TOXIC

Another vote for SPRO. They make a model for every depth and style from lipless to flat sided to deep diver and everything in-between.

I know I sound like a broken record on these Senko posts but........Rigging is everything when it comes to making a Senko last especially if its Texas rigged. I have caught 15 hard fighting smallmouth on 1 senko before. Pay attention to the way you rig it!! It must be straight, you must minimize the hole in the nose when you push the hook up and spin it around (always rig on a wet hook). Pay very close attention to how you push the bait up for skin hooking. Get it right and it will last for multiple fish, get it wrong and you will tear and lose it after every fish. The original Senko, often imitated, never duplicated.

When I ran my 2 man pvc boat (alone) I fished water that was between 100-300 acres. I had a 46lb thrust TM and on some of the lakes, I trolled for crappie. I always made sure I maintained my 1 battery and that it was fully charged. There were rare occasions I limped in on low power. I could take a second battery if it was just me and swap if the 1st ran low. I didn't wire them together because that put all the weight in the back of the boat. I would think with a Jon you won't have any weight problems. I also note you have 2 TM's. I used to see TM only tournaments where there were 3 TM's on their boats, 2 in back and 1 up front.

X1000 The wear and tear these guy put their bodies through is huge. Most of the "Senior" anglers have had multiple back, shoulder and arm surgeries as well as hands and knees. Some of the young guns are also having problems with the same things. Most don't understand the torture the trail puts on your body. Heck, even as a guide, if I had over 3 days booked for full 8 hours, at the end of the last trip I was literally on fumes. These guys with the practice, travel and tournament days crush their bodies. What keeps them in the game is to work smarter not harder. I have seen the routine an Elite Series angler goes through from practice all the way through a tournament because he stayed with me the entire time. Have no doubts the grind is real.

When every coat, jacket, windbreaker you own has soft plastics in the pocket.

What I have noticed and I'm a relative newby here, is that there is a level of maturity and respect that is lacking on other sites. It makes it easier to share info.

I can't imagine trying to dissect Lake Fork for a 3 day trip and I've been there. Pool your $$ and hire a guide.

My temp would go high then sub then high then sub.....I told my wife my radiator was malfunctioning.

Good luck!! I would really like to see a good product for a reasonable price but in my experience, the better replicas are much more expensive. I look at the gills, mouth and scales first, then eyes/fins. As was mentioned, some paint the scales 4 times for each scale. That is time and detail that you pay for. For me it is a work of art by an artist and that never comes cheap.

I am not a fan of adjusting the drag on any reel while fighting a fish nor do I back reel. I set my drag to match my line not the fish. I very rarely break off especially with today's modern drag systems on both baitcasters and spinning reels. I also do not like using a net or flipping fish into the boat. I prefer to lip them, excluding toothy fish obviously. I also never put the rod down while getting a fish in the boat so I never lose contact but I do move my hand from the reel to the foregrip.

I got the flu for the first time in 5 years and I get the shot every year. I also work a lot of fishing shows and come in contact with thousands of people. I was down a week and truly believe the shot lessened the duration and severity. 5 years ago I got it full force and truly thought I was going to expire. Down for 3 weeks. This time I was down for a week and just treated the symptoms. I will continue to get the shot every year!!

I've had the same thing happen with buddies around me in boats fishing wacky and I T-Rig. You just never know. One thing is for certain....If your're fishing a Senko, you're gonna get bit!!

It's all over the scale, totally depends on the taxidermist. Most have websites with examples of their work and prices. Now, if you are willing to take a little less quality for less $$ then that may be an option. It's all personal preference.

Yep. Despite my best efforts and getting the shot, I came down with the flu this year. I work a lot of fishing shows and come in contact with thousands of people so I am high risk anyway. So they say getting the shot lessens the severity if you do get it and I have to agree. Not being my first rodeo, I knew as soon as I started feeling the symptoms what was coming. I could have gone to the Doctor and got Tamiflu to ease the symptoms but I felt like I knew what I had to do. Rest, take in a lot of fluids and treat the symptoms....cough, fever, etc. I was down a week and it was nowhere near as severe as my account earlier in this thread. Hopefully, this will be my only case this year. I have a few more shows to work.

@Scott F nailed my thinking. I've seen some replicas that look almost cartoonish because the "artist" just used an airbrush and added very little detail. My point being, if I was going to have a replica done (the only option IMHO, I wouldn't do a skin mount) I would want it to be as realistic as possible. Those that paint top quality replicas are usually very expensive and that's the exact reason I don't have any on my wall.......yet. I set my standards very high for a mount because I know how expensive it is going to be.

I will say your bilge is looking good!! Keep the updates coming!!

When we go to Lake St Clair every year, it's my truck and my buddies boat. We leave my boat parked. I get one bin behind the driver seat on his boat (2016 Ranger 520) for my baits. I have used a soft sided bag that holds 5 or 6 plano boxes depending on which plano's I take. My SPRO Little John plano is one of deeper boxes and takes more room. I have smaller boxes for Dropshot and another small box for shakeyheads and I can usually get 3 or 4 other plano's in the compartment with my soft sided bag but not in the bag itself. I also have a huge Cabela's soft sided bag for all of my extra baits that I can rotate into my smaller bag if the smallies turn on to a specific bait. I also take around 8 combo's on the boat with 6 more as spares.

I have a 21 foot tacklebox with a 250 Yamaha on the back. Ask me to go in someone else's boat and I get the cold sweats.

Your other option is to bring the boat home the night before you are going fishing and plug in the charger overnight. Then bring it home and plug it in before you take it back to storage. You need to charge the batteries, that's for certain.

A good taxidermist will be able to recreate that fish as a work of art. A "replica painter" will usually disappoint with the looks of the replica. In taxidermy, you get what you pay for and the good ones are very expensive but well worth it in my book. Nice feesh!!

I fall square in the middle. Yes, I want to be fishing but I am cheap so if it is within my skill level and a shop manual, I'll give it a whirl. You can save stupid amounts of $$ performing your own maintenance or you can spend stupid amounts of $$ taking the boat to your trusted mechanic for everything. Knock on wood, I haven't had anything I couldn't handle myself with the help of a good friend who is also a bass boat owner and was at one time a helo mechanic.

First boat was a 1973 Ebco Stinger tunnel hull glass speed boat with a 135 tower of power merc. Pure ski and speed boat. I was 18 an towed it with a 1976 Mercury Cougar. Spent every weekend at the lake slicin up the water and camping with friends. Then some a-hole stole the motor and destroyed the transom in the process.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you have an inflatable in your boat, it has to be worn at all times to be legal. If you take it off for any reason, you need to have a non-inflatable on the boat and you need to have one for every person. At least that's the law in Virginia. In my boat I have both. I use the vest style that stays hooked up to my killswitch for running and if the water is rough enough, I will put an inflatable on when I stop to fish for comfort and freedom of movement. I used to just use the inflatable but I have read too many instances of them not deploying so I went back to the vest style for running. It's a lot different slipping or tripping and falling out of the boat vs. getting ejected at 60mph+

I will second the notion that a "jack of all trades is a master of none" sentiment. If you become serious about fishing a fish n ski will disappoint. And if you sway more to the pleasure boat side, you'll soon find out that carrying that many people and wanting to tube and ski, you are going to need a pretty hefty motor, which ups your cost. So.......my advice is to choose which you want to spend the most of your time doing and buy according to that. If it were me, I would seriously look at a top end pontoon with at least a 225hp that is rigged to fish as well. Then if you decide you want to get more serious about fishing, you can look at another boat just for that and still have the pontoon as a party barge. I know the pontoon won't fit in your garage but I really think it's your best option.

MLF slides in and slides out. They don't want a lot of spectators. The Elites on the other hand want a production and the locations they go to PAY them to come with the hopes that their payment gets offset by the added revenue from the event itself. Would I care if they came to my home waters? Well, they come to the Potomac River on a pretty regular basis and it doesn't hurt the fishery and I can't imagine it brings any more anglers than already fish there. It's pretty busy with tournaments and weekend warriors. There have been some new regulations regarding the river that may end the pro trails and a lot of local tournaments, we will have to wait and see.