Ellesar

Most important thing is to find grass. During the summer throwing big worms on the edge of the grass flats out in the main part of the lake is always a good way to catch fish. You can also bounce worms and jigs down the ledges to find fish as well. If you are doing that, look for shell beds on the ledges. If you want to go for size and not numbers, one thing I like to do is fish the heavy matted grass and lily pads with heavy jigs. Flipping 1 to 1 1/2 oz jigs can land you some big fish, but you won't catch a lot. Early in the morning and late in the evening will also be a good time to break out your top water baits. You can't go wrong throwing a Pop r or a spook jr. You can find schools around that time that will let you really catch a lot of fish. I've caught around a 100 in 4-5 hours when you get on those schools. Those fish won't usually be big, but are still fun to catch. Also if you get on a school like that, throw a lipless crankbait some as well, soemtimes you get the bigger fish underneath the school. But the most important thing is grass. A fish's life in Guntersville revolves around the grass. If you aren't fishing over it or have it nearby, you are wasting your time. Wyeth road looks to be just a little south of the state park. I'd head up north from there. There's some good fishing around the state park. Seibold isn't far away and that's a good area. There are some good community holes a bit farther north that can be a lot of fun. Places like Little Mountain Lakes are good places to fish. Again, if you find grass you should have some luck. I always seem to catch more fish out in the main part of the lake during that time of year. You can find some around docks and so forth, but the larger schools and larger fish seem to be out in and around the grass flats in the main lake. Hope that helps!

Serial number plate should tell you what year it is. You can take that to a marine dealer and they'll tell you what kind of prop you need. It will help your speed if you are missing a chunk.

The overall weight of the truck helps as well. Its not just the additional breaking power, a boat can't push a full size truck around as easy as a smaller truck. If you've ever had the "pleasure" of having to stop quick with a boat in a smaller vehicle, you will know what I mean.

It could also be a tire problem. When I bought the last boat I had the tires wore on the insides. I took it in and they checked the alignment, even talked to the factory and took a variety of measurements to make sure everything was ok. Nothing seemed out of place. They replaced the tires and never had a problem again.

Should be a good weekend, the full moon should move more fish onto the beds. A lot of fish are being caught in shallow water since the temps warmed up.

Most higher end boat manufacturers now offer a padded deck. I know triton, ranger, and basscat do.

That I'm sure it's not is it needed? or does insulation helps keep the temperature the same if so lining the truck box with sheets of styrofoam would that help? Keeping the water cool is critical to keep the fish alive. The lack of insulation plus the metal would allow it to get too hot IMO. Styrofoam still won't give you the insulation qualities you'd need.

Grass isn't hard to find, its still on the flats in the main channel. Traps are good this time of year. The water is still cold but it's warming pretty quick now that we have some moderate temps. The shad are starting to move up shallow and the fish can move up with them at any time. I'd look for 5-10 ft of water and throw some traps where there is grass. Red is usually the best color by far.

Bass Resource got blocked at work for over a year and thus I haven't been around in a while. Just checked today and noticed I could get here again! Hope everyone's had some good fishing. I've spent a lot of time on Guntersville over the past year and am ready for it to warm up again!

There is usually one out of honeycomb sat morn at first light. Waterfront has a wildcat if enough people show, but usually theredoesnt seem to be enough interest.

Not a good idea. What happens if you cause an accident/injury on the water and have no insurance? You think you are in bad financial shape right now, that would ruin you. If you can't afford the insurance, don't take it out.

A lot of tournament and clubs will require that you atleast have liability on your boat. But honestly if you can't afford the insurance, you can't afford the boat. It's no different than a car in that respect, IMO. You should be able to get the service history fro. A mechanic and see what warranty work was done and the like. Definately want a leak down test at a min.

Just got done taking a close look at one at a boat show. I was looking forward to seeing one up close and I was disappointed. They look cheap to me, the fit and finish looked haphazard. The quality of materials like carpetting was cheap. I'd been thinking about geting one of these and had a buddy who is Looking for a new boat and had been intrigued by all that we'd seen and heard about the 721. But after seeing it in person I Personally won't bother with it again. He price the had on it at the show pit it in the same category as a bunch ofnither boats that are amlot better IMO.

Keep in mind that the only way to know that gas is ethanol free is to test it yourself. Just because it doesn't say it contains ethanol, doesn't mean its ethanol free.

I put a used round in and practive squeezing the trigger on my rifle to "train" my muscles to squeeze the trigger and reduce the chance of flinching when I'm make a shot that counts. I especially do this with a new gun to get used to the trigger pull.

I was always told that was 1 gallon of oil per 50 gallons of gas.

Well it depends on the time of year. Most of the time you are going to be fishing grass in one way or another. Generally the bass and all the bait fish stick to the grass. Right now we've had a lot of rain and the water level is going up and down daily as they try to draw it down to winter pool. Once that stabilizes and the temps stabilize, the fishing will get better. Right now its very hit or miss on any given day, with the bigger fish being harder to find. During the spring and summer its not that hard to find the bigger fish and put together a good bag, its why it can take 28-30 lbs to win a small wildcat tournament. I don't really fish much in the winter, I'm usually deer hunting.

Test drive won't really show you how well maintained it is, especially the motor. You need to have a qualified mechanic check it out, compression test at a min, leakdown test is even better.

Yeah spending a day fishing with scratched up cheap glasses is a sure way to get a headache. I use costas with the 580 lenses in green. I had surgery when I was young that required them to take cartilage from just above my ear. They've since discovered it was a bad place to do that because when you wear some glasses for an extended period of time, the glass rub on the scar tissue and it gets real sore. With most of the other glasses I've worn, 5-6 hours of fishing was all I could handle. It went beyond simply uncomfortable. With the 2 pair of costas I've owned, I've fished over 8 hours and they didn't bother me in the least.

I agree that you will not likely be able to turn a 24 Fury if you can only turn a 24 Tempest at 5650. I believe the ideal rpm range for your motor is 5600-5850. Definately wouldnt run the 23 Turbo @6150 rpms unless you want to replace your powerhead soon. That's way too many rpms for that motor.

Most guides work during the week. If you can get in touch with Troy Jens, he has a program where he goes out with you in your boat and acts as a consultant. The rates for that are about half of what most other guided trips are going to run you so its a good deal. Troy is a good guy and knows Guntersville. Tim Chandler is another guide that is definately top notch. I've been out with both and highly recommend both guys. They both helped me improve my fishing success 100% over what I was doing last year and taught me a lot about how to fish Guntersville. I was doing things that seemed right and would be right on a lot of other lakes, but are dead wrong for Guntersville. My fishing enjoyment has increased dramatically, going out with those guys was the best fishing money I've spent outside of my boat. Defaintely worth the money, one of the best uses of your money you can find! Shoot me a PM if you want to know anything about Guntersville or some tips or such. I fish there a lot, although Im starting to slow down now that College football is here and hunting season is around the corner.

You have a few options right about now on Guntersville. You can fish the grass mats with frogs or flipping/pitching. The strange weather we've had this year has had the grass growth behind all season but its finally topped out and started scumming over. Your best bets are going to be using something like a Spro over the top of the grass, or getting 1 1/2 + ounch weights and a creature bait and punching through the mats to the fish underneath. You can fish the slightly deeper grass with a combination of topwater baits and big worms. You should look for grass in 5-10 ft of water. If you are fishing early, start with topwater. If you don't get any hits, try slowly swimming th big worm through the grass. You can even try a swim bait like this. There is still alot of fish being caught on main channel ledges and humps using deep diving crankbaits or bouncing a big worm or jig down the ledge. The thing to look for are ledges with shell beds around 20-30 ft. The bass really like the shell beds. The fish are still schooling. These are usually smaller fish, but sometimes a 3-5 can be found in the area. What they lack in size, they make up with in numbers. I took my daughter out one day and we caught 94 in 4 hours. They aren't always that worked up, but you can still catch a lot in a short amount of time. You have to keep your eyes open for them schooling up and attacking the shad on the top. They seem to do this the most late in the day, atleast I've seen it a lot more in the late afternoon. The key to finding fish on Guntersville is grass. If you aren't fishing grass, you aren't catching bass (with the exception of shell beds on ledges). Almost everything about bass fishing on lake guntersville revolves around the grass. Forget your standard shore fishing, that won't work this time of year. Get out on the grass flats that are on the edges of the main channel of the river that cuts through the middle of hte lake. If you want some specific areas to go, send me a PM. I will tell you that the Mink Creek area has been really hot lately as well as up around Goosepond. The fish are starting their fall transition so they are moving around more these days, which makes them a little harder to find. The schooling bite is still easy enough to find, but the quality fish are harder to find right now, especially finding a lot of them.

If its a new to you boat, the most important thing is just maing sure that the engine that is on the boat is in good shape. That means having it checked out by a certified mechanic, leakdown test at a minimum with fault history and repair history. If you have a choice, remember to look around and see where the closest certified mechanic is. If you don't have one close, then I wouldn't recommend that brand. Talk to people in your area that have various motors, its been my experience that finding a good OB mechanic is very hard to do. The pros for the Mercury, probably best mpg out there definately better than the etec. Will probably give you the most mechanics in a given area. They have some good electronics that go along with their engines. The etec HO's are putting out a bit more power than the Pro XS line. Yamaha isn't going to produce 2 strokes much longer. They are going to all 4 stroke.

How shallow were these fish? Also, how deep were the holes you found the big fish in on swimbaits a little while back? All of these were in 4-5' of water. The holes from the other thread were around 7-10';

Mine use the cranking battery. They pull very little juice from the battery. Mine are all hooked up through the accessory switches on the console and the courtesy light switch which controlled the factory compartment lighting.