OCdockskipper

Well, then you are a much better person than I...

It is a bit different to give information to someone who is not fishing the same body of water as you, it doesn't affect you. For example, I have and will continue to tell JustJames anything I can remember about Canyon Lake, a place I fished when I was younger and that he lives at now. He is a great guy and I hope he catches every fish on that lake, twice. But if he should move to Lake Forest II and start showing up at the spots I was planning to fish, I am very likely to tip his kayak over . I say that in jest, but the concept is true. If you fish a small body of water and giving out certain information means more fishing pressure and less success for you, it is difficult to do. That is one of the reasons why kids are always easy to give info to, most will never listen to you and will go back to playing video games on their phone after about 20 minutes.

No it isn't necessary, but you are risking damaging the motor or wiring if you don't. All an in-line circuit breaker is is essentially the weak link in the chain, so if something happens, it pops first, stopping any damage or fire. On the Pond Prowlers, the wiring to the front of the boat is pre-run at the factory and includes a small breaker in the connection side to the battery. Is this not the case for bass Raiders or Sundolphins? If not, most any marine hardware or BPS should have the breaker you want.

I disagree 100%. Mono reacts to the inherent twist of spinning reels in a worse fashion than braid or other made-for-spinning-reels line. Mono will ball up, often in a mess that needs to be cut out whereas other lines will just be twisted and not stop you from fishing. I use Berkley Nanofil on my spinning reels, with a fluoro or mono leader depending on what bait I am throwing. Not only does it render twist as a non factor while fishing, it outcasts mono by a mile.

When I read that first sentence, I was afraid you were going to tell the OP he is out of luck & might as well just jump off the bridge or balcony...

Step 1: I don't want to adjust my drag correctly; Step 2: I need beefier hooks on my Ned rig, because I keep bending them; Step 3: I need heavier line because I keep snapping my line with these beefier hooks; Step 4: I need to use casting gear because spinning gear doesn't work well with heavier line; Step 5: I need to use a 1/2 oz jig head because i can't cast lighter weights well with my casting gear; Step 6; What is all this fuss about the Ned Rig, I don't catch any more fish with it than a standard jig.

Best Advice: "Give the Ned Rig a try" Worst Advice: "Never use a FC leader with braid"

My brother has a place in Breckenridge Colorado, at about 10,000 ft altitude. Every year in the fall a week or so before hunting season begins, herds of Elk move from the lower elevations where they spend most of the year to the highest elevations where there are no people. They pass by & through my brothers property when they do this. Then, when the short hunting season ends, they descend back down. I don't know if hunting season was instituted to follow this migration, or if the migration was a result of the animals reaction to a consistent threat at the same time every year, but it is similar to some of the other reactions posted in this thread.

I think the exception to the rule is when a larger bass is targeting dinks to eat them. I wonder if that was the case with that fish.

It is amazing how much mis-information is spread in newspapers & online by people reporting on things in which they are ignorant. I used to bowl quite a bit and if any tournaments were written up in the paper, the terms they would use and the description of what occurred would be way off. There is a term which escapes my mind right now about the following phenomenon: You read an article in a newspaper about a subject you are well versed in and spot numerous errors. You know the article and reporter are not knowledgeable in the subject, so you dismiss the article as being not credible. Then, on the next page of the paper, is a different article on a different subject in which you are a bit ignorant. You accept that article at face value. Same paper, same staff, yet you give them credit for being knowledgeable in area B even though you just found them to be ignorant in area A. Human nature is funny. It is good to remember that you don't know what you don't know...

I prefer not to have the pedestal seat, but my lake is smaller, calm with no underwater obstructions or waves from other boats to throw me overboard. Without the pedestal seat in the middle, I can move around more freely. If it is a very windy day, I'll use the pedestal seat for balance.

I don't mind catching dinks because they typically are giving me information leading you to where the keepers are (at least on my lake). Rarely do I find keeper bass & dinks occupying the same places. For example, if I catch three or four 8 inch bass on a Ned rig thrown up tight to the cray walls, I know most likely that the keeper bass are somewhere else. They may be deeper, they may be near docks, but that day (at that time), the keepers aren't there. I have had days where the dinks will be in a location and hours later, the keepers move into the same location, but more often than not, they tend to stay segregated. So no, I don't get frustrated with catching dinks. They keep me busy while giving me information. Plus I always enjoy checking out each fish to make sure they are healthy.

I really like my Pond Prowler, but 500 plus pounds of humanity plus gear is just too much weight for these little boats. I'd recommend a john-boat, there are alot of cool modifications you can do to make them a mini bass boat.

There is a huge difference with 2 people in them as opposed to 1 (especially 200lb adults). I have a 10 ft prowler with a front deck. I usually remove the front butt-seat & stand to fish with zero issues with stability. I put the chair about midway of the boat to sit in when landing fish or working on gear. I am able to take 8 rods and 4 bags of gear and still have room to be comfortable. It is much more like a mini bass boat than a kayak ever will be. I fish a small 100 acre lake that has many canal like coves, so while the wind will blow, it never creates rollers. These boats aren't designed to be out in big water, that isn't in their DNA.

For the past 5 years or so, BASS has released the next years schedule in early July. The main reason I pay attention for when it comes out is to see if there will be any Elite tournaments close to myself (So Cal) or family (Georgia & Texas) that I could sign up to Marshal for. This year has been different, we are nearly in August & still no 2020 schedule. This got me thinking along conspiracy theory lines as to why. A few far fetched reasons for the delay I came up with were: BASS is changing their format to match the MLF cup events and won't reveal the locations of their tournaments until the morning of the first tournament day. They will give a 100 mile radius, so the Elite anglers will have to guess at what lakes to practice on and hopefully pick correctly come the start of the tournament; BASS is waiting for BPT to release their schedule and then they are going to match it, going to each of the same venues a week prior to the BPT event. By the time BPT rolls into town, all of the fish will have already been caught and no one in the surrounding areas will want to see even more pros fishing their honey holes. Mark Zona had the only copy of the 2020 schedule on his phone, but accidentally dropped it into Lake Michigan. He got the phone back, however it is currently sitting in a bowl of rice to dry out. Any other potential reasons y'all could come up with?

I think that was the best part. You take something totally ridiculous (little kids buying & drinking alcohol) and you frame it in official sounding language, as if they are taking a hard stand against those drunk 5 year olds. Excellent.

Pick up your boat & step on the bathroom scale. Once you get a reading, weigh yourself without the boat. Deduct your weight from the first to get an accurate number. This is how my friend Bruce Banner does it.

I have fished my whole life and never hunted (save for a few small birds shot with a BB gun in order to feed an injured owl my brother was nursing back to health). Nonetheless, I have a huge amount of respect for those who do hunt with integrity. Taking time to find the exact animal you want and then doing every step of the process that ends up with you feeding your family and others. Hunting in its pure form seems to bring one closer to nature and increases ones respect for wildlife.

The reason things were invented and what they are for are two different things. Post it notes were invented to mark certain hymns in a hymn book without leaving a mark on the pages. It is okay that they are now used for other reasons. Having a large fish, still green & thrashing, right next to the boat is all the reason I need to use barbed hooks.

1978, I was a teen fishing out of my Sears Gamefisher with my sister & a neighbor kid on Canyon Lake. I get a Heddon Sonic caught in a tree and being an impetuous boy, gave it a mighty yank. It flies back like a missile towards me, I turn to avoid it and it hammers me in the upper arm. Back treble was in beyond the barb. Neither my dad or the fireman who lived across the street could get the hook out, so we went to the only hospital that was nearby back then, a general hospital in the city of Lake Elsinore. The doctor was experienced with removing hooks, got it out in no time and started to walk off with the lure. I asked if I could get have the lure back, he smiled and pointed to a trophy case much like the one in the first post, full of lures & hooks the doctor had removed over the years. In reference to the doctor who didn't know how to get a hook out, when I got a treble under the nail bed of my thumb a couple of years back, the doctor who took it out actually googled a couple of different hook removal methods before beginning. The nail bed made it so she could not use the the standard removal methods

Cool, thanks for the answers & input.

I didn't phrase that first question right. I do understand how rising water temps increase a bass's metabolism, the first question was more of a day versus night scenario. What I am wondering is there a certain water temperature level where bass will change their habits and replace feeding during the day with feeding at night. The reason I ask this question is I have noticed on my lake, that once water temps breach 80 degrees, a pretty consistent pattern emerges. The first 20 minutes before sunrise & for about 10 minutes after, I can find chasing bass. Then, like clockwork, the bite on moving baits shuts off. I typically can still find fish in the area, but I usually have to use slower baits dropped right on their nose. This occurs whether the morning is crystal clear or we have overcast skies from the marine layer. I am wondering if that short morning activity I am encountering is a carryover from night feeding, that once we get into daytime, the fish's activity level slows down and while they will eat, they tend not to chase. In other words, the morning activity I am encountering is the tail end of their warm water night feeding cycle. Outside of midsummer, if I find a moving bait bite first thing in the morning, it typically carries on for most of the day (or until some kind of major weather change).

Way to go, that must have been nuts at night. New PB, correct?

I have only fished for largemouth at night on a handful of occasions, so I have a few questions about night fishing for those of you who do it at a regular basis: I know bass can be caught at night nearly year round, but is there a point of water temperature level that tends to cause bass to begin feeding more at night than during the day? Does water clarity affect the amount bass will feed at night (i.e., more in clear water)? Does the amount of light in the sky at night affect how much bass feed at night (clear moonlit nights vs. cloudy or moonless nights)? Does sustained increased human activity on the water during the day result in bass choosing to feed more at night? Does the forage of a lake change the amount bass will feed at night? In other words, are there some kinds of forage that bass find an easy meal at night and other types of forage that are difficult for them to locate/eat at night? Thanks in advance.

If I am not mistaken, there are 3. Their names are Bob, Chuck & Hal.