haggard

The recent "The five best bass lures" segment by @Glenn and Hank Parker had me thinking I should replace the spinner lost last fall due to a weak knot. So I did. Blame Glenn & Hank for that but the fact that I now want a add a finesse spinner... well that's purely the bait monkey's fault.

If you're casting overhead, try a side cast instead; they seem to be gentler, less prone to tangles. Concentrate on a slow and gentle acceleration cast. This will tangle much less than a power throw. Cast downwind, not into it. Before doing anything, set the spool tension (plenty threads on this) and brakes (start with max or near max, and work your way down as you get comfortable).

It depends. Need to know more about what lures and methods you're using with the current ones, and what you feel you're missing.

Maybe crazy but I'm using a 1/0 offset, which is what I use most of the time on anything I Texas rig. I tend towards the finesse'er site of things, maybe to a fault. I have some 3/0 which typically I use for 5in+ worms but maybe it's time to try the 3/0 on the Turtle o' Doom. I just love that lure, the size, color and the subtle fwaptastic action of the legs on a gentle retrieve. Possibly more than the bass do.

Old post, but I tried it today and it worked - casting in about 10 feet of water, a soft plastic baby turtle lure (thanks @LadiMopar) got a strike but not hooked. I had an orange/brown ned rig worm (thanks @jbmaine) on a L/F spinner next to me and not sure why but for some reason I grabbed it and offered the fish another cast. I just figured if it knew the turtle was no good, why throw the turtle again; give it something different. The smallmouth took it, landed. Then the same thing again. Baby turtle got a bite, maybe even hooked and jumped (can't remember) but got off the hook. Same as before, immediately tossed the ned rig and landed the fish (another smallmouth). Getting a lot of mileage out of this Doomsday Turtle lure. The head finally wore out so I cut it off and let the 1/4 oz bullet weight become the new head; the thing is still catching fish after fishing the hack out of it on three separate outings. Going to cut it back again and see how long it will last

As others said, what you probably need is more line ("rode"). Dropping it straight down just won't work. For reasons my brain hasn't entirely figured out, you need an angle. If your water is max depth 20 feet, try ~50 ft line. Drop the anchor well ahead of your desired spot so that when the line plays out at an angle, you're on the desired spot. If you can afford the cost and the amount of line to store and manage, consider a continuous loop instead of a single line. This way if your anchor gets snagged to the point of no return, you can cut the line and retrieve all of it, losing just the anchor, instead of cutting the line at the boat and losing both. Somewhere at the bottom of Square Pond in Maine there's an example of the latter

It's like the opposite of when you go hiking, cycling or camping ("bring only what you need, then cut it in half"). Bring as much water as you need, then double it. Wide brim hat and long sleeves.

TEverything went as you described except finding the new folder at boot up. I can see the files with the Hook 4's System > Browse Files... but can't find a way to activate them. However I just stumbled across "Chart > Char Data > ..." which offers choices of Lowrance, Navionics and "Navionics Fish 'N Chip". The Lowrance setting gives me no contours on most waters. The Navionics gives me some with contours, some not (this is the default). Fish 'N Chip, now marketed as Platinum something, must be part of the Navionics+ Regions chip I bought a while ago. I switched that and now Square Pond and nearly every other water in the entire region is shown with 1 ft contours, shading, etc. This is great! Still doesn't solve my problem with how to activate other downloaded maps (such as C-Map) but this is great for now. Many thanks for @kenmitch for talking me through all this!

Thanks Ken; this is a huge help. I had already created a free Genesis account but when I hovered over the Upload feature, it told me I needed to subscribe/upgrade to Edge, so I was dissuaded. Now I see I can download the social/community map which, as you said, already has Square Pond mapped out. Great! I downloaded the files (an .xml and some .at5 files) but it's unclear to me where these files need to be placed on the SD card in order to be imported and viewed. I'll keep working on it, but in the meantime, any suggestions?

I took a sample of my log as a .CSV file with lat, long and depth and ran them through the GPS Visualizer webapp which created a GPX file, manually added in the depth info, then saved the file on my SD card and uploaded it to Navionics. This time it accepted the file (well, it didn't immediately reject it... it's still "processing"). Navionics site gives a preview of your data overlaid on a map, and it's showing up as a track with start/end points, and no depth data. I'm hoping after the file finishes processing, the tracks will disappear and the map will magically show up as depths (probably not enough data in my set to do contours). Strange thing is my 3 local waters aren't mapped at all (ex: Square Pond in the screen shot), while nearby smaller ponds have full blown contours and depths. This is a screen shot from the Navionics website after I uploaded the data. My track is shown on Square Pond on the right. I really like the Hook 4 and bought it because it was low cost and my yak was already factory prepped for the transducer but wow this process is somewhat painful and shouldn't be necessary. Hopefully if/when I get it working it can save others some hassle in the future.

By this do you mean the device will plot depths and draw contours automatically as you roam around the water, in real time, and save it to the device, without file uploads/downloads and without Internet?

After lots of searching tonight I found an old SL2 viewer program. After more searching for a missing file, persuaded it to install on a Windows PC. It lets you graph the data and export it to a .CSV file (time offset, lat/lon, water temp, depth, etc.) Next step is to convert the .CSV to a .GPX and maybe Navionics+ will let me upload it. It's 1:30am so I'll save that for tomorrow. Making progress here but slowly. If it all works out I'll summarize the steps here.

I have a Lowrance Hook 4 with GPS capability and Navionics+ software, which I intended to use to map my lake by logging sonar and uploading the data to Navionics to merge into their maps. This seems like a routine thing to do with these finders. On uploading the data I see Nav+ says the Lowrance proprietary format (SL2) is not supported, and that even the GPX format (however I get to that) doesn't support depth data. But my Hook 4 came WITH the Nav+ software, and now I find they don't play together. How is that? Is there a workaround? I'm pleased with the Hook 4 except for this one major whoops. The Hook 4 obviously records all this data but what good is that if you can't export or even review it? I submitted my questions to the Lowrance Contact Us form but on submit all I get is "there was an error adding you to our newsletter signup."

If someone's on the property (on the dock or not), I just wave and move to the next one. There are plenty docks on the lake. If I really want to fish it I'd simply ask them if they mind if I cast around their dock.

If someone can afford a boat like that, someone can also afford a decent tow vehicle

When a backlash happens, you should almost always be able to untangle it - don't necessarily reach for the scissors right away. One of the most important things to remember is to not pull hard on the line to untangle it. This will ONLY tighten the mess and probably weaken the line. The process that works for me - I've had to cut line off a spool only once, and that was before I got the hang of this: 1. set the drag somewhat tight but not super tight 2. grab a random few strands of line at the top of the spool and loosen them up, pull them up a bit 3. press the thumb bar to go into free spool 4. while pressing your thumb gently on the spool so it doesn't backlash again, pull on the line coming out of the eyelet, until it says it's not going to give anymore - but don't pull harder at this point; you'll just tighten the mess 5. turn the handle to pop the thumb bar back up ...then repeat 2 through 5 until the mess comes out and all the line on the spool is wound tight. Even with the mess pulled out, you may find a loose loop on the spool that you just can't get to. You may pull out a lot of line to get to this, but keep going, you'll get to it. An alternative to chasing down the loose loop on the spool is (again once you've already untangled the mess) to just make a long cast downwind, to let the loose bit off the spool, and just reel back in. I'll try to make a video of the above; it's much simpler than it may seem. In the meantime there should be some videos on youtube on how to untangle the mess.

The Caenan 151 was my first baitcaster reel, got it last year (actually have two identical). I've never had any issues with them. Good reel for the price. There are others I prefer, but those cost significantly more.

Always a tough loss. Good reminder, thank you.

First catch last weekend I shallow gut hooked a smallmouth and had the chance to try removing the hook with the through the gills method. Fish was out of the water longer than I would like, but twice held her in the water to let her recover before proceeding with hook removal. Cut the hook in half with wire cutters and removed the remaining hook, 100%, using foreceps through the gill. It worked and 100% of the hook was removed and the fish swam off. During the process my smartphone took a dunk and died. That sucked. But the fish lived. Thanks, forum.

Shallow gut hooked a smallie today and had the chance to try the through-the-gill method. It worked, and the fish swam away with 100% hook removal. Thank you, forum. Made my day.

Apologies for getting off topic. Had a Jeep loved the Jeep, loved the jeep way more than the pickup. Jeep defined fun, open air, outdoors, and could crawl through and climb over obstacles you'd think impossible. Came time to have only one rig, sold the Jeep, kept the pickup. Boring by comparison* but the bed is used daily, and every day I use it, I think about how much harder it would be with the Jeep. Trailer's an option with the Jeep but not as convenient, requires two parking spaces instead of one, etc. * excepting the 5.7L motor with 3.92:1 rear end Back on topic... For your current vehicle, a trailer is a good option - cheap ones can usually be found on Craigs or FB marketplace or even on the side of the road (saw one a couple weeks ago for $150). If it was a yak I'd say even a roof rack would work with one of those T-bar swiveling setups that plug into the trailer hitch, for easy load/unload. Since your jon is 10' you might still be able to do that. Maybe another option here - not sure what the layout of the Escape is but is there a rear gate, or is it just a window? If you can open the entire gate, you might be able to use a bed extender plugged into the trailer hitch, with the narrowest end of the boat loaded into the rear of the Escape. You might be width-limited... I just can't remember what the Escape layout is.

Lesson learned many years ago was if a fuse or breaker is tripping, do not keep replacing it if they keep breaking. They are trying to tell you something, which is usually "keep doing that and there will be greater damage." Better off stepping back and start poking around with a meter for shorts, do visual inspections, etc. (but disconnect the power source first). You probably already know but don't replace the fuse with one of a higher rating than what the spec calls for; it only encourages damage/fire. If there's not an obvious short somewhere, I wonder if the pump impeller is seized or somehow blocked from turning. That might cause wires to heat and clear the fuse.

Problem to solve is the drifting canoe (same with a yak) - need an anchor, not a different lure.

My guess is bad ground. As others said, make sure the ground connection is clean (between the ground wire coming out of the truck and where it connects to the trailer frame, if that's how you're set up) - scuff it up with a wire brush or sand paper so you see bare metal.

Welcome! Be warned, you may find yourself checking the site literally every day