runt4561

if the lews rods you are referring to are the TP1 all white model with the winn grips then yes, I have used them and they are very nice rods for the price point. my only gripe is that they don't come with a hook hanger.

this is only my opinion. im not saying I am right.... definitely a yes for a minn kota. and the spot lock on the ultrex is a very nice feature but I have an issue with it. it is my opinion that all of these costly electronic gizmos are not designed to last for a very long time without something failing. yes the professionals use them and promote them but here is the thing... they don't care about how long it lasts. if they are sponsored they get a new trolling motor every year. me and you do not. I have had my boat for 2 years. it is 22 years old. it came with a capable trolling motor but I had a brand and model preference. obviously I did not want to drain the bank to outfit a 22 year old boat but I need my equipment to be able to perform. I selected the minn kota maxxum 80 lb hand steer. I hand a foot pedal maxxum on my last boat and it was great but the hand steer will never have steering issues, which are common on foot pedal trolling motors. there are less mechanisms to fail. I got my trolling motor for $800 and it will take me anywhere I want to go. if money is not an option then yes an ultrex is a fine option but, I would be surprised to see that trolling motor last more than 5 years of regular fishing without a breakdown. as far as graphs. I really like the lowrance units but again I consider cost and the hummingbird units are more cost effective, especially if you are looking for side scan. I prefer at least 7 inch units and right now the helix 7 units are a great deal. again, this is just my opinion. good luck

all though I am a lews guy, I am not a fan of the laser mg so pro qualifier it is for me. also not a daiwa fan. I think you have to spend way too much money to get a good daiwa. just my opinion.

here is my opinion and personal experience on the matter..... I grew up fishing mono. used trilene xl a lot. I have settled on trilene big game as my favorite mono. years ago when flouro first came out I tried it. used the same knots I used with mono and treated it the same. I had a bad experience and went back to the trusty mono. over the next 4 years or so, I started putting pieces of the flouro puzzle together, learning what knots I should be tying and what techniques to use it with. I slowly started replacing some techniques with flouro. the first was cranking. I got used to it and couldn't imagine fishing mono. it was more sensitive and I could get a little deeper with my baits. the next was shakey heads and finesse baits. now I am at the point where the only thing I use mono for is texas rigs, Carolina rigs and topwater. I knew there were benefits to flouro with some of my techniques and I wanted to exploit them it just took me a while to realize that I could not tie the same knots or leave it on the reel for a long period of time before I had to change it. my point here is, you may have had a bad experience with flouro and im in the same boat as you. I had about 20 bad experiences with it before I figured out how to use it. however, if you are confident with the mono and that is what you like, stick with it. I know for me, I could hardly catch a fish on flouro in the beginning because I didn't have any confidence in it. once the confidencd started increasing so did the fish catches. if your confidence is with mono, you will probably catch more with it anyway.

I have been a costa fan for over 10 years now. favorite lense is the amber with green mirror. I believe they were in the $200 range. biggest factor with any sunglasses is don't order online without going somewhere first to try them on. you need frames that fit your head properly. it can be the difference in having an instant headache and being able to forget that you have them on. in the summer time in florida when I don't have a need for sight fishing, I have used cheaper strike kings. they are pretty decent for the price. I just do this so I get more life out of my costas. even though they have a great warranty, I hate having to send stuff off for warranty work.

the old presidents were dynamite. I don't have any experience with the newer ones. at one time, all I fished was pfluegers. in my opinion, their quality went downhill a bit, a few years ago.

I don't know which rod you will need but I do know that the 7'0 mh fury is too light for jigs in my opinion. I hope this helps

I have had them both and like them both but the lews wins hands down. it will cast further and stay silky smooth longer than the tatula. the only thing the t wing was better for was skipping baits and I liked the handles better.

i have not had one I several years for my boat so, I can not comment on the newer, smaller jump starters. I had one of the big ones you get at the automotive stores which lasted me 3 years. I paid $75ish for it. it had a lot of cold cranking amps. I would use it in the boat on the weekends and then in my work vehicle during the week. It was rechargeable and I could go 3 months without charging it. one of the greatest things I ever purchased.

that's awesome. most of my reels are from lews and after 6 years of fishing with them, I have yet to have an issue. good to know that if I do, I will be taken care of fairly if not beyond fairly.

never heard of it on any lines but I don't use sunline. I would definitely like to see that be standard for all lines though. I would be very happy to see that!!!

i think that if you are just starting out, you have to find something you are comfortable with. I would recommend to anyone just starting out, you have to define what baits or technique you like the best but, this could be a problem for somebody that doesn't know what they like, they just want to catch fish. here is the deal, if you like fishing a bait, you will fish it more and develop more confidence in it. I think I speak for most people in that my confidence baits are also my favorites. that seems like an obvious statement but they are different. I have been fishing for a long time and I have said for a long time that my favorite bait is whatever the fish are aggressively biting. however, my confidence would be flipping or pitching soft plastics and lipless crankbaits. these two techniques for me account for most of my fish in any given year. and here is the secret, they became my confidence baits because I liked them. I think I can also break it down further to the fact that they became my confidence baits because it became more than cast and retrieve for me. I was really interested in learning how that bait worked during every inch of the retrieve. I became obsessed with how different sizes or colors worked and what the bait would do if I reeled it fast as opposed to slow. some baits just don't appeal to me and become more of a mindless cast and retrieve. I tend to have less confidence in those baits because I am not interested in them. they don't capture my attention. I would choose a bait or technique that captures your attention. something you are interested in. spend time with it and learn what conditions it works best in. once you learn more about it, it will become more of a confidence bait. something you can do, is choose a bait and take only that when you go fishing. it will force you to learn that bait. our minds are our worst enemies some times when fishing. if you have several options or baits to choose from, you don't give yourself enough time to learn a bait. good luck

looks like a good boat. I would say that price wise it is where it should be. boat prices have been surging upward considerably in the past 2-3 years. the motor is great. I have the same one on my boat. good luck

steve is a unique individual. he does not have any sponsors to speak of so he is not forced into using stuff that he doesn't like. he has said in the past that he shops around on ebay trying to buy as many of the green curados as he can because he likes them. he takes all of his reels and replaces all of the inner workings on a regular basis to keep them top notch. he is just as picky with his boats. he ran an old ranger for years and actually wanted to fish out of an 18 foot boat instead of the 20 and 21 footers everyone else is running. he just recently started running a basscat and I think they may even be sponsoring him now. for this classic he finally installed 2 power poles which he commented made a world of difference and he never believed he would have liked them so much. I have a lot of respect for him. just because the industry nudges everyone in the direction of having the latest high end equipment, he doesn't subscribe to that. he uses what works for him and doesn't care what people think.

let the rod do the work. a 7 6 rod will take a lot less effort to cast at distance than the 6. when I bank fish, I cant use a 7 6 because of the trees on the bank. I can only imagine, if you have trees around when you are fishing from the bank, you are altering how you cast to accommodate for that 7 6 rod. I don't know if you have any trees but that may be an issue that is hindering how far you cast.

I am a fan of the bass pro crankin stiks. I understand that dobyns may make an excellent crankbait rod but they cant do it for $80. just my 2 cents.

my old triton came with a swivel eze, which is my choice if I have to buy one to put on a boat.

yea, we need price range and size of boat you are looking for or what kind of lakes you fish and how fast you want or expect to go

Wow, I wish that was the case here. wait a minute, I actually don't know of anywhere locally that will even stock the viscious elite. I have to order it.

everyone has there own opinions and preferences. both skeeter and ranger are very good boats. I like them both. they are both very high quality. I would give a slight edge to ranger on the quality of craftsmanship. They are very similar in rough water ride, I would say this might be a draw. The skeeter will be faster but not by much, maybe 2 mph. to me the motor choices on these two is what will be a matter of preference. If you are going to be fishing around a lot of grass, I would give the edge to the mercury. I live in florida and on the grassy lakes like Okeechobee and Kissimmee, mercury is king. on the river systems like st johns river or appalachicola, Yamaha is favored. I believe this is due to the water intake. the mercury can handle running in grass and mud better. when the SHO first came out, there were similar problems in florida I don't know if they have fixed it by now or not. out of everyone that I fish with, I dont know of any of them that have blown up a mercury. not saying that they wont because I know better. mercurys have a history of problems but I know of 5 friends that have had yamahas that have blown up. granted all of these were the hpdi's and not the SHO. it is so much of a problem in florida that if you are buying a used boat, you can tell by the asking price if it has a mercury or Yamaha or evinrude. the mercury will be more expensive. I hope this helps you out. you have definitely narrowed your search to 2 fine boats.

last year I broke the torsion axle on my boat trailer. Me and my friend welded it back together and welded some flat bar and angle iron to it to sure it up a little. I realized the bottom of the boat rubs on the angle iron when loading and unloading. I found a local trailer manufacturer that sold torsion axles for a great price so 3 weeks ago, I went there and provided the measurements for my axle. They ordered a custom made axle which should have taken about 2 weeks. Like I said this was 3 weeks ago. in the meantime, I put the axle back on the trailer and started using it again. While the axle was off, I noticed that I had a bearing starting to get noisy. I hoped that since the new axle would be here soon, I could just keep it packed with grease and it would last. Yesterday I got home and noticed the bearing buddy had come loose and slung all of the grease out. so now I need to replace bearings if I am going to guarantee fishing for this coming weekend. I bought this boat last year, it is 20 years old but I paid cash and for the first time in my life, I don't have a boat payment but I have spent a lot of money keeping this thing on the water. now that boat payment doesn't look all that bad, lol.

I owned an IMX and it was the worst Loomis rod I ever owned. my GL2 and GL3 were twice the fish catchers that the IMX was.

red label is my preferred flouro due to the price and performance. sure there is better flouro out there but I have not found one that costs the same or less than red label. the key to any flouro is the knot that you use. be sure to moisten the knot thoroughly before pulling it tight or it will damage the line. Use line conditioner on spinning reels to get rid of some of the memory and always be sure when you are putting line on a spinning reel, make sure the line is coming off the filler spool counter clockwise. this will reduce the line twist. If you just wanted to spend the money, Invizx and vicous pro elite are good choices too, just cost more. I have never used sunline but I hear great things about them. I would probably try sunline if it didn't cost more than the red label.

GLX are great rods no doubt about it. If I had unlimited resources I might buy a whole stable of them but I have a budget and I would rather have several rods. In my opinion, there are rods out there that perform just as well for less $$. The big thing in my mind is that Gloomis is one of only three rod brands that I have never broken and I have caught hundreds of fish on them and one of them is getting close to 20 years old.

lews BB1 and Shimano Citica. both are better reels than the Revo SX. Just my 2 cents