What has always killed me about the Grateful Dead are the live shows. The Grateful Dead actually allowed people to record their shows--in fact, they encouraged it, and certain sections of the arenas were made into recording areas. They were into sharing information, ideas and music.

I enjoy sharing information with anyone about anything. Calfishing.com is a great medium to share fishing information. Fishing in general is a funny thing how people have secret baits and secret areas and insider information. My experiences with the West's top professional bass fisherman have shown me that sharing information is necessary and harmless. Case in point:

Aaron Martens in November of 1999 won the BassMaster tournament drop shotting on Lake Oroville. The next weekend, he won the Angler's Choice Championship on Oroville doing the same thing. Everyone at the second tournament knew what Aaron caught his fish on the week before. It was on the Internet and in the papers. Still, he goes out and beats everyone. Why? There's only so much information you can share on the Internet. You can't give exact GPS cooridnates (well, you can), you can't communicate exactly how you hold the boat, how you shake your worm, where you're fishing, your leader size, and any adjustments made on the water that day...When you share information, it will force you to outfish the people you've shared info with to some degree.

I enjoy sharing as much information as possible. I sometimes purposely am vague with a post to see if anyone will respond and just ask. Shoots, I ask people straight up all the time...where they at, what are you getting em on?

Us SoCal guys get blasted on NCBF all the time for lack of sharing information down here. I never see anybody ask...Jesus, I'd spill my guts if someone ever wanted to know anything that I could help them with.

What I learn about Rob, Nico, Ryan, Brian, BassNet, Fongster,and others in their experiences helps me with my own. I love to read stories about lakes and water that I will someday fish. I've found if you need information, just ask. If you've helped people out before, they are far more likely to help you out too.