OhioFisherman

I kept a pike, around 30 years ago, about a 40-41 incher that died on me. LOL had a picture of it around here somewhere, buddy insisted we had to run back to camp and get his camera, I don`t carry one, just never had the interest. Fish didn`t recover after about a half hour of me trying so I had it mounted, LOL what a waste. Cost about as much as a week of cabin rental at the time, another week up north would have meant more to me than than that fish did. Muskies? don`t even go there, my jinx fish. Just not into keeping fish much, a walleye or steelhead a year for the wife and kids was enough.

Our bass club had limited areas for some tournaments, we fished a number of them on back bays of Lake Erie here in Ohio. All the bays had access to Lake Erie so it prevented the guy with the fastest boat to have an advantage over slower boats. You were not allowed to go out or past a certain point and enter the main lake. You had to fish, not run. In my mind money has in some ways corrupted the sport, kind of like an arms race. You do have to remember it`s all about them money, some came up with the idea to make money. If they don`t follow the path the sponsers want followed no or limited revenue. Obviously Merc or whomever makes more money selling a 250HP than a 60 HP motor, a 20 bassboat brings them more revenue than a 17 footer. Another sad part of it is it takes a lot of people out of the competition, they can`t afford to compete with the big boys and have to become spectators, which I feel is the wrong direction for the sport. The idea should be to get people to fish, not watch other people do it. Sort of lucky here in Ohio I guess, some smaller 1000 acre or so city water supply reserviors that are electric motor only, some lakes with a low horsepower limit, like 10 hp so there are a variety of options at least for bass. Guess it just depends on what you call fun.

My guess is mid 60`s to early 70`s bought them often in the same style packaging.

Brian check your PM`s.

I would suggest a tackle bag over a tackle box. They are a bit more expandable as your interest grows. It is a lot easier to take out plano boxes from the bag and plug in ones that are species oriented. I don`t carry muskie or pike tackle in mine unless I am on waters that have them and they are my target. Don`t carry panfish tackle unless I intend to fish for panfish. Just keeps things a bit more organized. If I am just out to fun fish I can plug a plano box with basics for a number of species in the bag. It doesn`t have to be very expensive, if you and the kids get the fishing bug it be easy to keep new purchases for species related tackle in separate plano boxes and take what you need to fish for them White grubs 2-3 inch will catch a variety of species, get a couple bags of 1/8 to 1/4 ounce white or black jigheads. A few snelled hooks from size 8 to 4 are good for most of your average species, worms, minnows, maggots, leeches or what ever form of legal livebait is allowed is a cheap way to start, a few bobbers, some various sized splitshot and your good to go. Take some time to study the fishing regulations in the waters you intend to fish, it can save you a problem and embarrassment.

If you understand the principals of a contract negotiation at all nobody ever starts out with exactly what they will settle for, the company or the union. You settle for the best you can get. Be interesting to me to see exactly what salary cuts the execs are willing to take? Would they be willing or forced to work for the comparatively mere pittance the Japanese auto executives work for? http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0904/112.html

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefo...G=Google+Search That is certainly not going to help them.

A lot of lures will run much deeper than the box says with a lot of line out, much more than you would get on a normal cast. We used to troll with lures like Storm wiggle warts and hot-n-tots and not much trouble to get the bumping the bottom in 16 -18 feet of water. Once you get the feel of it you can troll and follow the bottom depth on the depth finder and keep them at the right depth fairly well. Never used downriggers or dipsy`s myself.

Ya Dekay`s are just little guys, can`t really picture them eating anything but bug and worms.

Cool! We find them in our yard all the time. Garter, ribbon and dekay`s snakes, still waiting to find something different. I put them in our field out of the way of the lawn mower.

Used the Gulp Gobies once dropshotting on Lake Erie with Whopper and Deg, no takers, but a slow day for fish overall. If I was able I would put more time in with them. Used to know a guy that worked for Berkley on Iowa, he made me sort of an unofficial field tester by sending me stuff. An overall good product, caught a lot of fish on powerbaits.

LOL Phil don`t think you could handle two. Didn`t have a clue what you guys had some I packed heavy, a lot of good it did us? You do look great holding them silver bass! Got a couple-3 other bags just don`t need to usually carry that much around. I knew I was going to be with 3 strong young lads?

Lew my friend, not out of line at all, still think of your families loss. Came close myself once, a hard thing to deal with. Might not always agree with my kids, but still my kids, sure my parents weren`t down with some of my deals.

Nice job do you travel?

LOL Garry. Me too! Ya they were originally meant to imitate the rainbow trout being stocked in the California lakes, seen some though bigger than 4 inch that cost a lot more than 20.

Some of the pricing on the single packs is stiff for some hooks, especially when your getting 5 in a pack. My buddy ordered jig hooks through these people after I made him a copy of the flyer they sent me some years ago. Tough to buy in 1000 quantities though unless you can get a few people that fish hard to do it. We would order the Mustad 32746BLN about 75 bucks per K with shipping and taxes, about half what it was costing us buying them buy the hundred. The Gammie 604`s here sell for 32-35 bucks a hundred? and there isn`t many places near here that stock them, usually a mail order deal too. Just a bit more than half price when you buy a thousand. Not many people use that many though. Just a thought, throwing out old stuff in the desk, found some cool rabbit hair jigs I had forgotten about, dude gave me a freebie when I placed a large order for some of his other jigs.

Salmon are expensive to raise, Ohio gave up long ago, money was better spent on other species. They closed the hatcheries dedicated to raising them and bought a cold water facility from a fishing club to raise steelhead. I have fished in New York, not for Salmon or in Lake O but they do a better job managing their stuff than Ohio. It was worth the money to me to have 4 different licenses at one point. Ohio, Pa, New York and Ontario, and I kept a fish or two a year. People think nothing of blowing a hundred bucks at a baseball or football game? For a traffic hassle and a couple- few hours? One fee and your set for the year.

http://www.shortyshooks.com/CATALOGS.html Some real good prices if your stateside and willing to buy in quantities of 1000 minimum.

Great pictures and report! Nice fish! I think I am snowblind! LOL

Pretty hard to load skids of bags in a trailer with damaged interior walls. one bump can tear the shrink wrap holding the bags on the skid(pallet) and tear the bags open. Other products can be damaged too, but nothing like torn bags of a product that is hazardous or messy like carbon black powder, that stuff will cover everything with a black dust and is hard to clean up. Most of the trailers have a thin sheet of plywood or fiberglass about half way up the inside walls to cover the rivets and bolts used to build it and such. Some of the fiberglass trailers(Fiberglass over plywood) just have a short piece maybe 2 feet from the floor for the same reason. Seen tape used on some for quick repairs, but never gave it much thought and never saw our mechanics doing it so never asked. Brian here are a couple links for tape suppliers hope it helps. http://directory.canadianmanufacturing.com...amp;cmoid=41914 http://www.sme.in/Strapping_Tape.htm http://www.electrotape.com/

Just something to consider, how long do you plan to keep a new house? Had mine built in 89, I was 38 no physical problems and never really expected any. 4 levels to my home, and I have some serious issues with stairs now. Love my location, neighbors I can deal with, but man I wish it was a ranch! Wife isn`t getting any younger either and I can tell when she is coming downstairs by her knees popping. Mother and father in law have a bungalow with a couple spare bedrooms upstairs, they are in their 70`s now and probably haven`t been upstairs more than a couple of times a year for the last 10 years. Get a reliable builder and get everything in writing.

what is Copolymer fishing line? Not sure what it is now, but back in the mid to late 1980`s Stren rolled out Prime with a big advertising campaign. Inner and out layers, and I put it on most of my reels just before a trip up north. After 17# test breaking on the hookset 3-4 times and leaving a pigtail of the inner layer I stopped fishing and drove down to Parry Sound and got enough line(original stren) to refill all my reels. Only time I was so dissatisfied with a product that I stopped fishing to change. I let them know about it, it wasn`t on the market long.

SlowPoke, are you patching trailer roofs?

I used to make an early spring run up BPS, Cabela`s, in Michigan and Jann`s Netcraft in Toledo, usually dropped 250-300 a trip, but had me pretty much set for the year. A flea market a mile from the house so lots of deals, but a forty year collection. Plus I collected and traded some older reels for a time. Looked around at the end of the season for clearance sales. Other stuff like electric trolling motors I don`t count as gear.

http://www.usangler.com/product.cfm?model=...&type=Hooks I have used these, makes it easy to be weedless. Like mentioned earlier Mustad also makes a similar hook now , 4/0-5/0 for pike don`t know if you can get them bigger. Some of the in-line spinners don`t have a split ring, I just cut the hook off and put one on.