• Mobile Viewing

Some time in mid-December, Blogger enabled mobile versions of templates in Blogger in Draft. What this allows is a more refined layout for anyone who visits a blog on a mobile device. The mobile template does not obey all of the theme trends, especially in a custom template like mine, so it reverts to a simplified version. At least it places my header at the top. If you blog on Blogger, to access this feature at this point in time, visit draft.blogger.com and go to the Email & Mobile tab.

I know browsing my fishing blog can be a somewhat cumbersome task on a mobile device, especially with the busy sidebar that I have going on. The mobile version does have a link at the bottom to allow visitors to view blogs in their full versions, but for the mobile readers out there, this smaller layout should suit you well.

Here's a screen shot of of the preview Blogger generated for me. Clicking the arrow takes you to a mobile page view of the individual post.

• Facebook Maintenance, Working on posts

My Facebook profile is currently being held hostage by Facebook developers as they perform "maintenance." I get the classic screen showing that my profile will be back up in a few hours. Even my Fan Page is affected. It's been like this since early this afternoon, so it is obviously taking more than a few hours to deal with on their end. It's one thing for a personal user to have no access to Facebook, but as a blogger, this puts the screws to my ability to communicate with readers.


In terms of posts, I am still working on my Bandit 200 series review. Looks like a post on the Big Bite Baits Biobait Trick Stick might come out before the crankbait post, so keep in touch. I know I've been quiet lately. Lots going on in my life at the moment. I apologize to my regular readers for the delays. It's been hot here and I've been less than enthusiastic about fishing, but the water is also dropping, so the shallow stuff isn't holding as many fish.

• Gettin' Shifty, Added Skype

I shifted some stuff around the top of the blog this evening. Hopefully no visitors were confused at any point. Subscription links are now at the top of the page along with the Feedburner counter (even though Feedburner has been wonky lately). The Statcounter and TopFishingSites banners are now side by side. Everything else is essentially unchanged, although I did move the Outbrain code to the top section at the end instead of having a widget in the sidebar. Because I switched from ratings to recommendations, the Most Popular widget really serves no purpose. Since it was still loading in the sidebar, my Twitter feed was getting pushed down a little bit. Now with the Most Popular widget gone, the Twitter feed should line up evenly next to the Blog Archive.

I made a Skype account for the blog. I'm not sure how useful it will be, but seeing as how everyone communicates using different platforms these days, it only makes sense to have Skype covered. Not only will people be able to find me easier, but now I should be able to talk to anyone live should they desire such interaction. In addition, should an interview opportunity ever arise, regardless of the direction of the questions, I'll be ready. Video-wise, it will be easy for me to illustrate certain things to anyone who has a question.

• Some modifications

I was getting frustrated with the header image because the text just didn't look right. While that text in my header has drawn a lot of fire in the past, I continue to feel that the message needs to remain clear. Can't lose sight of what got me blogging in the first place.

So the new header lightens things up a bit. I gave it a slicker look with a different font of a lighter tone. I moved the text down to the next section of the blog and kept the heading simple. Added a cool little Dem Donkey image with Photoshop to kick things up a notch. I also tossed in a customized Louisiana license plate with my handle. When put together as one, I think the new image has a lot more punch, visually.

When I moved the other text down, I ended up shifting the "Getting Around" section down too. That left a huge hole in the html table to the right where I keep links to social networking, popular posts, and my upcoming posts list. I didn't like that empty space, so I scanned my sidebar for two items that would fit. I could have moved the section related to star ratings over, but that would have required some rehashing of the table tr's and td's (for those of you familiar with html). I just didn't have the patience for it. Moving short items from the sidebar up to the top was just easier.

Since I get visitors from other countries on a fairly regular basis, the Google translate widget really is more ideal when located at the top. Then I moved the Snapshots code up too. While the Snaps section fits, I'm not sure if the script will run properly. Hopefully it won't interfere with other javascript on the page. I've had trouble with the Outbrain ratings not loading from time to time and sometimes the Snaps script itself drops.

That's all for now.

• IE 6 Layout Problems Fixed

I periodically check to make sure my site loads properly in other browsers. My blog did not look right in IE 6. Although Internet Explorer 6 is an outdated browser, many visitors appear to still be using it. Even some government computers still have IE 6 installed. Because a significant number of visitors are still using IE 6, I figured I had better investigate and fix one problem with my layout.

Here's what was happening. The sidebar on the far right of the page was getting shifted down and out of alignment with the rest of the site. After doing some searching, it appears IE 6 does not render certain Blogger layouts properly to begin with. That's the price you pay for using an outdated browser.

However, I wanted to make sure this was the case, so I fiddled around with my template.

Being a Mac user on an equally outdated PPC system, I don't have access to a PC running IE 6 to do any tests. I have to resort to third party browser preview services like NetRenderer and Browsershots. Under IE 7, IE 8, and Firefox for Windows, my blog showed up fine. Under Firefox and Safari for Mac OS X, everything looked fine too.

So after diving into my template, I checked the sidebar width settings. Nope. That wasn't it. Being the tinkerer that I am, I expanded the width of my outer wrapper. Low and behold, that fixed it.

Hopefully visitors see what I see now.

• Going back to popup comments

The comment form was nice, but one bug has been getting on my nerves over the last few months. For anyone using their Google/Blogger account to leave a comment, they have to be logged in ahead of time. If they aren't logged in, it's impossible to log in via the comment form setup. The thing is, most of the time, these visitors aren't aware they are not logged in, so they write up a comment and post it without realizing what they just said disappears into oblivion.

So as of right now, I'm going back to the popup window style comment form. Hopefully logging in via that window works.

Let me know if there are any problems.

• Comment/Google Account Bug

I recently discovered that there is an apparent bug in the Blogger commenting system related to embedded comments. When anyone visits a Blogger blog and decides to post a comment via an embedded comment form, they are presented with a field to type their comment and a drop down menu to select an identity. The first one on the list in the drop down menu is Google Account.

If you are already logged in to Google, your username should show up automatically. If you are not signed into Google, "Google Account" is listed. If one decides to select Google Account, nothing happens. No options to log in are provided.

I suspect visitors have come to my blog and posted comments using this option only to have their well thought out post disappear into oblivion once they clicked the Post Comment button. I've seen more than a few comment-form entries in my StatCounter visitor log. I am fairly certain at least a few have been affected by this bug.

Other bass fishing bloggers use the embedded form, so I'm not the only one who is affected. Many other blogs on Blogger now employ the embedded form. I'm not sure how widespread the problem actually is, though.

I have modified the instructions above the comment form to let Google users know they need to be logged in first, but I'm still left with a difficult decision. Do I go back to the pop up window comment form? Do I stay with the embedded form? I don't know the answer to that question yet.

• The Visitor Slump Begins

Since starting this blog, I've observed an interesting phenomenon that only occurs certain times of the year. The thing about bass fishing is that it's a very seasonal sport. Anglers can be just as finicky as their bass counterparts when it comes to weather. At some point during late summer, visits start to dwindle. Most of my hits come from Google searches, not subscribers or repeat visitors, so when searches start to die down, hits follow.

Over the last week or two, I have noticed visitor numbers drop. Although it depends on the stat monitor in question (ie: TopFishingSites vs my account at StatCounter), that obvious trend has started to emerge again. It is subtle, but present nonetheless.

So what's going on this time of year to make things cool off? Fall is almost here, so you would think anglers would be vamped up and ready to fish another fun season. Fall has always been a fun time of year for me. Nah. Spring is long gone. The summer heat has turned lakes into fishing famines for many of us. The heat alone keeps a lot of anglers indoors. School is starting up across the country, so kids can't goof off on the computer anymore. It's back to the grind for them.

In late autumn, the numbers really drop and don't pick back up again when we all start thinking about the spawn. It would appear at first glance that when anglers don't fish, they also decide not to go online in search of all things fishing. At some point, lakes will start dipping into those tough 50 degree temperatures. After that, the deep freeze sets in turning your favorite fishing hole into ice as far as the eye can see.

It will be interesting to see how Twitter changes. I have not been a Twitter member for long, but most of the anglers on Twitter are a little more die hard about this sport than others. Hopefully the info out there will keep everyone's attention.

But this won't stop me from posting. In fact, I still have a lot of things to cover that are on my to do list. It has made me consider sticking to more seasonal topics in hopes of attracting visits from people searching for answers to those kinds of questions. In February, things will start to pick up again and when it does, some of the posts I will have written during the down time will attract new visitors.

• About more upcoming posts & edits

Life has been busy for me lately, so posting has not been a priority. With the Summer heat kicking in, I do not plan to fish as often as I'd like. Morning and evening hours are more comfortable and do not require repeated applications of sunblock. Afternoon temperatures creep up into the 90's and very few clouds help block out the sunshine. It can be brutal and skin cancer is not on my list of things to have later in life.

As for upcoming posts, the one on casting in close quarters is done and scheduled to post later today. I'm working on the twitching technique post right now and contemplating whether or not photos will be necessary. I have not even begun typing my notes on the Zoom Finesse Worm post. I will also need more time to evaluate the Big Bite Baits Rojas Fighting Frog. I tried it out during the spawn and did not come up with anything. I also learned that the bait is on the light side. Now that I'm adding a weight to the setup and have some smaller 3/0 and 2/0 hooks, I'm going to try to force myself to use this bait. After all, flipping baits like Sweet Beavers are supposed to do well on area lakes. I might also try it as a jig trailer. I have more experience using the Yo Mama, but have not caught any fish on it yet. The Strike King Elite Buzzbait has been in my lineup for a while now, so I can probably go ahead and get a head start on that post.

Being on Twitter has also set a few post ideas into motion. An FLW Magazine editor asked followers about our top choice of soft plastic lures. I have written a post already which uses the topic as a springboard to a much deeper discussion, but I want to edit it some more before giving it the final heave into blog land.

I also edited the Cross Lake Map post this afternoon. I included some explanations for particular landmark names. Anglers here know many fishing spots by the signs and other visual aids lining the bank. You won't find those names on any GPS or topo maps.

Don't forget that you can add me on Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter. It makes following my blog a lot easier.

• Now on Facebook; New posts

I have expanded my horizons yet again. I signed up on Facebook. I think it's funny that I went to Twitter before Facebook, but now I'm on both, so there you have it. Not everyone uses Myspace. Not everyone understands Twitter. I'm sure quite a few readers or visitors are on Facebook. I'm not sure how I will use Facebook. I uploaded lots of images and a few videos on Myspace already. I'm not really in the mood to go through all that again for Facebook, but I might have to go ahead and put myself through that hell. I've set it up so my blog feed gets published on my Notes page. My status updates should get converted to Twitter updates if the Twitter Facebook app works the way it said, but we'll see.

So if you would like to add me, go right ahead. Here's the link.

http://www.new.facebook.com/people/Bass-FishingDem/1766908472

See you there!

I'm also working on the Strike King Red Eye Shad post. I've put it off long enough, I think. My life has been a little distracting lately and the weather has not cooperated with fishing. We've had a lot of rain. Now the Summer heat and humidity is sliding right in. I have a rough version of the Red Eye Shad post, but because I have yet to catch any fish on one, I'm a little stumped. I do have some thoughts on the lure. That's about all I can offer. I will hopefully have it ready to go before the week end begins.

A new post will be published using the scheduler featuring pics of some of the fishing paraphernalia I have at my workspace. I have drink coasters scattered around with a fishing theme on them as well as a fishing themed coffee mug that I use to hold pens and pencils in on my desk.

Two other posts I'm toying with involve techniques. The first is a casting technique I've fine tuned after being forced to fish in close quarters between cypress trees. The second is a twitch technique I tend to use with a variety of lures. It's similar to the twitch I use to walk the dog with a Zara Spook, but other lures benefit from the technique, so I figured I would write about that too.

• Edited Shimano Callisto; New Header Image; Skirt Post Coming

If you have visited my blog in the last 24 hours, you might have noticed something new. I went to work on a header image in Photoshop yesterday. It's still a little quirky because I can see some minor pixelation around the letters. Otherwise, I think it looks pretty good.

I also edited the post on taking the Shimano Callisto apart. I covered taking off things from the handle side. I went all the way down to the level of the drive gear. Not sure how many people that will help. I plan on doing that for some of my other reels in the near future, or at least on ones that are no longer under the basic warranty.

I also wrote a post last night about replacing jig/spinnerbait/buzzbait skirts using parts from a pen with the aid of a paperclip. I'll proofread it and post some time later.

• Fixed Some Code, New Posts

My intro at the top of my blog which describes how to get around was not being properly displayed in IE7. Nobody let me know. I found out when I saw a screen shot of my page in my BlogCatalog profile.

What went wrong?
I had the text set to justify. Justified text is a well known problem area among web developers. Some browsers just don't know what to do with it. I use Safari and Firefox on a Mac. The text had been rendered properly. Apparently IE decided to be the black sheep. Big surprise, I know. Anyway, I set the code in the table to align to the left and then used the p align="justify" instead. Justified text always looks cleaner assuming the browser handles it as intended.

New Posts...
Rain is hitting Shreveport all week in the form of thunderstorms, so I won't be posting many fishing reports. I've written rough drafts of my Gander Mountain Competitor rod post and Vicious Fishing Line Conditioner post. Each should be ready this week. I'll probably schedule them and let Blogger do the work for me. I also have rough drafts of the posts on Vicious Fluorocarbon and the Strike King Red Eye Shad.

I'm trying to think up another frog related post seeing as how topwater season is almost here for me and likely already coming to life for anglers in much warmer waters. Expect the Strike King buzzbait post to come along soon.

• Table of Contents Removed

It was a neat script and very useful from a navigation perspective, but not very practical, nor very popular. As the number of posts at my blog grows, so will the size of the TOC. The amount of information the script has to load will continue to increase.

I ran a poll a couple of months ago about whether or not people use the TOC. Not only does it appear that people avoid the TOC, but they also avoid participating in polls. I can observe visitor statistics in my Statcounter pageload log and for the most part, people just use the label list to find what they need. How do I know? Their visiting patterns follow results on label organized pages.

No point in having it if very few actually use it.

• Now on Twitter; Cosmetic Changes; New Poll...

I'm not sure how successful this latest idea will be. I signed up on Twitter, a social networking site with real-time updates. There were just too many things going on with the blog that I wanted to post about here, but were too miniscule to really justify making an entire post. Twitter fills that void. The feed is listed in the sidebar at bassfishingdem.blogspot.com, but I will be adding it to the sidebar on this blog shortly. A Twitter link is also listed in the subscription section.

Along the same lines, I added a new poll about social networking. Do you use it? I listed a few of the popular social networking sites and added two fishing-specific social networks to the list as well. Be sure to take the poll and tick the boxes for the networks you belong to. It will help me decide how to distribute my time and effort towards publicizing the blog and posting other information.

I have also been making a lot of cosmetic changes to the blog. Maybe you noticed or maybe you did not. The first change I made was to spread out the opening section entitled "Getting Around" where I discuss the various ways of navigating around the blog. I moved the Table of Contents widget to the top again. I changed the line spacing in the Recent Comments, Blogs of Interest, and Fishing Links widgets to shorten the sidebar a little. I also modified my post-footer by replacing the default theme's separator line with a horizontal rule code. I shifted around the Labels, comments link, and the other interactive items at the bottom of each post to give everything a cleaner look.

I am toying with the idea of going to a white background on the blog. The tan just isn't doing it for me anymore and a white background might make everything easier to read. A white background is rather conventional in the blogging world for that reason. I also need to start working on a header image. Plain text at the top just isn't very exciting.

• Forum Maintenance

Lefora.com underwent a server upgrade on January 27th. For a brief period, my forum was not available because of this upgrade. It seems that even after the upgrade, Lefora is still working out a few bugs. It looks like much of the site is still down. I keep getting a 404 error, so hopefully they will get everything back up and running properly soon.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

• Online Fishing Community Sites

Over the years, the online fishing community has largely been dominated by forums. If you can think of it, there is a forum dedicated to it. Of course, now you have many anglers becoming bloggers like myself. BassPundit makes it a habit to announce new Bassin' blogs he has come across. I add blogs to my list and keep a blogroll going with some of my favorite fishing blogs.

While all of this is going on, those of us that are technologically inclined also have Myspace profiles, Facebook profiles, and maybe even a Twitter account. Many of the old timers don't understand all the hubbub surrounding this sort of online interaction, but social networking is really quite an interesting phenomenon. For professional anglers, the social network gives their fans an up close and personal experience that adds to the sport we love.

Some have taken this phenomenon one step further. Now there are online communities just for anglers. If you've ever wanted to surround yourself with others who share your passion for the sport, you've got it at your fingertips now. I signed up on GetReeled and although the community is still somewhat small, it offers something Myspace and Facebook may not. Another similar site is Fishing Recreation (http://www.fishingrecreation.com). I have added links to GetReeled and Fishing Recreation to my Fishing Links section on my blog. I encourage anyone with the time to sign up on any of these social networking sites and get in on the fun.

• HitsUnlimited Down

It looks like HitsUnlimited is down yet again. The site went down a while back and I posted a blog about it. Well it seems this morning, the site is not responding and the image will not load on my page.

The last time the site went down, it was MIA for about a week if I'm not mistaken. Patience is our only option.

HitsUnlimited is a site that provides a listing of many fishing and other outdoorsy sites out there. Sites are ranked according to popularity based on the number of visits a site gets over a four day period. While the site is down, stats will not be logged. That messes up the whole ranking system temporarily. Fun, aint it?

• TOC load time

The load time for the Table of Contents on my main blog is considerably long. The code is a 3rd party script and beyond my scope of expertise. I noticed that when my blog loads, there is a delay at the point when the TOC widget comes up. In Safari's Activity window, I noticed that the TOC is now roughly around 400k. After 250+ posts, I'm actually not all that surprised. The problem is that when the TOC loads, the code calls to load the data. This could prove to be somewhat frustrating for users still using dial up internet.

I have moved the part of the code that loads the 400k worth of data to the bottom of the page so that there is no longer a delay when loading the sidebar. For the TOC to work, however, visitors must allow the page to finish loading.

With Statcounter, I am unable to tell how many visitors actually use the TOC feature. I am wondering if having that extra feature is really worth it. I may add a brief poll to see if visitors are making good use of it.

• Snapshots

I am toying with the idea of using Snapshots (http://www.snap.com). The blogger at Rattletrap Ramblings uses them and I have seen these little previews all over the net. I'm sure you have too. I know my blog is already overloaded with add-ons, but I have a very specific purpose in mind for snapshots if it is possible.

Apparently Snapshots has something called Mapshots. If I can integrate Google Maps into snapshots, I will be able to reference specific locations on the lakes I fish. My readers will know exactly what I'm dealing with or at least know where I fished. So far, I am only able to load a preview of the map page I see and not a map similar to what Mapshots resembles.

I will be trying to integrate snapshots using Google Maps in older fishing reports. It will take a while, but I think it will be a worthwhile project. I think I can start marking spots in my own Google Maps and use those as snapshots.

When you see this icon, next to a link, hover your mouse over the link or the icon to see a snapshot of the spot I fished using Google Maps.

• More posts coming, MD in the mail

Later this morning, a post is scheduled to show up on my blog. The Shallow Shad Rap is a fairly new lure in my tackle box, but I have used it enough to write a review. A few days ago, I posted a photo of an egret standing in a cypress tree. I have more photos on deck ready to be posted in the coming weeks. I took them on my last outing in the boat. I do have some video of eight to ten catfish swimming near the pier, but I'll have to compress it down to a smaller format. I'm new to video editing, so when I make a version that isn't pixelated too much, I will post it.

The Residency Match is in full swing right now and interview season is upon me. Forgive me for not posting as often as you might want, but my career has to come first. By the way, my degree is being sent out today in the mail from my medical school and I should have it before the end of the week. Looks like I will need to go out and buy a frame for it soon.