x-trued

Good question. I'm in the same boat. I have been pondering the membership myself. I look forward to the responses we get.

That sounds like good advice to me.

I have the SE 300 on my boat and it made a huge difference in staying on plane at slower speed, but did add additional drag and did effect my top end speed. However, I do not have a jack plate.

Hmmm. I don't blame you for what you said. I'm not sure what I would have done. I think I would have told him fishing was good and mentioned the weed issue, or only discuss the weed problems and avoided the it's good, bad or okay review. I just invited a board member to join me at a local lake I fish because his lakes are so pressured. I'll admit I thought about it before making the invitation, but did so anyway. You gatta figure the guys already fishing those holes on your golf course weren't thrilled to see a consistant fisherman like yourself come along. I wouldn't lose sleep over you coment though. Those holes could get over fished in a hurry if all the residents out there got interested. Besides, "its allright, not that great" is a subjective term. What may be good to you may be "allright, not that great " to him, right? Don't feel bad, go catch some fish.

I figured you might have. June was my first issue and I just joined here on May 30, so I missed all of that. Btw, your vids are great.

I don't know how large these ponds are, but I would not be afraid to fish a different one each day, especially if you vary you spot. Go gett'em and let us know how it goes!

Yeah, you saw the July/August issue. There was a June article about a bass reportedly over 25 lbs being caught at Lake Dixon in California, but in wasn't on th cover. It was photographed and videoed being weighed on non certified hand held scales showing it to be over 25 lbs. Obviously, if this was accurate it would have been a new wr. The guy chose to release the monster with out measuring it or certifying the weight. He chose not to submit it to IGFA because he knew there would be a lot of controversy over how he caught it (it was foul hooked) and that he failed to measure and certify it. This is on page 8 of the June issue.

btw, what lakes do you fish in NC?

The theory behind this is to keep moisture out of the tank. If you vent the tank when it is under high pressure and then close the vent, it will then create somewhat of a vacuum when it cools down. I always left mine closed and never had a problem.

The imulation of your dad's boat is hillarious. He must get a kick out of that. The play on the name is perfect.

Install rod keepers if the boat doesn't have them. I also keep a compass (gps is also good, but a luxury). Small buoys can bee extemely handy too. I use them to mark channels, other strucure or hot spots, or even the spot i just lost a rod. I also mounted a plier holster to the side of fy fishing seat. A camera is a good idea too (and extra batteries)

I would have the drag set fairly tight...enough to get a good hookset, but with 50 lb braid you are going to want a little give too. I see no reason to limit flipping to a mid-day presentation. I would always get a fish away from cover as quickly as possible. I always watch my line and set the hook immediately. I hope this helps. Good luck. I hope you like your new flippin' stick and land a lunker or two. Let us know how it goes.

Where is the transducer mounted?

Lol. That was a sa comment, but a funny one. You have probably thought of this, but is you baout loaded properly? A steering damper helps to remove the effects of prop torque, but I am unfamiliar with this.

Edited original post to include front unit as well.

I agree. A battery is not a place to skimp. Go ahead and get a good'un.

What sonar brand and models do you run as your console unit and trolling unit?

I agree. I had the same exerience today. I swore the fish were on a hunger strike. I took the opportunity to troll some areas of the lake watching my sonar to familiarize myself with points, chanels and sructure. I was also looking for fish of course. This allowed me to cool off and still be productive. Water temp was 89. I don't blame the bass. Probably feels like a 98 degree day with high humitidy and no wind does to us.

suspending deep diving crank bait.

Yeah, fishing is definatley a getaway for me. But more importantly, I has become what my 9 year old son and I do together. In addition to us being father and son, this has made us best buddies. He so looks forward to fishing with me. We can fish from sunrise to 5:00 and he still doesn't want to come in even if he has had no bite. We are building a tradition. When he is 15 and has nothing in common with me, we can still fish together. I took my 4 year old daughter fishing Saturday. That was a huge deal to her too. What a great sport this is. Don't get me wrong...I love boating a bass as well as the next guy, but it is so much more fun to share that with my kids.

btw, if you reduce your image size before posting photos, ti will make viewing a lot easier.

I asked the my battery manufacturer how I should charge my deep cycle battery. He said that a slow charge is always better. I have a charger that will charge at 2 or 10 amps. He recommended that I charge it for 3 hours at 10 amps to get the battery warm, and then reduce it to 2 amps overnight. He said straight 2 amps would work, but take much lnoger. These times are based on the curent state of charge of my battery at that time. I have found that it does not take that long to charge it if I do so fter each outing. I agree with Skwerl about the reducton in amperage on the gauge. I think you should be fine at 6 amps, just allow plenty of charging time until you get a feel for it.

Yeah, that's cool. I live in NC. The area off of our coast is called "the grave yard of the Atlantic" beacuse there are soo many sunken ships there, some of them intentional like this one. We used to dive them back when that was what I spent my time and money doing. We mainly dove wrecks in 35-100 feet of water. Man let me tell you, when you see a school of barracuda circling overhead, you tend to keep an eye on them. They really like shiny things...like the valve on the tank right behind your head. Anyway, those are cool photos. Sunken ships really do attract marine life.

Okay, I'll be the one to post the trite groaner: The first tap you feel is the fish picking up the worm. The second tap you feel is the fish blowing it back out. The third tap you feel is your buddy tapping you on the shoulder saying "hey, I think you just lost that fish".

I definately use my soanr when running high speeds. I only pay attention to the depth at that speed, but that is pretty important to watch. If I am scouting an area at slow speed I will watch for bait fish, target fish, structure and bottom density. In a nutshell, thin gray line indicates softer bottoms and wide grayline indicates hard bottom. You should read your manual. It is probably your best source for info for your setup. If you don't have one you can download one from Lowrance.com. Look under utilities on the right side of the page.