DawsonH

If you don't own a cast net go buy one and learn to use it. If you do own one make sure you can use it, and then go catch you some legal baitfish. Shad would be best, but sunfish will work also. Cut them in pieces, maybe about silver dollar sized for smaller/mid size fish and if you want a big one use half a 6'' bait or more. In the river look for anything that breaks the current and put your bait at the front or tail end of it. Pay attention to bends in the river, will usually be a sandbar and a deep hole combo with those. Fish the sandbar where it drops into the hole. You can drift your bait or fish it one the bottom, blues don't always hold to the bottom like other catfish do. In the lake, look for creek channels, underwater points, and humps. Fish those by drifting or on the bottom. You may want to try shallow at nite, that can be fun.

Whatever about nite crawlers. Cut them night crawlers into about 10 pieces and they'll eat them up. You can also catch them on just about any insect imitation or live insect or larva.

Pvc with caps in both ends will float just like bobbers.

Where are you fishing?

Eat them, its the only way! Eat them all

Fish everyday all day. Build small pond with an island on it, and then make a drawbridge to the island so that you can get your boat and trailer when you want it. ;D

Its because the water is cold. Notice how your face or fingers will be like that if your in the cold a long time? Same thing with the fish.

For a 3 hp motor you can't make it plain. That motor isn't big enough for that. Don't waste your money on that fin for a 3 hp, its not going to plain any boat. If you put some weight in the front it may keep it from raising the bow so high, but thats about all you can do. Outriggers will make it more stable. There are some other threads on here about people using those.

If its an old model and its going to much work to fix it buy a new one. Parts will be hard to get, and it likely won't be worth the cost of labor to fix it.

A friend of mine fished with a dude one time that hooked a water skier when he came to close to the boat. Guns got drawn on that crap.

Check more than one place for that solar charger, that sounds to high.

Easiest thing to do is put your fingers underneath the receiver and make sure the lips are over the ball. I know that sounds like innuendo, but its true.

Do you feel any resistance at all when you use the peddle? If not the cable is detached, off its rollers if its a two cable model, or broken. Again, that is if the peddle is limp.

Rig it quick strike style: Use two treble hooks, tie a small leader on one, and tie one to your main line. Hook the main line one in just before the tail starts, and then tie the leader hook to one of the prongs of the main line treble and hook it near the back of the head. When you have them hooked in right you should have to points on each hook pointing back towards your line and the other point on each one will be fully buried in the baitfish. As soon as you detect a strike set the hook, there is no need to allow a run with this rig because your guaranteed to have at least one hook in good position.

No probably not. Now having said that, if you keep that fish at any time of year, be it prespawn, postspawn, summer, fall winter, whatever, it is going to remove all potenial future offspring. Its going to have the same effect regardless of when you remove it, only difference is that when the fish is full of eggs it has more of a psychological and emotional effect on some people than other times of the year. Until the eggs inside that fish actually hatch and become fry they are all the same, POTENTIAL offspring. It has the same POTENTIAL effect regardless of when you keep it. Thats just how I look at it. I agree with the others that are saying all catch and release isn't always the best thing. Besides the fact that smaller fish will overpopulate a fishery if not removed the fish can also learn. Studies show that some fish will hit artificial baits over and over, some only once, and some never at all. The more trained fish you have the harder the fishing even thought the numbers are the same.

What are your thoughts one the refurbished Minkota's that Cabela's sells?

And get rid of the giant salvia

Go at night and throw a big ol' black muskie jitterbug on top of them there grass beds. Will think someone is trying to drop bombs on your bait.

yellow won't but white may

First, a story about one I didn't catch. Then one that I did catch. One day last July, I was fishing on the Sabine River near Hawkins Texas for gator gar. Me and my friend were using live bluegills for bait, with soda bottles for bobbers. I decided to reel mine in and was going to see if my bait was still kicking. As I was reeling it in the float acted a little strange, but I could still feel my bait and nothing more, when I got it closer to the boat, like maybe 15' the bottle started to submarine from the front first, but not with anymore weight, understand, it just looked like the bottle was diving a bit from the weight of the bait and sinker, HOWEVER , when I got it to the side of the boat suddenly the float takes of 90* from the side of my boat, I nearly get jerked out of the boat and then suddenly slack line. I'm thinking crap leader broke, but no when I reel it up the hook had somehow gotten one curve hooked around the leader wire so that the hook points all pointed at the bottom of the boat when it was hanging straight. So basically, this one managed to unhook itself through a case of extreme bad luck. I weigh about 190, so a fish that can come close to removing me from the boat is big. It also tightened down about 30 yards of line on my reel so that I had to pull it off and rewind it to cast again. Now for the one that didn't get away. I was fishing the river again, but near Longview this time. I had two lines out, one a float rig and the other a large piece of cut bait fished on the bottom. I got a bite on my float rig and was letting it run (when gar fishing you let them run for a very long time) and as I was standing there holding that rod, suddenly my buddy tells me to get my other pole something is on it. So i set the hook on the fish i have in my hands, and get nothing. Reel that one in and set in boat and now I pick up the other one from its rod holder where whatever is on it is pulling line out against the drag. I set the hook on it, but it just feels like a log. I figure big turtle, because it isn't fighting me and it just feels like a big weight with a thump thump here and there. I tell my friend that I think that its just a log or a cat or something but he disagrees and says "nah that's a big gator gar, I'm sure of it. When it gets near the boat it gets angry and i see the biggest fish I have ever had on my line for the first time, at over 5'6'' long its beast, and I have it on bass tackle.(50# power pro, 6' ugly stick MH with Abu Garcia 6000). It first surfaced on the left side of the boat, and then took a dive under the boat, forcing me to stick the reel almost in the water while moving to the other side of the boat that it has now surfaced on again. When I get to the right side it makes a run for a log jam and just shy of it I was able to turn her back to the boat, and then again she made me switch sides. Now back on the left side of the boat, this 5'6'' fish jumps all of the way out of the water and gets me and my friend wet from the splash. She was only about 15' away when she did this. Finally, after all that I got her to the side of the boat and my bud got a rope around her. He handed the rope to me and put all the tackle on the front deck, and I drug here into the boat. Fish probably weighed about 80#'s, and my heart was racing almost as fast as it does when Me and the Mrs... anyway you get the idea. Sorry for the long post.

HOLY SHAT that almost makes me scared to fish. Knock on wood I've never got one past the barb in any part of me. Although I did get about an inch of a sewing needle in my big toe once, the eye end first. Not the same though...those don't have barbs.

Grammar nazis. People that use there big motor to pass you and cut you off on the bank you are fishing with your tm. People that start crowding you while you are catching fish. People that tell you there the only ones that know anything else about xyz lake. The guy at the tackle shop that told me I didn't want the rod I was looking for because I wouldn't want to use it for what I was looking for it for. Older men who refer to younger grown men as "son" when they are talking to them.

A wheel barrow with a large diameter tire, if its a pneumatic tire make sure its is fully inflated, if its a hard tire get the biggest one you can find. May be easier to pull a wheel barrow than to push it, but that would prob work. If you have really deep ruts to cross that a wheel wouldn't roll through then and this is a private lake that your stuff will be secure at then you could possible look into a solar charger for the battery. Give some more details.

Look for water on google earth.

One more question, which models from minkota and motor guide have the two cable steering instead of the one? I know those aren't as bad about breaking so i want to make sure the one I get has pull/pull.