fissure_man

Lumens = Total light output Candlepower = Light intensity or brightness Though related, they measure different qualities of the light source; it takes more parameters than a fixed conversion factor to relate them. The links that recommend a conversion factor of 12.57 are wrong. You can change the intensity (candlepower) of a light source independently of the light output (lumens) by adjusting the focus of the beam. In motor vehicles, this could be analogous to relating horsepower and top speed. Taken to an extreme, a laser pointer could have very high candlepower/intensity (higher than your Q-Beam), but would be a poor choice for illuminating the path ahead because it doesn’t actually produce much light (and the light it does produce is narrowly focused). As a gut check on top of this, think about how fast 18,000+ flashlights would drain your battery.... That energy has to come from somewhere. Edit: FWIW, the 12.57 conversion factor assumes a conceptual light source which emits a uniform intensity of light in all directions. If such a source emitted light at a uniform intensity of 1 candlepower, its total light output would be 4π lumens (4*3.142 = 12.57). In the case of the Q-Beam, the light is focussed and the candlepower rating will be based on the peak light intensity at the center of the beam, to give the most impressive number. If this peak intensity was produced uniformly in all directions, the total output in lumens would indeed be through the roof, and it would be an extraordinarily bright light that you wouldn’t want on your boat.

Not looking to cover everything, just answering a simple (and good) question: “Randall says in the video that he targets edges what does that exactly mean he’s in the middle of the slop. I know this is hard to explain online but just don’t get what he exactly means by that” In other words, why does he say he’s fishing an edge, when he’s in the middle of the slop? What is he keying on? Your overview of inside and outside grasslines isn't wrong, it just doesn't answer the question. Fortunately Randall explained his breakdown in the video and a few have chimed in here (yourself included). Not sure why we're still 'debating' this?

Lol yeah it does. But not in your original response to the question (below), hence the clarification.

Well, he explains his view of it pretty thoroughly in the video The answer to @GoneFishingLTN's question is that there are more edges to target than only the absolute inner and outer boundaries of the grass bed. The ‘inside edge,’ as described by R.T. in the video is one of them. Just clarifying your previous post.

Not disagreeing that these are edges, but that's not the same "inside edge" R.T. describes in the video (around 9:45 onward). There he's describing the "inside edge" as a boundary inside the grass bed where it transitions from thick grass through the full water column, to a "hollowed-out" zone which still has a canopy on top, but is open underneath. He mentions that you can't really see it from above the water, and when the camera pans out you can see there's grass all around (as @GoneFishingLTN points out).

Comparing 36V (3x12V series) versus 12V (3x12V parallel) with greater amp-hours isn’t a trade-off between power/thrust and run-time. There’s no performance or battery-efficiency benefit of running the 12V system. The 36V gives you higher max thrust when you want it, and it also gives you a longer battery life when comparing equivalent trolling speeds. All else equal, more amp-hours would mean more run-time, but can't forget that the 12V system draws 3X as many amps as 36V for the same power output (not to mention differences in efficiency).

@J Francho with a higher voltage TM you are drawing fewer amps to deliver the same power. So even if the amp-hours rating on the batteries is the same, you will go further on a charge with the 36V. The efficiency of the battery also depends on amp draw - in practice you’ll get fewer amp hours out of your battery when draining it quickly (high amps) than you will at a slower drain. The lower current draw from the higher voltage TM (for equivalent thrust) is better in this sense as well But in terms of space, weight, and thrust needed to pull around a 16’ boat, I agree that 36V is overkill.

But that’s not what happened, nor is it what has happened in essentially 100% of all other encounters with dock owners. These confrontations happen all the time, and the point that needs to be emphasized is that they can always be defused by moving on and not escalating the situation. In this case, how likely is it that the OP scenario developed in 2 seconds, with no opportunity to be the bigger man and move on? This thread has 1000+ views and counting, probably lots of kids. I hope folks aren’t taking seriously the view that the correct way to handle these situations is to state your rights, stand your ground, whip out your gun, and shoot first when things get ugly. That 'macho' mindset and disregard of human life is disturbing.

And how many are killed after hotheads whip out their guns and escalate situations that have obvious, peaceful solutions? These guys should have left before this crazed old guy even got to the point of throwing gas. I get that they're fishing legally, but does that warrant turning it into a gun fight? Call the cops and let them talk to him. Somebody that's concerned with preserving their own safety would have left before it got ugly. A fish ain't worth the confrontation, let alone murdering the guy.

These comments are more disturbing than an old guy splashing gas around. Kill him? Really?

@Catt if your point is “be open-minded,” fair enough. But I don’t think there’s anything lost by starting from a framework of ‘generally accepted’ colors, confirmed by personal experience, even if only to allow focus to stay on the variables that are most important (not color choice, IMO). I guess if I thought every day was a puzzle that could be solved by selecting the right color, my approach would be different. But for every experience I've had where it really seemed like color was critical to success, there have been countless experiences where the 'key' was something else. So I pick a few go-to colors and then go to work figuring out those other keys. If the day comes that a bubblegum jig is the only way to get bit, I'm going to have a bad day. I'm ok with the odds of that.

@Catt why not start with that? You need to start somewhere. In your skepticism of color charts, are you endorsing a totally random approach? To me, starting from generally or locally accepted patterns (which may or may not be tabulated in a chart), and/or making selections based on personal experiences all seem like pretty reasonable approaches.

Isn't this it? Pflueger Tantrum Minnow in 'scramble' pattern. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-PFLUEGER-Tantrum-Minnow-Size-4-Fishing-Lure-SCRAMBLE-Pattern-Box-/222927208842 This one went for $280 not long ago, and yours may be in even better condition...? Cha-Ching!

Considering comments above, it’s worth noting that the Boga should never be used to vertically hold or weigh a big pike/muskie you intend to release – these fish are not built to be hung in the air by their lip. If you’re pulling a big one out of the water for a picture, be sure to use your free hand to support the belly. There are temptingly cheap knock-offs out there and they actually work well for helping control and unhook bass with a face full of trebles, but they’re not what you want for a big thrashing musky at the side of your kayak. One key difference is that the boga head can swivel, which is a must when the pike or musky decides to roll like a gator at boatside. The cheap non-swivel versions will torque and tear up the jaw, and not hold as well. A set of jaw-spreaders will also be handy if you're frequently encountering big pike or muskie. You could tether them onto the Kayak somehow.

What do your spots look like? Some shore spots are overgrown with trees/brush and have little room to backswing for a normal cast. When casting at awkward angles with no room to swing, I find it much easier to “flick” baits out with a spinning rod than to constantly snag brush and backlash a BC.

I agree with you, but what defines the "quality" you're paying for? In the case of this $7 bladed jig, I’d value the upgraded hook, snap, bait keeper…. If these weren’t as advertised or there was some other important flaw, I’d feel like I didn’t get what I paid a premium for. But for an isolated instance of chipped paint, which is inevitable anyway and has zero impact on the effectiveness of the lure… yes, I’d cut them some slack and not demand a replacement. All the best lures are chipped and scratched anyway, this one has a head start It's pretty easy to touch up a black jig head with a black sharpie, or better yet, fish it "as is" for a unique two-tone pattern that the bass haven't seen before! @Smokinal, good point.

I'm not saying he's outside his rights, and I'm sure these companies will take care of him. But since he asked, IMO complaining to the distributor, manufacturer, and on a public forum seems a bit much for a cosmetic defect on a single sub-$10 lure which will have zero impact on its effectiveness.

IMO, yes. Chipped paint on a jig is a non-issue.

From their website it looks like these are intended for 'butterfly jigging' in saltwater. The jig/spoon is attached to swivel, and the hook(s) are attached to the hula hoop where they can swing up/down and rotate freely about the lure.

I prefer spinning gear for jerkbaits and haven’t found this to be a problem. I run 15-20lb braid to a leader and a larger reel than some (size 35 Pflueger). I jerk against a slack line (usually aggressively) and take up line that is essentially loose, but each pull seems keeps the spool packed tight. I actually find my spool stays more tightly packed fishing jerkbaits than it does with other spinning techniques that are more finesse-y, lightweight, low resistance. I do get occasional wind knots, but I've blamed these on line twist causing poor line lay. Trolling out the line fixes the problem until twist re-accumulates. With spinning gear in general, I prefer the improved line management and casting I get from a larger spooled reel, but many disagree. I think a larger spool is more forgiving in terms of line twist issues and "over the lip" loops which end in a birdsnest. These are probably obvious, but closing the bail by hand keeps the line laying tidy at the beginning of the retrieve, as does feathering the end of the cast to limit initial slack (this also has the benefit of eliminating hooks tangling the line when the bait hits the water).

Down imaging doesn't replace traditional sonar for me. DI views a “slice,” regular sonar views a “cone.” When your boat is moving along slowly, each DI slice is taken in a slightly different location than the previous, and when stitched together and scrolled across the screen they present a nice, vivid picture. This is sort of like how that light bar thing inside your scanner goes back and forth across the page to produce an image. If you’re sitting still, the DI is still taking slices, but it’s the same slice over and over (or you might be rotating, drifting a little bit). This is still showing you some of what’s down there, but the coverage is poor and you won’t be producing pretty pictures like they show in the manual. Same for side imaging. It’s sort of like if the light bar thing in your scanner got stuck in one spot, or started randomly spinning around, drifting back and forth. In this case, the cone view of standard sonar is preferable (you could think of it like a ‘flashlight view’). If I had to choose between only DI or only standard sonar, I would choose standard because DI is (IMO) pretty much useless while sitting still. Many people use it while stationary, though.

It’s an interesting moral stance that would lead someone to cast judgement on sustainable and humane harvest of bass, while presumably having no issue with (and taking considerable pride/enjoyment from) impaling that same fish with a barbed hook or hooks, forcefully dragging it by its hook wound into an atmosphere it cannot breath, hoisting it up by its jaw for pictures, touring it around all day in a dark, tiny box, sizing it up against his/her friends' 'trophies', then releasing it to hopefully survive, but occasionally die from the trauma, as nature permits. This would be akin to a judgemental anti-hunter who buys their meat at a grocery store, and then enthusiastically participates in a hypothetical “catch and release” form of hunting, where animals are not (usually) killed, only maimed and tormented for a bit. Animals are friends, after all. It’s not a pretty picture, but isn’t this fairly close to reality? Fishing is a blood sport. For those that would oppose it, doesn't catch-and-release fishing seem far more twisted and inhumane than sustainable harvest would? @Glaucus, how do you rationalize it?

By “belief” I mean that the evidence is not conclusive to prove existence, at least from a perspective of reasonable scientific skepticism. For instance, compare the body of evidence for the existence of bigfoot to that of grizzly bears – accepting the existence of one of these requires much more “belief” than the other. Regarding the footprints, etc. – I do find those things odd. They are very odd. Unfortunately, none of these odd things are conclusive, and many are easy to fake or could conceivably be misinterpreted. What has hands to throw rocks? People do. What made those prints? Maybe bears, maybe hoaxers, maybe pink fuzzy unicorns, who knows? Maybe they’re not prints at all. It’s easy to assign difficult-to-explain sights, sounds, smells, experiences, flying rocks, “tree breaks”, etc. to a loosely defined fictional creature because it has no rules, no standard – it’s made up. See/smell/hear something weird in the woods? It’s bigfoot. How does one argue against that? Suppose bigfoot exists, and we learn that it is incapable of uprooting, inverting, and pile-driving that 30’ tree into the ground from Bigbill’s link. Or we learn that they don’t smell bad, or that they don’t make shrieking howls, or they can’t throw rocks. Lacking an obvious explanation for these phenomena, would we then have to attribute them to some new made-up creature? A bigger-foot, perhaps? Oddest of all (IMO) is that, as I said before, it seems bigfoot enthusiasts have relatively little difficulty finding or experiencing “signs” of bigfoots, even interacting with them, but nobody has ever found even a partial specimen that can be verified. No amount of inconclusive, questionable evidence adds up to legitimate proof. And a large, globally widespread, terrestrial mammal shouldn’t be this hard to prove.

@Hyrule Bass the fact that the evidence out there requires a significant “belief” component to be accepted means that it’s not solid evidence. The possibility of an elusive, isolated population of unknown primates somewhere in the world is perhaps not too difficult to imagine. There are rare species that we know to exist and they are very difficult to photograph or document, and that’s because they are rarely encountered. In this capacity, the idea of a bigfoot could be plausible (IMO). But this isn’t at all the model that “bigfoot culture” suggests. There are countless reported bigfoot (or variant) sightings from every corner of the globe, and especially all over the United States. How many individuals of the species would it take to maintain breeding populations all over the world? The folks from BFRO (and others) are apparently so in tune with the creatures that they can regularly put themselves in close contact with bigfoots at multiple locations – close enough to hear and interact with them, have rocks thrown in their direction, and stumble upon the not-so-discreet log “structures” that mark their territory. None of this suggests a small, isolated population. It’s this model of a widespread, bold, but miraculously evasive “bigfoot” that’s tough to rationalize (IMO). If there are as many of these creatures out there as even a fraction of this “evidence” would suggest, why is there no hard proof (body, skeleton, live capture)? There’s loads of weak evidence in the form of eyewitness accounts, audio recordings, photos/videos, footprints, etc. and it’s all heavily scrutinized, as it should be. If the creature is real it will stand up to this scrutiny, so far it hasn’t. That’s not to say that every piece of evidence has been conclusively debunked – it’s unreasonable to expect that will ever be the case. There are many phenomena in the world that are unexplained, and while these can raise important questions and debate, they don’t offer much in the way of proof (example: “I don’t know how or why that particular tree is jammed into the ground upside down, but I also have no reason to believe it was the work of a mythical ape”) It wouldn't take much hard evidence to conclusively prove that bigfoot exists (if it did), but it’s impossible for skeptics to prove that it doesn’t. So the legend will live on.

Err, if that's really is the case I think Brian needs to get his scale checked. That fish *appears* to be about this size of his torso - if that's not a result of perspective it should weigh at least 30 lbs to my eye. lol But who cares? It's a great fish! It looks super clean and healthy, maybe it has some growing left to do...?