Pete Collin

Nice job Brian!

One winter I bought a kit to make panther martin and mepps-style spinners. I made dozens of them, it gave me something to do through the winter, and I had a good batch going into the fishing season. One of my first trips out, I left the damn box full of them resting on the bridge over East Koy Creek and drove away without them. I bet you I made somebody's day! Nice job looking for the owner.

Gator, I have been out once out of Sandy and was skunked! Of course I want to go again. Lots of summer left.

Hello All, Many of you are woodlot owners. Last week I met with a client who had a landowner's worst nightmare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_aWV-pZcmY

FishingFool, that song is perfect. I often think about it while fishing, because the song is bragging about how great your life is.

An instrumental but a goodie.

Nobody gets to fish as much as they'd like. And here we are, midwinter, with weeks or months to go before our first launch. My favorite kind of video or post is one that really puts you on the water. Images or descriptions that are so vivid you are transported to the lake or stream. This can be hard to do, despite the producer or author's best intentions. That's why the really sublime videos are rare. But they are out there if you look.

Hello All, I must be becoming an old guy because I am always marveling at what technology allows us to do. Today I exchanged pleasantries with Jimmy Houston. As a kid, I would never miss any fishing TV show as they came on the air. In the beginning were Roland Martin and Bill Dance and Virgil Ward, followed in the '80s by Jimmy Houston and Jerry McKinnis. I idolized all of them, even trying on their southern accent for size while on the water. The YouTube fishermen have driven all of the fishing programs off the air, it seems. It's a good thing, really. Because the modern internet ones are more diverse and personalized, and the overt tackle company shills can be avoided. But I came upon ol' Jimmy H. on youTube, who puts out regular features. It's interesting that he doesn't seem to have a big viewership, his subscribers being a fraction of those that some of the more ambitious younger guys have. But his southern charm is still there and seems like a happy grandpa toodling around with boats and rods and pets. I noticed that he freely engaged with his viewers in the comments section. So I wrote him a paragraph of well wishes and got a warm reply. Young people today probably won't appreciate how cool I find this to be. Youtubers have avid fans, but approaching them isn't hard - I have met and befriended several of my favorite producers of online video. But if you told me as a kid how easy it would one day be to interact with a guy who I regarded the same way as some kids looked at Carl Yastrzemski or Larry Bird - I would have flipped!

I used to chase them in the tributaries heavily. Kind of phased out of it over the years. Combination of getting married, tired of running up miles on my truck, getting into woodworking, loss of fishing buddies through death, them moving away, or otherwise getting married and starting families. but there is one moment I remember that was the beginning of the end. There was a good run of browns in the Oak, but it was extremely crowded to the point where you couldn't find anywhere to stand. I found one less-than-ideal drift that had vines hanging down in front of it, preventing you from casting or manipulating your rod. I hacked at and pulled down the vines, thus creating a spot for myself. I even caught a few nice ones. But at the end of that day, looking around at the melee of guys, happily stomping through the productive runs as they played their foul-hooked fish, I realized that I was the only guy there who wasn't having a good time. Clearly I was the one who didn't belong.

A chronicle of the bad old days.

I did send it to you. Let me know if it went through.

Just to be contrary.....A trolling plate doesn't need to be stored, and you don't have anything hanging off the stern when you bring a fish in to be netted. It will last the life of your boat, won't dry rot or rip.