Kayak Koz

My son (a HS baseball pitcher) has been dealing with a sore elbow for months. The team trainer had him rest his arm for 2+ weeks and when he started throwing again it immediately hurt. So then I sent him to an orthopaedic surgeon who pawned him off to a pediatric surgeon and he was told he had tennis elbow, given a cortisone injection, and told to rest for 4 weeks. Mind you, my son is only 17, but he's just about 6' 4" tall, 185 pounds, and he's all muscle as he works out multiple times a week. Sending him to pediatrics is a joke. He goes to school in Texas (I'm in Georgia), and last week he called me and told me he was in the hospital because his elbow was in so much pain. They put him in pediatrics again and took an X-Ray. He's scared and asks me to get down there. I book at last minute flight for the next morning and later in the day talk his doctor. The doctor says he is sure Matt has nerve damage and is sending him to a level 1 hospital in Houston - a 5 hour ambulance ride away. I tell the doctor I'll just fly him to GA and have him checked out here. The doctor insists he has to go to Houston right now and have special nerve testing done or he could lose partial use of his arm. So they transport him to Houston. The next day I fly to where Matt was, Uber to where his car is, then make my 5 hour drive to Houston. The irony here is that my connecting flight was in Houston. I get to the hospital - another pediatric hospital - at 1 in the morning. Five minutes after I'm there the doctor comes in and tells me they are discharging Matt. What? I ask about the nerve testing that he traveled 5 hours for. The doctor tells me to make an appointment for next week. Really? After the other doctor said it was IMPERATIVE that Matt be tested RIGHT AWAY? They did take an MRI in Houston and I asked about the results. The doctor says there is swelling. I ask about a UCL tear, frayed tendon, pinched nerve, and more. The doctor's only response? "There's swelling." Zero diagnosis. My guess is this was simply a referral money grab between doctors and hospitals. I'm ticked. So I ask for Matt's records and the digital copies of the MRI. We leave at 2 in the morning to drive back to Georgia. When we get back I start calling sports medicine doctors. They all refer him back to pediatrics because he's not yet 18. Then I lucked out. I started looking for doctors that specialize in baseball and I called the office of the team doctor for the Charleston Riverdogs. I pleaded my case stating Matt was not a little kid and he is on the radar of colleges and pro teams. The reached out directly to the doctor and he agreed to see Matt. So on Friday we trek to Charleston and hopefully we can get a diagnosis and a plan of action. But I find it ridiculous that they kept putting this big young man in pediatrics because of his age and not taking into account his size and the fact that he's a baseball pitcher. This isn't some kid falling off of his bike. These doctors and hospitals need to use common sense. Thankfully we found one.

??? I'm pretty good at casting, but not an expert. When I'm out there fishing, I don't think about my cast. I think about where I want it and just do it. Frankly, sometimes I'm amazed with my accuracy. And sometimes I'm amazed at how many times the line wraps around a bush.

That's actually been debunked. However, there are documented cases of viable bass eggs being transferred through duck poop. There was a thread on this last year.

There was a mating pair of Canadian geese that showed up in the creek channel at my hotel and I dubbed them Milo and Henrietta (I have no idea why). Then one week I saw them swim by with a gosling in tow and I named him Ryan, naturally. But the following week when I saw Milo and Henrietta, little Ryan was nowhere to be found. The mating pair wandered the banks of the creek channel for another week or so before they moved on.

I have a couple of Curado DC's and they are great for night fishing on my kayak in pitch black conditions just in case I don't thumb the spool in time.

For bank fishing I suggest a backpack. I have a Plano backpack, but the BPS stacked one looks great as well. First off, slinging a tackle bag over your shoulder and carrying it will wear you out. But even more important, by using a backpack you can easily fish and move around at the same time. But be careful - I had a tendency to overload mine and it got really, really heavy.

There's nothing like the feeling when you get a big strike, set the hook, feel the rod get heavy and for a split second you think you've got your PB bass only to feel the telltale pull of a catfish. And I mean that sinking feeling. I had it happen at a tournament last month skipping docks. For a split second I was counting the payout for big bass of the day. Bummer.

Background: I decided to fish the MLF Phoenix Series (BFL) this year for two reasons. The first, I'm an older guy and this is a bucket list item. Second, it's good PR for my hotel. My hotel has provided me limited sponsorship for the events. Also, some of you know I have the Fishing with the GM events at my property, and this year I asked for donations from bait companies and in return one of the things I do to promote them is have their logos on my tournament jersey. I'm an average recreational angler with very little club tournament experience and with that I have no expectations entering these tournaments. I'm in them to have fun and for the hotel PR. Event 3: Lake Sinclair Lake Sinclair is another lake in my backyard and connects to Lake Oconee at the Wallace Dam. With only a 20 minute drive to the ramp I'm not spending money on a hotel room, travel, and boarding my dog for a few days. So already it's a win for me. Oddly enough, until today I had never fished Sinclair. I talked with my boater a few minutes the night before the vent, and his strategy was to fish shallow water and beat the banks all day. THAT is a strategy I like because it gives me an opportunity to catch fish - something I will elaborate on later. The day started off overcast, and oddly enough despite no rain in the forecast we ran into some light showers off and on during the day. We were in the second flight, and after a quick jaunt we hit a creek channel. My boater and I both happened to start off throwing buzzbaits, but since this was a wider creek channel and we were both fishing the same bank after 3 or 4 casts I picked up another rod with an underspin and a Keitech. That paid off right away and I landed a small keeper within just a few casts. About an hour later my boater landed a small one, and a little while later he landed a second small keeper. We fished grass lines and skipped docks for a while but found no takers. It was still cloudy out, but we started fishing the wooded shorelines and skipping under trees and bushes. I got a nice strike on another underspin, set the hook, and reeled down as I felt the bass start to come up. Sure enough it breached and spit the hook. Dang! It looked to be 2 - 2.5 pounds. My boater caught his 3rd fish as we moved on and fished some more grass lines between docks and I landed another small keeper on a trick worm. Then things got weird for me. My trick worm was green pumpkin with a chartreuse tip, and fish kept grabbing the tip of the worm but not hitting the hook. I'd reel in and feel the fish on the line, see my rod dip and the line move, and when the fish got near the boat they'd let go. I'd reel in and the hook was still texposed. This happened four times. It reminded me of the Spongebob episode where Spongebob and Patrick would ride the hooks and then jump off. I don't count these as fish I lost (i.e. I screwed up), since they were never hooked. They might have been bluegills anyway, although I felt some weight on two of them. I lost another one at the boat that threw the hook and that one was definitely less than two pounds, but still a keeper. Meanwhile, my boater landed a nice 5 pounder for his 4th fish of the day. For the last two hours, the sun came out and we weren't catching anything, try as we might. I ended up with just two fish and just over two pounds and my boater ended with four fish and just over 9 pounds. Still, it was a good day. I had lanes to fish all day, and I really should have had four fish but I blew it on two of them. Only two co0anglers broke 10 pound (13 and 10). The winning boater finished with an even 20 pounds. After four events I'm sitting 73rd out of 244 co-anglers, and with one event to go I'm only 107 points out of qualifying for the regions. That's more than doable. But even if I fall short, by entering all five events in my region I will fish a special event to try and qualify for the regional championship at Lake Norman. Bonus Event: Lake Hartwell A few weeks ago I enter the MLF event at Lake Hartwell even though it was outside of my region. The points I gain there did not apply to my division, so I was in it for the experience. Plus, Hartwell is a great largemouth bass fishery. Unfortunately, my boater wanted to fish off shore for spotted bass. His strategy was to fish offshore in 20-30 foot deep water, exploring brush piles with his LiveScope and throwing a shaky head. That leaves me throwing blind off the side or the back of the boat having zero idea if there is any type of structure out there. He can throw a shaky head directly in front of him and properly work the bait as he moves in on the brush pile. Me? I can't throw a shaky head or drop shot off the side of the boat because it just drags and I can't work it. So I would throw a lipless crank to try and cover water, but mostly I threw a Carolina Rig with a long leader so I could pull it forward and then let it sit for just a little bit as the boat moved. But that didn't work well because my boater kept either turning over my line or casting on top of my line all day long. All. Day. Long. This happened every time he noticed a fish where I was fishing. It got to the point where I almost had him take me back to the dock. I caught one 2.5 pounder and even then he cast right on top of me. Oh yeah - he didn't treat the live well and when we got back my fish was dead and I was penalized a quarter pound. The other thing is we kept moving all day. I mean really moving. He'd pull up to a spot, take two or three casts and stare at his Live Scope, then we'd be off to the next spot. All. Day. Long. Back and forth to almost all of the same brush piles. The rules state that the boater has to give the co-angler a chance to fish, and this bordered on shutting me out all day. While I think it was a mistake to fish off shore for spotted bass, I have no problem deferring to the boater. I was all set for shaky heads and drop shots just in case, but that was ridiculous. The bottom line is that if you're a co-angler and your boater wants to fish deep water with his Live Scope, yo may be in for a long, unproductive day. That being said, what I should have done is asked him if he had side scan on the console unit. That might have allowed me to find some other structure. But chances are he would end up steaming over my line or pulling off to the next spot when I figured out where to cast. The next even in my region is not until August on Lake Lanier. But I'm thinking about heading to Neely Henry Lake in Alabama in June then to Lake Keowee in South Carolina in early August. If I do happen to qualify for the regional championship at Lake Norman set for October, I may fish the Lake Norman tournament in September. Today's results weren't good, but it was a good day. After the Hartwell debacle, it was nice to have real opportunities to catch fish again.

You don’t want to spook the fish, right? The solution to your problem is rather easy.

I'm not a fan of it and I rarely use it. It is reserved for rare occasions. But when I do use it, my staff knows I'm trying to make a point.

My great grandparents escaped the Russian Revolution with my infant grandmother in tow. For years we would hear the stories around the dinner table at family gatherings, mostly told by my great uncle Peter. The family begged him to write the family history, but each time he declined. When he passed away, at the wake his wife came out with a huge, hand bound volume. The first page of the tome, all written in Russian, said, "No man should tell his story before his time." A few of my favorite stories from the book: 1. My great grandparents opposed the Bolsheviks, and one day two soldiers stormed the house with the intent to kill them. My great grandmother was holding my infant grandmother in her arms when one of the soldiers raised his rifle to shoot her. She uttered an old Russian curse at him and his gun backfired and killed him. The other soldier screamed that she was a witch and ran away. 2. The family fled Russia into Europe, got caught up in WWI, and the family got separated into two groups (we had a very large family and still do today). Both groups eventually made it to Canada, but were still separated. Upon arriving in Canada, one of the groups took out an ad in the newspaper and ran it on a regular basis looking for the rest of the family. Almost 10 years later they finally got a response. After all that time they found out that they were living less than 15 miles apart.

I'll be winning an Phoenix 819 Pro at the MLF Phoenix regional event later this year ?

You test baits in the bathtub? That would be the LAST place I would want to have a treble hook accident!

I have no idea if my spots would have produced better on that day. But what I do know is that fishing creek channels would provide me more opportunities to catch fish between the longer stretches of sea wall and shoreline and being able to fish one side of narrower creek channels while the boater fished the other. The weather was different on tournament day (sunny and warmer vs. cooler and cloudy), but the wind had picked up. With that, instead of the bass being dispersed throughout both sides of the creek channel I would have targeted the wind blown seawalls and banks first, especially those in shade pockets from late morning onward. I would have also attacked the docks in those areas as well. As I said, I caught most of my fish when we were in the open, flooded timber area where I could fish one side of the boat while he fished the other. But I will reiterate, it is the boater's prerogative as to where to fish and it is up to the co-angler to adapts. I don't want this to sound like sour grapes on my part. I'm genuinely reaching out for advice on alternative ways to target fish when the boater is racing between docks. It was a brutal day out there as about 20% of the boaters and 30% of the co-anglers didn't record even one scoreable fish.

He did. I have zero problem with any boater running their own patterns. It’s their boat and they are paying bigger fees. And in this case. he was catching fish, so no complaints from me. It’s on me to adapt. I just need to come up with a different approach when the boater is racing from dock to dock. I need to figure out what that will be next time. That being said, as a courtesy I will provide my own info on the lake if it’s applicable. If the boater is not catching anything I hope they take my info into consideration.

Background: I decided to fish the MLF Phoenix Series (BFL) this year for two reasons. The first, I'm an older guy and this is a bucket list item. Second, it's good PR for my hotel. My hotel has provided me limited sponsorship for the events. Also, some of you know I have the Fishing with the GM events at my property, and this year I asked for donations from bait companies and in return one of the things I do to promote them is have their logos on my tournament jersey. I'm an average recreational angler with very little club tournament experience and with that I have no expectations entering these tournaments. I'm in them to have fun and for the hotel PR. Event 3: Lake Oconee This week's tournament was on Lake Oconee, which happens to be my home lake. Oconee is not a great bass fishery and is mainly known for stripers, catfish and crappie. Typical winning tournament numbers are 11 - 16 pound bags. While 20 pound bags are not unheard of, they are few and far between. For the past few years, oxygenation has been a major problem in the lake, but Georgia Power has been trying to rectify that by installing aerators in strategic locations around the lake. I talked to them a few weeks ago and they say that they are seeing some positive results. Even though the fishing is usually not great, one nice aspect of the tournament being here is that I don't have to travel, get a hotel room, or board my dog for the weekend - and I get to sleep in my own bed. Getting Ready I had some good news at the beginning of the week as I picked up another bait sponsor for my Fishing with the GM program at the hotel. I'm still working on a few more, and if that materializes I'll have to get another tournament jersey. In the meantime I picked up one of their hats to represent them at the tournament. So far I've picked up a few sponsors and they donate things like stickers, a few baits, and some promo discounts on their gear. I'm thankful that they are contributing to our kids program and in turn I'm happy to represent them at tournaments. Another good thing about fishing on my home lake is that I would finally be able to pre-fish to prepare for the tournament. My initial plan was to fish the lake on Wednesday with my buddy @flatcreek since that day's weather would be similar to tournament day weather. But as luck would have it, work got in the way and it pushed our fishing until Thursday. But when Thursday's forecast called for rain and thunderstorms we pushed our fishing back another day until Friday. Saturday's tournament forecast called for bluebird skies and 82 degrees but Friday was nothing like that. It was overcast with on and off rain, temperatures in the 60's, and afternoon thunderstorms in the forecast. The goal, obviously, was to find some fish and see if by fishing different baits and techniques we could come up with a pattern or two. In addition, while I typically don't fish a lot of crankbaits, part of why I joined the MLF Phoenix Series was to become more versatile with my fishing and work on different techniques. The week before I had purchased half a dozen or so new 1.5 squarebills and was ready to put them to the test. The squarebills paid off almost immediately, and I picked up a pattern of finding the bass right up against the wood and metal sea walls (but not rip rap), specifically with a black and red crankbait. I did try other lighter, darker, and natural colors and nothing bit. Because this was a practice day, once finding that pattern I moved on to throwing other baits to see if I could pick up a second pattern. Meanwhile, @flatcreek was running through other baits and picked up on a shaky head pattern. With thunderstorms rolling in we fished for about only four hours, but I felt confident going into the tournament despite the upcoming weather changes. Even with sunny skies in the forecast, my thought was I'd still find the bass along the shady sea walls. Tournament Day I drew another good guy for my boater and he happened to be familiar with Oconee. Even with him having fished Oconee before, I sent him some GPS coordinates of where we were finding fish on Friday as a fallback to his choices. The luck of the draw had us as boat 95 out of 120+ in the tournament and that meant the staggered start would have us out there about 50 minutes after the first group left the marina. Normally I don't mind late starts, but in my experience on Oconee the morning fishing is good and the mid afternoon fishing is just terrible, and in my mind that put us at a disadvantage. We set out and hit a nearby rip rap seawall (hey - that's Ben Roethlisberger's house!). Nothing. After one or two more stops with similar features we headed out to a part of Oconee that I had never fished before. It was an area of flooded stumps and timber near where two creeks entered. But it was was not shallow and depths were 16-20 feet deep. At about that time the wind died completely and the water was dead calm. My boater was throwing a spinnerbait and a small buzzbait while I started out with an underspin with a Keitech. Still no takers. With the calm water, I decided that it was time to make some noise and walked the dog with a 4" black Zara Spook and nailed a 2+ pound keeper with my first cast. On the board! After a some more casts with the Spook and no more takers - and seeing my boater wasn't getting any hots on his buzzbait - I switched over to a t-rigged Senko. But quickly realized that didn't make much sense with all of these limbs and pockets and switched it over to a wacky rig setup figuring the flutter of the Senko was more likely to trigger bites in that area. It worked and I caught a few more, they didn't meet the minimum length of 14". Next I switched over to a Jackhammer chatterbait with a Rage Tail trailer, hoping to draw a strike from bigger bass by bouncing it off the wood or triggering a strike when I swam it away. Well, it was a good plan, but it didn't work. Aside from the abundance of cover, one great thing about this area was that it was open water and we could fish opposite sides of the boat. It was definitely an interesting area to fish and I need to head back out there on my kayak where I can take more time and pick the area apart. Maybe bounce some jigs off the limbs or drop shot around the timber. There's also an old road bed out there where I saw a bunch of fish activity. We moved on from there and began fishing docks and riprap seawalls on the main like. Typically, I'm not a fan of fishing the main lake simply because I fish out of a kayak and Oconee is an extremely narrow lake. With a ton of pontoon boat and jet ski traffic I'm left contending constant boat wakes and their rebounds of of the sea walls. But I did have one dicey moment on the back of the boat when I didn't notice a big wake hit the boat just as I was shifting my weight and I almost ended up over the side. With my boater attacking the docks and doing a good job of picking them apart I was targeting the mostly rip rap sea walls, but the pattern I had found the day before wasn't producing any strikes. I varied my crankbait colors, then tried spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, underspins, rattletraps, and bigger crankbaits but didn't even sniff a bite. I think that the main reason for that is that the day before @flatcreek and I were fishing creek channels and today I was fishing main lake with a lot of wakes and boat traffic. While it was sunny on tournament day as opposed to the day before, we were fishing shade lines for that part of the day, but still no takers of the sea walls. As I said, my boater did a good job of picking apart the docks. In fact, I think that every one of the fish that he caught was running a spinner bait right up along the near side or far side of the dock and triggering the bass to come out and attack. Skipping under docks had an added degree of difficult y today as the water level was high, meaning on many docks there was simply no gap to skip a bait under. Complicating matters was the periods of increased wind and wake activity. There's nothing like going to skip a bait, then getting hit by a wake and having your bait clank off the dock instead of skipping under the gap. When we did skip under the docks there were no takers. That is, until at one point I skipped an underspin under one dock and then got a small backlash. I quickly pulled it out, but as I was reeling in my rod tip got heavy and I set the hook. This one was definitely going to need the net! I knew immediately that it was a 6 or 7 pounder. My thoughts raced. Big fish of the day cash prize? Finishing in the money? And when I saw it come up from the depths from under the docks I knew I was right about the weight. The only problem? Wrong species. It was a catfish. That took the wind out of my sails pretty fast. That was the only catch either of us had skipping under the docks. It seemed that if the docks were holding any bass, it was a lone bass that my boater pulled out of the cover with his spinnerbait. The last 3 hours were pretty uneventful. My boater wanted to make a run to the back of Lick Creek which happens to be right near my hotel. But as usual there was nothing there. As I said earlier, Oconee can be tough. My boater finished with 14 pounds and cashed in with a 10th place finish. I ended up with that one keeper and finished in somewhere in the middle of the pack out of 121 co-anglers. How tough was it out there? Out of 121 boats on the water, THIRTY FOUR co-anglers and TWENTY TWO boaters scored goose eggs on the day. An 18 pound bag won the boater division and an 11 pound bag won the co-angler division. I've got to say that I was pretty disappointed that I didn't catch 10 or 11 pounds on the day. The good news is that by weighing in I moved up in the points and I'm within striking distance of automatically qualifying for the regionals with two more tournaments to go in my region. The bad news? I have a bit of a dilemma here as I pick the day apart and decide what I should have done differently. Maybe you guys can provide some insight and advice. With my boater power fishing and with what @flatcreek picked up on the day before, my immediate thought is that I probably should have relied more on finesse fishing rather than my comfort zone of power fishing. This even though I was throwing different baits than my boater. But here's where I think my lack of experience hurts me and I'm not sure of the approach I should have taken. My boater was running quickly from dock to dock with either the trolling motor or the big motor. So if I'm trying to fish the sea walls when that's happening my bait is pulling hard and I'm trolling off the back of the boat more than working the bait. When he gets to the dock I do have some time to fish the sea wall with some longer casts, and that's where the rattletraps came in handy. We were running the docks fishing off the port side, and as we clear the far end of the dock or docks he angles the nose towards the shoreline so he gets a better angle to cast in the back pocket between the walkway and the dock (FWIW, that's exactly how I would fish it if I was the boater). So I get one or two chances to skip under the dock, and usually the second one is at an odd angle because of the position of the bow as he works around the dock. I can also cast parallel to the front of the dock, which is not a terrible option. But again, if I take one shot at skipping under the dock, that second shot is at an off angle or if I cast parallel to the front of the dock, as he accelerates to the next dock it leaves me essentially trolling and not able to slowly work the bait. And let me be clear here, this is NOT a complaint on my part. If I was the boater that's how I would fish the docks. I'm just looking for a way as a co-angler to land more fish. Ideally, I think my follow up to his power fishing in and around the docks would be a weightless worm or a light jig that slowly falls. But in my opinion there just isn't enough time to let the bait slowly sink and do its magic. I really think that if my boater is power fishing docks that I should follow up with finesse fishing. While I may not land a big one, I think I'd catch more fish that way. So, without the luxury of time for a weightless worm or light jig to flutter down, what should I throw? Heavy jig? Drop shot? Weighted t-rig or wacky rigged worm? Weighted creature bait? Or should I just drag a Carolina rig or drop shot off the back of the boat, parallel and close to the dock? I'll be fishing the tournament at Hartwell in a few weeks, then nearby Sinclair in May. After that, I'm thinking of picking up a tournament or two in Florida or Alabama since our series here in Georgia doesn't pick up again until August. With the grass and typical May weather Sinclair should be a buzzbait and other topwater day. But at Hartwell, if my boater is power fishing I think I'm going to spend a lot of my day finesse fishing. Although I had fun this week and was thankful to be matched up with a good guy boater, I'm really disappointed at my results this week. Between fishing with @flatcreek and the fishing I did on my own off the docks at my hotel and on my kayak I really thought I was dialed in for this tournament.

You can run 45 mph???!!!

At this point, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to buy a boat next season. There are a few reasons for this. First is simply being able to cover more water. Second, I'm enjoying being a co-angler is the MLF Phoenix Series and it looks like I'll do a co-angler event or two in the Toyota series. I want to do more events next year, but I want to be the one piloting the boat and having the final say in where to fish,

I have a Newport and a Railblaza motor mount but I have not attached it yet. Because I have no internal access to my kayak I need to decide whether or not to affix it with well nuts or cut the kayak open to mount it. Either way, I am concerned about sheering forces. Adding the trolling motor, 100mAh Lipo battery, mount, and battery box adds 60 pounds to my kayak. My pedal drive is another 22 pounds. My plan was to utilize both, but I'm getting very close to the total weight capacity of my kayak. Looking back, although I love my kayak I should have done more research an ALL possible future upgrades including a trolling motor. I would have either bought an Old Town right away or found a kayak that was specifically designed to accommodate a trolling motor and plate. I could rig the nose of my kayak to fasten a trolling motor, but not even the manufacturer knows if it would warp or buckle over time. It gets pretty hot here in GA, so I do worry about added weight to the nose and warping the bow. For now I'm going to utilize my kayak into the fall or winter, then decide whether to buy an Old Town or a Tracker boat.

I've looked at the Torqeedo's and similar options, but to me they don't make sense. In fact, neither does a standard trolling motor on a kayak. What I really like about my pedal kayak is that I don't have to fight wind and current while I'm fishing. It's easy to jog the pedals and bump the rudder to maintain my position or angle AND still fish at the same time. But with a standard trolling motor or a paddle your hands are otherwise occupied. You lose a lot of fishing time when you have to paddle or grab the trolling motor to correct your position. To me, that's why only a trolling motor with spot lock makes sense on a kayak. Or maybe if you rig your kayak to control the trolling motor with pedals.

Get the best kayak you can afford because no matter what you purchase, one of two things is going to happen: You'll hate it and you'll sell it. You'll love it and want to pour money into it. If you don't have a big budget, read reviews and prioritize the following in this order: Stability Seat comfort Tracking Some people will put seat comfort first, but in my opinion stability comes first - you can always add a stadium cushion to the seat. I love my kayak, but when I bought it I did not realize how much I would enjoy fishing out of a kayak. I also didn't take into account my aging process. So while I have no regrets, if I had realized those things I would have spent more money and bought a kayak with a built-in spot lock trolling motor or a kayak that could be EASILY modified to equip one.

Last week I ordered a handful of Riot Baits Reactor 1.5 Squarebill Crankbaits and this afternoon I took a 15 minute break at work, went down to our docks and gave the Spring Craw colored one a try, and landed a bass on my second cast. I consider that money well spent! I picked these up because they look a bit different than typical crankbaits. They're a bit angular in their shape and even in the red eye construction. Honestly, I don't fish crankbaits enough and I plan to change that at my tournament this weekend. At least that's the plan. I'm going to pre-fish on Thursday and see how that goes.

I'm looking at new and used Tracker Pros right now. At this minute I think that's the best option.

I might be wrong, but I think that might be scary at times on our big, very narrow lake. Kayaks maneuver quickly and I have no fear of getting dumped. I’ll take a look at them again, but I think if I get a boat it will be a bass boat.

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not a fan. I actually prefer sports cars and sedans, but I see the utility needs of an SUV with all of the bells and whistles. I'm also kind of stubborn because there's only so much that I'm willing to spend on a vehicle. It's not about what I can afford, but by setting a limit what I can do with the "excess" money I didn't spend on a vehicle. Lastly, all my life I have been patient when it comes to buying a vehicle and have always got a great deal on new vehicles. But with things as they are right now, no one is dealing, I may just have to stop being so stubborn and bite the bullet on this one.