gulfcaptain

It's not a bad idea to buy new if you understand what you're buying. So say you wanted a Z series Ranger, $72,000 with all the goodies, you could buy a 2 year old boat with the same goodies for $35,000. The boat your interested in isn't going to loose that much value. And used boats have one thing new boats don't, a low price. No dealer wants to sit on a used boat. It's in the way, it needs to go. So they are more apt to give you a better deal on the price because they want to move it. A new boat, well it's new. You don't really have the ability to haggle over the price. It is what it is when it comes new to the dealer. And yes you can upgrade....$$$$. If you can get a great deal on it the way you want it and knock that boat out in say a couple years go for it. But most look at boats as an expensive toy. I'm going to put my head down and hopefully have mine paid off in the next 2 years that I bought in December. But it's a used boat and if I needed to unload it, I could unload it with a minimal loss if any. Just do your homework and make sure you have the boat you want for a while and not the one you want right now.

Remember, a hollow or soft body frog doesn't always represent a frog. I fish clear frogs with silver metal flake and one of my top producing colors as well as several Bronzeye Shad colors that are somewhat transparent. Even fish a clear frog. Like I said, and as Raul put it, you can open water fish a frog. If they are eating shad and feeding up before spawn, or you get a nice warm week, those fish may move up and be shallow and smash a frog. Just got to try and see how they react.

I fished the Cal. Delta last spring during the spawn, they eat it. They wlll eat it prespawn as well. Just not fished very often, but it works. They really don't like it floating above the bed and twitched every now and then.

You can possilby get a frog or topwater bite when the water temps hit 60 and above. Just depends on the fish and what they want.

NEVER TURN LEFT!!! In a crossing situation the boat to your right almost always has the right away and is a stand on vessel and the other is the give way vessel. Always try and meet port to port in nautical terms or for those who don't know keep the other boat on your left.. These kind of stories are why EVERYONE should take a boating class and know the RULES OF THE ROAD!!! Or even if you don't know what the other boat is going to do, slow down and wait and see, or stop. Very sad.

I eat a big dinner, then have a pack of donunts and a Low Carb Monster with plenty of water through the day. No need to eat, need to get rid of them calories from the dinner before. We can live for 8 hrs without eating, staying hydrated is much more important. But if you must eat I like the cold pizza idea.

Welcome to our economic disaster. Higher wages and health care equals higher prices for EVERYTHING. Get used to it, cause it isn't going away and going to get worse.

Then I would use an epoxy stick, fill the holes, sand smooth, use screws and 4200 to mount the new plate and use a bit of the 4200 over where the old holes were where the plate is going. Screw in and wipe any excess 4200 off with a bit of paint thinner and let dry for a day and you'll be good to go.

I wouldn't put sillycone in any of the screw holes. If you're screwing it in, get some 3M 4200 marine adhesive. NOT 5200!!! The 4200 has the same qualities as 5200 except when you want to take the screws out you don't have to grind out the screws. As for filling the old holes, it looks like an aluminum boat, so I would find a Epoxy Stick that hardens like JB Weld, fill the hole, sand flat and you can put a bit of expoxy resin if you like or put the old scews back in with the 4200 to seal them up.

Either way above or you can use the dummy heads by Picasso which I use often being from California as well. Seems to help balance the rig a little better when the heads are all about the same weight.

They aren't bad reels. Bought one a few years ago and it's held up okay. Depends on what your price for two is and the condition.

All the years I've spent fishing and working my way up the ladder from the deck to the wheehouse on charter boats, I've recieved a few items. Why, because they wanted honest feedback about a product and wanted their equipment where it would be used and if any weak links were found they could address the issue, not to mention having their products in the hands of people who fished for a living is a great way to get it out there. Now, I never asked for someone to give me free stuff or sponsor me, but when they ask of course I'll try it, but thats the difference, your actions must speak to someone willing to put their product in your hands and help either give feedback and offer suggestions on their product that they may not have thought of and then showcase their product in a positive light when asked about it from other anglers. I try and teach my oldest son who is 11 right now NOTHING IS FREE. Everything must be earned. Let your actions do the speak for you, visit some bigger tournaments, and make contact with people in the industry. Then when that time comes they will let you know they are interested in you.

I have thrown this on 3 different rods, all with 1/8oz heads and dummies with 3-4" swing impacts. First rod I used, 2012 Bionic Blade 7'6"MH. Worked great, but found the hooks I liked (kietech round jig heads) would pull because of too much stiffness in the rod. So I decided to buy a 2013 7'6" BPS Crankin Stick MH. This rod was the bomb. I could cast the baits and the rod loaded great, no pulled hooks. Then decided I'd try a 7'9" 13 Green OM. which I still use for this as well as using the Crankin Stick. So I wouldn't worry too much with what you're looking at. The Bionic Blade worked great, but like I said the light wire hooks I like which are strong but if needed I can pull and straighten if hung up would just pull too easy. It was a great rod to fish the rig on the yo-yo retrieve off the bottom and would have plenty of power to hit the fish when they smacked the rig on the fall.

Look into the Rago Mini BV 3D Pro either in the line thru option or top hook. It's a 6" bait, but you shouldn't have any issues fishing it out of a kayak.

Get yourself a map of the lake, then you can look at areas that you want to fish a lot quicker and make notes. Once you find fish on one type of cover or structure, go see if you can catch fish off of something similar. Try and find shallow and deep fish. The more options you have the better. And being you're in TN, if it's a generating lake (pull water to produce electricity) this may change everything as they may be current driven which means you will need to find fish that will bite if they aren't pulling water as well.

Forgot to mention lipless cranks. The frog and topwater of course are seasonal. Clear Lake, Lipless, squarebill, jig, swimbaits (6" hitch colored), and look into fishing the dock floats that are black when the water is a bit cooler on sunny days. Jinka rig and a creature bait work pretty good as well.

My rod of choice isn't available anymore. It's the Quantum Tour Tactical "Hack Attack" rod. 7'11"MH (could be classed as a heavy really) Moderate action. I prefer the moderate action in close combat fishing as it has the power to pull big fish out of cover but also has give to keep them from ripping off in close tight fishing situations such as flipping and pitching. The next closest factory rod like this would be the IROD Gen II "Tush punch rod".

These things are the bomb!!! Also fish the Poppin Phat Frog as well. Both walk easy, almost impossible to sink, and get bit. Also if needed I throw the Snag Proof Bobby's Frog, it's a little smaller but same design concept. Only other frog I have a bunch of is the Spro Bronzeye Shad. Just a differnt look and I like the baitfish colors. And if needed, I also carry a couple (although hard to find now) Deps Slither Frog. The most expensive frog I have at almost $20 a pop, but the hookup ratio on that frog is about 90% and they crush it.

I found that Siebert Outdoors, one of the sponsors on here has great prices on Tungsten. Check out his website I think we get a discount as being a member on here. That was the last place I purchased my weights and that was a couple years ago. His price was so good I stocked up and haven't needed much since, but may have to make another order right before summer.

Does anyone remember when oil was $154 a barrel? What were we paying, in CA I believe $4.75. Now when oil was $75 (a good price per barrel) oil and fracking companies liked it because they made a small profit off of the investment they were putting in. I wouldn't frack if it cost me $60 a barrel to produce and I sold it for this morinings price of $27. Why put out that investment if I'm not going to get a return. Anyways back to the above prices. So if oil dropped 50% in ppb, then I should have been paying $2.37 a gallon on gas @ $75. But yet we are now paying $2.59 in CA. Why? Because we got used to paying higher prices. So with that math, as consumers we just pay and don't think about the cost, or state and gov. taxes either went up, or us as consumers didn't feel to ask why the difference in price as the gov. wants "clean" energy which is 2x the cost of what "oil" and related products cost. Right now, the whole economy is CRAP. It's sugar coated and everyone wants us to believe its rainbows and lollypops. Everyone is great. Why then are people compaining that they have no money? Why are they asking for higher min. wage? What drives this? A really crappy economy that isn't rainbows and lollypops. I have no problem with oil being $75 a barrel and the cost of fuel being the right percentage of what it should be and a little more if the average went to say $2.75 pg. But why were we paying so much more if we looked back at the price difference between $154 pb and then $75 pb? The math doesn't add up because it's either an inflated cost for us or an extra tax that none of us realized. Now here is that bad part fracking wells does bring extra production online, but if it's not continued the production doesn't continue. So do you let the well shut down which then reduces the amount of oil we produce or do you go broke and continue producing at a loss? Easy, you let it dry up which then reduces our production levels here in the US, and causes us to import more oil which then leads to higher gas and energy prices. So there is a happy medium, but it's not one that is ever going to be easy to find agreements on from ones who want clean energy and the oil companies. Bet a lot of people don't realize that those electric cars take more "fuel" to run then a standard economy gas burning car does. We use natural gas and coal to produce electricity which we must use to charge that car so the carbon footprint is a little bigger then that car that gets 30-40mpg. But you aren't going to hear that issue ever.

Thank you, this rod is NOT PARABOLIC. If you have fished or picked up one that is you would know and the 7"MH is far (really far) away from even being moderate action honestly. Closer to a Fast action with a little softer feel. And yes, I have 2 of this rod as well. I use it for traps, 3/8 football and swimjigs, t-rigs, topwater, have used it for smaller frogs, pitched and punched grass (1/2oz punch rig in some loose grass). Also have fished buzzbaits as well.

They eat the crankbait really good in the delta. Caught one prefishing this summer and it had to weigh close to 5lbs. They are pretty fiesty little minnows....but it's a Squawfish.

You mean what brand? Sonar scans out away from the boat so if that was the case and only had sonar I'd probably have DI/ up and down color (chirp). One of those two. If you're asking if I could only have r2 options on a unit, I'd find one that has all three, GPS, DI, Chirp. Otherwise I'll stick with the standard 200K with gps. DI is great and shows you detailed picture, but when you understand your unit, you can get a lot of that same information from the color 200K picture once you understand how to read it.

Plenty of success fishing straight braid.

I would still fish close to the bank unless you can target that habitat. Remember, bass are great night hunters, and trout are night sleepers. Stocker trout seem to push up next to the banks at night (atleast here) to use the concrete bank as a bit of cover, but then the bass use the same bank to pin them from getting away. I'd say watch how the bass react to the stocking if you can be there when they do. You can learn a lot about their attacks. Open water trout have the advantage. Bass aren't going to be able to outswim them in open water, that's why they push them to the bank.