fishinwrench

A little peanut butter smeared into the fur probably helps.

Fished twice, casts beautifully but it just lacks the hook setting power I think I need in a 8wt. rod. 3 9/16oz. 185.00 to your door

Every message board that I participate in has that going for it, even the allegedly serious "tech forums". Somebody inquires about some perplexing issue with an outboard....and the next thing ya know we are discussing the last argument we had with our wives and what plans we have for next Easter. Pretty sure it's clinical ADD, but whatever, we just accept and embrace it. All gets worked out in the end.

Mine either, because mine are all old school stuff. There are alot of good rods out there that I could be perfectly happy with if they offered a choice in grip/handle designs. Since that's the part that you hold onto you'd think that rod builders would offer handle and reel seat options built on the same blank. They'll give you a choice of 7' or 7'3" but no choice on the part that you are actually making contact with.

Oh, sorry. Yes, I guarantee that I can break one with very little effort at all. 😜

But they all have split grips 😟

My shallow water spinnerbait fishing is usually visual, no need to feel every turn of the blade(s), casting accuracy with some muscle is the main goal. For deeper slow rolling I have a 7'2" Fenwick Elite Tech Med. that if I had to choose only one rod for all of my bass fishing it would be that one, because it does everything just fine. I've often considered just buying 3 more of those rods and rigging them with different line diameters. It will pitch jigs/worms, it will sling a C-rig, it will do square bills and lipless cranks, deep cranks, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, Spooks, Frogs..... you name it. Pretty much an all purpose bass stick IMO.

Show me which base it is so I don't have to look it up. I have several older HB units in a box.

I'd like to know exactly how many were fish related infractions....and how many were "other things".

If the checkpoint is about drunk driving then satisfy yourself that I'm not drunk and then leave me alone, don't demand that I dig out my license or my insurance card, don't shine your flashlight in my eyes or ask where I'm going or where I've been. When the checkpoint is about fishing violations then obviously they conducted a complete search of all vehicles which would have set me off like a bottle rocket. When I'm headed home after a full day of fishing I am usually a bit tired and hungry as hell, but otherwise feeling quite mellow. Please don't ruin that because you're too freakin' lazy to do your job the RIGHT way. If you wanna detain me for ignorant reasons after a fishing trip then call my wife and tell her why I'll be later than I promised, hand me a cold soda, a crispy chicken sandwich, and some supersize fries. I'll sit calmly on the tailgate and you can raffle through my belongings all you want.

I'm so against "checkpoints" that it's really hard for me to not be a total jackass to the poor guys that get ordered to conduct them.

Did they bust any of them for possession of liquor inside state park boundaries ? I've always wanted to see them go all Nazi on that rule. 😀

Depends on what you wanna do with it I suppose. My favorite square bill, lipless crank, spinnerbait, and buzzbait rods are some Quantum IM6 rods that I found on clearance at WM for 22.00 apiece. I originally bought 2 (a med. and a med-hvy) then ran back and got 3 more. Guide spacing and reel seats are great, I only had to replace the tip-top guides because the original ones had a bad angle to them. I just love those rods, they feel good and have helped me catch thousands of fish.

The proper term is Bow Thruster, and I'm actually surprised that bass boats still aren't equipped with them to eliminate these monkey-nut trolling motors we have to dick with all the time. You just need a thruster that runs via a tube (port to starboard) and one in the stern. Free up all that bow space and elminate impacts.

79 is Cole Camp cr. Excellent white bass/hybrid runs. Some wicked good LM bass pitchin' areas. Some surprisingly good smallmouth water up the creek. There are some neighbors up there that you'll want to be friendly with....but at the same time keeping your distance (not too friendly). Watch "Winters Bone" if you haven't already.....cuz that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Yeah the split grip skeletonized look and feel must be what the majority like and want. I just prefer the aesthetics and feel of full cork handles. I have no issues with sensitivity or weight as long as the outfit is balanced

Well first off it looks stupid, I'm not a fan of the skeletonized look and I like having a fore grip on a rod. I hold a spinning rod with all fingers forward of the reel stem and that doesn't work well with skeletonized split grip crap. Is it about shaving weight off? That's rediculous. A little extra weight towards the butt end of a rod is a good thing. What's to like about it ?

There are a ton of really good rod blanks on the market now, the only hangup I have is with freakin' SPLIT GRIPS. I won't even pick up a split grip rod to see what it feels like. I hate that almost all rod builders have adopted that as a standard nowadays. I wish that "fad" would go away.

Actually the folks from LO have no intentions of moving to TR, so that's something you don't have to worry about. These people are dug in and well invested at LO, they aren't going to sell their houses/condo's and leave the friends/family they have here. It's way less trouble for folks here to just buy a bigger boat. Now the 28-32 footers that are being sold from here.....yeah some of them are likely turning up there, but under different ownership.

To choose the best prop you need to know what your top end RPM's are. The best prop is one that gets you out of the hole and still allows the motor to run between 5000 - 5500 RPM's at full throttle.

The lake is at (or near) full pool, so you're fine. It is located in an upper creek arm area though, so look at a map and know where you're heading to from there.

I gotcha. Once the actual creek/river channel exceeds a depth of 30' on LO I pretty much ignore it, assuming that the fish do too, and it seems to me that I'm correct. On TR I would think you could extend that channel correlation out to maybe 60' at most, but I don't have near as much experience chasing fish there. In other words....you can't claim that fish follow the old river channel when the channel in the area in question is 462 feet deep, and you know that the fish are never deeper than 50'.

See? That's the part about "channel bank" patterns that I don't understand. If the channel is 80' deep and the fish are at 10-15' then what makes a channel bank any more likely to have fish on it than any other steep rocky bank ?

😀. I love the way they use the term "rescued". By their definition, if I hold a door open and you walk in......I just rescued you.

Ouch! Truth hurts.