Quillback

Welcome! Where about in Alaska did you live?

If I had a dock on TR, I'd be trapping them too.

I remember the red color. I saw a lot of flooded brush, looked like great habitat for big old slab crappie.

That's pretty neat, good on you!

Last job I had to periodically drive down to Plano and back. HWY 59 (I think it is 59) which swings by and over the lake. Never did see a lot of boats on that lake and I also wondered why. I have heard that it is a good crappie lake but not so good for bass.

There are definitely insurance agents out there peddling their wares. Another thing I found out is that once you get within a year of 65, you'll get junk mail and emails from all over the place, I bet I get 4 or 5 letters a week from people peddling supplemental or Advantage plans.

There's some semi-tame deer that hang around one of the local walking/biking trails. Had a doe about 10 feet away munching on some brush, her head was covered in ticks, on the ears, side of the face mostly.

Good idea, I'm doing mostly web based reading, but have pretty much decided on the Advantage plan from United health. Mercy Health accepts their Advantage plan and that's where I get almost all of my care so it's a no-brainer. And you can always change out, I believe you can do that once a year, or you can just drop it if for some reason it isn't working.

I'm going through the sign up with Medicare thing right now, I'll be 65 in October. You might want to look at an Advantage plan instead of supplemental as in some cases, Advantage plans are free vs paying for a supplemental. They are free because the Feds pick up the bill. It differs by state and provider. Advantage plans can also provide some vision and dental benefits too.

Too bad they are too small to eat, but you'd think the claws, even on a small crab would be worth the effort.

The Plueger President is a fine spinning reel at a reasonable price, I have a couple and they work just fine. I would look at rods that are rated for the weight class of what you'll be fishing, if you want to toss 1/4 oz jigs, get a rod that is rated around that weight, for example a rating of 1/8 to 3/8. If you are going to be trolling a lot, bait casters are the way to go, less line twist than a spinning reel and a lot easier to release line using the thumb bar than flipping the bail over. If you are using a bait caster primarily for trolling then there are a lot of inexpensive reels out there that will work. Sure helps if you can find someone to fish with that knows the ropes and has some gear you can test out to see what you like.

That's a great trip. Except for the "100 ticks" part. I really hate ticks.

No doubt serious money was spent to catch that fish. If I read that right, they traveled in a boat from FL to the Verde islands. Doing a quick search, that's roughly 3700 miles. I would think you'd have to refuel on the way over, must be a way to do it, kind of curious about that.

I forgot the pics. Surprised you let me get away with it. 😀 They are there now.

I have to stay away from this thread, you guys always make me hungry, 😀

Hit the road early again today, got to the ramp a little after 5 AM. Not much of an early bite that I could find by 8 AM I had 4 bass, 2 of them being fairly nice largemouth. I was fishing a gravel flat, chasing some isolated top water fish and about 100 yard away saw a bunch of fish blowing up on shad. Looked like a school of white bass, so I got over there as quick as I could with the trolling motor, didn't want to spook them with the big motor. Of course they had stopped by the time I got there, so didn't expect much, but first cast with the top water and it was fish on. I caught 5 on my first 5 casts and they really wanted that bait, no swirls, and if they missed it, they came right back for it. Put 10 top water fish in the boat and lost several others. They eventually stopped so I went in there with a c-rig with a Speed Craw, caught 6 or 7 more, they got tired of that, so threw a Keitech and got a few more. All on about a 50 foot stretch of bank, if you got off that stretch to either side, nothing. Some days you get lucky, if I had not seen those fish breaking, I would've never got on them and it had all the makings of a tough morning. I boated 25, 7 keepers. I quit at 10 AM. I talked to TV Tom when I left, he and his wife were out up the White and they caught 45 between the 2 of them, and I believe he said 10 of them were keepers. They got some on top, on a spoon, and jigs. They were fishing deeper water that I was and also got some around docks. WT when I left was 87.5.

That's a really nice smallie, congrats on some good fishing!

It jumped twice, probably got 3 feet of air on both jumps.

For sure, nice fish on the big swimmers. Those big gills are fun, good to see the youngster catch some.

Started fishing about 0530 this morning, air temp was 62, man did that feel good. By 0900 it was baking like the Sahara. WT was at 85 when I launched, 86 at the end of the morning. A fairly good bite early, no size, some near keepers but did not get a keeper until about 0900. C-rigging a Zoom Speed Craw worked early, got a few top water bites, but only one in the boat. Caught some shaky head fish on a Finesse Worm, and a couple of more dragging a 3.8 Keitech on the bottom. My one and only keeper came on the Keitech. Caught 18 total. Most of the fish were in 5-15 FOW. Not a whole lot of rec boats out there today. I left at 1100, so it may have gotten worse, but it wasn't too bad.

You're in the tall cotton. 👍

Some great pics!

Really nice fish.

That's great, good to see you guys have a great day!

I'm a sensitive guy, these hook-stuck-in-finger pics give me the willies. Glad to hear you got it out OK. Thanks for the report, interesting to hear they are biting the Crawler.