Tennessee Boy

You could buy a legacy LakeMaster card if you can find one or you can buy and download the data to your own card at the link below. https://chartselect.humminbird.com/legacy

There's a difference between camping out on structure that hold lots of fish and camping out on a log that has a fish.

Garmin is recommending 18 gauge for one unit. Some people run a dedicated wire from the battery to each unit. I would never consider doing that but that's your choice. If you run a single wire from the battery to the front to a bus bar then you will need bigger wire. Smaller/longer wire has more resistance which means more voltage drop in the wire because the voltage drop is a product of the resistance and the amount of current going through the wire. Does less voltage mean worse performance? That can be debated. Many people are running 16 volt batteries because they feel the higher voltage gives you better performance. Garmin says their units require a minimum of 9 volts. I don’t know if you would see a difference between 10 volts and 12 volts. I would rather spend a little more on bigger wire than risk it. We can do the math to estimate how much voltage drop you will see with different wire gauges. According to the Garmin website the 125 will pull a maximum of 3.3 amp and the 106 will pull a maximum of 3 amps. So 6.3 amps total. I doubt they pull the maximum all the time but let's use 6.3 to be safe. I'm assuming you will need 50 feet of wire from the battery to the front and back (25 feet each way). I'm assuming you're using a lithium battery with 12.8 volts. Using one of the voltage drop calculators available online this is what I got. 14 gauge - 2.5 volt drop - 10.3 volts to the units 12 gauge - 1 volt drop - 11.8 volts to the units 10 gauge - 0.6 volt drop - 12.2 volts to the units 8 gauge - 0.4 volt drop - 12.4 volts to the units. Personally, I would run a single 8 gauge wire to a bus bar in the front. There's not a big enough difference between 10 gauge and 8 gauge to matter but I like to add a little extra capacity for future expansion. You might want to add one of those 20 inch FFS screens in the future. Here's a link to the calculator I used if you want to change any of the inputs. https://www.inchcalculator.com/voltage-drop-calculator/

As a child I remember fishing on the bank of the Duck river and watching the water go from clear to extremely muddy in a matter of minutes. A phosphate company a few miles upstream was to blame. It happened regularly. That would be illegal today and the phosphate facility is gone. Also upstream from there was a Hooker Chemical plant. It's gone now and their settling ponds are now fishing ponds run by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Upstream a little further was a Monsanto plant. It is now gone but people seem to stay away from the land where it was located. Most of the waters I fish today were nasty 50 years ago from all of the stuff that was dumped into them. It's much better now and I'm grateful for that.

If the fish is on bed then persistence might pay off. Otherwise, I think it’s a very bad idea. I’m convinced that a very small percentage of bass that are aware of your lure actually hit it.

If someone gave me one I doubt that I would even use it. I know what I want and that rod doesn’t appear to be it.

In the 90s, I fished a club where both anglers kept their own 5 fish limit for AOY but the tournament and prize money was a team competition. If you want to win the tournament, you had to win it with five fish or help your co angler catch his limit.

Interesting theory. Personally, I feel like I'm much less likely to hit a stump now that I can see them on FFS and 360.

It’s hard to say with any certainty without knowing what battery you have and what charger you have. Generally, if your charger is made for lithium batteries you should be fine and even if it’s not the BMS should protect the battery from overcharging. Personally, I don’t leave my chargers on indefinitely because it shortens the life of the charger.

Why are you fishing a drop shot?

So is this thread.

Congratulations. Pictures are required on all new dog announcements. It’s in the forum rules somewhere. 😆

Of course it takes skill. My question is who cares? If you enjoy fishing with live bait then do it. If you feel artificial bait requires more skill and you enjoy a challenge then use lures. If that not enough of a challenge then wear a blindfold while you fish. Personally, I always use lures and don’t really know how to use live bait. I’m confident I could learn if I wanted to.

Humminbird definitely needs a major Mega Live update to catch up to the competition. If mine died today I would not replace it with the existing version. I would wait for an update. I'm sure I'm not the only person that feels this way.

I’ve dealt with this issue before. In Tennessee you are not responsible for your trees unless the tree was clearly a danger and it can be proven that you knew it was a danger and you did nothing to prevent it. That’s the legal side of it. Your insurance is not going to pay if you’re not legally responsible. The neighborly thing to do is sometimes different. I removed a tree that fell on my neighbors property just because it seemed like the right thing to do. In another incident on some farm land I own, we had dozens of trees fall on a fence between my property and a neighbors. I co-owned the fence with the neighbor and we split the cost of removing the trees lying on the fence and repairing the fence. We each removed the trees on our own property regardless of which side of the fence the tree fell from.

The fitness expert died at 76 and the sex expert died at 96…. Interesting.

Here’s an excellent article on this subject. https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/understanding-riverine-rights-today/385605

I’ve looked into this issue a few times out of curiosity. My conclusion is it’s complicated. In Tennessee and I think in most places your right to be in a stream depends on if the stream is “navigable”. The land under a navigable stream is public land. Who determines if a stream is navigable? The courts. The Corp of Engineers is responsible for navigable waterway in the US and they maintain a detailed list of exactly where many creek becomes a navigable stream, however their list is only legally binding for their activities. In Tennessee, courts have found that the Corps’ list should be accorded substantial weight in determining if a stream is navigable. Still anyone has the right to challenge in court whether a stream is or is not navigable. The simple answer when it comes to grey areas, the person who can afford the best lawyers wins. I’ve fished two creeks in middle Tennessee where they officially become navigable according to the Corp of Engineers and I can say in these two cases their determination is extremely favorable to the boater. You would not be able to navigate these waters in a Kayak without getting out occasionally to avoid shallow water or a fallen tree.

I use Fins Braid. They have lots of options at different prices. 40G is their premium line and it is excellent. I also use Spin5 and have been very pleased with it. It’s the in house brand of BBS Tech in Kentucky that makes a lot of braid lines for different companies. I like knowing where the stuff I buy comes from. https://www.finsfishing.com

Growing up in Nashville Tennessee I started bass fishing in the early 70s and learned Eastern and Western finesse fishing. Eastern finesse was pioneered east of Nashville by Billy Westmorland. Western finesse was pioneered west of Nashville by Charlie Brewer. Charlie said he got the idea for Slider fishing one day when he saw two boy’s that had caught a bunch of fish with very small lures. I recognize those two boys whoever they were as the founders of finesse fishing. 😆 The power of Finesse fishing is demonstrated by this thread. Everyone defines it in a way that works for them. In reality downsizing to a more subtle presentation is as old as fishing.

If it was me I would run it until the BMS shuts off to see what you get in a real world test. My guess is in reality the Helix probably uses less than it’s maximum current rating most of the time.

There are countless reviews on YouTube where they load test batteries. They test them against the listed capacity. A new battery should deliver it’s rated capacity or more before shutting off. Here’s an example of a review where a battery delivers 11% more than it’s listed capacity.

If it’s truly a 18 ah battery then 7.2 hours. Most manufacturer underrate their batteries some and every cell will vary in capacity some. It will probably hold more than 18 ah initially. The capacity will drop with each cycle. The numbers I’ve seen say that a LifePo4 battery will loose half it’s capacity after 5000 cycles. When a manufacturer says a battery will last 2000 cycles that usually means 2000 cycles before it looses 20% of it’s capacity. There are no standards that I’m aware of about what these specifications mean.

The Beatles Come Together is a classic. Aerosmith’s cover is even better.