Mark K

I think it's time to put my beloved Toyota Tacoma out to pasture. At 220,000 miles, she has been a faithfull servent. My impulse is to go out and buy another brand spankin new one, but I'm going to try to be "greener" this time. I have an 80 mile a day commute that totally sucks. I'm thinking wagon/hatchback. I want: Great mileage. 29 plus highway Enough room for a bike in the back with seats folded down. Capable of ungodly miles with few repairs. It would be nice to throw a canoe on top too. I have looked at the Toyota Matrix, Pontiac Vibe, Honda fit (if it were any smaller it would fit your pocket). Any other recommendations? Being green is depressing. as Kermit once eluded to. If you are a car guy it's hard to get excited these vehicles.

except for the owner being a Cub fan and vocal about it. Other than that it was a great experience.

and One More Cast. Stopped in there on saturday, what contrast to my other experience.

Figured I might pick up some of those nifty EWG tube hooks and try that truly cool rigging technique someone posted about. and where better to find such an oddball item? The Cabelas of course! Not. This is a quick synopsis of my exerience. You pull of the expressway into this giant shopping mall/industrial sort of park. The have a little nature trail going thru a field. Thought it was cool at the time, but upon furthur thought a real wetland or natural area probably dissapppeared in the process and most likeley someone just forced them to build it. Huge building. Was assaulted three times by stupid promotions before I walked in the door, Exuse me sir....I just smiled but was thinking, Ahh, a telemarketer in person. Stayed polite, but was thinking "get !@#$%^". Interior similar to Bass Pro Bolingbrook, except better lighting. You can leave your headlamp at home. Similar design fishtank housing gamefish, stuffed animals everywhere. Way more clothing than actual outdoor gear. Nice stuff too, unless you have any sense of style. Totally non-functional outdoorsy looking clothing, I suspose intended for yuppies to transform into psuedo rednecks on their way to wisconsin. Yeah they have some good stuff too but there is way more cheap cotton crap that will last less than year. No better than Walmart. I suppose the idea is to keep your old lady busy while you wade thru all the fishing crap. scary though she may spend more $$ than you. I always thought the help at Bass Pro was pretty good. Hell, I used to just drive up to Gurnee to BS with Will V. Not going to sink to insulting the help there, I'm sure they have good people but this was my experience: Looking for the jigs mentioned earlier. Th first guy I asked was totally clueless. He did however steer me to a young lady who knew what i was talking about. She told be they did not have them, but to check back. In fact they had a pretty weak supply of jigs altogether. Okay, I have to mention the "country music". Bad country music. Furthur evidence that they have unleashed a plot to retard your sense of taste. When you are irritated there is nothing wosre than modern pop country music. At least at Galyans they mix crap with some good stuff. Once I even heard Robin Trower. I was looking at some fly vests. I want one with a waterproof cell phone pocket so I don't have to buy a third Razor. A kid approached me and i asked if the Simms had one hidden. He looked puzzled and asked "Simmon's?" He tried to be helpful but basically did the samething I did, look thru all the pockets. Lastly, on my way out I spotted some Charlie Brewer Walleye Grubs. A truly fine bait that you rarely see anywhere. Now I just need some slider heads. ha! (I know Jonn, my bad for not having them in inventory :-) ) At least the guy was honest when he admitted that he had no clue of what I was talking about. No one was rude, in fact they were very nice tried to be helpful, I just got the feeling they stold all of Home Depots' employees. No substitute for knowledge. Put the grubs down. Drove home. Bottom line. Erase the image of these megastores having everthing imaginable. They don't. Buy your clothes there, especially if you think Elmer Fudd looks cool. God forbid you plan on stocking up on the way up north. I miss Ed Shirleys.

Wait a second???? Look at your watch, time 4 minutes. That's a long time. Just how much time do you really need? Okay, so smallies are a more tolerant species. just how much time do you need? 5...6..7 10 minutes? CRIPES! how long does it take you to reel in a fish? More than a minute? Seriously? If not, what do you do in the extra 3 minutes? Comb your hair for the photo? This guy isn't saying anything outrageous. Just to minimize the time you spend fightinng andling the fish and warm water makes things worse. this isn't even new information. Jeez. Just my opinion. but.... If your going spend time and money insituting C&R laws and installing signs everywhere encouraging everyone else to C&R least you can do is go the extra mile put all the odds in the fish's favor.

With large hooks, like you would use on Fluke. I loose zero. In fact it penetrates better. Same with spinnerbaits. With crankbaits and topwaters that had #6 or #4 trebles I lost a LOT. Maybe because I use Fireline? Less stretch easier to shake off? I only pinched them down because I was in Sylvania. I kept doing it in the Kank on the larger hooks. 100% of the smallies I killed in the last few years were on soft plastics (usually tubes) swallowed. And I fish live bait all the time. zero kill rate, that I know of. At least I never gut hooked one.

1. When color does matter, these two color combination work as well as anything. Black with blue flash and "Albino Shad". The latter being a pearl or white, with a purple to pink to lavender back or a combination of all three. Lavender materials are hard to find. Pearl or irridescent flash helps. Subtle is best. This is hand me down knowledge from conventional fishing. The albino shad Bass Assasin at times will smoke anything else and I've found black with blue flake to also work as well as anything else in other times. Clousers in these colors have been catching fish for me. 2. Topwater of course! Unfortunatly the fish have no sense of style and prefer to be caught on clousers. In fact I'll go out on a limb here and say that Clousers are probably ALL you really need to catch smallies. am I wrong? Of course, what fun would that be? I'm still carrying around some mayfly patterns in hope of someday being on one of those legendary hatches on the kank.

Norm, I can answer your question depending on your definition of "adept". I'm good enough at flycasting to catch a fish here and there and smart enough to know that I could be better and catch more fish if I practiced and became a better caster. To be proficient enough at flyfishing to be more effective than spinning you have to be a good flycaster. That requires requires practice and skill. Something not everybody has time for. I think in most cases conventional tackle is more effective (defined as: catching more and bigger fish, under different circumstances) for most people. I've played around with sink tip heads in deeper water, it wasn't fun. So yes, you could probably cver the watercolumn better. Plus take in variety of baits (not mention live) that you could throw with conventional tackle. That said, I'd rather catch one on the fly than five any other way. Mark

Exactly what I was thinking.

I have. 10lb. It's become my favorite line for a ML spinning rod. It's similar to Power-Pro. Seems to hold coating and color a bit better. Casts like rocket for the life of the line. Gonna try some heavier # tests. Overall in my non-scientifical super subjective tests it seems to hold up better than anything else especially when you drag it on the rocks. Strengthwise like all superlines, it's strong enough. Disadvantages are similar to Power Pro. It's very limp so it wraps around guides etc. it's aslo more expensive (at Bass Pro) than Power Pro or Tuff Line XP. Probably because of the stupid holographic packaging. Also like most braids annoyingly noisy. Still, based on durabilty and castabilty, I'm a fan. Later.

Will they be making the new ones in China?

If you remember Bob Rung's slide presentation, he explained that a flood won't necessarily awsh away the plants. They did a planting several years back (I think on the Dupage). A week later it was clobbered with a flood. To everyones suprise, the plants survived and flourished. I did not attend this years planting, however in the past I remember everyone doing an exceptional job planting, building little current breaks and piling rocks onto the plants to really anchor them. I'm sure that happened again this year. Also remember the plants fold over in the current by nature. The flooding probably didn't help, but it might not necessarily destroyed everyones work either.

Sold. PM me an addy.

About 25 or 30 issues going back to '99. I'm cleanin' house and in a purging kind of mood. Gonna give this a week or so and then they're going in the recycling bin. PM me if you want them.

Thanks Rick. I believe you about the Sahara, but I think I'm going to pass. Some people have luck with Shimano reels, even Stradics. I'm not one of them Can't risk that binding nonsense. Nothing worse. It only seems to happen when you're killing' em too. Like I said, I'm not really in the market for one but I saw the sale. I was thinking of getting one because I have the gift certificate and Sports Authority sucks, so it looked like a good place to use it. can't hurt to have an extra rigged and ready to go. If I were to actually spend real money on a reel, I would just get another Daiwa SS 1300. One of the few reels you can count on outliving you, it weighs almost nothing and it has the smoothest drag ever put on a reel it's size. That's why steelhead and saltwater guys love them so much and why Daiwa has been making them for the last 15 years with no changes. There are very few reels that can boast that.

'nuff said. I'm having flashbacks.

I swore I would never buy another Shimano spinning reel, but I have a gift certificate from Sports Authority and they are 25% off now. It looks like a pretty well made reel. Still I'm apprehensive after owning two Stradics which were two of the most troublesome reels I've ever owned. Well in fairness they are okay reels as long as you don't get them anywhere near water. They both bind up if they get dunked. They are also kind of delicate things I toasted the clutch on both, probably by slingshotting jigs out of the rocks. These were not cheap reels either. I think they were over $100 bucks. I have a few Diawas that have waaay more use on them and one only cost 50 bucks (Regal Z). I like Shimano baitcasters but I cannot tell you how many times those Stradics almost went to Davey Jones' locker. I had a couple of Symmetres before that and they were pretty good. Funny, Shimano makes bike parts too. The more expensive they are, the more durable AND they better they function. Doesn't seem to me that the reel people have that quite down yet. Frankly I don't need this reel. I'm thinking of leaving up in Wisconsin so I don't have to haul gear back in forth when I go on vacation. The Sahara looks like a pretty good reel to me, though especially for 45 bucks. Not as dainty, a little more beefy and not over engineered. Comes with a nice extra spool too. The only draw back i see is that they feel heavy and the spool is a little on the small side. Still looks like a nice reel. On the other hand if this thing were to bind up even once I would be kicking myself in the arse for a long time. Especially on vacation in Wisconsin when i do most of my smallie fishing these days. So...my specific question is. Are Shimano Sahara spinning reels afflicted with the dreaded binding-when-wet syndrome?

Back reeling is for the gifted and talented. The rest of us get a Daiwa SS, change line frequently, go to church regularly and hope for the best. :-)

I caught Lefty's casting presentation at the show today. He took the top section off a 4 piece rod and actually cast with it. Wow. Fly casting is like swimming (something else I'm trying to learn), all technique. Very little to gain with muscle a whole lot with technique. I fly cast like I swim, with way too much effort. He had some audience members up to cast. Their casting looked okay to me, but he demonstrated that he could cast farther holding the rod with two fingers. An 82 year old guy, that needed help getting off the ground when he knelt to demonstrate a cast. It was incredible. I saw Jason Borger last year who was also impressive but Lefty was much easier to follow. I missed the beginning of his presentation which I'm still kicking myself over. He does this motion with his body side to side taht feels very natural to me. I would like to get that down. Has anyone read any of his books or seen a DVD of his?

Also...Mark...is your 7 foot rod a one piece or two...I'm guessing it's a one piece Loomis because of the sensitivity. My "Kank Rod" is a St Croix Avid 7 ft medium spinning rod and a Daiwa SS2 2500 spooled with 14 lb Fireline. It's a fairly stick with a strong butt section. I landed a 10 lb cat in current with it. It's a good light saltwater rod too. I mention this only to give you an idea of how beefy it is. Any smallie over 16" will double this rod over if it gets into deep fast water. An 18" Kankakee river smallie in summer is a major battle. I also have a 7 ft medium light 2 pc Avid, which I bought not for the convenience of a 2 piece, but because it has a fast top section that I like. I use it a lot in Wisconsin. It's beefy enough to get by with on the Kank but heavier is better. The 1 piece version is a very nice rod too, especially the Legend. I have a lot of nice rods, St Croix, Shimano, Loomis, Falcon. I mentioned Loomis specifically because I think the IMX series are the finest rods made for the money. I have two. If I could go back my main river rod would be a 7 (maybe 7/2 foot) medium heavy rod and a Loomis. I've got an awsome 7 foot baitcasting rod but I can't throw small baits with it...perfect for spinner baits and large 6-9 inch rapalas, or anything 1/2 ounce or more...like a rattle trap. It can handle even some large buctails...it's aweful for anything small... What do you use for small light weight crankbaits...do you use the same rod or switch to a shorter medium/light baitcaster with a slower action? In times that I use a 6 1/2 baitcaster on the Kank it is in low clarity conditions and I have found that a white spinnerbait will catch big smallies as well as anything else. So under those conditions that's all I carry, maybe a buzzbait so throwing light cranks isn't an issue. That reel is loaded with 30 lb Power Pro ( a real man's line). What I do is cover water with those big blades pulsing vibration through the water. The rod you have sounds perfect. Incidently when a big smallie crushes a spinnerbait it will damn near rip the rod out of your hands. With regards to throwing small crank baits. Part of that is gear but most of it is technique and you have to practice it like fly fishing. I have a 6 ft Loomis with a Calcutta 150. It will throw small crankbaits. I saw Eric S. once throw a #2 Mepps with his similar out fit. He was incidentally slaying them that day. He is an exceptional baitcaster. I just idiot fish with a baitcaster. sling 'em out and crank 'em back in. I agree that using light line in a river is a matter of preference. Especially if your preference is to lose big fish and a hell of a lot of lures. Snags are a part of river fishing and you are going to lose baits even with heavy line. Apart from a few specialized techniques I can't think of any river smallie applications that it would be necessary. Why unnecessarily stress out fish you intend to release? Is that a matter of preference too? Light line is a good choice only when it's really necessary and for most river conditions that I have encountered it's way too light. The description I gave of the battle a river smallie can put up is accurate. Is there anyone that will contradict this? To land such a fish with light line, you would have to play it to death...literally. "Preference" Ugh.. I hate that word. It's used so often out of context. there was a comment made that illustrates this, "Heck, I have a brother who uses nothing but Ugly Stiks. He says they're the best rod going...........that's his preference." If you judge rods based on criteria such as senstitivity, weight, action etc, typical things one would take into consideration when choosing a bass fishing rod an Ugly Stik would have no redeeming qualities. Zero. So, it may be his preference, but one would have to question why. He may even be a great fisherman, but if you judge those rods based on those criteria he would be plain wrong. If he "prefers" rods that are heavy, whippy and have the sensitivity of..well, an Ugly Stik than his criteria for judging fishing rods is not the same (in fact the complete opposite) as most serious anglers and would therefore be irrelevant.

I'm looking for a reliable spinning outfit for smallies. But I don't want to spend a lot of money...I'm really hard on my poles and reels. I know I can be more careful but I've tried that and it's like magic...one minute the pole is in one piece and the next minute...two. This is one reason I'm a Loomis man. For 60 bucks they'll replace the rod with no questions asked. You are out 60 bucks but you still have a kick ass rod. But if you don't want to spend the coin on a Loomis, there are some descent rods for less. Bass Pro makes some. I picked up a Quantum Tour edition in a bargain bin for 40 bucks. It's a really nice stick, but it ain't a Loomis. Just curious, if this is a rod with short lifespan why devote much thought to it at all? I'd like something sensitive for jigging, but strong enough for crankbaits...or should I have two setups? You don't need two rods to fish both baits. However, a rod that would be considered ideal for jigging, one that has a fast action and exceptional sensitivity would have the opposite characteristics as one considered a "crankbait rod". The latter are generally a slower action, meaning they will flex more towards the butt. "Whippier" would be another way to describe "slower". That said, I only carry one rod a 7 ft medium spinning or if I'm going to fish crank baits or spinnerbaits a baitcaster, because it's just more efficient. "Stronger" is generally not an issue with either baits. Is a 6 foot 6in medium action too much? And how do I match the rod to the reel? No, it's perfect. Especially if the water you fish has some big fish. Check the line ratings for both rod and reel. They should come close. A good tackle shop can help. But for a 6'6 medium a 2000 or 2500 (Shimano or Daiwa) would probably work. There is a pretty wide window of rods that will "work". Anything from 6-7 foot would be fine. Medium light to medium. Shorter rods are a little more accurate. Longer rods cover water better. I use a 7 footer because I drift live bait a lot. It's been a while since I've bought anything so I don't know what's on the market...too much for me to go through. I wish there was a consumer reports on fishing gear. That would be awesome. Again, if this is a piece of gear that is going to be in the trash can in a season, why sweat it? March into a tackle store with 40 or 50 bucks you should get something fishable. There are a lot of fishable rods in that price range. You are just not going to get a great rod. If you are going to buy a rod that you intend to fish a long time, I would put some more thought into it. I've also had problem with fishing line...is there any line out there that doesn't twist...I've come to a point in my fishing career that I'm not going to fight with this anymore...I know how to put line on a reel and that if the line twists you flip over the spool...well...that doesn't always work... I want a line that doesn't twist no matter what you do. No such animal. All lines will twist. Either you put it on wrong (most likely), or something mechanical is causing it. Scott addressed this pretty well. Superlines handle line twist better. The stiffer the line, the more suceptable to problems caused by twist. But you should still avoid line twist like the plague. The method you described is terrible for putting on line. By the time you discovered the twist, you already have a mess. Spool up this way and your life will be much easier: Strip off old line. With the reel mounted on the rod attach the new line using an arbor knot. Have someone else hold the spool at the end of the rod maybe a foot or two away. Have them hold the spool directly facing the reel spool. Trace the path of the line comming off the line spool with your finger. That's right, make little circles in the air in the same direction as the line coming off the spool. Now crank your real. The bail should be going in the same direction as you finger. If it is not, flip the spool over. looks silly, but it works. Crank up your line with some tension. I use a wet rag. The direction is correct when the line comes off the spool and winds onto the reel in the same direction. If you do this right there will be no twist. If you get line twist while on the water, cut off your lure and let the line out in the current. the same distance you can cast. Let it unwind and crank it in. Do that two or three times. I do it every time I go out just before leaving. good luck.

I took my son to Starved Rock today to see the Eagles. It was incredible. There were at least 6 (probably more) mature adults adults and a quite a few young ones. They were extremely active, diving for fish, fighting etc. I usually make a trip out once a year. This was the best I've ever seen them. It was as if they were showing off for the crowd. We had a great time. The local firehouse was selling chili and hot dogs and they had lots of kid activities too. This is a great place to bring the little ones. Across from the park is a viewing center, here is a link for more info: http://www.illinoisraptorcenter.org/index.html You get a close up look at the lock and dam and the tug boats that push barges, which really struck my son's interest. There are also bird watchers that have really spiffy telescopes and spotting scopes set up and they are pretty cool about letting anyone there take a peek, especially kids. The eagles will be there for a little while yet. It's worth the drive. I typically hike into the interior of the park, but is was mighty freakin' frigid today. There was also a fairly big crowd, especially at the viewing center. Still worth it though. On sobering note, I passed by the spot in Utica where all the people got killed when the tornado hit that bar in '04. There is a line of white crosses and a commerative plaque. What a sad thing to happen to a great little town.

That sounds interesting. I would try to make it. especially if it were on a weekend.

To answer the original question. I have a 6 wt and an 8 wt. I intend on using the 8 wt in summer on the Kankakee in an effort to land fish more quickly and put less stress on them particullarly in summer. A smallie will kill itself fighting if you let 'em. Land 'em fast and catch another I say. The 6 wt is really light and casts nice but I feel like the 8 wt is more appropriate for big water and fighting fish in current. On the other hand if it's a small stream you might not ever encounter those conditions and a lighter rod might be the ticket and will double as a trout rod. The 8 wt will work for northerns, steelhead and light saltwater. 9 foot works for me in both cases.

I have a 6 wt and an 8 wt and four vehicles. Does that make me a redneck with two fly rods?