Shadalicious (swimbait from Strike King)

I have heard good wards about hollow body swimbait but have not had a chance to use it by myself. One reason is that they are *&^%$ expensive! Typical non-hollow body swimbait are about $3 to $5, but they are over $7. As a budget angler, I thought that there was not enough reason to try them. When I received a discount coupon from a local Dick's sporting goods, I decided to buy one for test.

I bought a pack of Shadalicious from Strike King. It was $6.99 (4.5" long, 6 lures in it). I saw one of my fishing buddies using it, and he loved it crazy.



I tested it and concluded that it is worth the high price. It is well designed to collapse easily when bitten, but it didn't sacrifice any swim action. It swims like long tail swimbait, totally different from solid fat swimbait.


It is a cross-sectional view of the hollow swimbait.


At tail, there is small drain hole.


This lure can be hooked on typical jig head or weighted hook (shown in the picture above).


When rigged, it looks like this. If you use a screw lock attached to weighted hook, it will be easy to rig. But using this type of weighted hook, it was not easy.

Lure Monger (2)

New Yo-Zuri additions to my arsenal. I didn't have enough chances to test new lures except Pins minnow. I hope weather gets better soon.

Emperor Minnow (F230-C5): sinking, 2-1/2" (66mm), 1/4 oz (7g)



YO-ZURI. S
Its sinking rate is 6"-12"per second to 5'-7' deep.


Altima Pins Minnow (F242-T144): floating, 3-3/4" (90mm)
Personally, I like this lure most among the new lures. Very natural presentation.


One unique thing is that it has fishing light holder underneath.


This fishing light came with the lure.


I had a luck with this lure while trolling. Smallmouth bass ruined its rare treble hook. I removed bented hook.


Mag Vide (F657-HMD): sinking, 2-3/4" (70mm), 5/8 oz (18g)
This lure presents real tight wiggling action, which kinda excites me. I may use it for jigging, too.


View of back


Crystal Minnow (F10-HBL): sinking, 4-3/8" (110 mm), 1/2 oz(14 g)


According to its box, this lure features:
"*Action-tight wiggling *Swimming depth: floating-12-18", suspend- 4 to 5 ft *Sinking speed-1-1/2 to 2 ft /sec"


DUEL

Some Basics on Peak Oil (3)

Peak oil and the Hubbert curve are simple ideas, but raise a critical economic question: How will oil prices move after the peak? Some argue that oil prices will be still determined through the market mechanisms, and there will be no volatility of oil prices as demand decreases along with supply. This may be true in the long term. However, the problem is the decreasing supply. According to the Hubbert curve, the declining production slope is getting sharper, and it means that persistent price shocks are unavoidable; there will always be extra demand. According to some observers, energy price shocks caused by supply disruption threaten not only economies but also civilization itself (Hall, Tharakan, Hallock, Cleveland, & Jefferson, 2003). It requires policy efforts to mitigate adverse effects of peak oil. Rising oil prices and efforts to mitigate climate change are two major pressures on the world’s economies to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Now we face the problem of reducing our energy use to mitigate climate change and peak oil, while maintaining our living standard.

Development of alternative energy sources can be the ultimate solution of climate change and peak oil. However, alternative sources seem not to be available in the near future. It means that for now, the only plausible policy option we have is to adjust the structure of our economies to reduce fossil fuel use.

References Cited

Hall, C., Tharakan, P., Hallock, J., Cleveland, C., & Jefferson, M. (2003). Hydrocarbons and the evolution of human culture. Nature, 426, 318-322.

*This series of posts is excerpted from my dissertation. I hope these posts help my visitors understand this critical matter better.*

Some Basics on Peak Oil (2)

Figure 1.5 shows the U.S. crude oil production record. U.S. field production of crude oil, which includes Alaska and lower 48 states, reached its peak of 352 million barrels per year in 1970. Even with discoveries and production at new oil wells in Alaska, U.S. production did not recover its peak level even during two world oil shocks in the 1970s.


Another evidence of Hubbert curve is the North Sea oil reserve. The United Kingdom and Norway started their commercial production in the North Sea reserve in the late 1970s. Figure 1.6 shows total daily crude oil production of U.K. and Norway, two major oil producers at the North Sea. The production peaked in 1999 and then declined. Different from the U.S. curve, the North Sea curve shows plateau around its peak.


World crude oil production record does not show a clear sign of peak production until today (Figure 1.7). It is because peak location of Hubbert curve depends on total amount of oil reserve. Discoveries of new oil reserve may have postponed peak production. New technologies of resource extraction, such as deep sea drilling, also have increased production, which also has postponed peak production. As we have witnessed in the cases of mega-oilfields, technological improvement cannot solve the problem of absolute resource scarcity (Gowdy & Julia, 2007).


The key insight of Hubbert curve is that production curve of non-renewable resources has bell-like shape: After peak, total production eventually declines. According to the Hubbert curve, though we have successfully postponed peak production, a permanent drop in total production seems unavoidable.

References Cited

Gowdy, J., & Julia, R. (2007). Technology and petroleum exhaustion: Evidence from two mega-oilfields. Energy, 32, 1448-1454.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2009). Independent Statistics and Analysis: International. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/contents.html.

*This series of posts is excerpted from my dissertation. I hope these posts help my visitors understand this critical matter better.*

Some Basics on Peak Oil (1)

Energy is an essential factor in the production processes. Three decades ago, Georgescu-Roegen pointed out the central importance of energy in the economic processes. He emphasized that energy cannot be easily substituted with other production factors because of the second law of thermodynamics (Georgescu-Roegen, 1976). Fossil fuels are a finite resource being irreversibly degraded by the economic processes. Georgescu-Roegen (1976) concluded that energy could constrain future economic expansion, and that we need to re-design the human economy according to energy limits. However, most economists have not seriously considered energy as a constraining factor of production because energy sources, in particular fossil fuel, have been bountiful. In general, energy scarcity has been treated as a more or less unimportant topic in the mainstream economic literature.

Today energy receives some attention in the economic literature because of the challenge of climate change and public concern over peak oil production. In fact, there was a boom in energy economics after the oil shocks in the 1970s and 1980s, but the interest faded away when oil became cheap again. Some argue that global oil production seems to have reached its peak, which will cause energy prices to soar as we briefly observed in 20081. Peak oil was originally suggested by M. King Hubbert in 1956. Hubbert investigated production data of oil wells and concluded that there exists a bell-shaped production curve (Hubbert curve) of non-renewable resources. Then, he projected his findings to the national level and predicted US oil production would peak in the late 1960s (Hubbert, 1956), which later turned out to be accurate. Figure 1.4 is the original Hubbert curve, which projected US crude oil production peaking in the late 1960s.

References Cited

Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1976). Process analysis and the neoclassical theory of production. In Energy and Economics Myths. Institutional and analytic economic essays (pp. 37-52). New York, NY: Pergamon Press.

Hubbert, M. K. (1956). Nuclear energy and the fossil fuels. Drilling and Production Practice, 95.

*This series of posts is excerpted from my dissertation. I hope these posts help my visitors understand this critical matter better.*

Some Basics on Climate Change (3)

Social and economic effects of climate change are evident as well. Rising sea level is threatening existence of some island nations. The Maldives and Tuvalu both are planning national immigration to foreign dryland in the near future. Prolonged hurricane and tornado season, which is now believed to be caused by climate change, affects more regions (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). There is no conclusive estimate of economic cost of global warming. According to the Stern Review, estimated loss by extreme weather alone will be about one percent of world gross domestic production (GDP) in around 2050, and will keep increasing as temperatures rise (Stern, 2006). Stern (2006) estimated a total of 20% of global GDP might be lost by climate change, if no immediate action is taken to mitigate it.

There are still skeptics about human generated climate change, but according to the best available scientific knowledge, anthropogenic GHGs are firmly believed to be the culprits of global warming. Over 70% of anthropogenic GHGs are generated from combustion of fossil fuel. Therefore, in order to mitigate climate change, a large reduction of fossil fuel use is required. The great human dilemma is that fossil fuel, which generates most anthropogenic GHGs, is the major energy source which has made current economic prosperity possible. Without fossil fuel, modern urban life, as we know, would be impossible.

References Cited

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). Climate change 2007: synthesis report. Fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Stern, N. (2006). The economics of climate change: the Stern review. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm.

*This series of posts is excerpted from my dissertation. I hope these posts help my visitors understand this critical matter better.*

Some Basics on Climate Change (2)

Anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions are blamed as a culprit of climate change. Global temperature has paralleled atmospheric GHGs concentrations. The use of fossil fuel has already altered the composition of the earth’s atmosphere. CO2 levels have increased from about 270 ppm before the industrial revolution to about 380 ppm today. Long term observation data at Mauna Loa station, Hawaii, clearly present the inclining trend in previous 50 years (Figure 1.2).


This increase of CO2 level is worrisome because CO2 level has never been as high as current level in the observable pasts. According to ice-core studies, there were long term fluctuations in CO2 level, but CO2 level stayed below 270 ppm in most time (Figure 1.3). Dotted arrow line shows current CO2 anomaly, which is unprecedentedly high.


For the past 800,000 years at least, CO2 concentrations have varied only by about 40 ppm around the average of 240 ppm. This small variation is associated with external shifts in climate from ice ages to very warm periods like today’s. Current CO2 levels are now reaching 390 ppm, far above anything experienced by Homo Sapiens. Astonishingly, most of this increase has occurred since 1990.

If the concentration level reaches 600 ppm in the 21st century, the average sea level will rise up to 0.4-1.0 meter through thermal expansion alone (Solomon et al., 2009). Even with current best global efforts to reduce CO2, its concentration is projected to be stabilized at 650 ppm, which means a 4°C increase of average surface temperature (Anderson & Bows, 2008). Other greenhouse gases are threats, too. In particular, methane, which has a warming potential that is 21 times stronger than CO2, is being released from permafrost and the ocean while surface temperature is increasing (Lawrence & Slater, 2005; University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2008). As it warms up, the ocean is losing its potential to absorb GHGs. These facts suggest that we might already be turning on positive feedback of global temperature systems, which requires more urgent and full-scale action.

References Cited

Anderson, K., & Bows, A. (2008). Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 1-20.

Barnola, J. M., Raynaud, D., Lorius, C., & Barkov, N. I. (2003). Historical CO2 record from the Vostok ice core. Trends: a compendium of data on global change.

Lawrence, D. M., & Slater, A. G. (2005). A projection of severe near-surface permafrost degradation during the 21st century. Geophysical Research Letter, 32. Retrieved January 29, 2009, from http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL025080.shtml.

Solomon, S., Plattner, G., Knutti, R., & Friedlingstein, P. (2009). Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. PNAS, 106(6), 1704-1709.

Tans, P. (n.d.). Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide - Mauna Loa. NOAA/ESRL. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends.

University of Alaska Fairbanks. (2008, December 18). Scientists find increased methane levels in arctic ocean. Science Daily. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217203407.htm.

*This series of posts is excerpted from my dissertation. I hope these posts help my visitors understand this critical matter better.*

Some Basics on Climate Change (1)

The effects of global warming are no longer a distant threat. Climate change is happening now in our generation. During the last century, the average surface temperature has increased by 0.74 ±0.18°C (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). Figure 1.1 shows the positive trend of global mean temperature since the Industrial Revolution.


Climate change does not only mean abnormal increases in temperature, but it does mean disturbance of whole climate systems which many species have evolved to adapt to for millennia. It will indiscriminately affect everyone and everything on earth, and the impacts will be enormous and last for over 1,000 years (Matthews & Caldeira, 2008; Montenegro, Brovkin, Eby, Archer, & Weaver, 2007; Solomon, Plattner, Knutti, & Friedlingstein, 2009). The time has come to worry about survival of human civilization. Global efforts to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change are underway, but it is difficult to see many positive signs that these efforts are making a real difference (Anderson & Bows, 2008, p. 17). Is there any hope that we can succeed in mitigating climate change?

References Cited

Anderson, K., & Bows, A. (2008). Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 1-20.

Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). (n.d.). Global temperature anomalies. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). Climate change 2007: synthesis report. Fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Matthews, H. D., & Caldeira, K. (2008). Stabilizing climate requires near-zero emissions. Geophysical Research Letter, 35, 1-5.

Montenegro, A., Brovkin, V., Eby, M., Archer, D., & Weaver, A. J. (2007). Long term fate of anthropogenic carbon. Geophysical Research Letter, 34, 1-5.

Solomon, S., Plattner, G., Knutti, R., & Friedlingstein, P. (2009). Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. PNAS, 106(6), 1704-1709.

*This series of posts is excerpted from my dissertation. I hope these posts help my visitors understand this critical matter better.*

Self Rescue for SOT Kayak-Angler

I heard a horror story of a fallen kayak angler at a kayak fishing club. He went kayak-fishing alone in the ocean at night and fell at a sunken rock area. He tried to self-rescue himself but failed a couple of times because of tangled line at legs. After cutting all the line, he could save himself. Well, knife at PFD is the MUST!!! I always keep multi-tool, but after hearing this story, I decided to carry another folding knife handy.

He should not have gone night fishing alone at first hand. The ocean is a dangerous place whether it is calm or not. This incident alarmed me to learn about self rescue. It is embarrassing to say that I didn't have a clear idea about how to re-climb to up-side down SOT kayak. I found this very informative video at Youtube. I will do some practice next time I go fishing. Please, be prepared and stay safe!