Mark K

Never got around to it but I was thinking a real heavy floating braid, like 30 lb Powerpro maybe even hit with some silicone fly floatant to make it more bouyant coupled with a weedless topwater like a salad Spoon or Horny Toad might probably get you by. The moss has been getting worse and worse like other guys said. I have been fishing upstream and there is less, but sit's still there. Even if you use a totally weedless lure, it catches on your line. It's hugely frustrating.

June 21st and 22nd I'll be at NIU Dekalb, doing the MS150 bike tour. I would like to fish one or both days afternoon when I get done, which should be before noon. I could use some advice on a good place to park and get in. Don't need any hotspots. But certainly would not turn any down I fished it once before but for the life of me I can't remember where. PM would be fine. I would certainly be open to hooking up if anyone wanted to fish. Open to either day.

Hate to say it, but I think the perch is the official fish of Chicago. Also good to eat. There I go again.

My vote, if it's still there... The Weiner's Circle on Clark. Charbroiled. The service is totally rude. It's a trademark. I make the best burger on my grill. i used to go to Maxwell street all the time (drunk at 2 am). Handn't had a polie in years then they opened the imititations all over. I thought it was greasy and repulsive and the fries sucked. I love fries. I eat pretty healthy. To be honest, I haven't had a fast food burger in years and eat very little red meat. My weakness...is pizza. first I have to disagree with previous poster, deep dish pizza is a Chicago trademark. a toss up... It was invented here... The best pizza...in the world, since pizza anywhere other than Chicagoland blows..... Uno's down town or Lou Malnati's in Elk Grove. Is it any wonder that Portillo's is as big as they are and can get you to drop 7 bucks on fast food. Man they are good. New York has tasty dogs, with kraut on them. Very thin pizza an exception to the everywhere else rule. Florida has great seafood. Texas for roadside BBQ and mexican food. I'm hungry again.

Not to digress from the discussion of proper condiment selection when dining in Chicago... But with regard to line. when winding onto a spinning reel, it's of the utmost importance to put the line on the reel the same direction it came off. It's easy to screw up and a 100% guarantee of line twist from hell if you do. I usually have another person hold the spool then trace the line comming off with my finger and make sure it's going in the direction of the bail. Do this BEFORE cranking. I put moderate tension on the line with a damp rag. I (the originator of the "death before mono" phrase) have been dabbling on the dark side. 4lb test (BPS Excel) is exceptional for panfishing. If you put it on the spool correctly it fishes really nice. And it's filthy cheap so you can change it as much as you want. I tried 12lb Mcoy on my casting reel but don't like it.

That was louis' lunch box, the originator of the hamburger. Small world. Yeah thats pretty south side. My folks were from back of the yards. I grew up in Gage Park. 51st Rockwell Casmir's Custard Stand. Hot Dogs, Burgers, Tom Tom Tamales. Chili on everything unless you ask not to. Curly Cue fries, frozen lemonade. Custard. The ultimate post Sox Game feast. I'm getting weepy. Talk amongst yourselves.

Saw them on al Lindner's show. The reason I did not get one is because of the floating moss in the Kank. Otherwise yeah, they would probably kill.

They are unspoken rules. You wouldn't go to Lou Malnati's and ask for goat cheese and pinapple on your pie. Actually I didn't make that up (for once). The Food Network had a documentary on Hot Dogs. Of the many joints they showcased it was mentioned "just don't ask for ketchup". You guys are making me hungry and i just ate.

Rapala has an interesting looking hard bait taht does that. I have not tried it. Looks like an X Rap though and I've been doing good with those on LM.

Like I said...It's just wrong, especially in Chicago.

I fish a Fluke on a 3/0 or 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG. Superline, 10-20lb. A flouro leader drastically improves action and is totally worth the trouble. I used 30 lb in Florida. 10-20 here. rigging it PERFECTLY straight is critical. 1) On the fall. 2) Fish it like an underwater topwater. Like you would a Pop'R or Zara Spook. Exactly the same. Rod tip down index finger pointed straight forward. Blip, blip...blip....kill it..... or a steady walk the dog. 3) It works great in current. Especially clear water, deep with large boulders. It's major succesful and extremely fun. 4) Clear water, the clearer the better. Anytime bass are chasing baitfish it is a killer. Totally weedless a freaking killer. Missed topwater strike? It's the ultimate second weapon. When all else fails, throw a fluke. 5) There are times that color does not matter all and Zoom makes lots and lots of cool colors. I like Rainbow Shad and Albino Shad. Arkansas shad looks cool too. Heavily weighting a Fluke to me is like putting ketchup on a hot dog, some people like it...but it's just wrong. In those cases most any piece of plastic will work. If you must weight a Fluke try to distribute it evenly. Nose eighting destroyes the action unless it's a very small amount of weight. There are times that a Baby Bass Assasin will fish circles around a Fluke and everything else for that matter. You should certainly have it in your arsenal too. Fish it on a 2/0 Owner screw lock. Albino Shad. You can thank me later. Bigger is not always better. In all honesty, I might say that the Baby Assasin has been more productive for me in the Kank for smallies.

What unmittigated audacity! Gordon you should pick up some deadly yellow snow and rub all into his beady little eyes with vigorous circular motion hither to unknown to the people on this board but destined to take the place of the mud shark in their mythology.

Gary-Paul we are talking filling a spinning reel up with it not a leader...right? It doesn't leap off the spool? Great Googly Moogly is right!

I like Suffix too. But...Line twist has nothing to do with the type of line. Line twist is caused by some mechanical force actually twisting the line, like improper line installtion or the lure physically twisting. Mono doesn't twist by itself and it should not bird nest without being twisted. Braids and fused lines are less suceptable to the effects of twisting (like bird nests and those annoying loops). I believe this is because they are smaller diameter and much more limp. Might want to take a look at what is causing the line twist as even though it seems like a miracle cure, Suffix can bird nest too. Might save you an annoying day when you discover that.

Ken- Do you have a home lab? Where do you find 3 foot beakers? An even better question- how do you manage your time well enough to do this kind of stuff AND fish.

HA- Check this out.... WBBM Investigation: Nearly Half Of Ill. Cong. Let Taxpayers Pay For Their Cars http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/2193182.php?

I had to drive to Wisconsin friday night. I returned yesterday evening. Zero traffic for most of the way. I saw lots of cheesehead state troopers so, I kept about 5 over the speed limit and there was a slight tail wind. I got 29 miles to the gallon, where I typically get 22-24 highway being my typical mileage. The tailwind for sure will help, but yep staying off the lead foot can't hurt either. Not sure if Uncle Sam is at fault on this. Actually, most of the world would love to pay what we do in gas. We have several people that bike commute now where I work. They have short commutes. I did it when my commute was shorter. It was great. I'm seeing more and more people doing it. Maybe we will get some more bike lanes built. it's funny that it takes gas prices that are really not all that high, to even consider changing our driving habits. It kind of interesting that no one mentions or even considers air pollution and emmisions in this whole discussion, only the econmic impacts and this is a group of conservation oriented individuals. Imagine what regular people think. Fact is if gas went down to 2 bucks a gallon, we would all go back to our old ways. Perhaps, we need 5 or 6 bucks a gallon?

Wow. Sad. The flip side of the coin. A 2 week trip to the Rockies is far from frivilous. Man that is sad. On the other hand most of the rest of the world would be pretty happy paying what we do for gas. The mid 90's were good years for nice affordable cars. My poor baby '95 Toyota Tacoma really needs a rest. With nearly 240,000 miles still runs like a trooper but she is straining. She needs to be "put out to pasture". I need to find the right caretaker.

It cost me 56 dollars to fill up my tiny 22mpg truck yesterday. I heard an analyst speculate that would not be suprising for oil to hit 200 bucks a barrel next year. Just curious if those of you with a long drive are going to change any fishing habits due to gas prices. I was thinking about it the other day. Most of my life I've had long commutes to work so driving long distances just became second nature and it wasn't a big deal to drive a long way just for a few hours of fishing. I used to drive over a 100 miles just for maybe two or three hours of fishing. (incedently in those days, I did pretty well, probably fished harder). That's pretty wasteful and, now that I think about it downright un-green. Pretty shameful actually. The really ironic part is I work a stones throw from the Fox and the Dupe is sort of on my way home. I just like fishing the Kank mostly because I think it's prettier, cleaner and just a better experience. At 4 dollars plus a gallon, I think I'm going to have to lower my standards a notch. I'm not abandoning the Kank but I don't forsee a lot of all day marathon wades in the near future to justify the 30 bucks it will cost to get there, so I think a lot of my river smallie fishing is going to be on the way home from work. a stop for maybe an hour or two. Probably end up fishing more ponds a even FP lakes locally too. It's just gotten too expensive to drive any more and if I think to consider oneself environmentally responsible, you have to "walk the walk". Might have a lot of fish pics with bridges in the background this summer.

Feel free. It's a Mark K original.

Yep. I spent about two years fishing fly rod exclusively. Sometimes it got really tough especially when it got windy, but I stuck with it. I'm not great at it, but I'm certainly a hell of a lot better. Recently, I started dragging out my spinning gear and I'm fishing a coupla times a week at lunch in a pond near work. The spinning and bait casting stuff is fine...if you're catching fish. otherwise it's incredibly lame. Lets face it, most of the time you're casting-not catching fish. And I'll tell you what, fishing with a lure someone else made- is totally second rate fishing...IMHO. I can see why the true devotees go thru the trouble of messing with sinking lines. Not knocking the spinning guys and certainly Eric makes baitcasting into an art form (most of you just see pictures, you have no clue at how good he is it), but for me making that line sail might be just as fun as catching fish.

Once during the coho run in Indiana I was fishing with my buddy Joe. I just baited one rod up, a St Croix Legend and a Shimano Stradic, and laid it out on the break wall. Started to rig up a second rod, when the first one darts into the lake. It went in like a freakin' javelin. Then I watched it sink and dart away like a jerkbait. I just stood there in disbelief. I just bought both over 200 bucks and I figure they are about 20 feet down or swimming towards Door County. You know how clear Lake Michigan is. Imagine how long it took to disappear. we continued fishing. It's pretty quiet. I'm totaly down, feeling like the worlds biggest dumbsh*t for a A. bait fishing with such an expensive outfit and B. not leaving the bail open. Joe knows how bummed I am and does his best to cheer me up...to no avail. Joe, puts on a deep diving crankbait and starts casting. It's still dead silent. Then I see waaaaaaay off in the horizon a silver fish jump with something orange (my bobber) wrapped around him. Seconds later my Joe yells, "got one!" 'cept he didn't exactly have a fish on, he snagged the line in between my rod and reel and the now surfaced coho. I start to hand over hand the line in, the fish end. Easily a 100 feet. I flip the fish up on the breakwall. Then I began the task of trying to retrieve my rig. I started to handline, what seemed like an endless amount of line. It was clear the bail was still open. I'm a pessimist by nature. Optimists usually get screwed. So do pessimists, but at least we see it comming and are never dissappointed. So recap....Standing on a breakwall in indiana holding onto 6lb mono, that just went thru zebra mussell hell with maybe $220 bucks on the other end about 15- 20 feet away. I lay belly down over the wall. Joe holds my legs. i gingerly bring the outfit up. Slowly...hand over hand just waiting for...PLINK...only it never happened. I could see my outift, held only by the arbor knot tied by John from JJ's bait and tackle. To my disbelief the rod and reel came to hand. So that outfit went to the bottom of Lake Michigan easily 20 feet down and 30 feet away. Those are really conservative estimates. What are the odds? We got the rod, the reel AND the fish in. Hung out caught a few more fish. On the way home I (Jokingly, expecting !@#$ back) told Joe, "You know, technically that was MY fish" Ever humble Joe, responded "Yeah, I know". We went back to my house, drank some beer, ate some fish.

It said $109 yesterday.

Anybody have any feedback.. http://www.abugarcia.com/prod.php?k=78556&...1LX%20(1130455)

Thanks, good enough. I have a good amount experience and am still pretty cautious. Also had my fair share of dunkings. Sometimes no matter how cautious your they can get ya.