eric1978

Now she just needs some mud on dem boots and she'll be set. Nice smallmouth in your avatar.

I second that. I'm dying to get out. If I wasn't so backed up with work I'd be floating on Mon or Tues. Looks like great weather for a couple days coming up. Thom, let us how the water was when you get back. Think I might blow off work if the gettin is good.

I'm with you wrench, those are the exact problems I have with most tubes. I always sit there for a minute to pull apart the ill-cut tails. I also couldn't care less about salt, to me they just weaken the bait, and when you're paying 40 or 50 cents a piece for them, it would be nice if they lasted for more than one dink per bait.

Duh, this is a jitterbug. My brain's not workin'. They want $70 for this one on ebay. You may be sitting on a gold mine. Looks like your Crazy Crawler might be worth quite a bit, too. There are a couple bid up to around $35.

Any of you guys care to share your favorite brand of tubes and why you like them? Having trouble locating the perfect tube in the big stores.

I used to work at the vet clinic there at Hog Hollow shopping center when I was a teenager.

I'm an ex-Chesterfield boy myself. Baxter and Country Ridge. Whereabouts are you?

Works best for me with eyes painted on the nail and a feather on the hook. Fresh is best, but dehydrated works, too.

Jitterbug, right?

Woodchoppers! Yep, I had a bunch of the bottom ones, and for a couple years when I was a kid that's all I'd use during the summer. You could cast those things so far your reel would just about run out of line. Great lures.

+1...Spinnerbaits can be killer this time of year, especially on a cloudy day or a windy bank. If it's a lake with lots of shad, I'll go with white, otherwise, match the baitfish. Anywhere spinnerbaits are working shallow, I'll have a fluke tied on to follow up a short strike. If it's a tougher bite, I might try some cranks, either billed or lipless to target the fish, then hit them thoroughly with jigs or finesse baits. If it's unseasonably warm for a few days, I'll also try a buzz or Sammy just to see, but I'll put them away pretty quick if I don't get immediate action.

Don't get me wrong OTF, I don't have a problem ethically with people live bait fishing, as long as they know what they're doing and not gut-hooking gamefish. If you're planning on harvesting a few trout I don't see any issue with slapping on some Powerbait and taking a few. When I was a kid, I took pride in catching bass that I targeted in shallow water and accurately placed a crawdad in front of. I can't tell you how many thousands of little bass I caught that way. My only point was that for me, personally, I just don't really get a kick out of live bait fishing. Like I said before, I'll sit on the dock all night and catch crappies with minnows, but that's a different kind of enjoyment. The thrill I get from bass fishing is using skills and knowledge to fool a wild animal into eating something made of metal, plastic, rubber and hair and feathers. I just find it more sporty and rewarding, but to each his own. If you like bait fishing, more power to ya. I just cringe when I see some kids on my favorite smallmouth streams with a fat, juicy shiner or a little crawdad on their hook that I know is going to wind up as one more dead smallie.

Man that brings back some memories. I can't tell you how many fish I caught on a Zebco 33 with the line that came on it from the store and a Lazy Ike.

If I'm sitting on my uncle's dock and having a few cold ones, I'll drown minnows for crappie all night long. When I was a kid I used to go through dozens of crawdads catching bass all day. But now that I'm older, I have no desire to catch gamefish with live bait. Much of the challenge and fun of fishing is tricking a fish to eat an imitation. It takes no skill to drop a juicy morsel in the water and wait for a fish to swim by, and thus gives me no sense of accomplishment.

Every one of your posts makes me laugh wrench. You're a funny dude.

Do studded felt soles work better on that stuff? Never had a pair of those myself.

I had a Symetre and a Stradic side by side yesterday at Cabela's and could hardly tell the difference. Other than a few cosmetic differences and one less ball bearing, I think they're pretty close. Report back after using it a couple times if you don't mind.

Me too, though I think the Warts do a pretty good job of popping over stuff. There is an art to pulling a crankbait through cover, it takes a lot of concentration and a light touch. I'm getting better, but I still go swimming occassionally.

Some of those older fiberglass rods are GREAT for crankbaits and jerkbaits. Just enough give so you don't rip the hooks out of a fish's mouth. I'm not crazy about them for plastics when you need hook-setting power. The only old school baits I use are the Warts. I believe the action on a lot of the older lures are as good if not better than the high-end Japanese stuff, but like I said earlier, I'm a sucker for those paint jobs, even though I know it's probably more for me than the fish. I used to catch a bunch of fish on old school cranks when I was a kid, but I've developed more confidence in the newer baits and that is really all that keeps me from throwing the old ones again. That and I lost all of 'em. Where'd those darn things go? Think I'm gonna tear up the basement tonight looking for them. There's a gold mine down there somewhere. I had a bunch of old Spooks and Torpedos and Hula Poppers and Rebel Craws, and my favorite of all time those wooden Woodchoppers with the props on front and back. Remember those? I had about half a dozen of them. Wonder what they're worth? I'm going to the basement.

If they were ridiculing you because the poo on your ballet shoes got all over their dance floor and you neglected to clean it up, I'd say you would have deserved it, too.

I understand your point, and maybe it's not the most professional thing to do, but those guys were clearly not fishermen, so I'm pretty sure they're not sniffing around on OAF. And it's not like he mentioned the guys' names. This forum is for fishermen, and I doubt that telling an anecdote about a couple of jerks is turning off many potential customers reading these posts. I know you have to expect a certain amount of thoughtlessness from customers, but it's just common courtesy to be respectful of other people's stuff. There are certain things I would expect from a guide: being on time, putting me on fish, giving me advice. Cleaning up my mess and letting me break his stuff is not on the list. Would you walk into someone's place of business with a pile of stink on your shoes? Some people deserve to be ridiculed publicly. I hope they see this thread. Maybe they'd have second thoughts about being such scumbags, not as customers, but as human beings.

Have respect for your fellow man? How about paying for the rod you broke and cleaning the dog crap off your shoe before walking on someone's boat? Everyone's money is green, but rude is rude, customer or not.

Yep, I sure wish I still had all my tackle from when I was a kid. Where the heck did all that stuff go, anyway? Those babies would be on ebay so fast I'd have myself a new Loomis in a week.

They do. I like them right around this time of year, and especially in early spring if we get a warm rain that raises the river a little and murkies up the water. You can find them going nuts at those times and catch fish on nearly every cast in a good spot.

Al would be better at explaining the physics of tracking, but if you look at it this way it makes some sense: If you dropped a plastic knife and a paper plate in the water, the knife will tend to take a more linear path with the current, while the paper plate would also float with the current, but would tend to spin around also. The longer and sharper the canoe is, the more it cuts through the water like an arrow, keeping bow and stern aligned with the flow of the stream. The Guides are a little shorter and fatter than the Vagabonds, but the Guides have a small, rounded keel, which helps some with tracking. The keel can also cut down on maneuverability, but I found mine quite maneuverable regardless. My biggest problem with the keel is if you ride up on a boulder or some slab of rock it can tip over to one side and screw up your balance. It's been said a million times that no canoe is perfect, but you can adapt pretty quickly to whatever peccadilloes your craft might have. Wildlife biology sounds like a pretty cool major. Yeah, it may not be the most lucrative field and it may be a little tough finding jobs in it, but guess what? You're gonna like what you do, and that's more than most people can say. If I could rewind my life and finish college like I should have, I think I'd do something like what you're doing. Keep your nose to the grindstone, you'll thank yourself one day for all the suffering you're doing now.