sodaksker

Sweet victory! Congratulations on your win. Another testament to keeping a positive attitude in life.

I wondered why i had not seen you posting. Especially this time of year. Great fish! Sorry to hear about you boat problems. Hopefully they are behind you now. Keep posting. thanks

Congrats on a great looking rig!! I hope you create many wonderful memories in it.....I know I would.

Nice looking rig! Enjoy

looks like a great day! Thanks for sharing.

wow!!! Now that is a smallie. thanks for sharing.

I guess I never really looked at the top end difference. I thought they were just for holeshot, so when testing mine,I just tested the holeshot.

Al, you are correct on the prop plugs for holeshot. I do not believe they will effect top end rpms but, it is real easy to check. Worst case scenario you will get blow out on holeshot if you have too many plugs out. Based on the age of the optimax I would doubt that you have an engine problem. My guess is that your prop to pad setting is too low or your 24p prop needs to be worked. 24p is about the max that opti should turn and if the pitch is off a little and closer to 25p you would get lower top end rpms. Another question is how far are you trimming up? I am sure you are aware that the higher you trim up your will typically pick up some top end rpms.

nice pretty fish!!! Congrats!!

She did better than half the field... I think that shows well enough she deserves to be there. I also believe that these are great things for the sport. If I recall, the main complaint last year is that they were taking a spot away from one of the other male pros by allowing a woman to be in the event. All they would have to do is expand the field by one or two anglers and they wouldn't be displacing anyone. At a 51 angler field, it looks like that is exactly what they did last year. Expand it to 52 angler field and allow the college competitor in.

good job on the win. I wish I could get my wife to fish a tourney with me.

Had a team tournament last weekend. My partner put together our best bag to date. Our best 5 went 21 lbs 9oz. Our big bass was 5 lb 11oz. I think I caught it on the third cast of the morning. We had 20 lbs by 8:30 in the morning. Our last upgrade came about noon. We were feeling pretty confident about bringing home the trophy. Unfortunatley for us, a team came in with 21 lb 14 oz to knock us out of first. Uhg!!! What are ya going to do.....It was a great day on the lake. We had a blast and caught em all day. I think it is time for me to buy some culling equipment. I have no doubt that we lost 5oz due to culling the wrong fish. Live and learn.

I could do boji

Dwight, I have to ask...aren't you getting bored with catching all those hawgs? BTW...this is probably old news but I saw your name and picture in In Fisherman Magazine for some MA smallmouths. Congratulations!!! And as always, Thanks for sharing.

I think you are correct about pic 1, I did not notice the slow speed on that image. I think that slow speed has distorted the pic.

good info. I will have to go download that humviewer software. Thanks

Just to confirm...you have to be viewing the recordings on your hb unit to make changes in your settings correct? You can not upload the recordings to your computer and make changes in the settings.

Scrutch, What are your contrast and sensitivity settings on? That first pics looks like it could be a creek channel with current or an area where a spring is coming in. Due to the blurriness of the pic in that area, I think that indicates some water movement. I'm guessing you could be passing a creek that is on your right, that is dumping into the lake and flowing off to your left. Pic #2 looks like some bait balls and maybe some schools of crappie or gills. Looks like maybe sensitivity a little high and picking up some debris in the water on your di...just a guess. pic 3 looks like some good size fish at first glance but your speed is only .7mph so you could be getting some distorted pics. I think your min speed should be around 2.5 to 3mph. When sitting still or slow drifting, I have read that pics tend to get distorted or elongated. Either way there are some fish there. pic 4 looks like some chunks of small rock on the left top and I believe those black spots are shadows of fish that are close to the bottom due to there short shadow....again just guessing and trying to learn.

Wayne, Thanks for that clarification. I was at an H'bird seminar about 6 weeks ago, and I thought they sd you could change the settings in snapshot as well but, I must have misunderstood. Guess I will have to start making recordings now. Regardless, that is an awesome feature of the h'bird units IMO. I hope to gain a great amount of knowledge while viewing some recordings in my garage. Just have to wait for the wind to stop blowing so I can go and make a few recordings.

I have a hard time identifying fish in that green color pallet. If you still have the chip with those images on it,put it back into your unit and go to the screen that allows you to view those images again. While viewing those images you should be able to make adjustments on color pallets and sensitivity settings. This way you may be able to identify some fish that were captured there. I have yet to try this but, I am pretty sure humminbird has that capability. Good luck and let me know how that goes. I was going to try that but, while uploading images to my computer I erased them from the chip.

Awesome!! Congrats.....did you buy lottery tickets that night? Got to ride the good fortune out.

Great report and great fish pics. Maybe with that new "ripped" physique you are pulling those hooks right out of their mouth without even knowing it.

beautiful.

Jimmy, I have never been up and fished that area but, I hear a lot of good things about that water for multi species. I would imagine that the water has fairly good clarity, so I would think the same baits you have used in the past would work, and making color adjustments for the water clarity. If you are having trouble getting bit, you might try downsizing. On another note there are some great smallmouth waters in the northeast corner of SD, not too far from you. Roy Lake and Enemy swim. Give them a try if you get over that way.

Chris, Great report and pics..as usaul. BTW, are you sporting a new healthier physique? It looks as though you have been losing some pounds. Kudos for you if you have. What is your secret?