cart7t

Agree 100% here. Besides the fact that most of the cover is along the banks, much of the forage is there too. Small frogs, crustaceans, insects, minnows, etc are along the banks. If you do find some isolated cover in deep water, it's likely to hold a good size bass in it. Most of all though, the biggest reason, IMO that bass behave differently in ponds vs. larger lakes and reservoirs is the lack of a large free roaming forage base like shad. Without a large, accessible food source like shad the bass are forced to hunt for whatever they can find. I think it completely changes the dynamics of fishing for them.

I'm going to the In-laws Christmas party tonight, I'm sure that recipe will be attempted by the whole crew. ;D

Hmm I used to run from Udahl boat dock on Norfolk lake in Arkansas to the dam and back, approximately 60 miles on 18 gallons of gas. I was on fumes when I got back. That was running a pretty steady 3300-3400 RPM's the whole way. If I tried to run at WOT, around 5600 RPM's I could probably get to the dam (30 miles) but would have to gas up. Maximum fuel milage is usually seen in the 3000 rpm band not WOT like you were running, then the motor becomes a huge gas sucker. As for your motor, you're expending about 2 gallons per mile at WOT. I've seen some etec numbers that show them getting around 3 gallons per mile at WOT. Check with you dealer on your numbers, you may or may not be off.

While the 4600 series is a great reel, it's not easy to palm, it's a narrow version of the larger 5500/5600 series reel. If you mean you're looking for a low profile reel and aren't interested in the Revo's then I say go with a Torno 3004.

I've never used cabela's pro line, only BPS excell. I've had mixed results. The spool I have left I use for backing.

Give me a jet drive boat with a decent HP motor and I could put a house fire out with it. ;D

The flywheel is attached to the crankshaft. If it's turning so is the crank.

Why would this affect your bass club? I can't imagine anyone fishing in a BASS sponsored event in anything under 17' in length.

Some guys pull the water pump gauge sender line loose and drain the water from it. I've never had an issue with it.

Just a quick question before suggesting that you take it back. In between the time it was working and then not working, did you pull up the TM and if you did, is it possible the transducer cable got pinched or cut?

Here's what you here alot from the Loomis owners: "The rod broke setting the hook on a fish but I got a new one in less than a week when I got home." ...............and over and over. Ultra sensitivity doens't mean much if the rod has no guts to put the metal to the mouth. So, in this scenario, you buy a few Loomis rods with Chronarch's on them. (Would you put a 4 cylinder in a Mustang GT?) You've got about 3 rigs total because that's all you can afford at over $500 per combo. On day 1 of your 3 day fishing trip, you set the hook with your uber sensitive, Loomis, Med/Hvy worm rod and KAPOW!! Your premium, ultra sensitive worm rod snaps and is now useless for the rest of the trip. Likely, you'll reach for your 1/3 the cost backup and spend the rest of the trip catching fish like always. (unless of course you had to sell the backups to pay for the Loomis/Chronarch combos) Then you'll come home, ship off uber rod, get a new one in less than a week and then come here and brag about how great Loomis's warranty is. Everyone will then relate how their Loomis rods also broke when setting the hook on a fish but how fast and wonderfull the Loomis people are in exchanging them. ;D

I've got Bass Pro Shops catalogs spanning back to 1984. If you decide on a year I can look it up in the catalog.

A few. Old Ditto Gatortail worms. Zoom is making a close replica called the G tail though. Rebel Super R. I've caught some big bass on these. Norman jerk baits. They only made them a year or so. All of them in their sunshine gelcoat finish. Pre-Rapala Storm Wiggle Warts. The Rapala "original" Wiggle Warts just don't cut the mustard. Buzzin Rex spoon. I've finally found out Rex is still in business and making the spoon.

Biggest actually brought into the boat was on a Vintage Storm Wiggle wart SV-SP-53 color, it was a little over 8lbs. The biggest fish I ever had on would've pushed 9-10lbs easy and that was on a chartreuse Rat-L-Trap.

I've seen the CX reels on sale at Walmart for that price.

Over the years Zara Spooks have had a slight swayback in them built in. In the late 70's they used to have some lead tail weight in them which we used to drill out and then epoxy over the hole in order to get the spooks being produced during that time to walk properly.

Usually, I just loosen the bow strap, back the boat in till it's about to float, walk out on the trailer, unhitch the strap and then push the boat off while climbing in. I DON'T do this if the water is extremely cold. My other method is to tie off some long line to a cleat, keep the end of the rope inside the window of the truck, back in till the boat floats and then just hold onto the line and pull the boat to a sandy bank or to the courtesy dock.

Interesting you bring this up. I've had a couple incidents involving duck hunters that made me wonder what the laws are. The first was many years ago at Kinkaid lake in Illinois in the fall. We launched in pea soup fog, idled across the lake (I think, I had no idea where I was going) and wound up idling right into some duck hunters layout. We couldn't even see the blind or shore when we went into the decoy setup but the next thing I hear is a shotgun going off twice! I quickly turned the boat around and moved elsewhere. The other time was at Little Dixie lake just east of Columbia. I showed up at the lake in the middle of the week thinking I'd have the whole lake to myself when lo and behold there's duck hunters on several spots. The guys on the lower end of the lake didn't seem to happy to see me and pulled there decoys and left. I didn't even bother to fish the upper end of the lake, which is where I really wanted to fish because of all the decoys I could see in the water. I'm not sure what the laws are on this. It would seem it would be better off to close of a lake for certain time periods for waterfowl hunting for not only safety reasons but so the hunters have the best possible chance of getting some birds.

I just looked over the list and it looks like I would've qualified for a few more, White Crappie, Smallmouth, bluegill and I was really close on the drum.

I've caught master angler sized fish for Missouri in both the LM Bass category (several times) and the White bass category. One of these days I oughta do what's necessary to get one of those certificates.

As W3S said, in it's day, Terry was one of the Premier builders right up there with Ranger. In fact, I'd have prefered a Terry over a Ranger, their layout was more fishermen friendly. Terry began building the old bathtub style, narrow hull bassboats, then they moved to the sponsoned Vhulls, those were their best boats. Finally, when the true Vhull came into vogue in the early 80's they followed. Somewhere in the early 80's they dropped out of fiberglass production and only produced an aluminum hull then they disappeared for good. As stated, anything that old is VERY prone to wood rot and I'm talking just about everything from the transom to all the stringers. If you could find one that's been garaged all these years it would be quite a find. Terry's models that were most in demand used metric numbers as models, ie: 4.7, 5.3 and 6.2. I fished out of a couple in my day and they were a very well built boat. Taking into account the money you're spending though, you'll easily be dropping another grand or more into any boat of that age just to get it into a reliable, safe condition. And that's not including the cosmetics which could run it up even more.

Lowrance vs. Humminbird MinnKota vs. Motorguide Mercury vs. Yamaha Bassboat A vs. Bassboat B. You're talking about the two biggest brands in the industry. So many people own so many of each that you'll get dozens of different opinions, each touting what they bought and why it's better. Both make quality LCD graphs. I'd suggest waiting till your local boat show and looking at them in person there. They usually have working displays and reps you can talk to. Most of these graphs anymore are pretty user friendly and are competitive with one another in each price range. This isn't that hard of a decision.

They're basically sheet metal roofs supported with aluminum or galvanized steel support braces. In the case of these larger marina's, the roof height has to be radically higher so these monsterous boats, essentially designed to run on bigger waters than this lake, can get underneath them. As the roof height goes up, the pole height does as well. But that's not the whole equation. As the ice and snow begins building, the weight starts settling the dock further into the water. the open end of the docks have a distinct disadvantage to the side of the dock with the gangway that attach each slip so the open ends start settling further into the water faster because of less flotation on that end. Now the load gets shifted more to the support posts on the outside and they start bending until the roof comes down on top of the boats. The other failures are usually pure roof collapse due to the weight. They can't increase the size of the support structure without increasing the overall amount of weight the flotation devices have to carry. Add to this that a lot of these fancy pants marinas like to use concrete decking instead of wood or composites for esthetics and overall maintenance and you just can't add anything overhead that would increase the weight. There were quite a few marina's on the Mississippi just north of St. Louis that suffered the same kind of damage that didn't recieve anywhere near the amount of ice and snow that got at LOZ. BTW, those pictures are just a tiny number of all the large boats that are berthed at LOZ. When those puppies get out on a summer weekend afternoon you can easily see why that lake is one of the most dangerous places in the country to run a boat on. Too bad the fishing is so d**n good there.

Click on that first link, the Lodge of the Four seasons one. Not to get off topic but that point in the immediate background is a killer in the spring for jerkbaiting. So is the one in the background behind that one. Those links don't even include all the private docks that have come down either. Apparently the water patrol has closed the lake to boat traffic as many of the docks are barely standing and any wave action at all would bring them down. I seem to recall this happening several times in years past.

It was no joke. It appears Gameover is over and done.