JohnF

Then you probably appreciate my problem in buying suits. The clothing world assumes that everyone with a 50" chest needs size 44 pants. Unfortunately I need size 38 pants. The 44's need way too much tailoring to work. JF

We're not fat. The rest of the world is scrawny. JF

I bit my fingernails until I was a young adult, and then one day I just stopped. I'm not certain what caused it but I suspect at least a part of it was seeing a view thru a microscope of the nasty gnarly little bits and mites that are stuck to our skin and under our fingernails. It may have been on a tv show about the stuff that lives in our carpets and other everyday things that we are in contact with. It made an impression. To this day I'm hard pressed even to nibble at a hangnail or a split nail. Instead of trying to pressure the kids into quitting, why not let 'em see what they're really chewing on? JF

Okay, so I'm slow. I just now got it. Good one. JF

I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet. Might they be trying to stop those who try to beat getting caught without a licence by handing the rod to the guy who has the licence? JF

My experience was always more along the lines of the kids not really giving a damn, unless it was Disney World, and me being the one who was let down. As for tear jerker songs, I like Harry Chapin's better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlHdjjHNEC8 JF

Great idea. That can be a really nice trip. Lots to see and not an horrifically long drive. Take the boat to Newfoundland and drive the causeway to PEI. Drive through the Gaspe. See the tides on the Bay of Fundy. Do some shore fishing and jigging. My wife's family did it for a number of summers when the kids were little, before the days of minivans. My wife still has great memories. JF

Looks to me like a Sherpa would be better. JF

But does it come with a sheath? JF

Good job. Thanks. The peeing fish may well be related to Garry2rr's little dog. JF

Ah, to be young again. JF

Wait till you've hauled that canoe for a few kliks, not to mention all the beer. JF

Crap. Natalie's is bigger'n any of mine. JF

Do you find yerself checking out the bodies on the lady bass of late, by any chance? JF

Wait jest a danged minute here! Haven't you two got a bet on? Mebbe he should be thinking twice about any advice he takes from you. JF

There's a thought. Mebbe he's like some kinda bad weather magnet. We'll see how it goes while he's away. If he and Cliff get rained out and we get sun - I say we petition for him to be fired. JF

The difference may be that when they do the polaris trip they're doing it voluntarily and expel air from the bladder as they come up. When they're being horsed up they may be fighting and don't know enuf to blow out. JF

You might as well just leave now for all the work yer gonna get done in the next few hours. JF

And wear yer glasses. Mebbe it's just my aged reflexes, but those unstuck lures sure come back at ya quick. I tried to keep Garry between me and the hung up hooks each time on the weekend. It was a little tricky getting him to stand still while I stuck the line between his legs so I could duck in behind them when I pulled. Fortunately they all just bounced off him. JF

Crazy looking. It doesn't look like a contrail. Have you considered some kind of wave emanations from a transmitter satellite? They might be intermittent and not easily visible to the naked eye but cumulatively they'll show up on the time exposure. Just a guess though. JF

Good stuff. Thanks. JF

You're the francophone here, not me. I'd be hard-pressed to just read it in French if someone else translated it for me, and then I wouldn't know what it was saying. Those 5 years of high school French have all leaked outa my ears by now. I can handle the "little white dog" part, but I draw a complete blank when I get to "Great hairy monster" & "Garry laughing his butt off at me". Yer on yer own with the little one. JF

That's cuz Drew catches slightly more fish, and they're a damned sight bigger than the minnows I reel in. The first time I find myself on the other end of a rod from a 50" Muskie there better be someone close by with a diaper .... for me. I actually think about stuff like that when I'm fishing alone, or with another newby. "What in blazes do I do if I hook into a monster something or other?" All you guys make it look easy to stick yer whole hand up under the gill cage of a huge toothy maneater to lift him outa the water. No way! I've looked in those mouths. I've seen those teeth going every which way. My secret security blanket is the orange Bob Izumi glove (that he lipped the pickerel with on his show) that's always close by somewhere, just in case. I don't care who's watching. The first time I take on something with any more teeth than a bass, it's gonna be in the protection of that glove. As for catfish, I'm with Mike the Pike. I don't think I want to touch those icky things, even with the glove. And don't confuse my silliness with the stuff from Moosebunk, Solopaddler, TJ and many more. Some of you guys really have the fishing experiences of a lifetime, and do a helluva job in recounting them for us. This forum is like a new fishing magazine arriving almost every night. I just enjoy the experiences vicariously and then invent my own silly little stories, kind of a foil to the real fishing storytellers here, a little reminder that fishing is also just about having fun. But I'm glad that a few of you find them entertaining. Perhaps y'all just need an occasional break from catching PB Walleye, Pike, Muskies, and Bass. JF

Red just looks black once there's a sufficient absence of light. There are a lot of claims that it disappears at anything from 10' - 30' but i haven't tested it personally. I believe it depends more on the water clarity and the ability of sunlight to penetrate that determines the depth at which it goes black. The scientists will talk about about wavelengths etc and then they lose me. But I know from my dive experiences that it's true. Red turns black as you descend in the water column. Shining a light on it can bring out the red again. So I'm a tad skeptical about all these claims of red making line invisible or making hooks look like blood. All I've seen underwater is that red becomes black in the absence of a strong light source. JF

Trying to put her to sleep? JF