moguy1973

No regs on the Meramec, it's just shallow like most Ozark rivers and props don't do shallow well. In fact, the Meramec is so low right now there's several places near my house I can walk across and it wouldn't be above my waist. I've walked my kayak up the middle of the river before when it's been too shallow to paddle it. A jet boat would go through that kind of depth on plane with no problems.

For the Meramec anywhere above Fenton you'll want to have a jet on any boat you get. It gets pretty shallow and a prop won't do well with the rocky bottom. But starting with a jet boat for your first boat, especially on a river, would have a pretty steep learning curve as they handle a lot different than a prop boat, and you'll need to learn how current affects the way the boat has to move through the water. St. Louis is a rather tough place to have a boat unless it's a river jet though since there really aren't many good lakes anywhere close by where you can go. There's a few over in Illinois like Carlyle and Kincaid, but Carlyle is very limited fishing wise and when the wind picks up you definitely don't want to be out in a tin boat as it can get really large waves real quick. Kincaid is a great fishing lake but in the summer it can get like a mini-Lake of the Ozarks with the pleasure boat crowd. Illinois has a number of really close lakes that have excellent fishing but they are all pretty much HP limited to 25-30hp, which is probably why they have good fishing. I have a 2008 17.5' bass tracker with a 60hp prop on it, it does fine on Lake of the Ozarks and the bigger lakes in Missouri as long as I get back in before the big boats come out or it's during the weekdays. I've been out too late in the day before though and it's not a fun time once the waves get going. I have been looking for a river jet boat recently though, as I just don't like the long drives to get to lakes that are relatively close, and I have the Meramec 5 minutes from my house that has wonderful small mouth fishing in it. My Tracker is my first boat, and it's a great first boat to get to learn how a boat works. If there were more lakes closer to St Louis I'd have a 18-20' fiberglass boat though, just because they handle the waves and wind better. As said above, a flat front jet boat for the river won't handle larger lakes well at all, and they do make semi-v river jet boats that do both lakes and rivers, but don't do either well. If you want a Jet boat, they are for sale all the time on private jet boat groups on Facebook.

This is what you want to do. The negative wire from the TM you have going to the other side of the breaker needs to go directly to the negative post of the battery. You'll need another 50A breaker and another short piece of positive wire, and hook the yakpower positive like you have the TM positive hooked up.

360 degree Livescope

I'm slowly transitioning to everything straight braid. Once my P-Line Premium CX is done on my rods it is on I'm putting Power Pro Super Slick on everything. It's such a good braided line that is easy to manage. I haven't seen a decrease in the number of fish I catch since I started using straight braid, even in the clearest of lakes and rivers. The way I look at it, if a bass is going to eat an Alabama rig with all those thick wires on it, they won't care about a visible line attached to a bait.

I can't back my boat in using the backup camera. Can't see around the boat when it's on the trailer enough to know what way it's turning. Only use the mirrors..

I have a 24v trolling motor and I only have it hooked up to my two trolling motor batteries. Everything else on the boat is hooked up to the starting battery.

The cranking battery needs to be replaced if it's only 11.69 charged. If your trolling motor is 12v you just need what you have. People use 2 batteries for their trolling motors if they have a 24v motor, or they want to run their 12v longer, and they run them in parallel in that case.

One medium spinning rig when I'm wading. Then I use clips for quick change of lures/baits.

I use Goody rubber hair bands, I can get 100 of them for a couple bucks at Walmart. Double them over to make an X and put the hook through the X so it's perpendicular to the worm. Better hook ups as said above when you use 2 O rings.

I use the same VMC weighted swimbait hooks as shown above although with a Zoom horny toad I use a 4/0 hook. Since going to straight braid and a 7:1 reel my hookups have been a lot better. No stretch with the braid and the faster reel helps the the slack out for a proper hook set. The weighted hook also ensures the hook point is facing upwards so 95% of the time it’s planted firmly in the hard part of the roof of their mouth and they aren’t getting off.

I wouldn’t change anything you are already doing. 14’ really isn’t that deep. If you need to change anything size up your crank baits to ones that go a little deeper or slow down your presentations of sinking baits to get them deeper. If bass are hungry and the water isn’t super muddy they’ll come up several feet to eat if they see it, esp with noisy top water baits. To me deep fishing is 30’ or deeper.

The only tubes I ever use are Bass Pro 4" magnum flipping tubes. I either use a head with a wire weed guard or I stupid rig them with Blue Rock Custom Tackle stupid jig head.

I'll tell you right now that head is WAY WAY WAY too heavy for what presentations the Ned Rig was originally fished.

Tail down always. It won't have the right action if it's the same way as the hook. Same with curly tail jigs. The curl goes on the side opposite of the hook.

I just bought a MK330PC for my boat. Right now it has a ProMariner ProMar1 10 2 bank, but I needed a 3 bank as the battery tender I had for my starting battery wasn't cutting it after I upgraded to a 24v trolling motor and was using the 2 bank for those batteries. We'll see how it works when I install it next weekend. I looked at the ProMariner ProSport 20+ but it's too long (16") to fit in the space I need it to fit. The MK330PC will fit perfectly where I need it.

I only wear inflatables when I'm fishing out of my boat. As said, it's almost if I'm not wearing one and I forget I have it on sometimes. I do have two standard ski vests in my boat under the seats if I need them. Sometimes when it's hot it's nice to jump in the lake and cool off I throw one of those on. Can't do that with an inflatable When I'm on my kayak though I have a high back foam filled kayak vest. Wouldn't want to take a spill out of my kayak and not have a back up if I was to be wearing an inflatable.

Nice smallmouth from Table Rock today

Hate to say it but it's not a cheap hobby. Molds, plastisol, dyes, flake, microwave. It's all not cheap. By the time you even break even you could have bought several dozen bags of mass produced baits. And that's if you only fish one kind of bait. You'll need a different mold for every type of bait you fish. $$$. Here's a video of what you need to get started though (this guy makes a lot of baits):

What hooks rigging are you using? I don't think I've ever had a bass swallow a Senko when it's been Texas rigged or wacky rigged using any hook.

I use Goody rubber hair bands from Walmart for my wacky rigs. One of the bands can be doubled over and will make an X where you can put the hook perpendicular to the Worm for better hookups. You can get a pack of bands for around $2 for 100 or so.

Tube or Fluke

This is what I've been having. One of my favorite IPAs. So easy drinking while still having great flavor of an IPA.

Original bags, and then put in big gallon sized ziploc bags sorted by type (worms, craws, tubes, toads, etc.). I also have a kayak bag with some of everything I typically use when I'm on the river in my kayak so I can quickly grab that bag and throw it in my milk crate in the back.

4.27lb pond bass today.