WIGuide

As far as color the Costa Green Mirror lenses are probably the best lens for freshwater. Be sure to try the different styles on before you order as fitment is key to a good lens. The more light can get in on the back side of the lens, the less effective the lens itself will be.

Welcome to Bass Resource Tyler!

Looks like it needs to go off to the prop shop for a proper fix. It shouldn't set you back too much. Attempting to fix it could work or you could make the damage worse so I'd just send it off. In the future, do yourself a favor and trim your motor up anytime you're idling around in shallow water and 99% of the time it'll prevent issues like this in the future.

I would venture to say your rod is too light of a power for throwing that bait very well. I'd try a medium heavy and see if that helps.

Haha thanks! WI has had enough weekends that have beat me down so I guess it's only fair that I get one over on her.

Had a decent weekend, not a quantity weekend, but did well on the size.

This past weekend was a busy one for me as I was bouncing around all over the place. I did get over to spend some time with my girlfriend who was feeling the urge to fish. I never need my arm twisted to do that, so I hauled the boat over. Last winter I saw a lake on google maps that I had never fished before only 15 minutes or so from her parent's house so we set off on an adventure to explore it. Upon arrival, things were looking good, it had some bogs that looked to have some water under them, lots of grass, some deep holes, and some stumps and downed trees. Conditions were not the best though, post frontal, bluebird skies, a light breeze that seemed to be blowing in circles. Things started off on a good note, as Mikalila had her first fish in the boat (baby northern) while I was still pulling rods out of the box. Things slowed drastically after, but we seemed to catch fish in spurts, I don't know if we just happened to run across a productive area, or if it had to do with the switching wind or what, but you'd catch one or two and it'd be followed by a long stretch of nothing. Most of our bites were coming on a frog, and all 3 photo worthy fish were caught on one. We lost a few others that got us wrapped up in the thick stuff and we couldn't get to them before they pulled off. Overall, this little lake has some potential, and I look forward to going back under better conditions and seeing if that lake has more to offer. Sunday, on the way home I stopped at a lake closer to my house that I usually fish quite often, but haven't had the time to get over there lately. I've only been on it once this year and that was early spring. I spend the little bit of my time fishing off shore structure with jack squat to show for it other than a few tiny and I mean tiny fish and a nice northern than liked the look of my jig. I decided to move in and fish some shallow slop in my last 40 minutes or so and was rewarded with 3 keeper bass one of which was a big momma! 20 3/4" and 5 lbs 3 oz. my first 5er of the year but hopefully not the last, they aren't exactly common around here. It was definitely a quality vs. quantity weekend, that's one of the best parts about fishing though, you never know what could happen the next cast.

The DT series crankbaits are some of my favorite baits. I've been using them for years and have broken exactly one. I threw it into a railroad bridge as my cast was a little too high and it split. I can probably pull it the rest of the way apart, add wood glue, and continue fishing it. I haven't had the paint chip on the live or regular baits. Most of the time mine get hook rash where they rub on the retrieve, but they wear through the paint and it still doesn't chip.

Let me know when it is, I'll have to join you as I'm sure fishing withdrawals are going to be too much to bear.

Lily pads aren't very hearty, unfortunately. Usually, once they get torn up a little they won't come back the following year. Being that they grow out of intertwined roots so you could jump in and pull some up and see where you're at.

I would probably use the dropshot rod. You could try it on both and see which you like it better on though.

Haha well the challenge with this lake isn't catching fish, what makes it tough is catching a fish 14" and over. We had a good day, got on the right pattern, and it worked for us. The last tourney we fished there a few years ago, we fished shallow, we fished deep, we fished everything in between. We caught somewhere between 35 and 40 fish and only two were legals. I've fished in some derbies like you were in where actually getting the bites is the issue, and those are terrible! Thanks, we fish with the Chippewa Valley Bass Attack. It's based out of Eau Claire, but a lot of our tournaments are held up north of there. We have a few over on the river, usually start there and this year we end in LAX with a two day. I haven't fished over in that area before, but I'm moving over to Oshkosh in a few months to hopefully finish up some schooling while my gf finishes hers. The only problem is the boat is going to have to stay at home :/

Welcome to the forums!

I absolutely love fishing for bass, but I guide for a few different species so regardless of if I want to or not, I have to put the bass rods down and fish for other species. One usual exception is early in the spring, it doesn't stay light enough, long enough for me to fish lakes any distance away for bass during the week after work, so I'll chase some pre-spawn/spawning crappies. It's a blast and they're delicious.

The key is being able to do both and KNOWING when it's right to do so. Personally, picking a fishy area apart is more my style, but there are times it's right to run and gun. Having a good pattern, or lots of local knowledge will allow you to do so. For example in my tournament this past weekend, we figured out there were better fish in little patches of coontail in about 5-7' of water. Since the whole shoreline from the bank out to about 12' is all just solid grass we bounced around from patch to patch of the good stuff. Most of these patches were only 2-3 times the size of the boat so we'd stop and fish them for about 10-15 minutes picking just that little section apart and then we were gone. I'm sure there were some fish in the surrounding grass, but there's no reason to spend 3 hours combing water that "might" hold fish if there's water that you know that IS holding fish.

Yesterday morning, I was mentally preparing for a tough day of fishing knowing the lake we were headed for is normally a tough one. Normally, it's not too hard to get bites, but the size is always the issue. The DNR has gone as far as removing the size limit for bass just to reduce the population in order to allow fish to grow (our club still maintains a 14" minimum). Don't get me wrong there are some big'uns in there, but they are pretty hard to come by and weights there usually reflect that. The lake or chain or lakes rather are fairly unique and almost overwhelming at times due to the sheer amount of grass and the lack of anything else. I would estimate that 85% of the shoreline of the entire deal is covered in grass flats that extend out between 50 and 125 yards. Almost all of these flats grow up within a foot of the surface, with some patches reaching the surface. The weather forecast was shockingly good, with overcast skies supposed to be holding throughout the majority of the day with chances of scattered showers. Winds were fairly light (3-10) and coming out of the south-west. It was just gloomy enough to keep most recreation pressure off the lake. Despite that, a local perch jerker was sitting right where I wanted to start things off so I moved up to fish a large weed point. To cover water and hopefully call up any early aggressive fish, I was throwing a rattlin' spook and dad was using his tried and true wacky worm. It didn't take long to put a couple in the boat after doubling back to expand on the area where we caught the first few fish, Dad had switched to a wake bait and pulled in one more fish that was about 1/8" shy of making the well before the sun came out and the bite died. We ran through a few more spots fairly quickly; a stretch of docks, a fairly steeply sloped point, some shallow cabbage beds, and a shallow mat of lily pads with trash grass that filled in the holes making a canopy. All of which held fish, but they were all tiny. We decided to move out to the deeper weed edge and hit that with a combination of creature bait and wacky worm and moved up in size and picked off two more keepers and some others that were at least close. Around 11:30 we headed over to another deeper weed line thinking we could replicate the pattern. The spot I pulled up on had some weird stringy type of grass I'm not fond of since it doesn't create shade and it tangles in your trolling motor prop like nobody's business. I kicked my trolling motor up to move up to some better grass quicker and picked up my jig. A few seconds after I stood back up I saw a thick patch of coontail moss so I let off the tm and dropped my jig down a hole almost right off the edge of the boat. I let it fall all the way to the bottom and let it sit for a second and my line just tightened up. I laid the wood to it and flipped it up in the boat, keeper number 5. Dad and I boated 4 or 5 more fish in that small little patch about 2 1/2 times the size of the boat. We ran back to where we started knowing there was some coontail in about the same depth of water (5-7') and sure enough, caught a few more legals, all about the same size. I had moved to a bigger creature bait hoping to pick up a bigger fish. We made another move back to the deep weed edge we fished earlier, but found a few boats around it so we ran to another spot I knew had some coontail, but it must have been just a little too shallow because we didn't even get bit. With about an hour left in the day we went back to the first coontail bed in hopes more fish may have moved in or it had settled enough to catch whatever else was there. Three pitches in a row I caught 3 more but they were all dinks, and then I hear dad yell "NET!" from the back of the boat. I turn around and see his rod doubled over thinking he's got the keeper we need, and that's when I see it shoot out of the grass...it's a 32 or 33" northern! I hear a noise up front and the rod I set down to pick up the net is starting to slide out of the boat, so I jump back up there to pick up my rod and there's no resistance, apparently a northern grabbed that one too and cut me off (someone really needs to invent braid cutters made of northern teeth as they would be the best on the market haha). We ran back to the lake with the landing in it, and fished a deeper section of grass with little patches of coontail mixed in, caught 3 in the last 15 minutes none even close to being keepers. In the end, we had caught over two limits of legal's and probably 25-30 fish total. Our keepers were all within a few oz of one another, so we were just missing 1 or 2 keeper bites that would have moved us up enough to win it. Ended up taking 3rd of 25 boats with 12.31lbs, missing out on 2nd by about 2/10ths of a pound and about 2 lbs out of first. Tournaments on most lakes in the area it usually takes 15 to 17 lbs to win so you can see how this body of water fishes. It was nice to put some money back in our pockets and build some momentum going into the second half of the season. Above all it was fun, and a great day spent with dad out on the water making memories.

That's awesome!

I don't know what your state laws are, but Attwood XFS Portable LED Navigation lights should cover them whatever they are. You can clamp them on, or use the kayak adhesive mounting pads. Peel and stick and you're good to go.

If that's what you fish with and that's what you're comfortable with you'll be just fine. There's a guy in our club that fishes pretty much exclusively with spinning reels, even frogs. My dad fishes tourneys with me and he's probably a 75-80% spinning. I would suggest that if at some point in time you want to fish with baitcasters, leave them at home on tournament days until you're pretty confident with them. The reason being, you don't pick the conditions for the tournament, so if the wind kicks up, you don't want to be spending time during the day picking out backlashes.

x2 absolute great hook. I started with the Gamakatsu ones as well but had some major issues with the keeper. Wrote them about it, and was assured that they had already fixed the problem and I must have got a few old packs, didn't offer me new ones, but that can't be expected it would have been nice though since they obviously knew it was a problem in their design. I tried them again, this time the design was ever so slightly different, still had the same issue. Switched to Trokar's and haven't had an issue since.

Make it a family project haha. I hear you though, that's got to be your call then. On a side note, thank you for your service

I'd look at the St. Croix Mojo Bass Slop-N-Frog Rod. It'll handle your punching needs as well as froggin' too.

Do yourself a favor and start doing a little of your own maintenance. It's not hard, as most systems on a boat are relatively simple. Something like a livewell pump on a boat that age should be a cartridge style. Buy the new cartridge, move the lever and twist the old one out, and install the new one in reverse order. Connect the two wires where you cut the old ones and be done with it. Instead of spending $150 for some high school kid to do that at a marine dealership, you'll pay $35. Replacing bearings is something that can be done in your driveway with nothing but a few hand tools, some marine axel grease, and bearing replacement kits. Total cost probably somewhere in that $40-50 range. Your bunks are a straight piece of wood. Buy some new stuff, cut to the proper length, bolt to the trailer, and cover in carpet. Total cost should be somewhere from $50-75 dollars. If you do these jobs on your own, you'll spend less than just one monthly payment on a new boat. Although these jobs may take a little bit of your time, they can easily be done in an afternoon even by the first time shadetree mechanic. The worst part about dealers if they're like the ones around here is the cost and the time lost. They get swamped up by me so if you have to take your rig in they might not get to it for a week or two. I'd gladly devote a few hours to fixing it myself then not be able to fish for a few weeks.

Looking at it, I think there could be some issues with access if it's inside a garage as well. If a person needed to get inside, they would have to have a high ceiling to allow clearance for the cover to lift or else hook it up to pull it out of the garage just to remove an item or two.

As long as the trailer will work with bunks I say go for it. It's no overly complicated I just takes some measuring and the correct brackets. When I was 15 or so, I made some for my first boat. It was a little 2 man bass tender that I had challenges loading because of the shape of the hull. The bunks were supposed to be in a specific spot to support the boat, but because of the tri-hull shape up front, it would always hook and pull the boat one way or another when driving it on the trailer. It wasn't hard to straighten once it came out of the water because it was so light, it was just annoying. I decided to fabricate a longer center set of bunks to cradle the v of the boat and keep it straight on the trailer and conform to the hull. Worked like a charm for as long as I owned it. I'd say if a 15 year old can do it, so can you!