Russ E

My first attempt at Boudin. After a post from @Catt a while back on Boudin, I had a serious craving. I have searched all over Kansas City, but could not find anything that resembles true Boudin. I finally searched through hundreds of online recipes. Trying to find one that resembled the Boudin I had at the small gas stations of southern Louisiana, 25 years ago. I finally found one that looked promising and gave it a try. instead of the traditional braise after they were stuffed, I decided to give them a little KC flair and threw them in the smoker for three hours. they turned out great. If there is any left after today, It will be my new snack in the boat.

With the super fluke I rig it texposed on a 4/0 ewg hook. I use a fine wire hook if I want to keep it on top. I will use a heavy wire hook in the same size if I want to go a little deeper. If I want to get down below 10ft. I will use a weighted swimbait hook. Caught my personal best last summer doing this. I use a 7ft. 3in. medium action baitcaster with 12lb copoly. I will bump up to a medium/heavy baitcastee with 15 lb copoly in heavy cover. I only use the super fluke jr on a drop shot or carolina rig.

where you fish has a lot of bearing on what you need. I no longer tournament fish and most of the places I fish are less than 2 miles from the boat ramp. my boat has a 115 and will peak right at 50mph. most of the time I cruise around 40 42 mph. it gets a lot better gas mileage in that range. if the water is calm I do open it up once in a while. I'm sure if my boat would go faster, I would probably run faster. Just because I could.

after reading my previous post I wanted to make a clarification. I have and use KastKing equipment. it is all functional. I don't have any complaints. the reason I suggested the Diawa reel was, @dsw1204 mentioned he was a first time baitcaster user. Recently I introduced a friend to bass fishing and using baitcasting gear. He tried my Royal Legend Elite, Abu Garcia Revo SX, BPS pro qualifier, and Diawa Fuego. the Fuego was hands down easier for him to use with minimal backlashes. The Royal legend Elite was the most difficult for him to control. His favorite reel was my Diawa Tatula SV, but that was out of his price range.

the royal legend elite has stationary magnetic brakes only. They work , but take a trained thumb to control. Especially with lighter baits. The Fuego has a magforce-z brake. It is a hybrid between centrifugal and magnetic brakes The magnets move in and out, according to how fast the spool is spinning. for a beginner it is ,in my opinion, the easiest to learn.. if you plan on throwing light baits, the Diawa is definitely the better option. -

I own 5 tatula reels. none of them make grinding or rattling noises. When you say spool shaking, is it side to side movement? While the suggested way to adjust spool tension is with a little side to side play. If the spool is too loose it can rattle a little. If tightening the tension knob slightly does not fix the problem, I would call diawa.

Here around the kc area all of our lakes are heavily fished. Most of our lakes also have stained to dirty water. My favorite lakes get pounded every weekend by waves of anglers. They still produce quality fish and often large strings at tournament weigh ins. From my own experience bass from water that is always stained or dirty are more susceptible to reaction baits. Even if the fish are pressured they don't have the luxury of watching a bait come from a distance. If the bait gets close they will often strike. If that does not work, the fish can still find finesse baits in stained water. Fish that always live in dirty water adapt. The Ned rig is popular here, in spite of dirty water. My pb largemouth was caught on a fluke in water the color of chocolate milk.

I own 2 royal legend elites. They are ok for throwing heavier baits. I use them for crankbaits and not much else. With having linear magnetic brakes only, they take an experienced thumb to control over runs. There are much better reels available for beginners. I am not familiar with that model of shimano. If you are just learning, I would suggest a Diawa fuego. Roughly the same price and much more forgiving.

Not that bobber stops are expensive, but it saves time when replacing hooks. If you are using heavy line, sometimes it is difficult to get the bobber stop over the knot.

Over the last 40 years I have either used or owned nearly every kind of trolling motor available. The Minnkota ultrex is without a doubt the best trolling motor I have used. If you are concerned about linking the trolling motor and Lowrance , the first thing to decide is will you use it. My last trolling motor had the I pilot link to my hummingbird. In 4 years of use, I actually used the link once. I fish stained low country reservoirs, so I am not usually fishing deep offshore structure.

This may have recently changed. They are universal except some of the bigger graphs take the sd card. The smaller ones take the micro sd card

sorry to hear that. those spring always break at the most inopportune times. Sometimes it is very expensive to have someone else install the new spring. Like @A-Jay mentioned it can be done yourself, but can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. Having spent most of my life in the maintenance field, it was not a big deal for me. The hardest part was finding a new spring.

i have both navionics and lakemaster. the only reason I have navionics, is some of the lakes I fish are not covered by lakemaster. Here in Kansas and western missouri Lakemaster is much more refined. navionics seems to miss a lot of structure and is not near as accurate on depth. If the lakes you fish are covered by Lkaemaster that is the way I would go.

Male Creek chub. Used to catch them in eastern iowa streams frequently. They make great catfish bait.

if I was in a boat it would be in this order. 1:Gardner has fished well the last few years. 2: WYCO is probably the best for numbers. with an occasional chunk. 3:Olathe, because of the construction on the east side it has had very limited shore angling pressure. none of these are great for shore anglers. I have limited experience with the rest.

i had a helix 5 with side imaging. the screen was so small the side imaging was near useless. if you want side imaging 7 inch would be my bare minimum.

I started using the academy H2O express ultimate jerk shad this year. It cost $5.99 at academy sports. it is 4.5 inches long and weighs 1/2 ounce. it is sold as a floater but it actually suspends. It dives around 4 foot. I still have a few Yozuri, Duo and Megabass jerkbaits, but the H2O gets used the most.

if you have an electric meter. Just check at the 2 connections where you hooked up the motor power. if there is a bad connection you may not be getting the full power to your motor.

if you are having the same issue with 2 different motors it sounds like an issue not caused by the motor to me. the motor does not have to be fully deployed to operate. i can run my motor half deployed holding the cable, when running in shallow water. without seeing the setup I don't know how else I can help. I would call Minn Kota and tell them what is happening. they are usually pretty helpful. One other thing I would check is the voltage going to the motor. are you getting the full 24 or 36 volt (depending on which motor you have). Under voltage can make the electronics do strange things.

Can you still steer it with the remote? it is strange that 2 of them went bad so soon. is the motor mounted on a flat surface? that fault could be coming up if it is binding when deployed. i have had a couple warranty issues with my Ultrex in 3.5 years. first one was the steering cable broke. that was attributed to a bad position sensor on the motor. I was told the first batch of motors had some sensor issues. i could still steer it with the remote, but the pedal went slack. the second was the on/off switch broke.

you would think shocking fish off the bed would be detrimental to the spawn. Plus who knows what the electircity will do to the eggs. KDWPT does some strange things. I wish they would just have a parks and tourism department. Then have a separate DNR like a lot of states.

if you are in a boat let the line out behind the boat and idle in a straight line for a while. it will remove most of the twist..

took a neighbor for a crappie expedition on Smithville today. in spite of the water being muddy from the recent rains, we caught 26. all in shallow water. all of them were in the 8 to 10 inch range. Missouri is allowing anglers to keep smaller crappies this year at smithville to thin out the smaller fish. there are still plenty of legal 9 inch fish, but there is an over abundance of stunted 7-8 inch fish.

Nice. A pound from the state record. I think the next state record will be caught either there or WYCO

I use both, but the chatterbait is usually reserved for slow rolling deeper water or when the wind is howling. I use the swimjig whenever the water is relatively calm and fish are shallow.