Osprey39

I ran one Talon for a long time and then one Powerpole for a long time. One works just fine, you just have to do a little prior planning to account for wind/current direction before you deploy it. Two is the bomb but of course that's a pretty steep investment to make. They are a no-brainer purchase here in Florida where deep water is considered anything over 6 feet. You use them constantly as you're usually fishing in water that is plenty shallow enough for them to deploy. I see the OP is from Minnesota though so I would say consider strongly how much you fish in shallow water before you drop the money on them.

Hey all, I just got the 2013 Ranger Z520C in the picture below. I was running a 4 stroke on my old boat but this one has a 2 stroke and I'm having a real hard time figuring out how much oil is in the oil reservoir. It's too opaque for me to see the level through the side of it as you can see in the other picture. Any one have any tips or advice on how to tell how much is in there so I can avoid spilling oil all over the place because I overfilled it?

Thanks man, exactly the kind of info I was looking for!

I need some help guys. I'm looking at getting a new boat and I'm trying to decide what electronics, TM, etc. I want to get on it. I'm pretty settled on getting the Minn Kota Ultrex because I want the Spot Lock feature but I'm confused if the latest model Lowrance HDS Carbon units are compatible with the Universal Sonar 2 transducer on the TM. For instance, on their compatibility list for Lowrance, Minn Kota lists the HDS 9, HDS 9 Gen 2 and Gen 2 touch and HDS 9 Gen 3. It's been awhile since I've shopped for Lowrance units so I have no idea if the latest models are Gen 3 or are they just plain old HDS 9, 12 etc. It looks like either are compatible but I want to make sure so I don't make a several thousand dollar mistake. Any insight is appreciated.

My buddy and I fish Wednesday night tournaments on Lake Toho every week. Well we got to the marina yesterday and saw that Hurricane Irma had made a genuine wreck of the ramp and the breakwall. It was all blocked off so we couldn't launch and no tournament was going out of there obviously. We decided to fish anyway so we headed to one of the other ramps on the lake and put in. We went to some of our normal productive spots and found that 1.5 to 2 feet of increased water depth makes a hell of a difference. Not just to us, the fish didn't seem to like it either as we were getting basically nothing. Finally we decided to throw the playbook out the window and go try some shallower water and that's where we found 'em. We caught several nice fish but this one was the big girl of the evening (also my PB of the year):

The backflow thing makes sense. I didn't consider that possibility because the pump came with anti-siphon valves. It's certainly possible to put the tubing in a couple inches above the water line on my livewells. I guess I'll give it a shot and if it doesn't work then I'm out 50 bucks. Not the end of the world.

You realize that anyone with a 13 pc. socket set could steal your spare tire off the trailer if they wanted to right? Unless you put the security lugs on your spare tire mount I guess but I've never seen anyone do that. I personally don't see the big deal here. Spare tire mounts are cheap. If you don't like the one that comes standard, buy an aftermarket one for less than $50. Problem solved.

I have a flats boat and the live wells on it came equipped with fill pumps only and no aerator pumps. I was looking for a quick and inexpensive way to add aeration to them and I found Frabill's Aqua Life dual output aerator at BPS: http://www.basspro.com/shop/en/frabill-aqua-life-dual-output-aerator I bought one and took it home but going through the manual I noticed it said to install the pump above the water line of the area to be aerated. In order for me to do that, I'd have to mount it on the deck of the boat because the water level in the livewells basically comes up to just underneath the lid when full and the lid is part of the deck. I don't want to mount it on the deck where it could be kicked, tripped over, etc. so my question to anyone that has experience with one of these pumps is this: Is it absolutely necessary to mount it above the water line or will it still work if you mount it lower? If the answer is yes, it is absolutely necessary, I'd like to know why. It seems like it's just pushing air bubbles through a nylon tube. I wouldn't think it would need the assistance of gravity for that.

Rizzo over in the motor pool can get anything!

Thanks all for the links and PMs. Should get me pointed in the right direction.

Yeah, when I was there the water was pretty much 8ft deep all over and the only thing you could see on the graph of interest was the old plant rows. I assume that's what they were as they were very uniform and straight. We only caught a couple of fish but it was December and the weather was pretty crappy as well. We did however run across the open area on plane. If my dad had known there were stumps in there I'm sure he would have idled it because he is cautious to the point of being paranoid about that kind of stuff. Funny thing is with me, I'm nervous whenever I get in less than 10ft of water because out here in New Mexico with our canyon reservoirs that means you're about to hit something more than likely lol.

Hmm, I'll keep that in mind. I'm moving back to Florida at the end of the year and will probably be fishing there frequently as it's fairly close to where I'll be living.

I've been there a couple of times with my dad when I was back home visiting. I don't remember it being full of stumps though. Most of it seemed pretty nondescript to me. We fished mostly along the eastern shore both times we went. Are the stumps located elsewhere?

Hey Teal, my cousin says the Shenandoah River is supposed to be very good for smallmouth and largemouth fishing. She gave me this website, has some access points for the river listed: http://www.seeshenandoah.com/2009/05/fishing.html I suppose I could just buy a cheap baitcasting combo at Walmart and just go give it a go from the bank someplace but I'd really prefer to find a guide since my time will be limited.

I've been fishing there for years. The lake is a shadow of it's former self. Back in the 90s it was easily the best lake in the state for largemouth and 3 to 4 pound fish were fairly common. You could catch some smallmouth but it was so unusual that people would all point and ooh and ahh over them at tourney weigh-ins. Nowadays everything is different. They've let so much water out of the lake because of the drought conditions that the fishing has really suffered. You can't even access the north end of the lake anymore and that was always the best fishing in my opinion. What you catch has also changed pretty dramatically. Now you catch 4 or 5 smallies to every 1 largemouth and the size of the fish is down too. Like I said above, 3 to 4lbers were common and now the big bass at our club tournaments usually was under 4lbs. Big change there. I think the decline of the lake as a largemouth fishery is mostly due to the draw down of the lake leaving all the best largemouth habitat out of the water. There used to be lots of areas with flooded timber and brush in that lake and now it's kind of hard to find. It's still one of the better lakes to fish in New Mexico but only because all of our lakes have suffered to some extent from the dry weather we've had for the past several years. That water level ought to be coming up a bit now though because we've had a good amount of rain this summer. Problem is that it will take several years of good monsoon seasons to make up for the several years of bone dry we already had. If you caught that striper from the bank, congrats, that's pretty rare. Most of the stripers like to hold in deep water. First fish I caught in New Mexico was an 18lb striper which, coming from fishing saltwater in Florida, I thought nothing of but my friends I was with at the time were going nuts over it lol. Elephant Butte is probably best known as a striper fishery these days and the state record of 55lbs came out of that lake. If there's anything you'd like to know about the lake, feel free to ask. I'll answer what I can but to me, it's almost like fishing a new lake every time I go there these days because of the wildly fluctuating water levels.

I'm planning on attending my cousin's wedding in Front Royal, VA in October. I figured I would get there a day or two early and try to get out and fish someplace new to me. I'm flying and can't haul gear with me so I've been trying to find guides in that area online but all I can seem to find is fly fishing guides. My dad is the fly fisherman in the family, not me. I'd prefer to go out with somebody that uses conventional tackle. Anybody know of any bass fishing guides that are decent in that area?

Awesome, thanks buddy!

Anybody know where I can get some after market seats for this boat? Mine are worn out and I checked with the local tracker dealer on getting new ones. It was way more than I wanted to pay. Let me know if you know where to find these.

That's tremendously helpful gar-tracker. Thanks a bunch!

See I have no idea which grass is which. Lakes in New Mexico are all reservoirs and they have no vegetation in them to speak of. Part of that is the bottoms are mostly hard and rocky but the bigger reason I have been told is that the water level changes so frequently that it prevents the growth of vegetation (lately it's only going down lol.) From what I gathered, the grass in the photos we took is maidencane. There was a lot of submergent grass too which I thought was hydrilla but when I looked at pictures of hydrilla on the web, it didn't look the same so I'm not sure what it was. I do know it was the same every place we went.

Hey all, I'm back from my trip and I thought I'd post a follow up on how it went. We went out on the St. John's Saturday but the wind blew pretty bad and we didn't catch anything but a tilapia. Sunday we hit Toho and we caught quite a few fish. Here are the best ones: Pretty good day fishing with my dad (photographer) and his best buddy. I have a question for you all though. What the hell do you key in on when fishing a lake like that? I'm used to lakes with lots of contour changes, rocks, trees, etc. Both Lake Poinsett and Toho seem to be nearly flat bottoms and those weeds are everywhere on Toho. It all looks the same to me. The only pattern I was kind of able to figure out was we seemed to catch all our fish where the submergent vegetation (not sure what it was lol) was very sparse. In areas where it was thick, we didn't catch much. Anyway, can you all clue me in for next time I am down there?

There is nothing nerdy about Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is bad ass!

I'm kind of odd that if I am nowhere near a toilet, I can literally go all day without having to even take a leak. However, once I get off the water, the closer I get to the toilet, the stronger the urge to go gets to the point where sometimes I'm thinking I won't make it through weigh-in lol.

Thanks for the info gents!

Did you do any good FishinDaddy?