Tennessee Boy

I’ve seen no indication that Googan is anything more than a marketing and branding company. They don’t manufacture their baits and probably don’t design them. I don’t buy from these companies if I can help it because I don’t think add any value to what I’m buying. That doesn’t mean the products aren’t any good. They’re probably manufactured in the same factories that make the products I do use.

If you're one of those people that think your reel should match your shoes then different color reels certainly give you more fashion options. 😆

Start with what you have, discover it's short comings if any and address them. The equipment you need depends on how you fish, where you fish, and your personal preferences. It will come through time on the water. You will not find what you need on the Internet but you will find plenty of people that will be happy to tell you what you need.

Nashville has the Nashville Sports Council that is a non profit funded by the local tourism industry that brings sporting events to Nashville. They are responsible for the Music City Bowl, the SEC Basketball Tournament, the Rock N Roll Marathon, and various other sporting events over the years. They claim that the Music City Bowl has a $24 million economic impact. It’s organizations like this or the local chamber of commerce that provide the incentives to attract these tournaments. I think the main benefit that local businesses get from these bass tournaments is showcasing their fisheries to attract fishermen who might want to spend a week fishing a world class lake. I don’t think many people will be booking trips to the Sabine River any time soon. 😌

I’ve been predicting that mono will eventually go away and then it will be reintroduced under a new name (Single Filament Nylon?) at a cost of $1 per foot and people will love it.

I would love to have a way to get the old ones off. They seem to bond structurally with the boat. I do the three year registration so I'll have fewer decals on the boat.

I agree it sounds like the Ultrex. Do you have the Ultrex remote? Does it work with the remote or the bluetooth phone app?

You may have already tried this. 1) Make use the connections are good between the Helix and Ultrex. 2) Turn off the trolling motor and the Helix and then start everything up again. If it's still not working then my guess is an ethernet port is bad. If you have access to another Helix you could connect it to the Ultrex and see if it work. You could also connect it to your Helix to see if they make a connection. This would tell you if it's the trolling motor or the control head that has a problem. It's also possible it a bad cable but I would think that's unlikely.

Are you connecting the Ultrex directly to the Helix via the ethernet port?

I can't tell for sure how the batteries are wired in the photo but every indication is they are wired in parallel. If so they function together as a single 12 volt battery with double the capacity. The way to check each battery is to remove all wires and check the voltage across the two terminals. If you get a low voltage then you've found the problem. The best way to test them is with a battery tester. Any auto parts store should test them for you for free. You can buy a battery tester for around $25.

So what you're really saying is girlfriends are expensive, not moving. 😆

The 36 volt three batteries pack under the floor should be for the trolling motor only. You have a three bank charger and 5 batteries. Could the 3 bank charger be for the trolling motor batteries only? That would explain why the charger shows 100% and everything else is dead. I would start by checking the status of the two batteries in the photo that are wired in parallel. If they are dead then you found the problem.

I have probably 30 of the Tackle Warehouse tee shirts that you get for free with a large order. So I wear one just about all the time except when I'm at church. I do change if I go to a tackle store; it just seems rude not to. 😆

Great read, Thanks

I have no need for any more lures, EVER! Unless someone comes out with an interesting new design, or a cool color, or maybe a different size of one of my favorites, or maybe if there is a good sale, or if someone wins a big tournament on a lure I don't have, or if I have a REALLY good day on a lure and I have less than 10 of them, or if the weather has been bad for several days and I just have to go to a tackle store for a fix, or .....

This is how my personal preferences have evolved. Lure weight 1/2 oz and over - 100% traditional bait casting. Lure weight 1/4 oz to 3/8 oz - 80% spinning, 20% BFS Lure weight less than 1/4 oz - 80% BFS, 20% spinning I'm very comfortable with both for lighter lures.

I agree with @Team9nine. It's a lost art. I've had spot lock for a while so I've probably "lost the art" myself. Some days can be harder than others. Gusty winds can make it very difficult. Often the spot you need to cast to can be very small so you have to know exactly where you are before you can make exactly the right cast. I used marker buoys until I got a heading sensor that keeps the on screen map oriented with the boat heading. It's very challenging to develop the spatial awareness you need to fish a spot when you're a half mile from the bank.

People were catching fish on ledges long before spot lock and FFS. It got much easier with GPS. The most important thing is finding a spot that's holding fish. Ledges are easy to find on the Tennessee River. Ledges that are holding fish is more challenging. Once you find the fish, boat positioning and control are critical. Spotlock helps a lot but if you don't have it you just have to use your trolling motor or drop an anchor. You need to be able to translate in your mind what the structure in front of you is like based on what you see on the mapping screen. If you struggle with that then drop a few buoy marker. In the old days I would throw three out to form a triangle and that would help me visualize the orientation and size of the structure below me. Don't expect to just find a ledge and catch fish. I spend countless hours graphing with my electronics to find just one good ledge. Many times I'll noticed that something that looks good on the map always seems to have a boat on it. That's the quickest way to find the good community holes.

Here's all the proof I need concerning bed fishing and you can confirm my results yourself. Go fishing and see if there are any bass to be caught. If you catch one then you know the bass are still there. It's just that simple. People have been bed fishing forever and people have been worried that it would hurt the bass population for as long as I can remember. It hasn't happened!!! If we ever do manage to make bass extinct in a lake we can reintroduce them to the lake and not allow fishing in the lake for a year. Bass are extremely good and reproducing.

We've watched many weigh-ins over the years and never noticed. 😆

What kind of prey are you mimicking when you throw a purple plastic night crawler with green glitter? To the best of my knowledge, night crawlers don't swim and aren't purple. If a fish lived its entire life in a tank eating pellet food and you threw a live crawfish in the tank, would the fish eat it? My guess is it would. I have no idea what a bass is thinking when they hit a lure. My approach is I try to match prey when I know fish is actively feeding on a particular species of prey. Otherwise, I throw whatever I think I can catch them with, like a swimming purple night crawler. 😊

I did, corrected.

My first boat was a 17 ft Tracker with a 50 HP motor and a 12V trolling motor. I ran 2 dual purpose group 27 batteries in parallel for the trolling motor. When the TM batteries got old I would take the best one and make it my cranking battery. I can’t ever remember the motor not cranking. I carried jumper cables just in case so I could jump off the TM batteries in a pinch. I ran the electronics off the TM batteries. This can sometimes cause interference on the electronics but I never had a problem.

I agree it would not work well. I haven’t tried it but my best guess is if you spent thousands of hours practicing and learning to interpret what you see on screen you might occasionally be able to identify a fish. If the fish was high enough in the water column not to be masked by the extra wide bottom band, I think it would appear as an arch as the transducer is rotated.

I wonder if they still make any of their baits. Many of their products look exactly like baits in the D&J catalog so I don’t think they make everything they selI.