rps

As long as I am confessing (tell it brother), I also received the hard cover catalogs from both.

For the third or fourth consecutive year, I just received my Bass Pro Preferred Rewards welcome letter. It says I am in their top 10% and I am entitled to rewards. The embarrassing part: I may also qualify for Cabela's program. I have had "doubles" in the past. Please tell me I am not the only soul here afflicted with this Jones?

Tell the wife after a while, she will get over the embarrassment. Besides, it has it good sides. Neighbors never ask you to do favors like pick up their newspapers or water their lawn while they are gone.

Some Barbarian trebles and a feather or two and you may have the perfect under $5 bait. Good find.

Years ago (70's and 80's)I fished Keystone fairly regularly. It was the closest to my home in Tulsa. There were several coves within a mile or two of Washington Irving that held substantial crappie. It held many small stripers but didn't seem to grow the large ones well - a water depth and oxygen issue I think. Most of the bass I found were back of creek cove type fish. The lake was placed where it is for political reasons and will not last as long as Corps lakes usually do. There is a silt problem due to its location. When the time comes to dredge or open the dam it will be a mess.

I have a very high confidence level in black worms, jigs, and spinner baits. I tend to use them, yes even on TR, during low light and no light. My father showed me how to jig and eel fish on Bull Shoals in the late 50's and early 60's. He did it using a black jig with a black eel. Guess you could say I inherited this preference. I do know they work. Does anyone still use the Uncle Josh pork rind frogs and eels?

Frugal Table Rock tackle box: 1 silver Zara Spook 1 blue and white Zara Spook Jr. 1 White and gray Chug Bug 2 each V37 and V38 Wiggle Warts. Three bulk packs of jig heads bought cheap on ebay - 1 each of 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 oz. Smoke and watermelon seed 4 inch curl tail grubs 4 inch and 6 inch straight worms - watermelon red, black, motor oil or PBJ Chompers/yamamoto twin tail grubs - same colors as worms C rig makings and Zoom Fish Doctors, same colors plus Junebug 2 suspending Smithwick Rogues, one bright and one subtle 1 Booyah counter rotating buzz bait One black and one white War Eagle mid size twin spin One white jigging spoon One silver in line spinner Drop shot hooks and weights Note - invest in one or two half day trips with one of the guides who contribute regularly to this board. It will save you years and dollars in the long run. Good luck.

More than one way works for me at different times. 1. Slow roll - count down to desired depth and steady reel just fast enough to maintain that depth. Good for fish suspended in forests. 2. Bottom crawl - reel slow enough to maintain contact with bottom but fast enough to turn blades. Note: I usually do this in cold water before spawn and fish the bait parallel to bank. 3. Reel and kill - Throw past cover and reel up to it then kill the bait. A twin spin is perfect for this method as it falls with the hook up and ready. 4. Jig - Throw toward a sloped bank and let it sink to the bottom.Pick it up from the bottom and reel one or two cranks, then kill it and let it sink back to the bottom on a semi tight line. Repeat until retrieved. Note: Hits come on the drop. This is a killer night method. The two arm, two blade design means the bait will not hang up as easily as a single arm or a jig. It also means you really can't retrieve it as fast as a single arm - well you can, but the resistance will be greater and it will pop to the surface. Hope this helps.

Someone has way too much time on their hands.

I always enjoy line and knot threads. Thanks for starting a new one. I have read about and tried a number of different knots in the last two years. I highly recommend the Tackle Tour web site for their line and knot direct comparison articles. Their results may cause you to rethink what you do now. Based upon what I've read and what I can do in the field, I now use a variation of the palomar known as the double palomar. The loop goes through the eye twice before you finish the knot. Furthermore, with braid I double the overhand as if it were a surgeons knot. The only problem I've had is when lead or paint causes the eye to be rough and the line scrapes itself as you draw it tight. I found the Fish N Fool knot hard to tie consistently well. But then, I may be a fat fingered old school impossible to teach type. I guess I should add I do not fish pure fluorocarbon. I fish either good mono or a co-polymer coated with fluorocarbon made by Yozuri. Fluoroclear and Lake Fork are similar to Yozuri.

Here at Holiday Island we have 2 or so inches of ice crystals on the ground. No ice on the trees or wires. Forecast is now for snow on top of that during the day. I do hope we get the low end of the predicted amount - 2 inches - instead of the high end - 9 inches. School Monday is far more likely if we don't have 9 inches today. More snow days will eat into my June fishing.

Think seriously about putting in at Eagle Rock or Big M. Near each are many, many spots/areas/patterns that are productive. Another good choice is the Highway 39 bridge put in near Shell Knob. All three are good for limited running time boats. BTW my first boat was a flat bottom with an inherited old Evinrude 18. Nothing wrong with a small boat and a limited motor.

I thought I would update now that the finish is on the rod. Let me repeat, I do not do professional fancy rods. I build for myself and don't do it often enough to be very good at the pretty parts. Now , if I can get the picture up-loader to work. With the spinner bait shown, a WarEagle twin spin in 5/16 oz., the balance point is the back of the fore-grip cork. With no lure the balance point is the directly under the center of the handle. This morning I was underhand snap casting well over 60 feet with the small spinner bait. I wasn't on the water so I really didn't try a full cast. However, it seems incredibly smooth on the cast.

If you haven't tried them, Tackle Warehouse (tacklewarehouse.com) has proven very reliable, and they often carry the more difficult to find items. They also seem faster to stock emerging trends. As it happens they aren't showing McSticks right now, but they carry the rest of the Spro line and Megabass. LandBigFish is showing baits available at $11.49. I have also traded happily with them. Hope this helps.

When I get the finish on the wraps I will take pictures and post. As for the spooking with a long handle, when I got serious about the bait, what I owned was a six foot Falcon with an 8.5 inch handle. By now, what I do while walking may not be what others do. But it works. I also will use the rod for spinner baits and warts. When I throw, I use two hands. I learned when I was so small, I have always thrown with two hands. I never got into the pistol grip as I couldn't use both. Performance? I will tell more once I have fished all day for several days. For now though, the combination of factors seems to make things work. You know, why don't some of you with questions come fish with me this Spring and Summer. I'll let you throw my rigs and see what you think.

Sometimes I don't know what special forum to use to post something. A new thread I started in general angling discussion about a rod I made has product comments and a question that belongs here.

Just finished wrapping a new rod for my own use. I don't tie fancy, just functional. This will be my new wiggle wart, spinner bait, and Spook rod. I built the rod on a St. Croix SC IV blank - 6'3", medium power, fast action, rated for 10-17 test line and 1/4 to 5/8 ounce baits. Fuji 9" straight handle. 2 ounces of lead inside the blank in the last 6 inches. 11 ATC micrguides plus tip top. Balance point with reel on the rod is right at the free spool button. This was my first experience with microguides. The little buggers are so small they are a pain to tie. My wife complained (understandably) when I cursed several times while crawling on my knees looking for the tiny little things. My old eyes and fat fingers meant I dropped them way too often. However, when I took the rod outside to test it, the bait (Spro Dawg) rocketed with just a casual flip. If the rod performs as I expect, I think I may stop using recoil guides and use the microguides on the next one. Has anyone else wrapped a rod with them and do you have any tips for how to deal with tiny guides, old eyes, and fat fingers?

5/16 looks to be a 2/0 9/16 appears 3/0 didn't buy the large size for river smallies, buy the 5/16 - it is about the size of the old shannon twin spin

As I have learned (over and over) a drag that's backed off serves another good purpose when trolling. Fish who hit trolled baits don't always hook up solid in the boney part of the mouth. A flexible rod and a drag set a little more loose will not pull out as often. BTW, although others use a rod holder, I hold the rod as I troll. I want to feel the bottom, brush and so on.

Analysis via OpenCongress: The Vast Majority of Bills Go Nowhere August 25, 2009 - by Donny Shaw Every once in a while we get an email from someone concerned about some obscure bill they have found on OpenCongress that they think poses a direct threat to their freedoms and liberties. Common examples include H.R.45, a bill to establish a nation-wide firearms licensing system, and H.J.Res.5, a bill to repeal presidential term limits. They cite these bills as evidence that Congress is trying to take away their guns, or that Congress is trying to make Obama king for life. But this kind of analysis is based on a misunderstanding of what bills in Congress are. Each of the 535 members of Congress can propose any kind of bill they want. They don’t need consent or support from anyone – they just drop a piece of legislation in a box, called “the hopper,” and congressional workers assign it an official bill number and file it away with all the others bills. The only test a proposal has to pass before becoming a bill in Congress is the judgment of the individual member of Congress who introduced it. The vast majority of bills are essentially dead upon arrival. In any given two-year session of Congress, ten-thousand or more bills are introduced. But only about 4 percent of them become law. Take away bills that do things like naming post offices and designating days of the year as commemorative holidays and it’s probably more like one percent. Sunlight Labs has done an analysis of what happened to all the bills that were introduced in the previous session of Congress (110th session). Of the 11,056 bills that were introduced, 9,904, were referred to a committee by default, never saw any action, and died there. So, why do people introduce bills that have no chance of becoming law? Maybe they are addressing concerns that are unique to their district. For example, a draconian gun-control law probably makes more sense in inner-city Chicago than it does in rural New Hampshire. Or perhaps they just trying to put new ideas out into the public discourse. Or perhaps they want to take a radical stance on an issue as a purely political tactic, to show their constituents that they are “serious” about something. Nobody is going to introduce a bill they don’t believe in, but they might introduce a bill that nobody but them will get behind.

When Rapala bought the brand, one of the things they did was change the construction of the wart to have an inserted bill instead of a molded in bill. They also had split rings instead of clips. Something about cost, running true, etc. The new warts with the insert bill do not/did not run the same. Many felt the changes lost the best qualities of the original Storm designs. People became so active in their search for the old baits that Rapala began to make the older style bait again. Look for the ones labeled "Original" I don't know if they actually use the original molds and the exact process, but the bait definitely works well. Interesting other stuff: The non compete has expired and the family makes Dave's Kaboom and other baits. -> daveslures.com On the West coast Brad's Wigglers are scary close to the same bait. Brad's also makes look alikes for the Hotntot, thunderstick, and flat fish. I've read there was some litigation, but don't really know the full story. bsfishtales.com

Didn't Bobby Garland win an early Bass Classic on Mead?

Picture of Leatherwood, taken this afternoon, from Facebook:

zip: Sorry I hijacked your thread. Just couldn't resist. As far as the information you wanted, I'm on the upper end of TR and driving has been problematical for a week. The back end of Leatherwood Creek cove is freezing on the edges, but the flow is keeping it and the Whiter River arm from going solid.

I'm sorry. Does anyone else find this thread title funny?