Tennessee Boy

I used pork for years because I thought it had to be better than plastic. I decided to give plastic a try after a buddy of mine whipped my behind in a tournament using Zoom Chunks. I’ve been using plastic ever since. Plastic seems to work just as well for me and it’s easier.

I thought I read the same thing once but that’s not what is says here. I think you’re right and the wording on the website is very confusing. https://minnkota-help.johnsonoutdoors.com/hc/en-us/articles/4413535309207-Battery-Selection

I have one lithium battery that I run my electronics on. It cuts off at 10.6 volts. That’s pretty low. It would take some serious trolling to drain 3 good lithium batteries. It’s often said that lithium batteries don’t lose voltage as they are discharged. That is not true. They start at a higher voltage and the voltage drops slower as it’s discharged. I can see how that would throw off your remote. My charger tells me what the voltage is when I start charging and how many amp hours it took to charge the battery. I can predict pretty closely how much charge the battery will need based on the starting voltage. If you’re remote tells you the voltage of the battery pack then you should know when it’s close to shutting off. If not you could check the voltage after 16 hours of fishing to see what state the batteries are in. Also, MinnKota says the following on their web site. Lithium Batteries maintain higher voltages for longer. Motors engineered to make the most of flooded lead acid batteries can be damaged by the higher power output. To prevent this damage when using Lithium batteries you should not run your motor at its highest speeds, staying at 85%/Speed 8.5 or lower.

It’s great if you need to run in water like this, otherwise I would pass.

It looks really good. Being able to use your trolling motor for trolling all the time and not have to use it for aiming the Live transducer would be very nice. The target lock feature is very cool.

I’ll go though severe withdrawal if I go more than 48 hours without tea.

I just got an email about this announcement from Humminbird. It appears that they have a team of people in Eufaula dedicated to finding ways to get my money. https://www.humminbird.com/learn/imaging/targetlock

I tend to look to the biologist for answers on biology and to fishermen for answers on fishing. When they conflict I personally tend to favor the biologist. They have much higher standards of proof governing their field. Roland's book was clearly wrong about bass and eyelids. Eyelids are not used to protect the eye from light. I don't close my eyelids when I go out in the sun. Eyelids are used to keep the eye moist. Fish don't have a problem with dry eyes. The bass and eyelids myth has circulated for decades. Roland heard it and believed it like so many others. Then he added it to his book without doing a fact check. @Chris Catignani have you ever heard that fish don't bite when Kentucky Lake is running backwards. It's said that at times TVA runs the water backwards through Pickwick dam and down the Tom Bigby waterway to reduce the flow of water into the Ohio River. I've heard that one all my life. People accept it without asking how they get the water to run backward through the dam when the water is higher on the Pickwick side. We fishermen tend to be a gullible bunch. The pros are no exception. There is often a degree of truth to some myths. They do stop the current on the Tennessee River at times and that makes the fishing tough. Add a north wind and your boat will drift upstream on Kentucky lake. I've never caught much when that's happening. I've also had luck targeting bass in the shade even though they don't need eyelids to protect their eyes from the sun. Do bass avoid a slow moving spinnerbait in clear water because it doesn't look natural? Does a spinnerbait ever look natural to a bass? Can we explain why bass do anything when they refuse to answer our questions?

Excellent point. I’m going with the biologist on this one.

Roland Martin said in his book that bass can’t tolerate sunlight because they don’t have eyelids. Biologist say he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Roland Martin catches more fish than any biologist I know. Who should I believe?

It's been one of the great mysteries of fishing. How many bites am I getting that I never feel? There have been some underwater videos published that show it happening to some very experienced anglers. With forward facing sonar we can start to answer the question for ourselves. I've only had FFS since April and I'll need a lot more time before I start to get some idea of how many fish I'm missing. I probably watch my lure on 5% of my cast. I see a lot of fish following my lure that never hit it. Some get close enough that they could mouth the bait without me knowing it. Right now I don't think I'm missing that many strikes. Certainly not half of them. I'm still adjusting to the new game with FFS and still have a lot to learn. Have any of you ever set the hook based what you see on FFS without feeling the strike? I've never seen anyone doing it in videos and I've never tried it.

Yes it usually comes down to rod sensitivity. Believing that a rod helps you detect bites will probably help your confidence. I used to be a firm believer. A series of blind test and an understanding of physics made me realize otherwise. Rod sensitivity has been debated at length on this forum. I don’t think many people have changed their mind.

Is there a way to keep @Deleted account from commenting on new people’s post? Maybe block him until someone has been a member for at least 24 hours. ?

Let me make another important point about expensive gear. There are people that like it because it's the best. It doesn't matter if it provides any true practical advantages. They are connoisseurs of fishing tackle who want to use the very best. That's how they enjoy the sport and that's all that matters. I carry three nice scales on my boat to weigh my fish. They are more accurate than the cheap scales you carry but not by very much. I like to weight my fish accurately and I think accurate scales are cool. I can't make a practical argument for why I need $250 worth of scales on my boat. I'm a geek that likes to measure things. We all enjoy the sport differently and we all spend our money differently. So maybe the best answer I could give for the OPs question is this. There is very little appreciable difference between the most expensive rods and middle of the road rods, but you might enjoy the high end rods anyway.

It's been a while since I picked up an NRX and I'm sure they've made improvements. Next time I see one in a store I'll pick it up and if I feel a "tremendous" difference in weight, I'll buy it. I've always found it interesting that the companies that brag the most about how amazingly light their rods are never publish the actual weights of the rods on their web sites.

On their website gloomas says that their $600 NRX uses proprietary technology that allows them to make a rod that is 15% lighter with the same strength. It doesn’t say what they are comparing it to. So for $600 you can replace a 4 ounce rod with one thats 3.4 ounces. That’s a 0.6 ounce weight savings. Some people on the forum have said it helps reduce wrist and elbow fatigue. Personally, I’ve never had a problem fishing all day with a 4 oz rod. It’s nice to know that if 4 ounces gets to be too much for me, I can loose 0.6 ounces for only $600. I’ll probably take off my 3.5 ounce watch and my 0.25 ounce wedding band before I go with the lighter rod though.

That ol’ boy knows how to catch fish.

It could be a lot of things. I had a similar issue a couple of weeks ago. Mine would start and run fine up to about 4000 RPMs. Then it would bog down. It was extremely hot outside and I was running low on fuel. I popped open my environmentally friendly no vent gas cap and enough air rushed out to fill a tractor tire. Everything was fine after that. I hope your problem is that easy to fix.

It happens every day. Someone starts a thread asking a simple question. The first person to respond answers the question. Then everyone else does their part to drag the thread into the weeds. It’s why I love this site. ?

I always check the bottom scores anytime I look at tournament results. Makes me feel better about myself ?.

Arbor is also the surname of Ann Arbor, the head football coach at the University of Michigan. Or it could be the name of their mascot. I can’t remember.?

Let’s keep our terms straight. Battery power and battery voltage are two different things. Battery voltage can definitely affect performance. Won’t make the unit faster. I don’t think it’s affecting the OP screen clarity. If my unit was shutting down every time I cranked the motor I would be looking to change something regardless of what the screen looks like.

It all depends on how sensitive the rod is.?

I think the first step is to avoid falling into what I call the Dink Trap. We all like catching fish and if you chase numbers you will end up fishing for the smallest fish in the lake. That's the Dink Trap. Within a year after buying my first boat and joining a club, I took a week off to spend it pre fishing for an out of town club tournament. I was going to spend the week finding fish to show the club that the new guy was a force to be reckoned with. I was able to dial in a pattern and I was catching fish like crazy on the bank in specific areas on Slider worms. The day of the tournament came and I probably caught 100 fish. My biggest five weighted just under 7 lbs. I was in the Dink Trap. The winner of the tournament had over 26 lbs. My PB at the times was a little over 4 lbs and this guy's biggest 5 fish on a single day were all bigger than my PB. That's when I realized that I needed to make some big changes if I wanted to compete in tournaments. For me, the change was different baits and realizing that you don't have to always fish the bank. I also think just more experience made me a better fisherman which led to catching bigger fish. I found place that held big fish and caught multiple big fish from them over time. I don't consider myself an expert on big fish by any means but I’ve improved over the years. We learn from time on the water. What we learn depends on our goals. Once I stopped judging my day based on the number of fish caught and started judging based on my best five, I started catching bigger fish. If you judge your success based on your biggest fish in a year, that will make you a true big fish angler. If you consider a day where you catch 25 one pound fish better than a day where you catch 2 five pound fish then your time on the water will make you better at catching numbers. You will fall into the Dink Trap. Some people like fishing for numbers and there's nothing wrong with that.

Spinning reels twist line so they will eventually end up in a twisted mess. The solution is to occasionally untwist the line. Remove the lure and let all the line out behind the boat as you troll slowly. When it’s all out, reel it back in. Takes about a minute once you get the hang of it. You can also walk the line out in the back yard if you have enough space. With practice you’ll learn how to tell when a reel needs to be untwist before it ends up in a twisted mess. How did you combine the two batteries into your cranking battery? Are you running two different size batteries in parallel?