jeb

Water temp from Prarire Creek down through Clifty Arm was still in the 38-40 range yesterday. Lake remains very stingy for me! The level is still dropping slowly, too.

Even the Steez would not qualify for the $100. I think there is only one low profile casting reel that would get the $100, and that's not included since it's a Shimano (Calais DC).

I haven't been to all the Bass Pro's, but the one in Springfield is the first store, and is pretty good size, especially when you count their museum and outlet store. The store part is not WAY bigger than other Bass Pro's, but it's a nice store. Not sure what reel to recommend. I've found casting reels under $100 are usually not great performers.

See if this link works. Note the fine print about Shimano.

It does not apply to Shimano, though.

Good to hear. You know, I'll probably still spend most of my local tackle money at Hook, Line and Sinker, even if it costs me a little more. They've been great guys to deal with and I sure want to see them stick around.

I think you're seeing the piling because you likely have DI set on wide. Notice it doesn't come all the way to the top of the water column. So you're seeing what is in the DI cone. Very nice DI image, BTW.

Thanks for the info. I've found the LC's to be the best out of the box for not needing much or any adjustment for the correct suspending depth. The McStick needs a lot of weight to get it there.

A 4 bass day would be welcome, Jeff! Good job. I did get some bites yesterday on drop shots and jigging spoons right tight up against some trees, but didn't get any in the boat. Stripers were surfacing again, too, chasing shad. But I didn't have much time to fish. Took the wife and MIL on a boat ride up to the dam and then down to War Eagle and back to Prarie Creek. Showed them some waterfalls, etc. Nice day for it, compared the the weather we've been seeing! Did you pick up the Flit locally or mail order it?

Went out for a couple of hours last evening. Had to get out and practice some of what I learned at Babler's seminar! Water temps in the 39-40 range. I sure found the shad and some good structure to fish over, but not a bite. The shad were everywhere! I scooped up a couple that were near the boat just to look at closely. They're still alive, but they'd kind of come up to the top and go back down, which I'd been seeing before. But there were hundreds of them yesterday. I'd have 6-8 of them on the surface around me quite often. Once I got home, I started wondering if the strategy of finding shad balls is just not a good idea right now. I mean, why would a fish take a lure when it has all of that to eat? I'm thinking the next time out, I'm going to look for transition areas that DON'T have shad balls near them and give them a try. Sure can't do any worse! Thoughts?

I found the "death traps" on Lure Parts Online. Got 50 delivered for just over $20, and they shipped fast. Took 2 days from order to arrival.

Bill recommended the Daiichi "death trap" trebles in size 6.

I use ProMarine onboard automatic chargers for the 3 batteries in my Skeeter. They seem to do a great job. I have my boat in the garage and hook the power cord up to a timer. I have it set to turn on every night at like 1am for 3 hours or so just to keep them topped off. Pretty painless way to go with no downsides I've found. I sure never come close to running my batteries down. I did have a charger go bad recently. It was about 1.5 years old. I had the reciept from Cablea's and ProMarine handled it really well. They sent me a new one promptly and no questions asked.

We walked in a couple of minutes late so maybe we missed it, but you held up what looked like a reel with a large lure or lure retriever on it and said something about you should have one of those if you're fishing these expensive baits. Was it a lure retriever and, if so, what one do you prefer to use?

It was nice to meet you yesterday, Jeff. And thanks for driving!

Thanks to both Bill and Lilley! Well worth the 4 hour round trip drive to attend. Bill is just as nice in person as he is on the board, a real class act for sure.

I replied, to the same address I sent the first note to. You may have me blocked?

Got the pass, and sent you some email about maybe carpooling, if we can meet over on 62 somewhere.

Looks like I'll be heading up. Thanks for putting this on, Bill. Is the nature center the one I see near the Hwy 60/Glenstone exit area?

Not looking good for me. MIL is in town from Ohio, so I'll probably have to stick around. It'd be way out of the way for me to meet you there anyway since I live out by the lake, but maybe I'll see you there. I'd take 62 up to Gateway from my place to get there.

Tough call on which I'd buy today. It really depends on the application. I love the small footprint of the Vista for my dirt bike use and for hiking, etc. So on that alone, given your usage, that'd be the one I'd recommend. But it's a little harder to learn because of the buttons being on the side and not as clearly labeled as the 60's. So I'd say the 60 is easier to learn, even though they both have the same functions and will do the same things. The topo 2008 would be the one you'd want for streams and rivers. And it also shows a lot of road detail, although it won't give you street level nav.

I was bumping shad as I fished the same bait through schools of them, but never hooked any. That's pretty cool! But why would a fish take a lure when all that live bait is there for the taking?

I was out Saturday for a while. Water temp mid-lake was 39. So not going the right direction! Caught one spot on a drop shot. I'm finding the fish, just not showing them what they want to see, it seems. Probably not feeding very heavily in this cold water either, I guess. This is the longest winter I've seen in my 4+ years down here, and I'm sure ready for it to end. But it still beats the heck out of chopping a hole in the ice to fish, like I used to when I lived in MN!

Same here, I got an error when trying to PM you. Can you send the doc to jejb @ att.net (without the spaces, of course)? Thanks

I know HB does not offer an extended warranty. But some retailers do offer them on HB units, so depends on where you buy it. Now that Lowrance finally has side imaging, or whatever they named it, things are more even between them and HB. That was a huge plus to the HB's over the Low for the last 4-5 years. Some say the Low's have better 2d, but HB has released some software updates lately that seem to put them at least on the same level. So hard to go wrong with either functionally speaking. I was all set on a HDS last spring. But after being told the same horror stories of returned defective units at 2 Bass Pro's and a Cabela's, I forced myself to look at HB harder. I also heard about the horrible customer service rep at Lowrance from all over the net, which was added reason to look elsewhere. HB has outstanding customer support with many of their employees helping out on several forums on the net. Everytime I've called, I got right through and got the help I needed. So night and day different from what you hear about from Lowrance that saying night and day isn't sufficient. HB also has free software upgrades fairly often to add new features, correct or fine tune others, etc. Add the lower overall price, at least if you're looking at getting the side and down imaging units, and it was a no brainer in the end. I ended up with a 798CI SI and 997C SI. I've heard Lowrance is finally getting on top of the HDS problems, and I'm sure they're great units. But I just can't see spending the same or more money on them when their customer service is rated so, so poorly. When I spend that kind of money, I expect top notch customer service.