OhioFisherman

Congrats on surviving that! One of my son's close friends just had one and he is only 29 and very fit, you just never know?

I have seen them in Lake Erie since I was a little kid, never saw any small ones though, some had to be 2 pounds or so. There is a canal that wanders through the southeast side of Cleveland, parts of it maybe in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and I believe it empties into the Cuyahoga river which empties into Lake Erie. When we were real little my dad used to take us there fishing for them, it was loaded with them. A soft ray fish, at least the smaller ones, a two - three pound largie isn't going too have much trouble munching one, and their coloration makes it sort of difficult for them to hide? Ya, it seems like a bad plan to be releasing fish not native to the waters into them! Given the prolific spawning rate of some of those carp species I have wondered many sport fish are eating the young ones in Lake Erie.

Yep, Langley reels I think those were the only baitcasters my dad owned until the 60's, they are what i learned on too. My uncle that lived upstairs with my grandparents went into the navy around 1957 and was in the Mediterranean picked up a couple of mitchell 300's and sent my dad one, then I learned on a spinning reel.

LOL Dave, you may have some years on me, I had to look it up!

I'm old, when I bought mine it came in a small metal tin and looked like wax.

https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/gink-dry-fly-floatant That stuff will keep mono on top of the water.

This is going back some years, 1980's, I had a 24 foot SeaRay I kept stored on a cradle outside at a marina roughly 70 miles from home, I didn't have a trailer for it, or a vehicle I felt could safely pull it around. It came with a winter cover (tarp) but after one winter and feeling a need to run 70 miles after every heavy snowfall or high wind to check on it I went the shrink wrap route, in part because I viewed any problems with those issues would be on them. The place that it were pro's everyone it the marina that went the shrink wrap route used them and no issues that I ever heard of, LOL and we spent a lot of time walking around the marina BSing! Considerations, It was my Lake Erie boat, the normal season for pleasure boaters starts around Memorial Day here, the marina didn't start putting there docks in until after ice out, and it was normally just a dozen or so for the charter boats until mid May, my tarp - wrap didn't come off until early May to give me a couple few - weekends of prep time. My last boat, much smaller, was stored indoors in my garage or barn with the trailering cover on it, no issues with mice, but our outdoor cats seemed to think that cover was a lounge chair, and cat hair is hard to vacuum off a cover! There may not be a perfect solution, I have seen spark plug wires chewed up by mice when parked in the owners garage. Shrink wrap is probably the way to go if you don't mind the annual expense and have a pretty clear idea of when your boating season starts because once it's off it's off.

I have never used one kick, not much of a tenter in my past, but this place has some examples of them for suvs and pickups. https://www.jcwhitney.com/results/?N=0&Nr=wpn_cat_name:Outdoor+%26+Camping+Gear

I know Ray Halter mentioned in the article, former owner of The Rodmakers Shop in Strongsville Ohio, now retired. A straight up guy and very good tournament fisherman in our area, his shop was the place to go for bass tackle and just about every kind of tackle for our area. It's been years since I have been able to fish, or even visit his former shop, but he had pictures of an Erie tournament him and his partner won with a 30+ pound limit. If he thinks that the area Lake Erie fishing has been in a bit of a funk the last 20 years? I would be willing to take his word for it. Our limit used to be 8, then 6, and currently 5, I had no problems adjusting to the changes, or the closed catch and release only season, protecting the fishery was my main concern. I remember a day with the 8 fish limit, I had pushing or exceeding 40 pounds of smallies in the livewell and no camera, releasing them just seemed to me like a better plan than going back to the ramp in search of one.

LOL, if Cohan wasn't offended? How could I be?

LOL, no r's in Monday so no rants! I blame the internet! A lot of factors involved, take Florida, it is roughly 1/6th the size of Ontario and has roughly twice the population, and as someone of the board once mentioned to me that lives in Ontario, I can get to Florida faster than he could get to Toronto? Population, distance, and available information? Not to mention better electronics, gear, boats? Take a look at some of the bass tournaments on the lakes you mentioned, and the crowd of boats following them around, just punching in gps numbers? The days of buying a few acres of land on the shores of Kentucky Lake for 60 bucks an acre or a few acres in Ontario dirt cheap are long gone? Everything has changed, and we have to change our thinking to protect the fisheries? http://www.rockthelake.com/buzz/2018/01/cleveland-municipal-stadium-underwater-lake-erie/

Some nice catches in that tournament by the way.

grimsby, I will agree that the answer is not that cut and dried. I am old and remember very well the days before we had a closed season in place here in Ohio. We had 50 - 60 + days fishing for them, in our case it was strictly catch and release, but it was normal to see people walking the bank or wading dragging a stringer of them. Besides the open waters of Lake Erie I fished some bays and river emptying into it, some were known spring time spawning areas for the smallies and it was sort of unusual to catch them there any other time, after the water warmed up a bit the largemouth took over. Agreed that sheephead and walleye compete for food, but in those early spring spawning areas you also had schools of huge carp sucking up everything in their path, not good during a spawn! We used to catch big smallies before the goby invasion, Erie usually has a very good food base, there are also millions of small shad, and everything seems to eat them too. Erie is the best bass waters in the state, and just judging by the news reports of our area having the best walleye fishing in 40 years? Why take a chance with the bass fishery if you can't seem to maintain the walleye fishery?

https://www.cleveland.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2018/08/ohio_wants_to_open_the_door_to.html#comments I was happy when they put a closed season on them, it's an easy way to help maintain a quality fishery.

https://www.ebay.com/gds/How-to-Repair-Neoprene-Waders-/10000000178372119/g.html