fishinwrench

Excellent !

You mean you don't have a friend that is already sponsored that can get you signed on ? I've been offered twice and I haven't fished a serious tournament in over 6 years. It's excellent quality stuff but I'm not a fan of split grip rods and low profile reels. I practically have to go yard sale shopping to find my preferred type of fishing gear.

Not to start a pissin' match....but he's quite a ways from the water. (50 yards) Too far to throw. Releasing SOON is the key, but being a big-time tournament fisherman and all I'm sure you already know that.

They are giving away too much product. Everyone they should be selling to... they are "sponsoring".

Whetstone creek WMA West of New Florence has a great little strip pit lake with Lilley pads and flooded timber. I've never caught a biggun there but the numbers of 12-17 inch bass is good, and you just know there's a few Hawgs hiding in there. Marshall I Diggs WMA near Martinsburg has 2 15+ acre lakes. One is better for catfish and bluegill, and the other is a great little bass lake. I've caught numerous 5 pounders there in the past. There's another clay pit lake outside of Wellsville, I can't remember the name of it but it's next to a rifle range and looks awesome. Lots of milfoil and laydowns but I only fished it once during mid-Summer and just caught a few dink bass. There are good gravel boat ramps at all 4 of those places but they are "Electric only".

They seem to still hang out in the same slow shallow stretches during the Winter. I assume they still eat. If you could get up on a high bank I don't see why you couldn't sight fish them. Cast above and past them, then drag it to a position directly in front of him....then wait for him to mosey up and take a bite.

You thought right. A 900.00 per year penalty I can afford, but an additional 700.00 per month payment I can't. And expanding my business so that I could afford it would make my life suck. I'd rather live a shorter awesome life than a longer sucky one. ☺

No health insurance, and the last time I thought I might have a problem they spent 45 minutes testing, found nothing, and sent me a bill for 11k. I'm guessing that if they had found something I would be so far in debt that I'd be better off dead. So there's that. I simply do not make enough money to fight chronic illness, but thankfully I have been blessed with good illness fighting genes.

It's a timing thing. A few Whites will chase and swat at a bait when one comes by the school and sometimes you'll catch one or two, but until they decide to actively feed that's all you'll get. That clues you to the area they are hanging out in though, so just come back and try again every few hours, or if conditions change at all. Eventually you'll hit them at the right time and you will be catching one nearly every cast until they settle back down. I've found that it's counter productive to keep casting at Whites that aren't "ready yet". By doing so you are just educating them, so when they DO turn on they won't fall for your tricks

I feel your pain. I wish I could declare my last Carb job because carburetor cleaner doesn't even effect me anymore, I can actually take a shot in the eyes and just blink it away. No way is that healthy! Early in my career it would burn like hell even if I got a drop of it on my arm. And the smell of it would send me immediately in search of fresh air. Not anymore. I could bathe in the crap without any discomfort at all, and that scares me. Ya gotta be careful of the chemicals you've become used to. I've always said that the reason women are so crazy is because they've been huffing hairspray and nail polish all their lives.

I have seen some oil slicks lately too. We saw 2 yesterday. One of the Marina's must have a slacker out doing winterizes and they are just letting gear lube drain into the water. If you see one of the service boats out running around keep an eye on them for a bit. I'd like to know who is doing that crap.

We flat tore 'em up this afternoon. 8 keepers along those bluffy banks but nothing over 3#,. Then ran across a giant school of Whites and filled both livewell in less than an hour. Only saw 3-4 other boats the whole time we were out. Awesome day!

The name intrigues. How come "sexy" went "foxy"? White/yellow/blue with one less strand of yellow could be "Skank". Replace two strands of white with 4 strands of blue..... "2bit Hooker". Put the blue on the bottom....."Cross Dresser".

Sounds like you "Lodged" a little too close to the malls and fine dining establishments. It's a big lake. If you want to run up the Niangua's or the Gravois and look for bluffy hard rock banks with docks you'll find some fish behind those docks willing to eat a 1/2oz. football jig. These are areas where the shad aren't so thick....and the bass a bit easier to trick into biting. Banks that look like this.... Shoot it right under (or over) those cables where everyone else is scared to, and you might get ya one of these The backends of coves are loaded with shad AND BASS but with all that easy food nearby they are hard to sell a phoney bait to.

As with everything else on your boat/motor/trailer you have to at least visually inspect the deploy cord from time to time and replace it when it shows signs of wear. Replacing a piece of rope once every year or two is alot easier/cheaper than trailer tires, wheel bearings, batteries, and gear lube. Personally I prefer a lightweight and limp piece of cord that I can kick out of the way, over a stiff piece of cable that's strong enough to rip the trolling motor off the bow, so I hope they don't make the cables standard equipment. A lever to disengage the locks if a cord breaks would be nice though.

The big boat folks on LOZ always threaten to sell their house and move to TR every time something up here ticks them off. Whenever I hear them say that, I think to myself "Yes! Go!". The current faux-enforcement of wake size and plowing is REALLY upsetting them, so with any luck at all you guys will gain some revenue down there soon. ?

Hunting forum guys are always anxious to run their mouth. They have alot of built up twisted thoughts from sitting quietly in the woods being bored for hours on end. I'm a really good shot, but a lousy deer hunter. Mostly because I'll get bored and decide to try a head shot on a chipmunk at 40 yards. Then field dress him, drag him out of the woods and hang him in a tree, just so I can finally be done and have a cigarette. Any animal with legs that long has no excuse for taking 15 minutes to move 3 feet. Ain't nobody got time for that!

Well what (pray tell) did we fail to touch on? ☺

Same here as far as Hybrids go. They haven't stocked them in this end of the lake for years, and I'm glad. While they claim that Hybrids cannot reproduce (as in 2 hybrids making babies) they definitely do spawn with the native whites. And I'm weird about not wanting the native White bass gene pool messed with.

http://www.arkansasstripers.com/identification-white-bass-striped-bass-hybrid-bass.htm The stripe below the hard lateral stripe has never failed me yet. It's way quicker to tell that way I think. This is just a big White. This is a pure Striper A Hybrid has more than one line going completely to the tail.

Nope. The difficulty for most folks to tell the difference between a White bass and a juvenile hybrid is why it is regulated that way. You are allowed 15 daily whether they are whites or hybrids UNLESS they are over 18". And you are allowed 4 of those (most likely hybrids....but I have caught 19" pure Whites).

That green area up North looks rather boring. Are those man made irrigation ditches ?

Yeah I saw some at a flea market that my bride made me stop at, and I bought a whole handful of them for like a buck-twenty. You'd think that a guy that understands props and weight distribution would be able to make THIS ONE fly, but no matter what I do it just takes an immediate nose dive. It's a POS!

Hybrids are "legal" at any length. You just can't have more than 4 over 18".

That explains it. Whew! I was worried that my tolerance had increased substantially.