xbacksideslider

Just my experience, could be an anomoly, but I get far more smallies on Yamamoto Ikas.

Last week I caught a small striper, maybe 2.5 pounds, removed the lateral blood line from the filets, very good eating. Less than two hours from water to table.

Yes, water displacement is the best application for it. I had a 1960 Datsun back when and whenever I went through the slighest puddle the splash would hit the distributor and kill the ignition; kept a can of WD-40 in the trunk to get her going again. When it rained, I'd spray the cap and wires before I even tried to start that car.

If you ever immersed yourself in golf, then you can appreciate it. A great game. Not a team sport, do it by yourself, or don't. Very mental. When you get into the betting and handicapping aspects that go along with it, then it gets to another level of interest.

A few years ago, we caught catfish on chicken livers at a local SoCal golf course at night.

It's a "freeway lake" meaning lots of pressure. Actually there are two lakes, the upper and lower or "Lagoon;" which is better for LM. The upper has stripers. Drop shot and split shot finesse, jigs, spooks at first light.

To attempt to clarify, without getting "political," the distinction between public and private waters really isn't one of poor and rich, or open and closed, it's really a matter of knowledge and knowledge can be just as public or as private as any kind of property. Indeed, knowledge IS a form of property. Good anglers are rich. They have much more knowledge about how and where and when to fish. They earn it, they create it, they can buy it, they can get it here at bassresource.com, they can get it from books, and they can even inherit it from parents or friends. So, upon reading this thread, it seemed to me that this was the real point - knowledge - not whether private water fishing was a form of cheating. I mean, knowledge is why we visit, and why we value, this forum, right?

Isn't a "secret spot" where you always catch fish on a public lake similar to the easy catch of "private" waters? And if you keep your spot "secret" then it's "private," right? The best public waters anglers keep their methods secret; that's a form of private property too. Should they be forced to share their methods? There is a "tragedy of the commons" aspect to overpressured public waters, where fish stocks are depleted or overfished because the cost of entry is too low. You can pay more by buying the expertise and secrets of a private party guide, who sells/hires out his private property, his secrets, to harvest a "public" asset. Like hiring a guide, private lakes are a more costly way to get a better fishing experience - more and bigger fish.

A great read. If there's a theme, it is angler stealth. He often illustrates his points about angler and big bass behavior by the similarities of how big bass travel the low spots and how big bucks do the same, how the big bass angler has to be like the deer hunter stealthy and still. Quiet boat handling, minimal disturbance, precise positioning, long casts, perfect presentation of a carefully selected and assembled bait, painstakingly slow stiched retrieve. Bass boats are not the optimum platform for Murphy's methods for stalking the big ones.

Maybe they have a different sort of mind, binary, or go-no go, such that the big ones get that way simply by being wary, by having an easy "no go" impulse and a tough to trigger "go" impulse. Not thought just stimulus and response. Getting caught is traumatic, imprints deeply, increases frequency of future "no go" responses. On the other hand, predators have to be smarter than prey.

Ika, green w/ purple flake

I've done too much bank fishing, too much sight fishing; I know that, depending on where the sun is, wiley fish look for and can see what's going on above the surface of the water. Ever see a fish dive when a bird flies overhead? The fact that bait fish have white bellies is relevant too. Their silvery sides may also offer camoflage relative to the mirrory underside of the surface when viewed from some angles from below; this depends on the sun's position relative to the point of view of the predator fish and the location of the bait fish. Bait fish, and predator fish, play those angles. So, IMO, when the angles are right, a fish's eye can see and will be drawn to that motion, that stick waving around, in the air. Most predators' eyes evolved to detect and focus on movement.

It's all compromise. Light weight aluminum is good for fuel economy, towing fuel too, but not so good for stability when you're standing on the bow, even if you have lots of beam. A deep V will kind of cut through rough water sortof but it's still not heavy enough to really do it.

I had two of them break for no apparent reason, just casting.

I didn't say that. I didn't say anything about "the way we see." Search you tube - Bill Siemantel on "window paning" - how angles/perspective matters. Can't paste the youtube link, or I would.

Now THAT is funny On the other hand, did you ever point at a crow and watch him fly away in fear? Maybe there are some angles, some fish eye points of view, where they can see a long black rod flailing around against the sky, while the reflection off the underside of the surface, from their point of view, prevents them from seeing the boat or the angler. I mean, when you are under water, you can see the sky fairly well if you are looking straight up, but if you look off to the side, all you see is the underside of the surface, like a mirror.

I'd like to see some slow motion video of how different lines play out as they jump off of a spinning reel's spool. I wonder how hard and how often the line hits the rod and whether it stacks up in front of the first guide. When I "over throw" a limp rod with a spinning reel, I can hear the line wrapping/conflicting with the rod out in the last third because the rod is wiggling around and interfering with the line as it tries to make a straight shot out of the guides. I also wonder if a bait caster's spool, having been energized with inertia, sometimes spits out line faster than the guides can accept it, sometimes it seems like the line is stacking up somewhere. That is, in some backlashes, maybe it is not the spool that is going to fast but the rod that can't take what it is fed?

Yeah, Calico, and all the other kinds of kelp bass, are lots of fun and good eating too.

Have you tried drop shot? with small worm, say 3"

Good idea, I see no problem as flooring when it's placed against the hull and between the stringers. Also looks like a good product to restore flotation, say vertically, below the gunnels. Plywood, studs, fasteners, glue, and carpet are too heavy, and destabilize a small aluminum boat that may weigh less than the materials added, especially when they are placed well above the water line. I'm looking at .125" diamond tread plate over flotation to flatten my 14' Gregor's hull.

Good ideas there, thanks. The six pack cooler as battery box and base mount is a great one. Allows me to skip the "portables." I'll be visiting Radio Shack and Wal Mart too. I missed the X52, so still looking . . .

There's some good "light weight" ideas in the replies. Thanks. I really don't want to go the usual indoor/outdoor carpet on plywood floorboard route as it adds, what? 30 to 50 pounds? depending on thickness. I'll check out the silicone hot mats. I've got the trolling motor mounted on one side of the bow, and it has to "bridge" the gunnel rail anyway, so maybe a sandwich of soft wood pads glued to silicone mat itself glued to the hull just under the gunnel rail. I'll also look at spot glueing some of that anti-fatigue matting or the indoor outdoor carpet.

Just getting back into fishing and got a 14ft aluminum V-hull because it is lightweight and towable behind my small truck. A downside to the lightweight is the noise that the hull makes. For instance, the bow mounted trolling motor's vibration seems to be amplified by the hull. Any tips to quiet that down? Also, there's the typical noises that I generate by just being in the boat. While I can install floorboards, does anyone ever apply that sticky automotive sheet sound deadener to the inside of their hull? What other things might I do to make the boat more stealthy?

I thank you all for your comments, they are helpful to me as someone without any prior experience with fishfinders. There's a Lowrance X52 for sale locally (200 kHz transducer, 240x160, 4" on the diagonal, 800ft depth, 188 watts RMS) at $50 . . . . should I jump on it? Again, it will go into a bare bones tiller steered 14ft aluminum V hull with transom mount trolling motor.

To define shallow, as said, whenever I can't sight fish, I'd like to be able to look under docks and surface vegatation. I have zero experience with fish finders, having been a shoreline/sight fishman. I gather that a dual scan in one mode, can side look. Also, since my new to me boat is a 14 ft aluminum V hull, I imagine that I should be looking at the "portable" models?