@reelChris

Abu Garcia Veritas 6'6" M or MH spinning rods are on sale at Sportsman's Guide. $64 for non-members, $58.50 for members. Shipping is $11, but it's $9.99 to become a member and then you get free shipping. Also - I have a free shipping code for Rapala.com someone can have. PM me and it's yours.

Feel free to spend your money on whatever, but if you think they can't accidentally go off without a big splash, you haven't fished with anyone truly clumsy. The manual pull tabs can hook on stuff. And, not every vest is that expensive to rearm. The Onyx/Bass Pro kits are under $30.

The extra rearm kit is in the case of inflation of the vest, either accidentally (it got splashed, or blew off the deck and ended up in the water), or as designed (you fell in). Without a rearm kit, you'd have to wear your brick orange vest until you got back home.

Because the auto can go off unintentionally with repeated moisture exposure. Whatever version you get, make sure you carry a re-arm kit in the boat and a backup, non-inflatable jacket.

I should have checked the quickdraw community first. Most of what I need has already been mapped there. But, do the normal GPS maps (not the fishing maps) stop at the US border so that I'll still need the Canadian package to know where I'm at?

Does anyone know how to tell if Echomap covers large bodies of water? I've looked at Garmin's search engine (lakes.garmin.com) but it doesn't look like any big water has data symbols. I'm particularly interested in Georgian Bay in Ontario.

This is a 2" Zara pooch I bought off eBay with the intent of creating a double spook rig. I'd like to replace the front hook before I tie it to another lure but I'm not sure how. I could add tiny split rings and then new hooks. Would that kill the action?

New graphics can make an older boat look newer again. You can sometimes find OEM graphics for sale on on the web. If not, there's plenty of decal places that produce giant vinyl stickers with generic designs for not much money - you just have to make them fit. These are 78" x 8 " for $39. These are 72" x 9" for $59.

I use this Kastking tackle bag as a tournament co-angler. It's not big enough to be obnoxious, but will hold 8 x 3700 boxes and 4 x 3600 plus tools and other stuff. If you skip the 3600's in the side compartments, you can fit tons of soft bait bags in there.

I think graphing is more about finding structure than fish. It's great if you see fish, but chances are they're gone by the time you see them. You're better off locating structure and marking it as a waypoint and then fishing it a different times in different ways to determine if it holds fish. This video should get you started.

Is it me or does no one use bumpers any more? The video above and the entire miami boat ramps channel feature people docking expensive boats with unprotected gunnels. If I had a fiberglass boat I'd have bumpers out when docking.

I think with most lures, it's fair to say that if you don't know work them, don't. Just cast, let sink and sit on the bottom. If you're in the right spot, eventually, something will come along to eat what you've offered.

I forgot to mention I looked for and found Daiwa Aird rods because of your comments about them here, but they only had bait casters. That said, they were priced at $49 but seemed a lot higher quality than a lot of the other rods in that price point.

Thanks all for the suggestions. I went to a store today and checked out the Mitchell Avocets, the Black max and some Lew's and 13 Fishing combos in person. They were all nice, but I happened upon the last 2 piece 6'6" medium Pfleuger combo with a 30 size president reel for $59. The rod is OK, but the reel seemed a lot nicer than the other combos, and the set was priced $20-25 less than most places online based on my hasty research. The same store had one piece GX2 rods for $39 and President reels for $49, but I didn't think the extra $30 improved substantially on the all-Pflueger combo, so I went with that and put the extra cash into some baits and line.

I'm looking to purchase a $50 - $60 6' medium spinning combo as a gift for a 10 year old. Is there any real difference between the following combos: Ugly stik GX2 Kastking Centron Abu Garcia black max Pflueger president/bass pro graphite series Undoubtedly the Bass pro combo is probably the highest quality, but it's also over budget ($80) and out of stock. The Abu gets OK reviews and it's still way over budget ($75). The GX2 is an indestructible rod but the reel doesn't get great reviews. So, I'm leaning towards the Kastking because Amazon has it in stock and it seems to deliver the most performance within that limited budget unless someone can point me in a better direction.

EDITED for clarity: Is there a trick to finding stainless, non-magnetic screws under bass boat carpet? They are invisible. Alternatively, where the screws are located on the throttle panel of a Tracker Pro 170? Thanks!

I'm not saying anyone should weasel out of a handshake deal. However if representations were made by the seller, such as the size of the trailer, and they turn out to be untrue, then you have legitimate grounds to decline to go through with the deal.

"Bought" as in she paid for it or just told someone she'd take it without money changing hands?

Bass 4 life, I'm sorry to tell you this, but Craig passed away last year. https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/beverly-hills-fl/craig-defronzo-9053062 That being said, your letter could use some work. Specifically, it rambles and includes a lot of unnecessary details like your favorite bait colors. Try to organize it like this: Who am I? Why am I writing to you? What I can do to help your business? What accomplishments do I have to prove I can do this? E.g., tournament results, larger number of instagram it YouTube followers, etc. Closing - thanks for reading, I'll contact you via phone in xx days to follow up

To update my earlier post - Kastking finally released their 13x and 8x braids through Amazon. They must think very highly of it as it's $29.99 for 150 yards of the 13x and $16.99 for 150 of the 8x.

To add to this - I just received an Onyx re-arm kit for the A/M 24 vest from Amazon and was dismayed to find that it only has 18 months of life left. Buyer beware I guess.

1/2" x 1" neoprene 60A hardness rubber strip adhered to the rail with 3M extreme tape and sealed on the top with Marine goop like this: Total investment is about $130.

You can, but then I'd have to run wires from the front deck all of the way to the battery. I'm currently having a really tough time finding the screws to get the front deck off for some other projects, so I'm not sure running wires is feasible.

Can you tap into the trolling motor plug in parallel to add a volt meter? Looking at the backside of the plug there doesn't seem like a whole lot of room unless you actually tapped right off the positive and negative wires but I'm not sure if that's smart. For reference:

Last summer I pulled in about 50 yards of line that terminated in a really foul smelling Texas rigged senko still hooked in the throat of a what I assume was a bass. The rest of the fish was gone but the throat was still there. It looked like a slimy tube.