Russ E

a local lake here has a lot of zebra mussels. I have had more breakoffs on that lake than all others combined. almost impossible to fish a carolina rig on that lake. my experience with silver thread flourocarbon is: it has zero abrasion resistance. i prefer sunline shooter or sniper, or berkley 100% flourocarbon. I have been testing high seas grand slam on the the zebra mussels. It is a flourocarbon coated copolymer. so far I have had no breakoffs.

It is 35 minutes from my house, I fish it several times a year. It is one of the strangest lakes I fish. It can produce some nice sized fish, but not much for numbers. I catch very few small fish there. Most are 15 inches or larger.

welcome. have fun with the new boat. there are plenty of lakes in our area to try it out.

as a general rule, I would say yes. but it depends on the line. trilene xt or big game are both mono, but they don't stretch as much as trilene xl.

I have been playing with HI-seas grand slam flouro coated copoly. so far I am impressed. seems pretty good on abrasion resistance. you don't have the flouro knot issues, and it is very cheap. a 300 yard spool costs $7.98, at walmart. it stretches more than braid, but does not stretch near as much as lines like trilene xl.

looks nice, but starting at $2100.00 is too rich for my blood. I will just have to push my boat around by hand.

Congratulations. I bought a Z175 last year. Love it. have fun filling it with "stuff"

welcome. this forum is an excellent source of bass fishing information.

when I lived in Iowa, Junebug was a good color. Here in Kansas it has not produced much for me. black and blue wins here.

75 degrees here today. could be snowing tomorrow night. this time of year anything can happen in Kansas.

the only civilian gun I know that shoots a bullet that big is a muzzleloader. the civil war era Enfield was 58 caliber. they shot a lot of different bullets. here are a few of the bullets used. most of them had a hollow base like the ops pictur.e

a couple of the small lakes hit 48 last week. Yesterday Wyandotte was back down to 45. After today,the forecast does not show any signs of warming much for at least another week.

I practiced different knots in my free time this winter. started with the fg knot but it is too complicated to consistently tie in a boat. switched to the alberto and got to the point , that I could tie it relatively easy. I do basically the same thing as @reason, except I don't use the finishing half hitches. it is a strong Knot and goes through the rod guides nicely.

This has turned into a ritual for me. a Flavored coffee on the road to the lake . water in the boat. A pale ale when I get home.

there are 2 different styles of fluke. The straight tail and paddle tail. The paddle tail fluke, It is a swim bait and works best with a belly weighted hook, or on a jig head. A bare hook is usually not heavy enough to keep it from spinning. The straight tail fluke is a soft jerk bait. It works well on a bare hook .

not sure what it has to do with a cat, but you are right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko

while I use a lot of different baits, There is always a ned rig and a shakyhead/trick worm rigged and ready in my boat.

As I get older my hands and fingers don't like cold weather. while the rest of me wants to keep fishing, they just give up and quit working.

this post is similar. it started 8 hours earlier

if one of your batteries are for the main motor and electronics, it should stay charged if you run the gas motor much. I had to remove the trolling motor battery to charge it on my first boat, because there was no electricity where I parked it. It was a pain, but better than not having a boat.

A wacky rigged worm with a nail weight in its nose is called the Neko rig. It sinks a lot different than the weighted wacky rig. on lakes that see a lot of wacky rigs it gives the fish something different to look at. While the wacky rig shimmies on the way down, the Neko rig takes a straight path to the bottom. it can be fished a lot faster when fish are active. To me its a cross between a shakyhead and a wacky rig. I use senkos, small finesse worms, and trick worms for this rig.

had trouble finding a screen name. I am obsessed with fishing vegetation, so weedwhacker was born .

Kickers are for trolling. bigger 2 strokes don't like to idle around for long periods of time. it looks to be well equipped. seems a little high priced for a 15 year old Fisher. If you are serious about it, I would have a boat shop look it over. that boat was made by Tracker. The fisher line has been discontinued for about 9 years. I see quite a few older Fishers on the water, but I have also heard some of them had problems with cracked welds on the hull.

same here 30 years of Minn Kotas and not one sheared pin. I carry a spare prop, because I have shredded a few of them.

most swimbait jigs have larger hooks. Personally if I want to weight a fluke, I either use a belly weighted hook or I Carolina rig it.