Tennessee Boy

Good question. I was fishing 8# Power Pro braid with a 6# Red Label leader today and had a beautiful 5ish pound smallmouth break off at the boat. I shouldn’t have been fishing that line at that location. The line was a mess from all the stuff the fish rubbed it against and from the stretching it received. I’m mad at myself and at fluorocarbon line for failing me again. I’ll be using Sunline Supernatural leader for the foreseeable future.

I follow both the B.A.S.S. Elites and the MLF tournaments. I can checkin with B.A.S.S. a few times a day and feel like I'm following the tournament. Not many people are able or willing to watch 8 hours a day for 4 days. MLF has wacky rules but they have resulting in me spending WAY more time watching online. Having anglers qualify on one lake and then start from zero the final day on a different lake makes no sense as a test of angling skill but does make the competition more interesting to watch on the final day. I can understand why the angler's would want the rule change to have the final round run for two days. It would be very frustrating to dominate the qualifying rounds only to see someone else win $100K on another lake in the finals. If they want to make the transition from fishing for each others money to fishing for sponsor's money they have to do more to make professional fishing more of a spectator sport. I don't think this is a step in the right direction in that regard.

The 5 fish limit format is a better test of angler skill. The every fish counts format makes for better TV. It should be interesting.

I agree. Try some different pliers, fish grippers, gloves, etc but don't change how you're fishing if you're catching fish.

It’s very important to me. If you want them to share waypoints then you need the same brand.

I’ve launched at a ramp that didn’t have a dock. Does that count? ?

I find the sales people entertaining. I was pretending like I might buy the extended warranty if she went low enough. Thinking back over the seven vehicles I’ve bought in my life, I think I’ve had $300 in repair cost that I would have saved by buying a 96 month/ 120K miles extended warranty. It’s no wonder they try so hard to sell them. They’re almost pure profit.

Yesterday we picked up our new car that had been on order for 6 weeks. When we placed the order the manager made her case for why we should spend $3300 on the 96 month extended warranty. I told here we were not interested. Yesterday she said she had good news. She could give us the 96 month warranty for just $3005. I told her we were not interested. She said she felt bad that we had to wait so long for the car so she said she would give us the warranty at cost ($2560) plus one dollar because she was not allowed to sell it at cost. I told her we were not interested. Apparently the sell below cost requirement went away quickly because she then offered us the warranty for $1760. I told her we were not interested and that was the end of it. I think they must require you to take a lie detector test before you can work for a car dealership and if the test shows you’re telling the truth you don’t get the job. ?

I'm using a Victron Energy Blue Smart 15 amp. It has a Lithium setting and has a blue tooth interface that connects to my phone and tells me how many amp hours it took to charge the battery. It's best to charge LifePo4 batteries at 14.4 V and float at 13.6 V. Other than that there's no magic that one charger will offer over another. If you are using an outboard to get you to the spot and then you the trolling motor to fish then 100 ah is probably more than you need. If you are using the trolling motor to get you to the spot then you need a big battery unless you are fishing a very small lake. Only time will tell. A warranty is only as good as the company behind it. There are countless companies buying the same batteries from China and putting a brand on it. I'd be willing to bet that most of them will be gone in 5 years. I came very close to buying a Chins battery which is a cheap battery sold on Amazon that has got some good reviews. In the end I went with Battleborn because it's real US company that designs and assembles the batteries in the US using mostly parts made in China. They also use cylindrical cells which has many advantages of the prismatic cells used in all the cheaper batteries. Only time will tell if I will get my money's worth by going with Battleborn. I feel good about supporting a real US company. My guess is that most well made LifePo4 batteries will last longer than their owners need them to. From what I've read, in the lab LifePo4 cells loose half their capacity after about 6000 cycles. Battleborn says to expect 3000 cycles before you loose 20% of your capacity. I fish about twice a week. That means I'll hit the 3000 cycle mark in about 28 years at age 88.

I looked at a lot of brands before I went with Battleborn last spring for a battery to run my electronics on. Of the two you listed I would go with Ionic. I’m not impressed with what I’ve learned about Dakota. The battery you link to has 19% 1 star reviews. You might also want to watch this review from someone who has used both. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7f7Z6Z8GE

I don't remember that season but I'm very aware of the great history of Sewanee football. They were in the SEC when it was founded in 1932 and dropped out in 1940.

That aught seven Sewanee team had a fearsome offense.

Ugly field goals count just as much as pretty ones. ?

The carp fishing is so good they will literally jump in the boat. ?

I can’t speak for every brand but Humminbirds use standard Ethernet and tcp/ip. I don’t know what speed they run at. They use different cables with M12 connectors.

I drove down there without the boat to check it out on a weekday. There were no vehicles in the parking lot and no one around which concerns me. Maybe I’m too paranoid.

I love fishing in the winter. The problem here is it’s to dark to fish after work and with the increase in cold and rainy weather, fewer weekends are fishable. Until now! I just retired and that changes everything about winter fishing. I can’t wait.

Never trust anyone until you’ve sniffed their butt. -My dog

I’m not aware of any I-pilot trolling motors that require an external GPS puck. Mine came with a heading sensor puck that is used for some features like jogging and circling a waypoint. It is not required for other features like routes and spot lock. According to the MinnKota website. *When i-Pilot is installed on a PowerDrive, the foot pedal will no longer function and the motor can only be controlled with the remote.

There is a difference between i-Pilot and I-Pilot link. Only I-Pilot link will talk to a fish finder and only to Humminbirds. With regular I-pilot you use the handheld remote that comes with it to control it and create routes and waypoints.

Have you ever used Khan Academy? They have good videos and quizzes on everything from preschool math to differential equations. This section may have everything you need. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/basic-geo/basic-geo-area-and-perimeter

We had a vacation booked from Saturday week to this past Saturday on Sanibel Island. We decided to cancel on the Friday before our departure because scientists said that a small tropical storm in the Caribbean that was headed straight for Nicaragua was going to make a right turn and hit Sanibel as a Cat II hurricane. We looked at the spaghetti models which showed many different paths for the storm. For a while it looked like it would go north then the projected path moved south again. In the end the models were all wrong. The consensus path when we cancelled was almost dead on to we’re it actually hit. The timing was a little off and the actual hurricane was MUCH stronger than they predicted on the Friday before. I can look at this and say the scientists are not very good at predicting hurricanes. I’m also amazed that they knew the small storm would turn and strengthen the way it did. No one ever said that Sanibel Island was doomed. When we canceled they said there was a 20% chance that there would be hurricane force winds where we were going. That was enough to convince me to cancel the trip. Turns out it was much worse than predicted and I can thank the scientists that I was not there to see it in person. Long range climate models are similar to short term weather models. There are many of them and they don’t all agree. There is enormous uncertainty in the models. There is even uncertainty about the inputs that go into the models. I certainly don’t understand the science but I respect the people who have devoted their lives to the science. Anyone that says they know what going to happen is either fooling themselves or trying to fool you. If you listen to the actual scientists they all acknowledge the uncertainty. It could be less serious than some are predicting but it could also be worse. No one thinks nothing is happening or that it’s going to get colder. Still a large volcano could come along and give us 10 years of winter at any time. Most of what I’ve read says there is a low probability of a catastrophic outcome due to climate change. That should concern all of us. It’s a very complicated problem. The solutions are not clear. All I can say is keep an open mind. When very smart people say there’s a chance that a hurricane is going to hit a vulnerable island, only a fool would ignore them.

My experience was similar. I actually did well early in my first full year in my bass club. With my fishing style at the time I almost always caught at least one keeper. I fished every tournament and weighed fish in all of them. I didn’t place in any of them but with my consistency I was in 1st place on May 1st with around 12 pounds total for the year. Then we got to the time of year when it took 20+ pounds to win a tournament. I went from 1st place to around 15th place after the first tournament in May and it was all down hill from there.

Here’s one. If you want more search scholar.google.com for scientific papers on any subject include bass fishing.

She was an amazing artist. I always wanted to see her in concert but never made it happen. I’m not a big country music fan because most of it is garbage but I’m a Loretta Lynn fan because she was the real deal.