Tennessee Boy

I lived in Huntsville from 1986 till 1999 and fished all the Tennessee river lakes down there. There was something about Wilson lake that I always liked. Pickwick is also special. I had the smallmouth of a lifetime break off one February morning right below Wilson dam. That fish made me look like a like fool. I've check my drag regularly with a scale ever since. I probably got skunked half the times I fished Pickwick, but man when you get on um it's special.

t = time required to tie a knot 2t = time required to tie two knots 2t > t

I have to say after two tournaments, I think the 2 pound limit is a great success. I’ve watched more this year than all of last year combined. IMO they should just leave it at 2lbs, regardless of what lake they are fishing.

That’s beyond crazy and should be illegal

TVA needs to do something. I really wonder what happened. They had to have been very close to the dam when they lost power. I know one thing, you won't catch me within 5 miles of a dam when I know the spillways are open.

Thanks for the link. Their website has a graphic showing it scanning out to 150ft but the press release says "Simply turn the transducer sideways to enable the new ‘top down’ perspective mode to see a wide view of what’s in front of the boat up to 50 feet away". I see how it works now. It's basically a 20 degree livescope beam turned sideways. The 20 degree beam will be very limiting but it only cost $100 to add to LiveScope. Who wouldn't want to add it.

It looks cool but their press release doesn't give a lot of details. If they can truly provide the 360 experience and the LiveScope experience, it will be a game changer. 50ft max range is disappointing.

Okeechobee just seems strange to this Ol boy from Tennessee. There are no hills around the lake! How do they keep the water from running out? ?

That’s a great photo! Thanks for sharing. Gonna be a lot of fish in that young man’s future.

If this happened in our home. My wife would be telling me to call the repair man and I would be saying no way, I've GOT to figure this out.

There are two studies on vision in largemouth bass that are very solid. The first was in 1937 and another in 2018. They trained bass to recognize a target color to receive food. Both studies found that bass had a hard time differentiating between blue and black and between yellow and white. My interpretation is that bass do not have cones that can detect the blue spectrum very well. White contains all colors in the spectrum. If you remove the blue light from white light you get yellow. If you can't see the blue then yellow and white look the same. None of this means that bass won't hit a yellow lure, it just means that it looks a lot like a white lure to them. This graph is from the 2018 study and shows how well the bass trained to certain colors could actually differentiate that color from the others.

There's very solid scientific research that shows that largemouth can't tell the difference between yellow and white. People can tell the difference so yellow lures will still sell as long as they are labeled chartreuse.?

That story will probably keep me awake tonight. Thanks @TnRiver46 ?. I have kind of a phobia with dams. I sometimes fish below them even though it's a little scary. I stay away from the top side. I just feel like I could fall in and get sucked through at any moment. I'm sure it would be very dangerous to be anywhere near those dams right now with all the flooding.

That's some crazy stuff. He went through two dams!

This the only trailer dealer I’m aware of. They say on their web site that they do not stock boat trailer part but can order the most generic boat trailer parts. If you don’t find a better option you could give them a call. They might be able to help or point you in the right direction. They are just minutes from Old Hickory Lake so I’m sure you would not be the first boater to contact them. http://bjtrailers.com

St Croix should have raised the price of their highest end rods years ago. Many people refuse to fish a rod that cost less than $500. ?

I went to a BASS weight-in in the 90s in Huntsville Alabama. The water covered the parking lot of the marina they launched from. They had to move the weight in stage to high ground. The tournament went on as scheduled.

I agree completely but it started way before YouTube. 90% of what has been said, written, posted about fishing since the beginning of time is speculation. When I pitch a jig by a stump and catch a fish, I assume that the fish was on the stump waiting. Unless, the water was clear enough for me to see the fish in advance, I’m just speculating. In this case it’s probably a safe speculation but I can’t say for sure that the fish wasn’t swimming by when my jig hit the water. Unfortunately most people prefer a confidently delivered narrative over an intellectual honest fact based discussion. So to be a successful YouTuber or old fashion writer you need to proclaim with certainty that “those fish were waiting in 30 ft of water for 2 days until the water cleared up and the temperature stabilized then they moved up in the afternoon to feed.” If you say it with confidence, they will believe you even though you can’t possibly know what the fish have been doing for the last 48 hours.

The first time I watched one of Jonny Schultz’s videos, I thought he came across as a know it all kid. He quickly gained my respect. He had some tournament success at the college level and knows electronics which is more than I can say for most pros. He has some good offshore videos as well.

IMO NorthStar or X2Power (same battery) are the best but they are expensive. I don’t think you need the best to run two Helix 7 and some power poles. I would go with a good midrange AGM like a duracell from Sam’s Club.

One cranking battery connected only to your outboard for cranking. One deep cycle or dual purpose battery as your house battery that will run your electronics, power polls, live well, etc. This battery will not be connected to your outboard. I would go with an inexpensive battery or use your existing battery for cranking. Then buy a little better battery as your house battery. One advantage to buying a dual purpose battery as your house battery is you can make it your cranking battery later.

You will want a deep cycle battery for the electronic and other accessories. These are often called "house batteries". If you already have a two bank charger then you could get another two bank charger or replace the existing one with a four bank charger. Whatever works for you, the batteries won't care either way. ?

If I had room for another battery for the electronics I would go that route. An onboard charger to charge all your batteries is worth the money IMO. Another option would be to get a high end battery like a X2Power/NorthStart that would have enough power to run everything you listed for 8 hours+.

He didn't show the marine nuclear reactor that he must be using to power all of that stuff.

I absolutely think it would be a completely different tournament with the old limit. I see guys fishing more like they do in 5 fish limit tournaments. Good fishermen dial in on a pattern. They are dialing in on bigger fish. There is no way to know for sure but I suspect that if the old rule was still in place, they would be dialing in on large numbers of smaller fish like they did last year. I also see way more people off shore than I was seeing last year. I wonder if Jordan Lee would have made the long run under the old limit. My guess is he would not have.