NBR

Most of my gear is fairly old so I must use the old ways. I put the line spool flat on the floor with the label up. Line through the guides and on the reel with an arbor knot. Take a half dozen cranks or so and check for twist. No twist, fill to about 1/8 from the reel spools edge, farther away from the edge is better than closer. After the first cranks if there is twist turn the linie spool over. Never crank against a slipping drag. I find that hard to do so I set my drag heavy and back reel.

I just finished some repair on my MinnKota. I think you will need to take the top cover off and see what drives the arrow. On the MK it snaps into place and is driven by a gear. The snap oin spot is at one location only so you must have things lined up before you snap it in place. I found MK service very helpful in getting my motor repaired.

I usually have a flyrod in the rod box and a dew dry flies and emergers. Great fun when the bass are feeding on flies.

I don't understand the 20 or 15 count. When I cast a Senko or any thing else that I want to reach the bottom I wait until it has stopped sinking. At that point I'll tighten up the slack a bit so I can feel a tap and/or see the line twitch. With Senkos and most soft plastics I don't pop the rod tip very often. I just move the bait very little after a pretty long pause. I pretty often just drag the bait along. If it's real rocky you might get hung up but this tells you about the bottom and you can correct your presentation.

With all due respect I disagree with the oil on the level wind gears. All modern reels I know of disengage the level wind during the cast so a grease will not impede distance. Grease is a better load supporting lubricant and should be used sparingly on all the gears. If there is published information on using oil on the level wind gears I'd love to know about it?

Just guessing that you would fish the Ohio River, Patoka, the reservoir at Bloomington, Kentucky Lake or some of the other impoundments in KY, TN, IL or IN. I'd go with the bass boat type. More stable when you are standing up and in my opinion a better fishing platform as well as good speed on the larger impoundments and not as apt to be blown around while fishing. I have had both aluminum and fiberglass but my last two have been fiberglass and my next boat will be fiberglass. I've fished lakes Huron, St Clair and Michigan as well as several larger southern impoundments and some large (think Lake of the Woods, Rainy, etc.) and small northern and Canadian lakes. If I was going to predominately fish canadian shield lakes and wanted to beach the boat often then I'd go with the Lund. But for most other places I like the fiberglass.

Grease the gearing, oil the bearings. Less is always better. Not more than 2 drops on the bearings after cleaning them. I like yellow rocket fuel on the bearings. Any reel grease suits me.

When you clean your connections be sure to completely clean the fuse holder and fuse end. Scrap them pretty hard. I went through a similar thing years ago and the cause was the fusr holder ends being a bit contaminated.

Swimming Grubs on a 1/8 jig, suspending jerk baits on the north side of the lake. If they haven't moved up at all then a jigging spoon or a silver buddy.

What Raul said + go to lighter line or fluorocarbon, make long casts. I often take a 5" Senko and cut an inch or more off. I say cut because I find that pinching off the end makes a fragile lure even more fragile.

We need to know more about where you fish. Location, type of water, water clarity, water temperature if you know? It would be helpful to know the type of forage in your body of water and where on the water body you have been fishing and how?

I wear glasses from as soon as I wake up in the morning until I go to sleep at night. I have an amber pair of Cocoons and a grey pair of Fit Overs. Both are great but the Fit Overs are a bit more comfortable. Both have side shields. I used clip ons for a long time but I wouldn't go back to them at any price.

Welcome Travis. It sounds to me like we have a coming pro in our midst. What is your home lake in NH?

I have had some irratic reading with mine from very soft bottoms. For a fiberglass boat I would put the transducer inside shooting through the hull. Mine has been there for well over 10 years and still going strong. Good results up to 50mph and highr if the lake is not too deep. I lose signal at 50 and over 150' deep.

Two 12v batteries wired in parallel give you 12v with longer run time. You don't need a switch. Change the wireing to series and you get 24v. Series does reduce the time but you should have enough power for a full days fishing.

I think that is a pretty good line up. Without success I might add a CRig. With a soft something or even a hard bait like an original Rapala.

I have aged into the "Geezer" class and I'd bet it has been 60 years since I have used a snap swivel and it will be at least that long before I buy another. The "Palomar" knot has worked well for me with flourocarbon but you surely need to wet it good before you cinch it up. I do use a cross lock snap from time to time when I am too lazy to tie a loop knot.

First, I don't understand the reviews panning on-board chargers. Although I don't search often I rarely see a negative review. I have a Dual Pro 3 bank that is closer to 20 years old than 15 and it has served me well. I plug it in about every month in the winter and in less than an hour it has topped the batteries off.

Please excuse jumping this thread. R520dvx where did you read the threads re not inflating or quickly deflating? Getting older I find I am getting a bit staggery and I'm considering using an automatic self-inflating. I find standard PFD's way to hot in the summer. I want to look into the failure to perform quewstion a bit more.

If you mean the line guide doesn't follow the line when the spool is disengaged, that is the way they work!

Whwen gears are messed there is a bit of clearance between the root of one gear and the bottom of the other. There is also a bit of side clearance between the gear tooth and the mating side. More grease than the cumulative space available just squeezes out. I put a layer over the tip openings of the larger gear and let pinion push the grease into the gear. This eliminates having a lot of excess grease inside the reel to be cleaned out the next year. I am not a reel repair guy but I did spend some years designing gears.

Before I bought a TM with a built in transducer I just clamped the transducer to the TM with a hose clamp.

I had a similar problem a few years ago and it turned out the batteries were kaput.

The scissor jack that came with my van works just fine for my 19' Astro. I do put a piece of plywood in just to be sure I will have a fairly resonably flat spot.

I fish jigs down to 1/8 ounce with a BPS ultra light reel and a 6'6" rod in M L and 10# line. The rod will be at least as important as the reel.