hoglaw

Straight floro isn't a good spinning reel option for everyone. A lot of my spinning rods now are custom builds with micro guides, and floro doesn't seem to agree with them very well. I use the same nanofil/leader setup, though I used to tie a floro leader. Lately I've been using the "Floroclear" that I think CX makes. It's a fluorocarbon coated line, maybe a copolymer? From what I've heard/read, fluorocarbon is supposed to be less visible to fish. I don't think the stretch/lack of stretch makes any difference on a six foot leader, so that's out. I suppose it's a little more expensive. It sinks which I like, particularly when my main line floats. But I'm not sure that even makes a difference. The abrasion resistance and I guess visibility are the only things I can really think of, and those may be negligible advantages. I don't see any problems with the knot I tie. I just tie a simple clinch knot, wet it, and draw it down correctly. I don't use an improved clinch. Normally I'd use a palomar knot, but it takes up too much leader material. I seem to break off about 50/50 at the lure or the leader connection I think (uni to uni knot). You may be on to something with the affect on the action of a lure, particularly a light jig, with the stiffer floro line. That Floroclear stuff seems pretty supple to me. With a heavier lure (like a 1/16oz jig head and a small plastic bait for instance), I don't think it makes a difference. I can personally attest to my own experience with fishing with and without a leader. I was on a bunch of fish down behind the house one day and broke off at my leader knot. I forgot my spool, so I just tied on directly to the nano main line. I only got one or two bites when I was getting bit regularly. Now maybe I had already hooked all the fish in that spot, but I moved up and down and felt like I was getting a lot fewer bites than I should have been. For clear creek smallmouth, I definitely think the leader is a necessity for more bites. Crappie maybe not so much. Would be interesting to do a side-by-side on trout with no leader and the white nano since the nano is so small in diameter. But psychologically, I'd feel like I was turning fish off with what I think is highly visible line.

The common thread here, in my humble opinion, is that biomechanics and exercise are often overlooked in favor of drugs and shots. I have a bad low back issue from football, rugby, and lifting as an older man with high school form. I have learned the hard way that correct and intense exercise is king in preventing and treating injuries. A large part of the population walks around with bulging and even herniated discs and they are asymptomatic. This is largely because they don't have other impediments to proper function. Sitting in a desk or on a boat is not what humans evolved to do. We use our bodies in ways that evolution is still catching up with (or maybe we are the ones being "naturally selected"). My lay person advice for the vast majority of injuries that all of us seem to complain about as we get older is that medication is not a long term solution. I recognize that there are folks who hurt worse than me or have conditions that can only be made livable through drugs. But for most us, exercise and diet are the keys to living a longer pain free life. Why we (including myself) have such a hard time accepting that reality i will never understand. You wouldn't pause to fix your boat or rifle correctly. You would always preach do the job the right way. Get in the gym and get the body and functionality that nature intended you to have.

Joke taken, but I'm not small and I'm no sissy. This elbow thing hurt me bad. If something like this can set me back from lifting, working outside, and even fishing, then I figure it probably bothers a lot of folks.

Fishing seems to be better on the middle and lower river. My favorite is still Rush to the White which you sound like you're familiar with. Putting in at Mt. Hersey always seems to be a decent way to avoid some of the crowds. As I recall that float is basically three really big pools, so maybe some wintering fish habitat around there.

The stuff they told you in the TR forum is accurate as well. The river smallmouth spawn is very difficult to predict (for me anyway). Sometimes they're on beds early, and I've seen fish on beds as late as June. It all depends on water conditions, or at least I think it does. SiO3 is right. I would never schedule a river smallmouth trip around trying to fish the "spawn." Spring can always be a little weird. I know for a fact that I catch a lot more river smallmouth in fall, summer, and winter than the spring. Sometimes bedding fish will be really aggressive and sometimes they get locked in. Targeting spawning river smallmouth is difficult and not as productive as fishing to non-spawning fish in my opinion. It's not something I get jazzed up about.

I love those bersa .380s. For those who feel the need to carry again around, it is indeed perfect for that. This is a great find for someone. I don't need another .380 or I'd snap it up.

Ham, if you're just dying for a different way to catch them in the nofork, try Czech nymphing. Just don't tell anyone else. Come to think of it, a tenkara rod might be perfect for Czech nymphing.

I don't see why it couldn't be used for "prevention." The explanation I got on why the exercise works is that it has something to do with stretching the tendons (even though tendons don't really "stretch"). It's all range of motion and support strength stuff. It will definitely make your forearms stronger too. I never had this problem until I started fishing a ned rig on a spinning rod with nanofil. Maybe we can get a class action product liability case together against Berkley It's only my right arm which I hold the rod with. The hookset and fish fighting is what kills it. A softer action rod might be helpful since the bite sensitivity should still be there. Ham is right. You could deliver a serious beat-down with the thing.

And I've caught walleye, pickerel, bass, bream, and crappie in the LR. Just don't think you'd find numbers of cats worth pursuing very far up into the cold water. But who knows.

I remember watching an episode of Penn and Teller's Bull$&*% about recycling. I don't remember all the specifics, but the general premise was that recycling anything other than aluminum does more harm than good when lots of other factors were figured in - like the additional processes and chemicals involved in recycling paper and plastic and such. I'm sure one could add or subtract processes to make the argument either way, but it was an interesting show.

Did anyone try to fish up closer to BS dam? I wonder if it was any clearer up there? I prefer fishing within the first ten miles or so when the water is really cranking, but if the culprit was lake turnover then maybe it wouldn't have helped. I think I actually sent out the invite for everyone the first year of this deal, then have missed the last two. Last year it was work, this year it was a newborn. That first year in the snow was one of my favorite fishing trips, and mainly for the company. Hopefully I can make it next year.

Not a big fan of SWEPCO. It's close to the house so I hit it two or three times last year on weekdays. It fished fine for me on those trips. Certainly didn't sit in one spot and catch 100, but caught enough to beat sitting at the house. I think it would be cool if they'd make it electric only, or put a horsepower restriction or something on it. It's just crazy to me that folks will line up to fish it the way they do. I'm sure a lot of the folks that fish it just don't care for the cold water fishing on the normal lakes, but to me if I'm "big lake" fishing, I'd much rather fish the cold water patterns than spawning patterns. The fish I was catching last year were not starving. They weren't big and fat, but they appeared to be more or less normal and healthy. I had a lot of success on good quality fish by downsizing and finesse fishing deeper water while most folks appeared to be beating the banks with big baits, or jockeying for position at the discharge.

Reports and pics please. Hate I'm not there. Looks like yall are going to have the nicest weather in the three year history of the event.

I think mine is blue. It's the heaviest one, but I'm 34, 250 lbs and have pretty strong forearms. When I put a full twist on it, it's a lot to hold. I think I could have gotten by with the next one down - the "medium" It's important to be able to twist it through the full range of motion. I'd err on the side of a weaker one.

Tennis elbow is the term for tendonitis on the outside of your elbow. Golfers elbow isthe tendon on the inside. Not sure how arthritis affects it, but I know that can be a rough condition with not a lot of recovery. There are lots of flexion and extension exercises you can do with no special equipment I posted this because the elbow pain really got me down, and fishing was guaranteed to make it worse. You owe it to yourself to do some Google research on the exercises. That flex bar thing really helped me a ton. I use it on the couch, and I do flexion and extension while driving as someone posted above. I'm fully healed at the moment, or at least I have zero pain. But I still do the exercises.

Maybe so, but I'll take an exercise solution to drugs or cortisone any time. I have a bad spine issue, degenerating l5s1 disc that bulges every so often. Never got as much relief as I did fro. Getting stronger and working on dead lifts and cleans, the kind of stuff I always thought would hurt my back. You can read up on the tendonitis stuff and make your own decisions. But the exercise I do stretches and strengthens them to help.prevent reinjury. I'm sure there are plenty of quick fixes out there. But if it's something that you struggle with and aren't afraid to commit to work on fixing it the right way, I recommend giving it a shot.

I've had bad tennis elbow this year as a result of fishing with a spinning rod a lot more. Not sure what else could have caused it. I tried icing and nsaids, but I've found something that actually fixes it instead of masking pain. If you've had it, you know how bad it can screw up even the simplest of daily activities, much less fishing or working outside. I bought a "theraband flex bar" on amazon for like 20 bucks. There are videos on YouTube of the tennis elbow exercise so I won't describe it here, but I religiously did 5 sets of 12 reps a day while sitting on my couch. After a week or two it felt much better and after six weeks I'm 100% I have no interest in the company. I only post this because I know how bad tendinitis can mess you up, and this thing was a real blessing for me. If left untreated tennis elbow gets progressively worse and can ultimately require surgery. Fixing it with exercise is infinitely better than taking meds and wearing a brace to deal with it. Hope it helps someone else.

Riiiight. Petrino's total comp at arkansas averaged about 290k a game. But yeah, he got his real kicks from betting 3% of that on games. Like a gas station attendant who snags a quarter from the register every now and then. But your buddy said it so it must be true.

Sloppy start by both sides. Glad I decided to watch this one from home. It's miserable out there.

I forgot you were an LSU homer. I think criticism of Miles form LSU fans or anyone else is totally fair game. I didn't post in this thread to attack LSU, just to say that I don't think Les Miles would be a good hire for Mizzou. But you immediately go on the offensive about how much more successful he's been than anyone at Arkansas? Since I don't seem to be entitled to an opinion, I'll dig up some facts. The criticism of Miles is not that LSU hasn't been successful. LSU has won its non conference games and has gone 47-17 in SEC play. LSU won a national championship (albeit with Saban recruits). I consider that to be very successful. I'd love for Arkansas to have that record. The criticism of Les Miles is that he has consistently done "less with more." LSU was hardly on the map before Nick Saban came to town, routinely finishing in the middle of the pack of the SEC with some outlying good seasons and some outlying bad seasons. Very similar to Arkansas. In the Saban and Miles era, LSU has dominated recruiting, landing consensus top ten classes most years, never lower than 22nd (2005 class) and a couple #1 classes. No doubt, LSU has recruited exceptionally well since 2000. The problem is what has LSU done with those classes? With similar recruiting rankings, Alabama (who LSU folks like to compare themselves to) won national championships during Les's LSU years in 2009, 2011, and 2012. Plenty of SEC Championship appearances to boot. One of my favorite statistics as an indicator of a coach's effect on a team is to look at the team's record against the spread. To me, a coach's development and use of talent is really tough to quantify, but how the team does against projected results by professional oddsmakers really shows overperformance/underperformance. Sure, that's not all attributable to a coach, but the one stat that really seems to follow coaches from school to school is their performance against the spread. I didn't actually know what LSU's performance was like. I felt like it was bad, but I had to look it up. Amazingly, LSU's record against the spread under Miles is the worst in the SEC....dead last...since 2005 among coaches who had 25 games (Dooley, Joker Phillips, Pinkel, and our beloved John L. Smith were worse). During the Miles era, no other SEC coach has been at the helm of a team that more consistently failed to meet the calculated expectations of handicappers. The two coaches at the top of that list? Bobby Petrino with a .625 record, and Nick Saban at .574 - both coaches that I feel really get the most out of their talent. So yeah, LSU has had a great track record. But the criticism of Miles (and I think it's completely fair) is that he should have had a lot better one. Miles has had a tremendous talent pool (NFL-U as you called it), but consistently fails to meet the expectations attached to it. Hell, LSU's final drive of the first half and first drive of the second half of the Arkansas game should have shown you that LSU could have easily handled the hogs, but for some unknown reason Les abandoned what worked and went back to playing to our strength. So no, I don't think Les Miles would be a good "get" for Missouri. Missouri doesn't attract the talent that LSU started attracting when Saban came to town. Missouri and Arkansas are very similar in that regard - neither one is a destination for five star recruits. Missouri (just like Arkansas) needs a coach with a track record of doing more with less - someone innovative who can maximize the cards he is dealt. Maybe Les Miles would be a great recruiting coordinator somewhere, but as a coach, he does Les with more than anyone else I can think of.

A couple of random thoughts. I agree with Joe...promoting one of the coordinators would be a bad deal for Mizzou. I remember thinking that having John L as an interim coach was a great move - keeping Petrino's team and staff together after we canned him. That was a disaster. I'm sure any of the Mizzou coordinators would have better results than John L, but Mizzou should be after an established head coach, not a promoted coordinator to kick the can down the road. Do you think there's pressure for Mizzou to go after a black coach? Is it so significant that it's a dealbreaker? I don't really understand what's going on up there so I don't know hoe much that factors in. We hired Stan Heath right after Nolan, in a resignation/firing that was loaded with racial implications. I'd personally love it if Mizzou hired Les Miles, because it would guarantee mediocrity for the foreseeable future from a non-division team we have to play every year. Les Miles gave us a great shot at LSU every year. I can't think of a coach who has consistently done less with more than Les. I don't know if he's a great recruiter or the program sort of recruited itself for a while, but I do know that his development of a ridiculous wealth of talent always left a lot to be desired. And I certainly wouldn't count Mizzou out of the game this weekend. Arkansas' offense has come on really strong over the last few weeks and I think it's fair to say we have one of the best offenses in college football at the moment. But our defense, particularly against teams that sell out to throw the ball to good receivers, is really poor right now. And Mizzou has a lot on the line, so I think we'll see their best effort for sure. I'm on the fence about how we'll react to the loss to Moo U. We were up for that game and playing for a chance to finish this season 8-4. I don't know if that loss will fire us up or beat us down. And there's no practical difference between 6-6 and 7-5 for us at this point. Probably the same bowl game either way. Even with all the stupid "battle line" stuff, this just isn't a game the fan base gets that excited about which is sad because we should. Mizzou has eaten our lunch in the last two meetings I remember - the cotton bowl abortion and the road game last year. I don't understand how you can term a game a "rivalry" game when the teams have played each other probably less than a dozen times, and only three times that I remember. LSU jilting us to play their Friday after Thanksgiving game with A&M really irritated me. We had a long history with LSU as a charter member of the SWC before we were both in the SEC. That game was always a good one. Hopefully some day the Missouri deal will have that feel, it's just going to take a long time. I will say that it gives me great pleasure to know that LSU's matchup with A&M this Friday will only be on the SEC Network. So much for A&M having a bigger appeal than the established game. Anyway, I'll be there in the rain. Brandon Allen has quietly become one of the best numbers quarterbacks in Razorback history, and I'm hoping he can get a little payback for last year to finish his career here.

I thought it was a creek chub, but maybe stoneroller is right. Now I'm not sure what a creek chub is. I have tons of them in my creek. The smallmouth love them.

I know the AGFC book has something in it about it being illegal to "waste the edible portion of game" or something like that. Not sure whether that's an actual "offense" or just something that's in the book about general ethics, but it would sure seem to cover sticking fish and not keeping them. It also seems plausible that sticking a fish and throwing it back would still constitute "taking" the fish. You took it out of the wild population. Who cares what you did with it afterward?

Have you tried a flick-shake worm? Use the lightest Jackal jighead and a robo worm. You should be able to keep that in front of their faces for a while, and it's easy to detect strikes with a braid/floro leader. I've done really well on this setup on a local private grass lake I fish when the lipless crankbait bite gets fired up. To your original question, the X-rap should hit your depth. I also have a few "spaz" jerkbaits. I think luckycraft makes them? They hit that 2' depth I think.

That would be kind of a bummer, but can understand a member of the "lucky sperm club" wanting to be cashed out. This isn't like AT&T buying Verizon - lots and lots of players in the apparel and sporting goods game. I doubt that there would be any antitrust issues with it.