Boomstick

I generally hate fishing slow as well, unless I know there's fish in the area, it's not so painful. If I see them on my fish finder, or if I've got a couple of fish in that area either prior or just the day prior, that's even enough to give me hope to keep going. Trying to find fish is the worst part. I will usually mix it up a bit, fish slow and then fish moderately just to play my odds of covering more ground. If I get a fish or even a nibble, that's valuable information.

^8 for being about fishing.

There's a few things to keep in mind here. The first thing to note is the screens on most 7 and 9s are the same number of pixels overall, so the 7 will be sharper looking. The best advantage of the 9" model is that it will be easier to see in bright sunlight, and using traditional, clearvu and sidevu all at once is a little larger and easier to see. If you have sidevu full screen, the 7" shouldn't be a problem. The other thing to keep in mind is where are you going to mount it. If you mount it on the side of the boat, I would go with a 7", as 9" might get in the way a little. The 9" on my Bonafide 127 is center mounted on the dry pod, and it's not too big. You should be fine mounting a Garmin to you Sportsman. I got my kids EchoMap UHD 73sv on sale at BPS for Xmas, and my youngest has an Old Town Topwater. I haven't mounted the transducer yet, but I will this spring. The mounts included should work fine from what I've seen on people's Youtube installs. Finally if you can get a deal on an EchoMap maybe in BPS's spring sale, I'd say it's worth it. Even if you fish the same small lake or two so the maps aren't a huge deal, the touchscreen interface is much easier to use.

I'm glad this helped so many people. I thought everyone would have known this by now.

Bassresource, the TacticalBassin channel on Youtube and In Pursuit of Giant Bass by Bill Murphy are three great resources.

You can send it to me if you like

It depends on the rod. In normal conditions 6-10, usually 6-8. In wind, 10-12. I believe I mentioned above there is an exact setting where casting under normal conditions is almost impossible to birds nest, usually 8 or 9, sometimes 10. It depends on the rod and weight of the lure. Usually I'll go a click or two below that and use my thumb, sometimes I'll keep it there if I don't care about distance.

Trust me, I've been together with my finceee for long enough to know she wouldn't complain if I bought it now, or later. The reason I'm not doing it now is I'm going to have to pay for a wedding and I don't want to put it all on a credit card. A couple of years ago when I was shopping bass boats she used to harp on me for not having bought one. A few years prior, I was looking for a new guitar and she was like did you buy the guitar already?

I tighten it so there is no noticeably play. I learned this from Brett Ehrler and he said to loosen it until the spool just begins to click, so I guess it's a fine line.

Yeah, it's sad. It's no longer really worth the drive for me anymore because that seems to be the norm there now, plus the BPS in Hookset NH is no more than a 30 minute longer drive because of all the traffic and construction and that store has always been well stocked and organized.

I believe this is called the improved uni, hence my confusion plus the fact that this variant is new to me.

I'm confused. This is the double uni knot I'm aware of Is it possible you mixed up braid and fluorocarbon? The palomar does slip with fluorocarbon but it's absolutely solid with braid from my experiences.

I always used the term fish finder, but I'm right there with you. I just got mine this year so I'm fairly new with it, but I've spent some time trying to catch a fish I saw on it, got one, had another (pike) bite right through my line but the majority of the time I'm looking for multiple fish around some key structure more than chasing single fish. It does bring out my ADD when I'm fishing a brush pile and getting bites and then I see a giant fish go by and have to go chase that.

I'm confused. The double uni is a line to line knot, and single uni has less line loss than a palomar to tie if you tie it right and that can be quite significant with larger lures. As for my personal preferences, I will almost always use a uni knot as it works on all lines with the exception of braid where I will tie a uni or a palomar. Both work, but on braid, I believe the palomar should be just a little bit stronger since they cinch down so tightly. If there's heavy wind, I will use a uni knot just because I find the uni easier to tie in the wind for whatever reason.

Come BPS/Cabela's spring sale, you can get Berkley Trilene Fluorocarbon for buy one get one free at BPS or half off at Cabela's (the latter as of 2020's spring sale at least). I've used a lot of it and it's been decent line with terrific knot strength.

I'm still trying to master these

I would say there's more than just how but when, where and why to truly master a technique.

The action of the St. Croix Mojo Bass 6'8" M/XF "Topwater" rod is fantastic for light topwater. If you have a higher budget, it's also available in the Avid and Avid X line.

I haven't but I have with the Plano Spinnerbait box at times, which has removable dividers that are similar. If it's problematic, a little krazy glue should take care of it.

It should be okay using 10lb line I'd think

That shouldn't really matter.

I believe the Steez SV CT would be the closest Daiwa offering to the Aldebaran. It's still a little larger but the smallest profile that Daiwa offers that I'm aware of. I just picked up a Steez SV, and it's a little bit larger, more for using 15-20lb line for jigs and T-Rigsthan 10lb line for crankbaits or finesse jigs, but it is a very comfortable size for me. I'm not sure if they have anything in the Tatula or Zillion line that is similar.

I bought myself a 7'5" Steez AGS Bottom contact rod and Steez SV reel for jigs and carolina rigs. It's my first truly high end combo, and being a MH-H it's a fairly specialty rod, also a first for me. I haven't got to fish it yet, but it looks like it'll be an amazing combo for sure. If you can't swing something like that, don't worry. I've used Daiwa Tatula rods for a few years and I got my youngest son a St Croix Mojo Bass and my oldest a Dobyns Sierra, and any of those would be a massive upgrade over the Black Max combo. Now to be able to make a proper recommendation, what size jigs are you throwing, finesse or not and what sort of cover do you contend with?

1) I'd like to catch a 8 pounder or better. 2) I'd like to get my boys new PBs, especially my oldest son who's PB is only 2.83lbs. He came really close to landing a few really nice ones last year but missed one on the hookset, another shook the hook and almost landed a real nice one, got it 95% onto his boat and the knot broke. 3) I'd like to fish a kayak tournament or two, although due to craziness with covid that may become more of a goal for next year, but it is on my to do list. 4) Fish more poppers, spooks and jerkbaits. I didn't fish a lot of these this year because my feet were bothering me with gout a lot of the year and it's much easier to stand and walk a lure. 5) Continue working on my jig fishing game. I've made vast improvements in this area in the past couple of years. 6) Night fish more - I'm not much of a morning person so dawn is rough for me and I usually pack up the kayaks when I have some daylight, but with a headlamp I should be able to night fish. 7) Better tackle management. My tackle bag is actually quite well organized, but I'd like to get it organized in my Blackpak on my kayak so I can change out lures when fishing easier.

That sounds right. The brakes are effective enough where you shouldn't need a lot of resistance. I do the same thing when skipping only I turn the brakes up to 16-20, and usually use the SV but the same generally applies to the CT.