot. I do have an alberto fail when I am hung and put a dead pull on it trying to bend the hook out or pull loose from snag. A word of warning, if you are using nanofil and you try to use a leader than is heavier than the nanofil, it will break at the alberto knot when you pull against a snag every time. If the leader is weaker than the nanofil, many times the leader will fail and you may have enough leader remaining to avoid having to re-tie everything. I start with about 6 foot or so of leader material, that way the leader knot is just above my reel after I tie my lure on. i won't tie a new eager on until I get down to 18 inches of the original leader length.

I'm not Drew and YMMV BUT I hear it hit the guides on the way out and I don't think the triple pass surgeon's knot is anywhere near as strong as the alberto. It may be plenty for what you are doing with it, but I found it to be a little wanting. It is a lot easier to tie than the alberto to be sure. Edited to add: that it does of course depend on the size of the line and the leader. It may be that I heard it with 20lb/8 lb diameter braid and 8 lb leader and you may not with smaller braid and smaller leader.

I'm gonna guess that really fine glitter on your hands and face my lead to trouble as well. Keep on fishing smelly man. That's what they make soap for.

I think most people use steel points, but I would use worms.

oh that was early in the float, I was smelling pretty fishy by the end of the day. I think the carp was the 12 th fish of the day and I finished with 111. If you come home smelling of cow poop when you went "fishing", what does wife think then?

, Glad I can be of service.

The down side of hugging a great big carp is that you start to smell like a great big carp left out in the sun when your shirt dries. Luckily, I carry liquid camp soap and I did a quick old school Ozark creek side laundry service on my shirt. I smelled fresh as a daisy after that.

I wish I was better at it. I guess I need to do a trip mainly focusing on them and when I spot carp take as long as I need to present the jig or whatever at them as well as I can. Make sure they are already spooked.

My only knock on humming birds is how many it takes to make a good gumbo.

Did you ever look into owning a BassCat? IF so, I'd be curious about what you found lacking. I totally understand some guys love Fords and some love Chevy's, but didn't know if there was some kind of a deal breaker for you.

I really like the Lund boats, but I'm a gonna stay with BassCat just the same. I might add a couple for more boats to the flett, but my glass boats will be BassCats.

Let no one doubt his dedication to the sport

I got to make a couple of kayak trips with OA members this week. It was hot, but Thunderstorms both days cooled off the afternoon. had fun, caught fish, some big, some small, all the usual ways. I finally caught a monster carp while on my kayak. I had caught a giant on the White River using a Zig Jig before so I knew it could happen. I had seen some tailing and switched to a Zig Jig. I caught s few nice smallies and them stumbled into the beast. very lengthy fight that I honestly did not expect to win. It pulled a crap ton of drag, pulled my boat upstream, when through downed trees, a shallow riffle at the top of the pool stopped him and it was not a small pool. I had to bail off yak to work my rod thru the downed wood and then try to swim to where I could stand and fight. Cajunangler was patient and helpful. And in the end we got some fun pictures.

Hey Jeff, Phoenix seems to be a real nice boat. Good for you. i'm a BassCat guy. I guess I'll always be from here on out.

Jeff, are you in a Phoenix?

OP is from Feb. hopefully, that drift boat has been wet a few times by now.

I really like to start a trip with a full tank. I've played the out of gas game before. I did not like it much. It has never been my fault that put me there, but that doesn't make it suck less.

That's why I think the people that fish lakes without them should enjoy this honeymoon. I think they will end up in all the major lakes in the area. it might be 5 years or10 years or 20 years or 30 years, but they'll be in your lake too.

Catfish?

Thin wire equals maximum vibration, but it comes at the price of durability. I have an Uncle that used to fish a locally made bait on Lake Fork. He was catching BIG largemouth pre spawn on them. After each fish than say 7 lbs, he didn't trust that bait enough to keep fishing them. The bait may break on the next BIG one and he wasn't willing to take a chance on that. He weight in over 28 lbs in a 3 fish bass tournament on Lake Fork using the "Hill Billy spinner bait". I used the mand caught fish on them, but honestly I never thought they were all that. BUT freaking hook failure.

PLEASE ! Somebody buy it before I do.

Desperate to fish?

THAT'S AWESOME! I CANT WAIT FOR THE NEXT REPORT.

I started out with high hopes for a big numbers day and an ever hopeful shot at the slam. I for Two River Flyshop to shuttle me. I start started at 0800. In the morning, in my Jackson Coosa Floating down with an eye out for rising water. After the high water came on, I would run home and grab the jet. Should be awesome, epic, Field and Stream worthy. Ehhhhhh, no. I paid some dues. I learned some lessons the hard way, and just had some tough luck. 4 hours seems like enough time, but I have not done the Norfork at the new minimum flow. There have also been some changes with each low water event. I was not prepared for the number of bait fisherman below the first big pool down into Long Hole. And it seems that any skill I have obtained with the Zig Jig was bought at the expense of whatever fly rod skill I had. So, I was constantly re-rigging. There was nothing I do could do to avoid incredible tangles. I re-learned how important it is to check your rig frequently and make sure your depth is right. I'm always, always, always going to have a net with me. Trout took several flys from me by taking a hard run after I had caught them and was trying to take a pic or untangle them or slip the barbless fly out. So frustrating. I did get a little flurry of fish to hand as the rise hit. I had some real thumpers in high current. As the water maxed out, the water got really trashy. So, I paddled out and loaded the boat in 97 degree sunshine. I got a Brook Trout on the fly so a Slam was in play. got home and got cooled off. Loaded the jet boat and after cooling down again, I took off for Quarry Park. Mid day heat had run a few folks off. Motor started on second pull and then slowly died out while I was letting it run to warm up. I suspect I have a piece of trash our something that stops fuel flow. It would not re-start. It did this when I was with Stein and Dave, but it eventually re-started. No problem. I have a trolling motor, I'll stay in this top pool. Trolling motor could slowly make it back upstream to ramp. I was getting bites and catching fish. I was missing too many hits though. Might have been the fish and it might have been me. Working my way down through the docks. Well guess what. The flow in the lower third of that pool was much faster than the upper third. I could not go upstream. Bummer. I pulled on the Merc. A lot. The good folks of Gene's trout docked towed me back up to the ramp. Grrrrr. once I had the boat on the trailer, pulled on the Merc and it fired up. I started and stopped it a half dozen times without issue. So what to do? I went fishing again. I Caught a few more fish including a nice Brown. Never caught my Cutt. I fished a total of 6 hours. I got 22 to hand. Pretty sad. it was a frustrating day. I'll post a few pics later.