Nitrofreak

X2 I would also add some fuel treatment to it, as was mentioned in another above statement of his.

WOW !!! Nice job !!!

you can organise clean up commities for each lake or body of water, work with the private owners to manage the waters around there, they will see this as a good thing and reflect as a positive, maybe they will allow your commities to fish their properties as well. all the other ideas have been fantastic, good job all !!

Nice job !!! Thats a good looking set up you have there too !!! Thanx for the pics, we look forward to seeing more of them.

Yes, all of the one's I have ever worked with have been, just make sure you have the pole in hand before you cut the hole just incase the pole is larger or smaller than planned, not all manufactures are the same. 1/2 inch plywood is fine, you can treat the surface of the wood with sealant or even coat it with primer paint to help protect it if you can not find marine plywood.

Try cutting back to about 18 inch's on the C-rig. At the dock, if you saw shad, I would try a small crank bait or a small spinner first, don't be afraid to fish the spinner like a jig if the bite is slow. Good luck and be safe !!!

Not too high, but now I am a little confused as to how you want to mount your seat. Is the new deck going to be plywood? If so I have a different idea that may work a little better, you wont need a router. All you will need to do is cut a hole for the chair's pole to fit through in the new deck and mount the plate on the existing fiberglass deck. Not sure if this is what you have in mind but, it is a lot less work and having the pole fit down through the deck will also provide a fair amount of stability to the seat.

How long was the leader? Were you using a brass colored C-rig ? the fish may have been picking up the weight and not the bait, if that was happening I normally tie a drop shot hook just above the weight to catch those LOL.

It's the same process, only thing different is you need to take your time and not remove too much material at one time. Most all plates come with a sleeve welded into place, the receiver for the chair post, you will need a hole saw for the proper size, try to stay within a 1/16 of an inch of that, you want as tight a fit as possible, but not so tight that you have to drive the plate down, take your time cutting the hole, do not overheat the hole saw, drill and lift, drill and lift. Lay your plate on the surface, use a sharpie to mark the location by tracing around the plate, use the plunge router to remove the material from inside the mark, I usually take out the line too, it gives the plate a little room around the sides, do not remove all of the depth at once, take about a 1/16th inch layer at a time, make sure you are in an open area and have protective clothing on with a good dust mask or a good resperator, I have a shop vac that I turn on and keep the hose close to the working area, that helps a lot with the dust. Once the material has been removed and the test fit has been completed, I will mark the holes for the bolt pattern, then slowly drill the holes. If for some reason you go too fast and end up cracking the fiberglass, don't panic, drill a small hole at the end of the crack, this will keep the crack from extending any farther, then epoxy over the crack and the hole with some fiberglass resin.

CONGRATS !!! Really nice job, it's only the first of many, the jig is one of my favorite baits to fish as well !!! Thanx for the pics and the story !!!

Nice post !!! You bring up an interesting point, especially for those of us who don't have much time on the water. If I may ask a question, if you fish cover for three hours, do you throw everything you have at different locations with cover or on one piece of cover untill you get a bite?

Yep Good luck and be safe !!!

oops, I ment the main point, I did not clearify, sorry. The water depth there is around 6 feet and drops to about 11 feet pretty quickly, fish that whole area before you move to the other point where the boat is now.

No, I would begin with the bow of the boat pointing straight to the point, turn the boat 180 and about 20 to 40 yards out from the point. I start deeper than most maybe, but 40 yards out from the point lets me know if they are holding to deeper structure or are they moving up for the shallow evening bite as I work my way in to the point. It looks like a pretty good break on the right side of the island where the boat is now, that's why I suggested going to that side along with the flooded timber.

It very well could be thicker it depends on the supplier, most I have had or installed are not over 1/4 inches thick, if you have to go deeper you may want to think about a steel or plywood backing plate under the floor surface, I am not sure how thick your deck surface is, but you should be ok.

The boat would be bow toward the point, throwing a small spinner bait, covering the whole point first, then I would work my way parallel toward the outside of the shoreline, staying with the spinner, or small medum depth crank bait. As you pass over the timber I would switch to a deep diving crank or a jig, or even a larger spinner and bounce it off the flooded timber. The shoreline has a significant sharp drop, I would stay parallel 10 to 20 yards offshore and run a medium depth crank.

It depends on the season, spinner for active seasons, C-rig for colder slower seasons

If you wish to do that all you need to do is take a plunge router and mark the area that you want the seat to be, remove 1/16 of an inch of material from the area and the face of the plate will be flush with the surface of the deck, some plates are thicker than that so you may have to shave a little more. There are a lot of web sites you can use to get those parts.

I agree with the general consensus here as well, be ready, I also agree with stkbassn, I will not be anywhere near the water with a boat on holidays, although I do enjoy going to the docks and watching lol. I will help the ones that need help and are not too proud to accept the help, the ones that are too proud usually make it to u-tube anyway.

Like you, I often fish braid as well, I love the stuff !! You had a great day weather you know it or not, the knots you are using could be your problem, one would guess, as for the frog, it's difficult to say, but when fishing a frog, bass will hit the frog and stunn it then turn right back around and hit it if they did not engulf it first, it could be you did not wait long enough for the bass to fully have the bait, that is only speculation of course, but you have to wait until you feel the rod load before you set the hook. As far as getting wind knots in your lines, one thing that will help is to give the reel a touch more brake on breezy or windy days, if you are throwing a T-rig it can be difficult on such days when throwing lighter tackle, one other note when throwing lighter tackle on windy days, a low approach, a cast closer to the water surface will also help. Hope this helps. As for the tree...sorry can't offer any advise other than stay out of them, it rarely works out for the best lol.

No one here said it was a bad thing, junk fishing is another way of putting multiple patterns together in one outing when the single pattern can not be established. This type of fishing works well when the single pattern does not work, all I was saying, if you are referring to my opinions, junk fishing can work very well, but if you don't know or have trouble figuring out patterns, junk fishing will be difficult and expencive, not to mention a real let down to your ego, who here can say they enjoy spending a ton of money on fishing and not have any success. I will forever defend junk fishing, but it has it's own time and place, if you want to be a better junk fisherman then study your waters in detail, be a great structure fisherman and you will become a better junk fisherman.

If you choked the engine and there was no change at all, it's not the carbs, it sounds like it is down on cylinders, like a power pack has faulted. How mechanically inclined are you?

Glad to hear it !! Even though they look good does not mean they are good. Good luck and be safe !!!

My favorite jigs are produced by Strike King, the Bitsy jig with Rage Tail craw is one of my best jig's. My favorite spinner is the Hawg Caller, it's a willow leaf 3 blade, 3/8 oz. Both are often fished the same exact way.

Why do you guys always make us choose just one, these things are just like Lays potato chips... you can't have just one !!! Green Pumpkin for me then.