Tennessee Boy

Since the beginning of time people have expressed their passion for something by obsessing over the quality of the products used in that something. The obsession is usually not logical. The tendency to do this passes as we get older but never goes away. When I was a teenager I was passionate about music and wanted a $1000 car stereo system to listen to it on even though my ears could not distinguish the sound it produced from a $500 system. I also went through the high end “sensitive” rod phase when I was in my 30s. A friend helped me through this phase by challenging me to identify the expensive rod in a blind test. I failed the test. I’m glad I’m over those phases. They cost me a lot of money. Gotta go, I’m installing a $4000 electronics upgrade on my boat this weekend. ?

I have a 2018 Ranger RT188. I would give it a B- grade. It does what I need it to do but Ranger ain't what it used to be.

Crocs: Underrated- My crocs have probably saved my life. Before crocs I would get a running start and jump from the front deck of the boat over 4 feet of water to the boat ramp to keep from getting my shoes wet. Now I just wade through the water in my waterproof crocs. WD40

I enjoy reading and listening to the philosophy of Rick Clunn. The whole owl and mouse thing is classic Clunn. It's interesting and fun but I always want to say “Okay Rick. I get it. So can you recommend a good book on Threadfin Shad so I can start studying.”

20 miles is pretty close. So what exactly is the rule?

I think it was Sprague who said at one point yesterday that he could not hold his position and that spot lock did not work well in the wind. Then they cut to Wheeler who seemed to be doing just fine with his Ultrex. I’m sure Lowrance was not pleased with these comments.

If you’re gonna fish in that neighborhood I suggest you do what Iaconelli did and bring a cop with you.

Great thread. Thanks @A-Jay for bringing it back to life. I fished tournaments at the club level in the 90s. I won my share of them. The win I was most proud of was on a lake were everyone one knew that post spawn fish were hitting trickworms in the bushes as the fish were transitioning out of the creeks. It was the same every year. At blastoff, I ran about 400 yard, dropped the trolling motor, and fished my behind off for eight hours with a trickworm. I didn't outsmart anyone, I out fished them. I never lost a tournament because someone outsmarted me. I did loose several of them when I tried to outsmart everyone else by trying to do something that no one else had considered. I'm not saying you can't win a tournament with some brilliant innovative approach. I'm sure it happens but not often. Most tournaments wins and most successful outings happen when you're simply dialed in to catching fish and you do it efficiently. Think about how many major tournament have been won fishing docks. It ain't rocket science. Every ten years or so someone smart will invent a new technique that changes fishing. The rest of us would do well to just focus on getting better fishing a Texas rigged worm.

Until just now when Wheeler just yanked a 5-2 in the boat with his baitcaster to take the lead.

I would say that qualifies as a good night.

There are plenty of largemouth, smallmouth, and kentucky spotted bass in Tennessee. The choice is up to the angler.

They have local fishing laws that allow using a flogger. The laws must be working pretty well to protect the fishery based on what I’m witnessing. No shortage of smallmouth in that lake.

Welcome to the forum. The problem I see with the image you posted is the depth. It’s hard to get a good image in such shallow water for many reasons. There is a lot of noise known as surface clutter in the first few feet of water. Fish finders filter this out to improve the image quality. I suspect that these filters are removing all but the very strongest sonar returns from the image. What’s left is what you’re seeing. I’m not that familiar with your unit but there should be a way to turn off the filters and just show the raw returns. What you will see with the filters turned off will probably be even harder to read. Silt on the bottom absorbs more sonar energy and reflects less than rock or gravel. Wood also doesn’t reflect well. The fish finder is trying to make sense of a lot of noise along with a weaker than normal signal off the bottom and the brush on the bottom. I think that’s the reason for the poor results. Sorry but fish finders just aren’t that useful in less than 5 feet of water. Is there any deeper water in the lake and if so have you tried it there?

You can buy a dissolved oxygen meter with a long cable. It will cost you more than a fish finder would. I priced one many years ago and it was around $1000. There are also a few lakes that are monitored closely and have the info published online. Taylorsville in Kentucky is one that comes to mind. https://www.lrl.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Water-Information/Updated-Lake-Temperatures-and-Dissolved-Oxygen-Lev/Taylorsville-Profile/

Something I’ve always wondered about. If a fire ever breaks out on my boat it’s probably going to be in the back where all the batteries and electricity are and where the 25 gallons of gasoline is. Should I try to put it out or should I abandon ship and get a far away as possible before the gas ignites.

I’m assuming your numbers are temperature values in Celsius. We would need some depths to go with those numbers to have any clue what you’re looking at. Most people use their sonar to find the thermocline.

........so ... did it stretch very much?

Let me share what I was told about 25 years ago. My source was a coworker and fishing buddy. He had a family member who worked in the industry that told him this. You can judge the reliability of the source for yourself and things certainly could have changed in the last 25 year. He said that there are two formulations of nylon mono used in the fishing line industry. Both were originally developed by Dupont. At the time only Stren Magnathin and some other other foreign brands like Tectan used the newer one. All the other brand used the original one. He said that the differences in brands were just color, marketing and variations in line diameter. For example, abrasion resistance brands might use a larger diameter for the same # test to provide better abrasion resistance. Again, I can't vouch for the credibility of the original source and a lot could have changed in 25 years. I do think people over estimate how much engineering goes into most of the fishing products we buy. They are not doing materials research, they are buying raw materials from the companies that develop them.

I would be willing to bet that every brand of mono would stretch exactly the same as any other brand with the same diameter. It's all just nylon so why would one brand be any different than another? I'm no chemist so I may not know what I'm talking about but I would be willing to bet that's the case. I wouldn't be surprised if half of them came out of the same factory and the only difference is the packaging.

Thanks for posting this. It's very interesting and doesn't surprise me. We're moving to a world where trolling motors and fish finders are integrated. It makes sense that Motorguide and Lowrance be under the same umbrella. They both need each other. The $1.05 billion price is a surprise to me. Since Navico is a private company there's no way to know what their sales are or how profitable they are. I've always assumed they were much smaller than Johnson Outdoors and Garmin and therefore struggling to compete against them. Johnson Outdoors has a current market cap of $1.2 billion and Humminbird is just a portion of that. So Humminbird is clearly the smallest player in the market now.

I went to a tackle sore today. They seemed to have a lot on the shelves. They had a wall of Zoom stuff which surprised me. I didn’t pay that much attention to what they had. I found the buzz baits I was looking for. The lady behind the counter got a phone call and I heard her start complaining that she didn’t have anything. She said she didn’t have any Zoom stuff that anybody wanted. I thought about taking a video of their inventory to keep on hand. It would give me a good idea of what not to use on the area lakes.

You have to get the All-Terrain Crocs and they have to be in the camo color so the fish can't see your feet. ? https://www.crocs.com/p/classic-all-terrain-veil-whitetail-clog/206467.html?cgid=men&cid=260#&origin=category&start=59&sz=91

Once the TM is locked on a location, I don't think it will matter if your remote goes out of range as long as it's reconnects when you get back in range. I can't say that I've tested this. I don't use spotlock often while trailering but I've never had a problem when I did. There are some places where I would not try it. I always ask myself what's the worst case if spotlock disengages. The places I've used it I could wade to or swim to the boat if necessary.

There are some ramps that just aren’t an option on the weekends in the summer. That one looks pretty bad. If it’s your only option then I feel your pain. I live a mile from a lake that fills up with crazy drunks every weekend during the summer. I go to a ramp that has limited parking. Fishermen fill the parking lot before the drunks even get out of bed. Trailering happen slowly as the fishermen come in so the two ramps are usually not that crowded when I come in. If someone is waiting to launch they’re usually thrilled that I’m freeing up a good parking space. A few other tips that also might help you. The best tip I’ve ever got on this site was to wear Crocs while fishing in the summer. They are comfortable and water proof. The most dangerous things I’ve done at a boat ramp were done to keep my shoes from getting wet. Now I just wade in as needed. No more climbing into the truck and walking across the trailer tongue to get to the boat or trying to jump from the boat across 4 ft of water on to a slippery wet ramp. Another great tool is a remote control trolling motor with spot lock. If there’s no room at the dock or if I’m worried someone on the dock might help themselves to what’s on the deck of my boat, I just spot lock it out a little ways from shore while I go get the truck.

I’ve been thinking about giving this a try. My local lake is very rocky and eats weights.