Russ E

A lot of the stability is based on where you are in the boat. I had elevated casting decks on all of my boats. If it is just yourself with the equipment you listed, there may not be a lot of difference. Especially if you are sitting inside the boat as opposed to standing on an elevated deck

if they are striking but not committing, you are either getting other species biting or getting reaction strikes. around here drum are notorious for swiping at moving lures, but never getting it in their small mouth. Sometimes bass simply react and swipe at the bait, but never get it in their mouth. It is fairly common with single hook baits like swimbaits and spinnerbaits. if that happens I usually downsize. Also,if you miss a strike immediately toss a ned rig or wacky rig in the vicinity of the strike. if the bass ignore a slow moving bait like a jig, Instead of slowly dragging it around, I will retrieve it with fast snaps of the rod, sometimes you can get a reaction bite on a fish that was otherwise ignoring your bait. often times the strikes are violent. I can't count the number of times, that I had a lure hangup in a brushpile, and while I was violently shaking it, trying to get it free, a bass hammered the bait. I actually caught my second largest bass of the year doing this. god luck and don't give up.

If the hulls are identical, 2 inches can make a noticeable difference in how much the boat tips as you move around. A lot of it depends on how much weight you plan on putting in the boat. The more weight, the less stable. I had a 14ft. Jon boat with a 46 inch bottom, that was relatively stable, but there was some rock, if I moved around. If 2 people were in the boat you had to be aware, when the other was moving around. My next boat was a 16ft mod v with a 48 inch bottom. It was farly solid. 2 people moving around was a lot less noticeable. My current boat has is 17ft 10in long with a 90 inch beam and roughly a 75 inch bottom width. Compared to my previous boats It's like walking around on an aircraft carrier.

I wasn't suggesting it was navigable. I was merely stating we have many potential fall days here, that are ruined by the wind.

looks like an average fall day in Kansas.

spent the day bass fishing at a local power plant lake. caught 5 bass in the 1 to 3 lb range. these 2 fish were the highlight of the day. caught both on a shakyhead. 1 was 11.5 lbs. the other was 9.25 lbs. while not the target species, I never complain about hooking a large flathead.

One quirk I have had with the assassins is, occasionally they get a little noisy and i start losing casting distance. To fix this, take off the sideplate and lightly oil the centrifugal brake ring with a cotton swab coated with reel oil.

I have not personally had any noise with the sharky III or speed demon spinning reels. For baitcasters, I personally own a speed demon pro and a couple assasins. if they are setup right, it is actually pretty hard to get much of a backlash.

Fished my speed demon spinning reel against my sharky III reel yesterday. Fished a shakyhead for 3 hours. Even though a cold front came through the night before, I managed to catch a dozen fish in the 1 to 2 lb range. The speed demon feels about the same as my sharky III. The different handle was not that noticeable. The only noticeable difference to me, was the speed demon picks up a lot of line in a hurry. Which is a good thing when shakyhead fishing.

The new speed demon is basically a Sharky III with a faster gear ratio. both are great reels for the price.

Their customer service is usually pretty good.

all three catfish are native here. Monster flatheads and blues are highly prized by fishermen here. they actually stock the blues in most reservoirs. they readily hit bass lures. I don't personally fish for them, but hooking into a monster catfish, on Bass tackle, can still be a lot of fun. I definitely don't kill them. I can't see them being invasive. I suppose if they are introduced into waters that don't have the big predators they could do damage. aren't those monster bass you catch in California considered invasive?

I use 10 lb regular power pro on my spinning reels. 30 or 40 lb regular power pro on my casting rods. only time I ever had wind knots is if the line gets an excessive amount of twist. I did not care for the ss8. it did not seem to cast as well.

got my speed demon spinning reel today. it is a 2000 series. Put it on my speed demon pro rod. Loaded it with 10lb braid. Then decided to abuse it a bit in my backyard. first thing I noticed is how smooth it was. no reel noise or vibration, whatsoever. next I tied the line to my trailer hitch and commenced in abusing the drag. It is also butter smooth. next thing I noticed was how quickly it picked up the line. I did an unscientific comparison on inches per turn between my sharky III and the speed demon, using a tape measure. they are both the same size and loaded with the same line. the sharky III picks up 23 inches per turn. the Speed Demon picks up 32 inches per turn. Unfortunately can't hit the water for a couple days. I plan on putting it to the test ,with some shakyheads,on some fat Kansas bass. I have heard a lot of people complain about grinding gears and reel noise with Kastking reels. I have not noticed that with my speed demon pro, Sharky III, or this speed demon spinning reel. 2 years ago I bought a Mela II that was questionable. it cost $29.00 and it was definitely a $29.00 reel. I don't think they even make it anymore. it sits in my lessons learned. box of shame for fishing gear. I have an assasin that get noisy after a lot of use, but all it takes to fix that is, take a cotton swab and put a light coat of reel oil around the centrifugl brake ring. I have to do the same thing with my pro qualifier.

10lb power pro braid with 6ft. of 10lb high seas grand slam leader. only use the leader at Shawnee , Wyandotte, and Olathe. use straight power pro at La Cygne. I have lost a couple with and without the leader.

I have caught 2 over 5 on the owner, but I have probably lost 4 that size. not sure what the issue is. very seldom ever lost a fish on the non screwlocks. I here you on the keeping up. I was dragging a shakyhead across the flat east of the swimming area, today at Shawnee. A 3lb smallmouth picked it up and ran right at me. Cranked as fast as I could to catch him. Tomorrow the speed demon arrives. Getting anxious. one of the 5+lb bass I lost on the owner, was today on the same point I caught the 3lb smallmouth. felt like a solid hookset. got her next to the boat. when she opened her mouth the bait went flying. hookpoint was still inside the trickworm.

even though the smallmouth pound for pound fights harder than the largemouth, I still spend 90% of my time pursuing largemouth bass. I personally catch much larger largemouth bass. Here in Kansas there are several lakes that have both. there are certain times of the year that i can catch quality smallmouths, but most of the time I get smaller fish. the state record smallmouth is 6.88 lbs. I have been fortunate enough to catch 6 Largemouth bass over 5 lbs. this year(that doesn't count the 4 I lost at the boat) . 2 were bigger than the smallmouth state record. my personal best smallmouth is only 4.5 lbs.

its funny, never had a problem with 1-2 lb fish, its just the big girls. it seems to me the jighead is not going past the teeth during the hookset. when the fish surfaces near the boat it opens its mouth and the bait goes flying. whatever is happening, I am going back to the Strike King design. I started using the strike kings a couple years ago after watching Shaw Grigsby explain why he used them. don't remember the exact words, but it went something like this: "You Don't need screwlocks on shakyheads. The fish don't care about that balled up plastic behind the head, this bait flat out catches fish"

had to call a locksmith to open my last vehicle. he used an inflatable spreader on the upper back corner of the driver door, then stuck a rod through the opening to trip the electric locks. took him less than a minute. cost me $125.00. it actually took him longer to run my credit card, than it did to open the door.

2016 Colorado. It does not have a keypad. I may have simply forgot to lock it. There is no way to tell.

one of my preferred baits in summer is the shakyhead with a trick worm. this year I switched designs. prior to this year I always used the strike king tour grade shakyhead. it worked well, but the worm did not last long, with just the barb to hold it. I switched to the Owner screwlock shakyhead this summer to hold the bait better. it has also worked well, but I have had 4 large fish on and then spit the bait without the hook ever penetrating through the worm. (A large fish in my books is over 4 pounds) this never happened with the non screwlock design. I use the same rod and line and always use a long sweeping hookset. I don't see a difference in design that would cause this. Thinking about switching back to the strike king design. Has anyone else had this problem?

thanks everyone. they were obviously looking for guns. they left a $150.00 range finder and a $250.00 set of binoculars laying on my passenger seat. I was talking to my neighbor, who was also robbed that night, we both make a habit of locking our vehicles every night. we either both forgot the same night we were robbed or the thieves were good at breaking into vehicles. Will never know for sure. KCK PD told me to leave the serial number and police case number with the local pawn shops, so that will be my next act.

@LCG and @Big Rick I take no offense in anybody's comments. As a guy who preaches gun safety and responsible ownership, today was a huge blow to me. One last word on the subject. I give Huge Kudos to the Kansas City Kansas police department. The ladies on the switchboard were polite. the officer that came to my house and took my report was great. She was incredibly understanding and thorough, even after filling out several other reports in the neighborhood before me. I was number 11 for the day. she lifted several fingerprints from my truck. which to an old redneck like myself was impressive to watch.

Thanks. I am not proud of what happened. Although I did not do anything illegal, I will still feel bad if that gun is used in a violent crime.

Here it is not illegal to store a loaded weapon in your vehicle. i personally know several people that do.. I just generally prefer not too. unfortunately the one time I did, it was stolen, while sitting (pretty sure it was locked)in my lighted driveway. when I talked to the officer, while giving the police report, mine was not the only one stolen that night. Sounds like there were 3 of them and they knew what they were doing.