gnappi

Catch and kill is a subject that divides and polarizes fishermen. I see to it that they do not go back in the water, but many I know of return them to the water. The solution is for all anglers to eat them. There's no moral issue then :-)

"I would advise you diy solar concentrator if you have small area." I don't think they make fresnel / solar concentrator lenses for panels 100 watts and up? If they do, they may cost more than going up in panel wattage and changing over to monocrystalline which are generally smaller sized per watt than polycrystalline. Anyway, my two panels are a single 100 and 125 watt polycrystalline that's all I have room for without jumping up to and beyond 2x 200+ watt panels but as it is there's plenty of power for my needs.

I'm retired some 4 years now and I fish 1000 times more than when I worked which was nearly zero back then, I just had no time when I worked. I have some GREAT snakehead waters in walking distance from home. I also modded my mtn bike to go hunt for places I'd never find in my truck. Speaking of the truck, I bought a GPS for it specifically to find waterways I never see from the road, and can hand launch my 10' Lowe from the bed without a ramp. Now THAT'S retirement :-)

Earlier in the spring of 2019 I completed my exterior home solar project. It's not grid tied, and its uses are limited to exterior dusk to dawn perimeter lighting, water feature fountain pumps, attic ventilation, backup power for phones with possible expansion for backup to my home surveillance / alarm system power backup and my boat battery charging system. I also made a portable 80 watt battery charger for camping which provides campsite lighting without needing gas lanterns or torches of any sort. Unfortunately shading from trees on neighboring properties and the orientation / design of my roof preclude a large system, and I'll never be able to grid tie but it's a very satisfying toy. Anyone else into solar power?

Nowadays I rarely catch LMB, those I do catch are rather large 4 to 5 lb. In most places where SH are thick I rarely see small bass under 2 pounds or so where small fish were once plentiful. Fact not fiction of some desk jockey fish biologist who claims they have no impact. That said, through necessity nowadays and for the past few years I mostly target snakeheads, while Peacocks and LMB are a sort of accidental bycatch. When water cools down fishing for them slows down and I look to landlocked areas not inhabited by SH for LMB and Peas. The firm meat of SH is snow white and great tasting fried, and fish 8 pounds and up yield the best fillets. They're a super tough fighting fish, and 20-30 lb. black braid (no leader) and a heavy rod is minimum tackle because hookset is insanely hard as their bony mouths make it so. Frogs are best bait for me, mono has lost one too many fish, I have yet to lose one with braid. I never release them back into the water. Where we put heavy pressure (some night fish with bow for them) on removing them we see small bass coming back onto the scene. Oh and I have done necropsy of large SH with LMB in the stomach.

Yup, I've caught whoppers as far north as Delray beach in Palm beach county. They like wiggletail lures too.

On a yak I think you'd be sensitive to weight? I have a 10' Lowe Jon boat and use three Harbor freight 35Ah AGM deep cycle (see link) batteries and can be had for $56 with the 20% off coupon. Mine are 3 years old and are still in top shape. I keep them on maintenance with a noco gen3 charger. They are only 24 lbs and IMO are well worh the buckazoids. I use one for a "house" battery, the other two for day long use. Before I got the second and third battery, the single one ran my Lowe with a second fisherman, all of our gear, a 50 lb TM and Garmin Striker 4 FF for 4+ hours (trolling not running the TM at 100%) before it dipped to the 11.7 volt 30% state of charge where I planned on being back at the dock. I imagine it would do a LOT better in your situation with a lighter more streamlined vessel and less gear. Go LED lights they have a negligible effect on the charge. https://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-35-amp-hour-sealed-lead-acid-battery-64102.html

If I knew way back then what I know now, and solar were available I would have had a couple of solar panels on the roof of the barn with the charge controller in the barn keeping the batteries of my Mustang, and genset topped off. Today I keep my home made 80w battery charger (see pic) around for camping. I can use a little 35Ah battery at the campsite for some lighting and charge them in the daylight. At home, my DC only solar system keeps the perimeter of my house lit dusk to dawn even in power outages.

I started using 4 strand braid, and never saw a reason to use or try anything else. Like I go to a fave restaurant and find something I like, I never try anything else :-)

I genned up this spreadsheet when I was looking to upgrade from a tracker. Going from site to site and jotting down the specifics wound up being a PITA. It only covers 2017 models, but maybe it can be useful to some of you. I wound up with the Lowe 1040 because I wanted to hand launch it from my truck bed to honey holes without ramps.

I've thought about trying out a yak and replacing my all electric bass boat. I like having stuff with me, there isn't a yak big enough to hold it all. Add to that I don't have space for another toy and it's not going to happen.

Agreed it's not an electrical connection. Do you have a pic of where / how you have the transducer mounted? I would test the transducer by removing it from the TM and just holding it in the water when still or try mounting it on a slab of cutting board and clamp it to the transom. If that doesn't work replace the transducer.

With me being decidedly low tech, I prefer it to bleeding edge tech, I wait till technology gets fleshed out, and generally accepted before plunging in. That reminds me... I need to buy a CD player and find a way to copy my 8 tracks to CD's :-)

The biggest problem I have with gators is them chasing lures, sometimes (generally juveniles) they grab one. Top water lures in summer isn't guaranteed to catch fish but I get most results from frogs. Swimbaits of all sorts will take peacocks (and all cichlids) all day long if the lake has them, just swap colors and tail types if one shuts off.

I'm happy I live in Florida, the worst things that can happen are hurricanes, and the La Palma (Canary Island) mega tsunami... hang on, that's not so good :-) Come to think of it, considering the even remote possibility of the Yellowstone super volcano going off, there's really no safe place to live in the U.S. so Carpe Diem :-)

Drunks and speeders at and near ramps cause havoc. In the early 80's I was pulling my boat out at a ramp next to a drunk sailboater who was having problems with his lines, along came a speeder ignoring the no wake zone and up comes his hull and crashes down on mine. I started looking for a house on water soon after that.

Father's day, and the winter holidays are the best I've found, well those and Ebay :-)

Fishes in trees is a wise and experienced fisherman, I needed your post two years ago :-) If I had it to do over the one thing I'd change is start out with the Noco genius waterproof three bank battery charger, it would have saved me a lot of grief.

Mine is also a 4+ I didn't need a collection of maps as I fish little fresh waterways, it's GR8 as a VERY inexpensive (mine was $98) bright screen DF/FF, water temp, and over the water speed. I've never had to mark spots so that feature is useless to me. For around a hundred bucks it's a really useful tool. Wasabi, if you need nav maps, before it's too late to send it back you may want to do so and upgrade to something more suitable.

For those who live in the So. Flo. tri county area the mango season is ramping up and if y'all want to sample some mango not available in stores, PM me.

Not an argument at all, sorry if you took it that way. Differing points of view add light to a conversation, arguments add only heat. What's your personal best? Mine was a bit over 10 pounds.

You will note the "sentence" "Snakeheads down here are aggressive, hard fighting fish that will take a moving frog before anything else" I've caught them on wiggletail plastics while fishing for peacocks but overall they and other baits are a waste of time "down here". Also down here they're so skittish, invariably a lure dropped on top of them spooks them. Softly dropping a frog from a grassy bank or pulling one past them after a cast "upstream" is likely to produce most results, down here. If you're out fishing someone (especially one with a med/hvy rod) I'd guess that your fishing partner is likely losing more fish to hookset issues due to the rod than hits from a selected frog. Also with a 10 to 1 success rate with anything but frogs up north, you'd be 1 in 10 (if that) down here. Of that I'm 100% certain. :-)

The AR in .223 is fun to shoot, but I REALLY like bigger holes like those the LR-308 delivers shown with the plinker .223. Nobody at the range notices my AR, but pull out the LR, and it's deadly quiet :-) That is except when I touch it off, then it really IS a blast!

Lesson learned... your signature on a contract is VERY important, and you and for the most part the seller is bound by the conditions in it. That said, I don't think there's a state that doesn't allow you to pencil in any additional "get me outta here" clauses. I once put a bid on a 25 +/- acre tract in a rural community and I specified that a survey must bear out the "claims" of where the owner and Realtor "claimed" the property was. Guess what? The property was 1/2 where it was said to be (a nicely wooded tract) the other half looked like the surface of the moon, HUGE craters where thieves had dug out fill for some other properties. Imagine 12-15 acres of fill and replanting remediation needed? Escape clause triggered. Another property I put a bid on I specified a home inspection, and even before seeing it the inspector told me... "It has new floors, walls, external siding, nice exotic fruit trees etc." Yup the house was breaking apart and sinking in muck (Muck is half-decomposed organic matter and is often sold as potting-soil or top-soil). They never pulled out the muck and filled it in. They just built on top of the muck. Escape clause triggered :-)

Snakeheads down here are aggressive, hard fighting fish that will take a moving frog before anything else. Often a frog stuck in an overhanging branch dipped up and down in the water over a snakehead will get an explosive hit. Also standing above a ledge, culvert, or weed cover and dipping the frog gets results. A strong stiff frog / heavy rod (for me a shorter rod is better) with braided line (I use only 20 or 30 lb 4 strand but heavier is really recommended) and I don't know anyone who targets snakeheads that uses mono. If you're fishing in heavy weeds, even heavier line is best, 40 lb. minimum. They like to do an insaneo thrash (think gator in a roll) in weeds and heavier line can help get them out. I use rear drag spinners, but the drag on them isn't as strong as front drag, but for fish up to 11 pounds (so far my PB) my drag hold them just fine. My fishing buddy uses 40 lb 8 strand braid with an even heavier leader and front drag spinning reel and they've broken his line off diving into a drain culvert. They have bent Eagle claw hooks so now I use wide gap offset Gamagatsu hooks. Time to fish is odd. Sometimes I'll catch them at dawn, late morning, early or late afternoon, but so far very few at dusk and I never fished at night for them but some say they do with success. Lo vis water, crystal clear water makes no difference, I catch them equally in both. Two tips: 1. Give them a few seconds to have the lure before you set the hook. 2. Set the hook really, REALLY hard. They have a bony mouth and a wimpy set will lose fish. Things that were unsuccessful before I got to where I am... Medium heavy rods and those longer than 6 feet, Hybrid mono / Fluoro line, other baits, Eagle Claw hooks, fishing when water temps were dropping or in the rain.