In a previous life ...

I flew competition aerobatics with radio controlled model airplanes for about 25 years.

My wife and I were cleaning out the basement of the home we've lived in for over 29 years today in preparation for our move to Alabama in a couple weeks. All sorts of memories surfaced, including the picture below of me taken at the last contest I attended in August, 2000 in Omaha, NE.

The plane is an OMS - Orland McKee Special  - named for the gentleman from Kansas City who designed and built it. The fuselage is molded fiberglalss, while the wing and horizontal stabilizer are white styrofoam sheeted with balsa wood. It's a 2-meter model - wingspan and length are both a maximum of 2 meters (78.74"). Weight is about 10# and power comes from 1.6 cubic inch 2-stroke engine that puts out over 3 HP on alcohol and nitromethane fuel. Speed is virtually constant in any direction - horizontally, up or down.

I do miss flying and my friends, but not all the practice time required to be competitive.

New Spinning Reel

I've been upgrading my selection of spinning reels for a while and switching over to Shimano reels. Here's my latest acquition. It's a Shimano Saros 2500F which I got for great price. It is VERY lightly used and freshly respooled. One spool have 6# InvisX Fluorocarbon and the other has 20# Sufix braid. I'll be mounting it on my new 7' Medium Fast St Croix Premier spinning rod. The previous owner even has the handle mounted on the correct side! I am a happy camper! :-)

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Skirts Yet Again

These are my attempt to duplicate a color my friend Troy Jens recommended to me for Lake Guntersville. I'll use a Green Pumpkin jig chunk behind them.

Black, Blue and Green Pumpkin Skirts

Jigs Again

I worked on some more Living Image skirt colors today.

Here's the Clear Water Craw on 2 dfferent color ball head jigs.
3/8 oz Green Pumpkin (left)
1/4 oz Brown (right)

Watermelon Magic Craw on a 3/8 oz football Head (top)

Bama Bug on a 3/8 oz ball head (bottom)

More Jigs

I spent some time this afternoon working on more jig skirts. I think I've finally come up with a really nice Baby Bass color. I cut down on the amount of Green Glimmer and also did a much better job of keeping the colors separated than on previous attempts. Here it is on a 3/8 oz Green Pumpkin football head jig.

This is my version of plain old Black & Blue on a 3/8 oz Black ball head jig.

Living Image Bama Bug on a 3/8 oz Green Pumpkin ball head jig.

Here's the Black & Blue on a 1 1/4 oz Boss Weed Eater punching weight.

I made up a couple of the Baby Bass skirts for my buddy XChamp to test on 

some Indiana bass. I used 1 1/4 tabs of Money Maker, 1/2 tab of Green Glimmer, 

and 1/4 tab (6 strands) of black.

Spinnerbait Rod

I've been building my own rods for a while. Last year I decided I needed a short spinnerbait rod for working around docks on Lake Guntersville. I had a 6' MH Lamiglass Perigee blank sitting around, so I added a set of SiC guides scavanged from a broken Cabela's rod, a Fuji ECSM exposed blank reel seat, Swampland Tackle split cork handle and a Shimano Calcuta 150 reel. I used black thread with gold trim for the guides - it goes really well with the Calcutta.

I really like the shorter length rod for accuracy and the 5.8:1 gear ratio of the Calcutta for spinnerbaits.

New Jig Skirt Colors

It's been a long winter for me. I've been stuck here in Kansas since last October due to complications from ankle surgery a year ago. I have a second surgery in February which is finally healing. Unfortunately, this has meant no fishing, so to relieve the cabin fever I've been working on some new jig skirt colors.

I'm using pre-painted jig heads from http://lurepartsonline.com. They offer some very nice shapes with good paint jobs. I especially like their classic heavy duty football jigs with Mustad UltraPoint flat eye round bend hooks.

Baby Bass - Dark Melon Pepper, Black and White
I've thinned out the white since this pictures was taken
because there was just too much of white.

Baby Bass - Money maker (Watermelon Dalmation), 
Black and Green Glimmer
This one is my favorite Baby Bass so far.

Watermelon Red Chrome

Living Image Clear Water Craw on Black ball head

Living Image Clear Water Craw on a Green Pumpkin ball head

More later.