cart7t

agree with 5BL too. If you're familiar at all with these lakes I'd definitely have a list of areas of interest. Spots that while you may never have caught fish on, are areas that would have a higher likelihood of holding bass. Points with cover, changes in shoreline composition (ie:rock to mud or gravel to rock) Indentations or points in weedlines, isolated weed patches in the lake, wood cover in areas that don't have much wood cover, boat docks, boat ramps, rip rap areas. put the TM on high and start concentrating on those areas but keep your baits and yourself moving until you find some fish. You're basically slop fishing.

hitchhikers at BPS http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SearchResults?hvarSearchString=hitchhikers&searchOption=products&x=13&y=16&storeId=10151&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&CMID=TOP_SEARCH_GO

A brand you might want to keep an eye out for is Cajun. They built the first Fish and Ski boat back in the mid-late 70's and became the king of that type of bass boat style. They came up with some rather inventive spins on the fish and ski with some interesting layouts. They were put out of business when Genmar bought them out around 8 years or so ago but they built a very solid, reliable boat.

Brian, PM sent.

This is only a good thing if she knows there's a BPS in that mall.

You'll note on the TM end of the wire that I had those fittings installed. I had the same installed on the ends coming from the battery. That was installed on that aluminum boat I sold recently and I hard wired the TM in. No TM plug. In fact, I haven't used a TM plug in some time. I've hard wired my TM foot pedals and have never had an issue. Your 8 gauge wire should be OK for the run to the TM though 6 is always preferable. I used 8 on the aluminum boat though my distance running from the battery to the pedal was fairly short.

I would say this is excellent advice.

Fish and ski's are something of a compromise when running rougher water. With the driver passenger seating pushed forward like it is, you've distributed (230lbs for you, 200lbs for a buddy?) approx 430 lbs forward. Bow lift becomes an issue and if you can't keep the nose up easily you're going to be in for a bouncy ride. They make great ski/tube boats though. The nose stays low on takeoff and the driver position allows for better visibilty. For fishing? Those smaller Fish and ski's suck. They really lack any sort of storage and front and back deck areas are like fishing off of postage stamps. When it comes to a fish and ski, I always suggest going as big as possible. 19 1/2 feet minimum.

do you spool the backing and then tape it off and then spool your main line or do you connect your line to the backing with some type of knot?? thanks. I spool the backing and then use a blood knot http://www.animatedknots.com/bloodknot/index.php?LogoImage=LogoGrog.jpg&Website=www.animatedknots.com to join them together. A fairly easy knot to tie and I've used it successfully for many years. It works on any type of line union, mono to Braid, mono - mono, mono - flouro. Walmart sells cheap Shakespeare mono large spools for about $2 - 3 a spool. It makes great backing line.

If money is no object, you can fill a spool completely up 2-3 times a year and never use backing. If you're like many of us who try and save money as much as possible along with wanting to change and put fresh line on our rigs several times a year, you merely spool about 1/4 to 1/3 of the spool with any junk line and then fill the rest with your premium mono, flouro or braid. Since you're only using the top 1/2 of the line on most reels anyway it's something of wasted money to put high $$ line down directly on the spool.

So I'm better off to purchase a non-resident Ala. license rather than a Tenn. if I'm wanting to fish all portions of the lake? I'm curious if you can answer this. I see a couple ramps in yellow creek that are about 10-15 miles from the lodge in Mississippi. If I launch there I can legally fish with an Alabama non-resident lic?

Interesting brake modification on that Japanese enhanced Revo. The Patriarch uses the same style mag brake that Garcia has used previously for years. Open magnets mounted on a circular holder. When the control is turn the holder turns, which is mounted on a cam assembly and moves the brakes closer to or farther away from the spool end. The linear mag has the brakes enclosed in plastic with a metal plate that moves exposing more of less of the plastic encased magnets. I suppose it breaks the magnetic field in some way. That version seems to have 2 or 3 magnets exposed all the time. I wonder if they actually moved or are fixed.

Nice fish. Just my opinion, if she ever wants to try one of your more expensive lures let her. Don't make a big deal of it. If she would lose it, console her (she'll be upset about the cost of the lure and losing it) but don't make her feel guilty at all about the cost of said lure. Shrug it off as no big deal. She'll be even more impressed and putty in your hands.

Nothing over 14-15" for me. Anything else gets lipped. UNLESS it's got a face full of trebles due to being caught on something like a Rogue. Then I'll try and grab the lure, flip it into the boat and on the floor or belly ****** the fish. I had an incident with a rogue hooked fish and I was thankful I had a partner that day to unhook me from the situation I was in.

IIRC, running WOT at night down south somewhere. Boat struck something and ejected the guy you see in the photo. The rest I'll leave to imagination.

fixed it for ya. No that's your opinion which doesn't change the fact more & larger bass are caught Flipping/Pitching matted grass than any top water technique period. But you're the one making the statement as fact when it's completely dependant on what type of grass and where you're at geographically in the country. I can tell you in my area that that statement isn't true. In fact, I would inform most anglers fishing grass to look for openings in matted grass or fish the outside edges. Furthermore, I would also suggest fishing a topwater type lure in order to buy a strike to reveal the location of fish within matted areas and follow up with something to penetrate the grass once it's location is found. To actually flip/pitch an entire matted grass bed looking for individual fish is quite time consuming.

The 2 most noticeable changes would probably be a whole lot more bass anglers on the water vs back then and the experience level of those anglers is higher. It makes catching fish a little bit tougher.

I've gotten some shimano, non-SW equipment from guys before that were used only occasionally for bay fishing for Reds and the reels were nearly ruined inside. At 100 trips you need to be investing in quality, SW use gear.

Yep, those work great!

Those used to be sold on the shelves at Walmart when Renosky owned the rights to that bungee cord deal. I guess I should've bought some then. IIRC, they used to sell it in a kit.

One of my wifes old bosses had a place down at Lake of the Ozarks. They decided to take an afternoon trip in their 26ft cruiser one day and barely got out away from the boat dock when the engine died. Wave action started pushing them towards shore. There was a huge concrete piling on shore that used to be a support for a dock gangway. She (one of the wifes old bosses) moved to the back of the boat in order to keep the boat from banging into it. She lost her footing and fell off the boat and onto the piling, which had a piece of Re-bar sticking out of it and impaled her thigh on it!! Ouch Fortunately for her she the rusty metal only penetrated fatty tissue and didn't hit anything vital. I remember that piling picture, it was gruesome.

I was running my 24v MK TM down the lake on high for an extended period when smoke started pouring out of the head unit. I had to turn the speed down to 4. The shaft had been removed prior to my buying the motor for a rebuild and the guy that redid the connectors didn't do a good job with the new splices. The splice connectors were actually melting! As W2S said, those TM's at high speed really pull some current. If you've got undersized wiring or a bad connection anywhere in the entire TM circuit you've got the potential for overheating and possibly a fire.

Get rid of that padded lounge seat and start from scratch. You'll be able to cut under that front deck if you wanted to add a insert style TM pedal holder, you will run into a lot of foam though. Lots of potential there. Here's a shot of my Champion, it too had lounge seats in front of both consoles. Those loungers actually cause the overall depth of the storage areas they cover to be shallower in order for the top of the seats to be flush with other deck areas. Before shot with all old lids off and front deck carpet stripped: After

This is what I love about Icast....gonna get a tidal wave of used patriarchs, revos, and any other redesign... which is funny because this reel won't work any different than the other, just weigh less even though 8oz for the old reel is pretty light to begin with.

fixed it for ya.