Daniel Ambrose answers:

Well yes an no. I have lived in Alaska and am a very avid ice fisherman (I currently live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan). Ice fishing there can be a major pain. Due to the extreme climate your going to need an ice shack or at least very warm clothes and a heater. Now…depending on what your fishing for dictates your gear. If your fishing for northerns and you can have…6 lines I think depending on the lake. Your going to want to buy a bunch of tip ups. If fishing for trout or burbot, a simple 28 – 32 inch medium action jigging rod would be a fine. St Criox makes a real nice one called an “Avid” for about 20 bucks. Also you will need an ice auger. These can run any where from 20 to 300$ for a good gas powered one. Also there is tackle, a skimmer, and the other odds and ends. I ice fish about 80 days a year and I think right now I have about 3000 dollars in gear. So if you wanna just go low tech you can spend about 100 bucks.

Rod and reel 40$
Auger 30$
Tackle 20$
That’s about as cheap as you can go. So to answer you no it is not cheap and easy.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

I can’t answer your question. I hunt from mid September to mid Feb. And fish the rest of the spring and summer. I can’t give anything up.

But one day, when it all ends, I’ll never have to say I wish I had spent more time doing the things I enjoyed doing.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

The past few answers don’t understand your circumstances, or at least I think they do.

The way I have read your question is that you are working in full time employment in a job you’re comfortable with, but aren’t earning quite enough to support the hobby, and can’t get another job because you are already full time?

Well I had a friend that had the EXACT same problem and my advice to them, really helped them out, Turn your hobby into a way of making money!

Because of your love of fish, you will probably be very aware of the endless possibilities breeding? Well if you can, I’d rerecommend starting breeding some live-bearers as they tend to be easiest and after the fry have turned into healthy adults most pet shops are willing to buy them off of you, that way you won’t need to look for a job, your fishing hobby will be self sustaining and you’ll hopefully end up with a bit extra money that you could put aside for something special? Maybe a larger tank, or some special rare species?

IHopeyou have great luck with your hobby, and have fun turning it into a way to earn a little more dough?

X

Daniel Ambrose answers:

This is were you learn how to tie your knots.

Http://www.first-nature.com/dreamstreams/ds11b.htm

And yes as long as your hook is big enough and you can get the bait together into a ball shape.

Oh and yes make sure you buy a fishing license you have to have a licence to fish.

And the most important rule is to have fun.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

Some days you win and catch a fish another days you win and catch her out!

Daniel Ambrose answers:

I live in the United States. More specifically North Carolina. But fishing is still very popular here. Just about any weekend the lakes are packed with fishing boats. From semi-pro anglers to more inexperienced fisherman.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

Stamp collecting.
Did that when l was younger and living with an uncle who didn’t fish.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

I use two of the three brands you listed, Daiwa and Abu Garcia. I have a Daiwa Megaforce reel w/ the Twitching Bar. This is my Flipping and pitching reel and the twitch bar works well along with the 7.1:1 ratio pulls the fish out quick. For $70 this is not a bad reel and works great. I have 4 Abu Garcia reels. One is an old Ambassador USA 500 that I got at 13 and it is a quality reel that spent 7 years in a hot Florida attic and works great and serves as my top water reel. Second is a Revo S that is my all purpose reel and is great never an issue. Third is an Abu 276Ui which is an under-spin model I bought to crappie fish and have found it handles trout and bass really well too. Fourth reel I have is an Abu Soron spinning reel I won last month from Bassfan.com and the Abu Garcia for life contest (1st place is a REVO) that is still going on so check it out at Bassfan.com. I will not use this reel till next spring but from the looks of it its just as bullet proof as my other Abu Garcias. So I would have to go with Abu Garcia as the best brand. I have owned a few daiwa reels in my day and didnt keep them long.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

I know some fisherman that catch trophy steelhead on 10-15 pound line. Try using a corky and yarn rig and drift fish it. To set up a corky and yarn rig, you take a size 1/0 to 2/0 circle hook, tie and egg loop knot on it with about 18″ to 20″ inches of leader, then slip a corky onto the leader all the way to the hook, then put some slack in the egg loop knot that you tied on the hook so you can insert a piece of yarn, then pull everything tight. These work great in the rivers i fish. You can buy the yarn in the fishing areas in kmart, fred meyer, sportco, cabelas, and i think walmart.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

Ancient egyptians fished. Ancient chinese did also. Probably even earlier. They had more “modern” tackle like silk lines and gut leaders and bamboo rods. They did the first split cane rods although, reels were unheard of as in egypt.
The first modern revolving spool multiplying reel is credited to gottfried spuhl in germany in 1701. He was a watchmaker and silversmith as well as an ardent angler. Yes, he did name the spool after himself.
The earlier european and english rods (poles) were made of laminated yew and lemonwood. Lines were of horse hair. Still tied on the end.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

You would end up with what happen to the Greek gods.

Papa God would take the worm off the hook so that the fish would ignore the hook.

HS God would sit on the beach getting some rays.

And Son God would be the usual happy fisherman, drinking cool ones and just glad that the Romans weren’t going to “stake” him out again…

Daniel Ambrose answers:

You’d be surprised at how easy it is to start, you don’t need anything fancy, just a pole, bait, and a good spot. You can probably pick out a good pole easily with the advice of any Wal-Mart associate. My best advice would be to go to a sporting goods store, like cabelas, or gander mtn. Sports, and see if they have any clinics where you can learn the basics. It’s easy to figure out on your own, but cheaking up on things like this will greatly improve your luck when you get out there. For spots reasearch the department of environmental conservation (DEC) where they should list public land for fishing. Also almost everytime you’re on a road that follows a stream, and there’s a parking area, you can fish, or get permission to fish from a landowner. Good luck with it!

Daniel Ambrose answers:

You can put bait on a lure but it usually won’t help the fish to strike. Artificial lures work on sight and movement rather than taste and smell, and usually adding anything to them will cause them not to move properly.

And if you’re fishing but not catching anything, welcome to the exciting world of fishing. It takes practice to get good at catching fish. If you’re fishing for bass, a good lure to start with is a plain old black rubber worm. Weight it and bounce it up and down on the bottom as you reel it in. If you’re using lures like crankbaits it’s usually a good idea to fish topwater early in the morning and late in the afternoon. When the sun is high and bright it makes fish spooky. A good rule of thumb is that the higher the sun is the deeper you should fish.

Cast as close to cover, like fallen trees, stumps, and dock pilings as possible. Bass like to hide out behind cover and ambush their prey. And yes, you can fish in the rain. One of the best ways to learn to fish a local spot is watch what others are doing and imitate them. Good luck.

Daniel Ambrose answers:

Well, number 1- You won’t easily be able to find molds that “exactly” mimic a Lucky Craft lure, a 10″ Berkley Worm or a Trick Worm.

If you had a tax ID and a wholesale license you MIGHT be able to find the company that makes the mold for the LC’s and purchase some in quantity, but otherwise, MOST molds for popular lures are tough to find.

There are a couple mold makers on Ebay that sell duplicate molds for older lures, (like Shad Raps, Chug Bugs, Etc), but I’ve never seen ANY “North American” business’s selling LC molds. I HAVE seen some rather convincing copy-cat molds from Taiwan, China and Japan- but the opportunity for “shady” stuff to happen when purchasing and shipping things so far away (on Ebay) is too risky for my taste. (lol)

Go to Ebay- Type in a search in the fishing category for “custom”. There are MANY lure makers on Ebay selling their wares….

Many of them simply purchase a LC and paint it. Obviously, you would not want to “practice” airbrush painting a $15 – $20 lure!

Here is the Ebay site for CBT Custom lures, (a lure painting company with a good rep)- http://sporting-goods.shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=custom+cbt&_sacat=14104&_trksid=p3286.m270.l1313&_odkw=custom&_osacat=14104&bkBtn=1

Here is a Ebay store with decent Crankbait blanks- http://cgi.ebay.com/15-Unpainted-Crankbait-Lure-Bodies-Blanks-Lure-making_W0QQitemZ220556804772QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item335a35c2a4

You can also use JannsNetcraft- they are, (the oldest) lure making company that sells common parts, molds, blanks and accessories for the lure making enthusiast- http://www.jannsnetcraft.com/

And here is another lure making website with good info-http://www.luremaking.com/index.htm

This info should speed you on your way to making lures of your own- Hope it helps?! Good luck!

Daniel Ambrose answers:

I would agree that the doctors have been unhelpful. However, there care so far has seemed pretty standard and up-to-date. Where they are clearly failing, though, is communicating with you and informing you as to what may or may not be happening.

Strokes are caused by a lack of blood flow to part of the brain–this in turn can have many causes, including (but not limited to) head trauma, seizures, clots, brain tumors, brain infections and so on. The MRI is not just to confirm he had a stroke, but to perhaps determine the cause of the stroke. In addition, it will tell you how large the stroke is, and this, in turn, can tell you what to expect in terms of recovery.

While most people think of weakness as the main symptom of strokes, this is actually misleading. Only a very small part of the brain is directly involved with muscle movement and control. This area happens to be close to one of the large arteries that tends to get blood clots, so in turn, weakness IS a common symptom of strokes due to blood clots. On the other hand, MANY strokes occur that due not involve weakness at all.

There is, in fact, a textbook example of a type of stroke that affects part of the brain away from the muscle area called Wiernecke’s area. This area is what controls speech production, and if damaged, people will typically talk gibberish without realizing it. They can typically understand others, and know what they want to say, but can only produce random words that have no meaning together.

On the other hand, very large strokes often times trigger a condition called delirium, where people can become terribly confused, disoriented, agitated (or intermittently unconscious) and inattentive. In a certain way, it looks like Alzheimer’s disease happening overnight (although it is unrelated).

Either of these sound like possibilities to explain your uncle’s behavior, and neither is particularly uncommon.

One of the common risk factors for stroke is high blood pressure. However, it does not always DIRECTLY cause them–sometimes, it simply triggers damage to blood vessels, causing clots in turn. In either case, it is a VERY bad idea to suddenly treat high blood pressure for someone who has had a stroke, because it can permanently kill brain cells that might otherwise have survived. For that reason, high blood pressure is not treated aggressively (or at all in many cases) soon after a stroke.

In any case, without knowing the cause of the stroke, there is no specific treatment other than keeping a person safe and calm. What many people frequently find disturbing is that the best means of doing so in extreme cases is the use of medications to reduce agitation, and sometimes restraints. If you have not seen this done, it is even more disturbing than it sounds. Restraints are overused in many circumstances, but they are also underused in many, and there have been studies suggesting that in severe agitation, it is the best way of preventing harm or further injury.

In short, nothing that has happened so far sounds terribly uncommon or unreasonable, with the exception that you have not been given any of this information so far. Unfortunately, these days education and information is hard to come by from physicians, but it is still supposed to be part of their job.

Especially with the seriousness of your uncles condition, make a habit of writing down important questions, let your doctor know at the beginning of a meeting, and do not let him go until you are satisfied he has tried to answer them. Pin them down on specifics–don’t let them give you vague or non-answers, and make sure they know it’s okay to say “I don’t know.”

I will keep your uncle and your family in my thoughts and hope for a speedy recovery.

As always, discuss these and any questions with your physician.