Bassmaster magazine discovers what Texas anglers already knew: The state’s lakes are full of fine-looking bass. The folks here want to be fine-looking, too, spending an average of 44 minutes a day grooming.
Holy Toledo!
Texas triumphs in Bassmaster’s Best Bass Lakes of 2015 with a total of nine lakes on the magazine’s list—three in the top 20, and Toledo Bend Reservoir taking the crown.
To set the rankings, Bassmaster surveyed states’ fishery agencies, asked B.A.S.S. Nation for the best competition lakes and polled 630,000 Facebook fans. Next, a panel of bass fishermen ranked the lakes and sent their results to a 15-member fishing industry committee, which named the top 100.
“Although many rankings on the list required a lot of debate from our panel, Toledo Bend stood out to all as a clear No. 1 this year,” Bassmaster Editor James Hall said.
Did You Know?
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department lists freshwater fishing records for 12 species of bass, and none were caught at top-ranked bass lake Toledo Bend. But the lake, along the Louisiana border, is home to state records for biggest grass carp and redfin pickerel.
Hey, Good Lookin’
People spend about four hours a week grooming, according to a German market research firm. GfK’s 22-country survey shows that women spend an average of almost five hours a week on personal grooming (bathing, shaving, dressing, hair, makeup), while men spend just over three hours.
Why all the primping? The top reasons given were to help people feel good about themselves, make good first impressions and set a good example for their children.
Molto Bello
Italians spend the most time grooming, just more than 5½ hours a week. Americans are third at about 5¼ hours. Chinese rank last at fewer than three hours.
Fetching Texans
Texans spend 44 minutes a day—about five hours a week—grooming, according to the American Time Use Survey. Only folks from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina groom more, 45 minutes a day.
Masterminds Behind the Wheels
Electricity pioneers Michael Faraday and Nikola Tesla probably never met in real life, but electric cars bearing their monikers soon will meet on the open road.
That’s if everything goes according to plan for Faraday Future, a California-based, Chinese-backed carmaker that in January revealed plans for a single-seat, 1,000-horsepower, all-electric concept car. The company, named for the British electrochemist who lived 1791–1867 and discovered electromagnetic induction, is building a 900-acre, $1 billion factory in Nevada.
Tesla Motors, which sold 50,000 electric vehicles in 2015 and is named for the Serbian-American physicist who lived 1856–1943 and perfected alternating current, expects to churn out a half-million vehicles per year by 2020.
Hurricane Season Starts
More than 10 years and 27 major hurricanes have passed since a Category 3 or higher storm touched down in the United States. And though that’s a record gap between landfalls, scientists say it’s mostly a matter of circumstance and no reason for hurricane-prone areas to let down their guard, especially now that it’s hurricane season, which runs June 1–November 30.
“This luck cannot continue. Climatology will eventually reassert itself with many more U.S. landfalling hurricanes,” according to an analysis by Colorado State University experts Philip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray. “Coastal residents must realize that hurricanes remain a serious threat and should take preparedness actions before every season.”
Not since Hurricane Wilma ripped through southern Florida in October 2005—to close out a record-breaking hurricane season that included Katrina and Rita—has a major hurricane made landfall in the U.S. Ike was a major hurricane in 2008 that dropped to just below major hurricane strength when it struck Texas. Ike still caused $29.5 billion in damage, most notably in Galveston, Houston and the Bolivar Peninsula.
