DrMarlboro92

My bait knocker has a massive treble hook on it, and more than once I've dredged rods and other gear out of fairly deep water with them. No reason to leave home without one.

Flotation diapers are more of a recreation thing and are realy more designed with the idea of weak swimmers using them. Leave life saving devices to traditional pdfs or inflatable ones, you need something that will keep your head up if you are unconscious.

So we've still been looking, and we went to MD to check out the closest xpress dealer. I have to say, these boats are fantastic. A hair narrower than the 195, but overall they sunk most of the nails on the coffin. We also looked at the triton x18, and laughed at the nickel and dime options that put the boat well out of our range just to get all the bells we want with one or two wistles. That aside, I found a used nitro z7, and a used tr21 that my dad fell in love with, so we may not go aluminum after all. We will have to wait and see. Thanks all for the input, I'm glad we didn't jump on that 195 just yet. I know they say they have reinforced that transom on the 17s, but I think it will be a year or two before that boat will be in consideration again.

I'm in a 77 ranger, and it definitely has a nose up attitude, which means kneeling and leaning over the gunnel is required to lip a fish. I didn't keep my line tight during all that motion to get down to the water, and lost him. I'm not saying a net is going to make me land every fish, but this one would have been in the boat if I had one. Oh well, you live, you learn.

Visible line is a big problem unless you are using a reaction bait where the bass won't have enough time to notice, or if the water is incredibly muddy. All of my rods have braid with fluorocarbon leaders, using the FG knot (it simply is the most durable, reliable, and smallest leader knot for braid-fluoro) except my cranking rod which is just fluorocarbon because I want as much depth as possible from my cranks. On my spinning gear since im relying on the bait being infront of the fish for a while I have about 20-25ft of leader line, and on everything else it's 3-6ft. To get a good idea of water clarity, get a white bait with a sinker and 10ft of line, drop it over the boat, and if you can still see it after about 5ft, you're in clear water. If you lose it between 3-5 that's stained, and if you lose it between 1 to 3 murky, and if it disappears almost as soon as it's in the water, then it's muddy. I'm sure someone will have different measurements, but those are mine.

I'm not going to make a judgement on length or weight, but this pig made the 7lb bass I caught last year look like a snack. Unfortunately given the nature of this lake and how much the fish move around, I may never get another chance at this girl. I'm going to try and go back tomorrow and see if they are still on the seawalls and try for another.

I jad a very crazy trip to Lake Anna today. It was pattern fishing at its finest; the fish were stacked on the seawalls and every cast with a live action blue/silver rattle trap produced a fish. While this was pretty fun, it ended in disappointment when I lost the fish that would have been my new PB right at the boat. I hooked into him on a seawall behind some docks (it was set up like a small private marina) and fought him for a good 10 minutes. After finally dragging him to the boat I saw his head come above the water and I swear I could have put both fists in this things mouth and still had room for more; this was a massive fish. I reached down to grab him because I don't have a net, and I guess I let slack in the line and I got a splash in the face and watched him flip me the bird as he dove. I was so disappointed I almost called it a day right there. It took 30 minutes of sulking and cursing in the boat before I was ready to fish again. Lesson learned. Buy a net.

Go to wipponock creek. Try topwaters early morning, then switch to wacky rigged senkos. I've found watermelon with red flake, or bloodworm works the best, but I've caught them on many different colors. Another productive thing to do is throw a silver/black rat-l-trap or similar lipless crank around cover and across points. They tend to like a lift/drop retrieve, or knocking it around cover. You will get hung but you should catch some fish this way.

Hit the lake as soon as that wind starts, and fish the side of the lake the water is being blown towards. This should create a current, and oxygenate the water stirring up the bait, and turning on the bass. I live just up the coast from you in va, and I'm hoping the hurricane still comes up the direction it's supposed too and doesn't change. Some of my best fishing has been in hurricanes, I just try to get off the water before there's enough wind and rain to sink the boat. SC is supposed to get plastered though, so I would stay off the water on Saturday.

I just ordered one of these, and bought two livetarget bait ball cranks, and 3 livetarget lipless cranks.... I've never caught a fish on a swim bait and I already have buyers remorse...

I think it's more of an issue of where the fish are and how they are feeding that determines how well you will do with top water; or any other bait for that matter. The body of water seems to have a lot to do with it as well. If I'm fishing the Chickahominy (limited experience here) or the tidal James, all I'm going to use is top water with the occasional shallow jerk bait thrown in. The reason is that I'm usually fishing creeks with 6 inches to 6 feet of water; these bass are always feeding on the blueback herring that are feeding on things that have washed out of the grass with the tide, so top water will always be effective only needing a change in cadence based on the time of year. In the winter I will slow down and only use poppers, walking baits, or wake baits with quite a bit of hesitation in their retrieve. In the spring/fall I will use faster retrieves and burn buzzbaits, where as in the summer I will burn wake baits. And in the late fall as the hydrilla beds die frogs become really productive. I've also noticed that wake baits do better on pressured water where other top water just doesn't work. Now, does that mean I will do the same thing on Smith Mountain, claytor, lake anna, or the south holston? No, simply because the conditions aren't the same. I know in smith mountain that in the summer I follow the shad deep and dropshot, or Carolina rig, and in the fall/spring I follow the shad into shallow coves, mimicking them with jerks, spinnerbaits, lipless, or square bill crankbaits. In claytor I'm more likely to search for rock bottoms and fish jigs with massive craw trailers, and in Lake Anna I'm more likely to be productive with senkos on grass beds and cover. All baits are tools, and it's about learning to use those tools to your advantage. Figuring out the conditions they will work, and what the bass are feeding on is the first step in figuring out if top water will work. At least this is what I've found to be true.

Im no pro by any means, but In a situation like this I would have thrown a frog or one of those live action bluegill frog things at them trying to imitate bait fish stuck in the vegitation. Typically if I see bass busting I would try and find out why and whether it's worth chasing. If it is at the edge of some kind of cover I would though poppers or buzz baits across it and see what happens. If it's in more open water I would have tried to throw a walking bait from a distance. Bait jumping just out of the water isnt enough to intice me normally. But if its coming several inches to a foot out of the water tells me its being chased and ill definitely go give that a look. If it didn't work I would grab the rod that has whatever has been productive today tied on. Side note, over the weekend there was bait jumping everywhere. I was going to go give it a look, but then I saw two 20 or so inch largemouth jump at least 2 feet out of the water, which told me what ever is over there, I don't want lol.

Nice fish! It's great that the weather is starting to cool off. The bite is coming on strong when the water is cool here in the mornings. Looking forward to some great fishing!

Today was a good day out on the Chickahominy river. I finally convinced my brother to come again after the SML incident by tricking him into a "family tournament" and he had a blast; There's no way I'll be taking the boat out again without him asking to come. We got there around 6:30 am which was a little later than I wanted to be there since I only moderately understand how to catch these fish, and that's on a dropping tide. Having missed peak tide (It was at 3am) we only got about 3 1/2 hours of good fishing since the bite turned off for us completely when the tide started rising at 10, although I'm sure someone with a bit more experience could have found them again. We fished Lobb Creek, and our most productive baits were a Megabass Popmax in white python, a rainbow shad fluke, and a Halloween Shadow Rap shallow jerkbait. Nothing we caught was very big, but for those counting (which would be my brother) my brother caught a total of 8lbs 2oz, with a largest catch of 1lb 13oz, and I pulled in 8lb even with a largest fish of 1lb 12.7oz. It was a really good day and even though I still need to figure out how to catch these fish on a rising tide, I couldn't have asked for a better trip.

The being aluminum thing is my fathers request as I think it makes him feel more comfortable on some of the places we fish since they have a lot of hidden trees and stumps just under the waters surface. I've tried to convince him otherwise but it just won't happen, so yes, aluminum is required. We looked at Lowe and were quite unimpressed to be honest, not to diss your boat but for us none of their offerings were even contenders. We looked at a g3 and I can't remember what it was we didn't like about it but it kind of turned both of us off. We will look into them again though. Ive personally never heard of express, but thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely see if there is a dealer around VA and take a look.

Coming from my days as a technician, yamaha makes a good product. There's no way around that. Mercury makes a pretty good product aswell, even if I've had a few fail before it was really their time. The EFI is going to be the way to go both in efficiency, and ease of use, making mercury better. however if you want to know your motor will start tomorrow 10 years from now even if it takes a few pulls, the yamaha is the way to go. I'd say for me it's a 50/50 with a grain of rice slowly rolling across the scale to the mercury side. This is assuming a manual start yamaha and an electric start mercury. In this instance I would go mercury. But if Noth are electric the only thing you have going is EFI efficiency vs yamaha overall quality. That's a bit harder..

About two weeks ago my father and I were out on smith mountain lake having a wonderful time fishing. As the sun set we went to turn on the beacon on our 77 ranger and it didn't work, despite having worked earlier that day on the ramp prior to launching. We messed with it for about half an hour on the water but ended up calling it a night. After ending our trip early, we traced the short in a Walmart parking lot and were able to get the beacon working again. The next morning on the water this prompted a discussion about how the boat leaked, was too small, had electrical issues as well as many other grievances and finally my dad looked at me and said "it's time for a new boat." So needless to say, this has had us all over the place looking at boats. We've looked at lund, g3, nitro, skeeter, tracker, and a few other brands. We talked about what we wanted, and came up with a list of must haves: it must be aluminum, have a large amount of deck space, be capable of having a 24 volt trolling motor, be at least 18 feet, and be under 30,000. This constantly brought us back to the tracker 195 (although 24 volt trolling motor wiring costs an extra 200, that's chump change at this point). My question comes down to this. Is it a good boat? Are trackers good in general? Our fear is we will buy this thing and end up with a bunch of wasted money, so I was hoping thar maybe there would be a few owners here who could give me an honest answer, since most reviews seem to either be paid for, or are quite plainly fake, with a few irate customers over warranty not covering them running into a pole thrown in. Any help is appreciated, we will likely take plenty of time before purchasing, just trying to get all the info I can.

My biggest mistake on the water? Well, I was fishing the tidal part of the James river, and went back into a hydrilla/spadderdock field at peak tide. having a pretty good time with my dad catching tons of fish, nothing big but still enough to prevent me from paying attention to what was going on. An east wind was blowing the tide out faster, and I ended up sitting in the mud for 7 hours waiting for the tide to come back in so I could get out. Edit: I've also forgotten to put the plug in the boat...... twice.... nothing like seeing 6 inches of water in the boat then getting wet up to your armpit trying to put the d**n thing in on the water and hoping the bilge pump will keep you afloat long enough for you to figure it out. You think I would have learned the first time. I've always heard you get what you pay for with braid. I used spiderwire years and years ago, and wasn't very happy with it, but I'm sure they have gotten better since then. I'm currently using sufix 832 on all of my reels but one, which is spooled with daiwa samurai and I'm using sunline assassin fluorocarbon leaders on them. Really happy with all 3 lines. Also, something I found out recently, is that 150yrds is plenty to spool 2 reels, and saves quite a bit of money.

I don't know... a heavy daily user of heroine costs about 28,000 a year. I just checked my check book and uh.... My name is rob, I am a bass fisherman and I need help. I have been sober since 3pm tomorrow, and am trying to become sober. But, just so we are on the same page, I do plan to relapse over the next few weekend, but then in late November I will stop, I swear. And then I may relapse again in February for a while. Buy seriously guys I want to make it clear that I want to sober and know that I will always be an addict........

I have two. This past weekend on the chickahominy river I pulled a blue crab in on my jig. Little guy had grabbed onto the trailer and just would not let go. The second was a few years ago on Lake Hartwell. We were striper fishing and hadn't caught anything all week. On thursday morning I was throwing the cast net at shad schools, and came up with a decent sized hybrid AND a small striper. First two fish of the week caught in a cast net. It was hilarious when I got to tell everyone I skunked them with a cast net.

I'm nowhere near the best angler, and I still have a lot to learn and I'm hoping people here can help me get better at locating fish. But here's what I've been doing when I get to new places, or places I still have no idea where the fish are. I normally start with a spinner bait, black&white if the water is muddy, or chartreuse or white if the water is stained/clear. If that doesn't yield anything I switch to a crank bait, normally something in a bluegill, or shad color to imitate bait fish. Once again if that does work and I believe they are in shallower waters I drop to something a little slower and work a jerkbait in shiner or gold shiner colors, or a fluke. After that, I start trying the tried and true flipping jig with beaver tail trailer in clear water, or creature trailer if it's murky to muddy and I'm fishing docks or hydrilla beds; or a football jig with the same trailer choices when fishing hard bottom points. If all that fails and I just want to catch a fish, I switch to a Carolina, or Texas rig, with either a 7" or 10" worm depending on season. Hope this helps.

So, to make things simple, (just restating something already said) you will have white, brown, yellow, and green wires. Green - right turn Yellow - left turn Brown - running lights (the two brown wires on the trailer connect here) White - trailer ground. This gets mounted anywhere on the trailer that is clean of rust/paint. Once you make sure these are all connected, most trucks will have a trl prk, trl lft, trl rt, and possibly a trl brk. These fuses are trailer park lights, trailer left turn, trailer right turn, and trailer brake. If you have running lights on one side and not the other, you either have a bad connection/broken wire on the trailer somewhere, or something isn't wired right.

So just a small update, I found out that my boat insurance will cover the lost gear, however they want a police report since it would be claimed as a boating accident, and pictures of the gear if I have it, and an estimate of what replacing it will cost. I find that a little odd since it isn't really an "accident" but rather some gear that went in the water. So that has had me on the phone all day. Finally figured out who I needed to contact, and filed a report with the descriptions of the jet skis and their operators. They seem pretty serious about figuring out who it was and actually gave me a personal number to call if I see the skis in a slip when I go back. I should have called VDGIF yesterday when it happened since now no real consequences can come of what happened. but apparently the officer wants to drop by and have a nice long talk with the owners if we can find the skis. Either way, thanks all for allowing me to rage a little bit, and @S. Sass thanks for reminding me about the boat insurance. I would have never thought they would cover lost gear. I guess I should read up on my policy a bit better.

I don't get it either. But I figured yesterday was going to be slow, which is why I went. I stayed away this past weekend and went to the Chickahominy specifically to avoid the labor day yahoos. I guess I should have given the game warden a call. I'm sure after the accident back in July they would have camw down pretty hard on this. But when you have an autistic teenager in the boat trying to calm them down takes priority just out of habit. Thanks for reminding me about insurance, I actually have it on the boat but I'm not sure if it will cover the lost gear. I'm definitely going to look into it today though. Thanks for the concern. It definitely wasn't a pleasant day on the water after that. I'm pretty certain he's decided that he will never set foot on another boat. Which is sad because we got him his first bass and he really enjoyed it. I'll give it a month or so and see if I can't ease him back into the idea.

I managed to grab a few hours today to go prefish Smith Mountain Lake before I go on saturday, and good God the boat traffic is terrible. It wouldn't mind me so much if it was not for the jet skiers. Instead of giving a wide birth, and playing elsewhere, i guess they saw my cheap little 79 ranger and decided to run their skies in circles about 10ft from my boat, which ended up throwing my autistic brother who is 10 years my younger into the water ruining his first ever fishing trip, and causing me to lose 600$ in gear that went with him and any chance of getting him to come back. Not only did they knock him into the water, they continued their ***ting while I desperately tried to get ahold of my brother to bring him back aboard ignoring my yelling and my brothers screaming (he is autistic after all). How can people act like this? And what can I do to make sure this behavior comes to an end? Anyone who knows SML knows it can be over crowded, there was even a fatal accident not 2 months ago. But this type of behavior is just absurd. I thought boating classes were mandatory in VA? Oh well. My vent is over, and now I need to find a more productive way to respond if this happens again.