fishinwrench

I love the aesthetics of a hand tied hair jig but if your fishing for winter bass along a rocky bottom a 4-5" Chomper DT hula grub on a 1/4 stand-up head is really hard to beat. You have to call TR and special order the non-garlic version though unless you're into the heavily scented version that can be found everywhere. I don't care for pungent scents that you can smell from clear across the river.

In line with the daylight / temperature thing...... We have a Ficus tree in my living room that turns yellow and sheds its leaves every Winter in spite of the fact that the lights are on and temp Stabil year round. It also leans away from the windows and more towards the center of the room during Winter, so the amount and intensity of sunlight definitely has a "moving effect" on living organisms of all types.

The 2-stroke Nissan/ Tohatsu outboards are pretty simple in design and very reliable. Standard maintenance parts like impellers, seals, and carb kits are readily available but some replacement components like shafts, gears, and ignition parts can take months to get your hands on.....(a backorder from Japan situation goes about like you'd imagine). Truthfully though, a Jap motor with an ignition problem is pretty darn rare. Stay up on your maintenance, don't abuse it too much, and those motors will run strong for a long time.

No. 35hp powerhead / 18hp at the pump. Be careful !

Well yeah! A single pair of frog legs would only arouse my appetite..... After telling that story I got to thinking it could be possible that he (or another) was wintering there again, so I grabbed my phone (camera) and walked up and looked under that log.....Guess what ???!!! No frog But while I'm looking my phone rings.... "Hello" Girlfriend: What are ya doing? "Looking for a frog" G/F: Hu? :? "Nevermind. Whaddaya want?" Major Duck Dynasty moment.

I've been a really good boy this year. Jus'sayin

Old Johnny Ray used to wear them slick on that point back when we lived across the creek from you. I'd hit it from time to time and could barely even get bit. I'm probably the lousiest deep water fisherman of all time. I don't even attempt to fish deeper than 12-15' anymore (and that's stretchin'it).

While cutting wood one winter I came across a big bullfrog, he was under a log but definitely above the frost line and fairly high up on a ridge 300+ yards from the closest ditch or any kind of water source. I picked him up just to see if he was alive....and he was, then put him back in his little depression and laid the log back on top of him. That blew my mind.

Good point. So it's the ol'bait&switch. The possums are there to try and keep you from fishing ! Clever!

No $#!t, Charlie can't even afford a comb.

Do you think there's any relation to visible animal activity? Birds, squirrels, ect. I have some crows raising hell out here as I type, maybe I should go fishin! Some guys swear by the "road kill" theory. If they see more than one dead skunk or possum on the way to the lake/river they expect to have a good day.

Wayne, Looks like the prototype of the Danc'in eel. (35 year old Bill Dance commercial playing in my head now)

We fished that area some but not for crappie. We'd run down the Salt to the mouth, take a left (upstream) on the Miss. and spend all day fishing the backwater sloughs that are now part of Ted Shanks WA I think. Haven't been back up there in over 20 years. We caught alot of 2-4 lbers (bass) and the occasional pike or insanely huge bluegill but don't ever remember getting into any crappie, although I'm sure they were in there.

Reminds me of a story about a group of guys out on a lake in Mn. ice fishing.... One of them locked the keys in his Suburban and called OnStar. The OnStar folks thought it was a practical joke because their imaging showed the Surburban sunk in the middle of a lake.

Hard to beat the Porter mill bend to Proctor stretch for bigger than average crappie on LO. More than a few Monsters have come from the mid-lake (chimney cove/Kinchelow area) though....so ya just never know. The thing about crappie IMO is that there isn't a single bite more meat on a 12"er than there is on a 10 1/2"er, their head, bones, and skin just gets bigger

Forgot to add that there was a rotted black 'leather' (?) Skirt on it when I found it. The skirt was attached by wire to the rear hook hanger.

I had a really nice collection that I had put together and fixed them up in a 20" x 25" shadow box. One of my customers is a serious collector and he would always bug me about selling or trading certain baits out of it, but I'd always decline because I figured if HE wanted them then I definitely should keep them Among the ones he wanted so badly was a "Brylcreem spoon" (yeah the hair gel stuff), it was from a promo deal in the 50's. Then one winter day after I had done a pretty costly repair to one of his boats he sat down to write a check and said he was writing the check out for 1500.00 more than the repair bill and he was taking the shadow box with him, PERIOD! He knew it was Winter, knew that I probably needed the cash....Checkmate! Then 2 months later my place got destroyed by a twister and all those baits would have been blown all over creation and gone forever. Kinda cool how that worked out. I started another collection since but really haven't aquired anything very special. Instead of going for truly old stuff I've gone more to collecting conversation pieces like the Joe Camel stuff, B.A.S.S. limited edition crap, and early Bagley/ Smithwick/ Daredevil baits. Here's one that I haven't been able to identify if anyone wants to take a shot at figuring out what it is and who made it I'd sure like to know. It is a weighted wooden spoon with no ID marking anywhere on it. I suspect it might be an early Moss Boss but all the MB's I'm aware of were plastic from the beginning.

I read an article awhile back, I think it was in American Angler, where they pretty much made the case that the whole didymo fiasco was filled with easy to sell assumptions and failed study. Just a group of preaching biologists and a gaggle of followers trying to justify their phoney baloney jobs.

Hk's hu? Ouch! I haven't even taken my girlfriend there. This is gonna cause some serious problems I'm still hung up on the dimple thing. Every obvious hybrid I have ever caught failed to have those smallie dimples. Maybe some of the "smallies" I catch are mutts. Quite possible.

Well, it sure seems that when day/night are close to equal in length, that's when the fish spend alot of time being active in the shallows, and are easier for me to catch. Water temps: I'm pretty confident when it's between 60-80, and when it's 72-76 I'm as good as I ever get.

Not a chance! Upon second glance, you may be right......Where's Al?

Can you even buy an original spook anymore (sans rattles, and with that basturd front hook hanger) ? Torpedo has to be a decent guess too I think. Rapala minnow? Jitterbug? Those all go back a long ways, and they haven't changed much.

Smallmouth. Ignore that lateral line and go with the chin dimples. I think I see one next to your finger. No?

What do y'all think is the oldest bass lure (brand/model) still in production today that is still in its original form.....in other words, no major changes have been made in it's design since it was introduced ?

Hey! You're a day late and a dollar short, ya old fart! I solved this mystery while you were sawing logs