Tennessee Boy

Many years ago I remember watching one of the TV anglers who had a golfer on his show. They played a round of golf on a course with a lot of water. They would play a hole and then fish any water around the hole. They came up with some kind of scoring system that incorporated the golf and the fishing. I can't remember who it was but I remember it was fun to watch. It was probably Bill Dance. He liked to do things like that. I have no idea who the golfer was.

I went to a wedding in Mayfield once. It was a very charming town. It will probably never be the same. They said the candle factory was the town’s biggest employer. Last number I heard was 60 still missing from the factory.

It was a long night across several states in the south. Looks like Kentucky was hit hard with a lot of fatalities. Hope everyone on the forum is okay.

I am definitely not a tackle collector but like most I have much more than I need. Most of it is in my garage. I try to limit what I take on my boat. Too much on the boat just gets in the way. I've learned that people enjoy the sport in many different ways. Some enjoy catching big fish. Some enjoy catching lots of fish. Some enjoy collecting tackle. Some enjoy fast boat. Some enjoy balancing fishing rods on their finger. The list goes on and on. I think there's a need for Angling Psychologists that could help us understand exactly what we enjoy about this sport so we can focus on that.

The idea that bass could genetically get harder to catch over time seems logical and this has been studied extensively by scientists. High Vulnerability Fish and Low Vulnerability Fish (LVF) populations have been breed in controlled environments which proves it is possible. In these studies, selecting for vulnerability to angling had other effects which make it less likely to happen in the wild. For example, LVF fish were less aggressive towards lures but also less aggressive in protecting their nest when spawning. Google largemouth LVF and you will find countless scientific articles on this subject.

The bottom line. Going from 55 lbs thrust with two 12v batteries to a 120 lbs thrust trolling motor with a 100 ah 36V battery on a 16.5 foot boat will give you a huge boost in performance. I don't know how heavy your boat is but if you're using a 25hp outboard it can't be very heavy. I would expect a 36V 100ah LiFePO battery to give you more power than you will ever need for fishing.

Don't confuse Lithium Ion (Li) batteries with LiFePO4 Lithium batteries that are normally used on boats these days. Minn Kota warns against using Li batteries not LiFePO4. https://www.minnkotamotors.com/support/faqs/can-i-use-lithium-ion-batteries-my-minn-kota-trolling-motor

Largemouth and Smallmouth bass are not in the temperate bass family (Moronidae) which is how the ugly rumor got started that they are not bass. They are in the sunfish family (Centrarchidae) and they are in the black bass genus (Micropterus). So they are both sunfish and bass. (Notice how I started the sentence with so ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropterus

If I was going into the fishing reels business I would use Subspace Antimatter Brakes on all my reels. People are willing to pay for the best technology.

Read this

Reason: Product names are created by the marketing department not the engineering department and marketing people have never cared about accuracy or honesty. There, that's my rant.

It looks like there is a drop about 5 ft out on both sides. That's the shadow I circled. It's like you were following along an old road bed or a ridge about 10 feet wide. If it's always there then that's very puzzling. Maybe someone the same brand fish finder can explain it.

The numbers at the bottom of the screen are this distance in feet from the transducer. It's not the distance out from the transducer but the distance directly from the transducer to what ever is reflecting the sonar signal. The building fits between the 30 and 45 ft numbers so it's less than 15 feet wide. I'm guessing it about 10ft wide (horizontally). The length (vertically) is harder to determine because it depends on the speed of the boat and the update speed of the fishing finder.

What has me baffled are the shadows I have circles on your last image. It looks like you're following a road bed or something and it's on every image you posted. Do you know what this is?

I carry extra spools like @A-Jay. Not as many as he does but I'm working on it.

The “structure” looks like it is 7-10 ft wide.

My prediction. Georgia beats Alabama in the championship game.

A lot of good advice on this thread. I will add one thing. The people you work with will play a big part in your job satisfaction. I’ve made some lifelong friendships at work. I’ve also encountered some real a$$holes. I’ve stayed in my current job longer than I should because I like the people.

I always give bank fisherman all the space they could possibly need. It’s seem like the right thing to do. There will always be people that don’t do the right thing either because they don’t know better or they don’t care.

Not every school in the SEC has the same standards. Vanderbilt can complete with anyone in academics. That probably has a lot to do with their struggles on the football field.

I’ve been to two. The officials present the science behind what they are proposing and then the public rejects the science and gets emotional. I heard a guy suggest that they should kill everything in Kentucky lake and start over to get rid of the Asian carp. That’s a 160,000 acre lake! It reminds me of football coach call in shows where some guy who played a year of football in 8th grade calls in to tell the coach what he’s doing wrong with his offense.

Someone gave me a golf tip once. "Don't aim for the middle of the fairway. Aim at a leaf in the middle of the fairway." I try to apply this to my casting. Most cast don't need to land within a one inch circle but I try to be that accurate with my cast. It's good practice for when that level of accuracy is needed.

I can't speak for other states but I don't think it's possible in Tennessee for a fishery to collapse because of legal overfishing. Our wildlife management agency monitors our lakes and does a great job adjusting fishing regulations to improve them. Fishing pressure naturally moves away from fisheries that have problems. We've seen that happen here with Kentucky lake. I few years ago it was a world class lake. Asian carp and the lost of aquatic vegetation have taken their toll. There hasn't been a major pro tournament on Kentucky lake in several years. I personally haven't fished there since 2019. The fishing suffered much more than the actual reduction in the number of fish in the lake according to the data. From what I've heard, the lake is recovering. The notion that a lake is going to collapse because a large number of tournament anglers are catching huge limits every weekend is nonsense. If tournament anglers are having success then the lake is doing just fine. It could be different in other parts of the country. Some states may not have the quality wildlife management that we have here. Some may not have as many lakes for fishermen to choose from.

With that much talent it's just a matter of time before he's on ESPN.

Yep! I bet you even wash your dog.