Jig Man

I catch many of my fish right under the boat but I fish in clear water and it normally has to be at least 15-20' deep. Just because you see something on the screen doesn't mean it is right under the boat. The signal goes out in a cone shape and it bounces back to the unit. If something like a suspended fish shows up at say 25' that means it is 25' from your transducer and can be anywhere in the cone.

Financing through a boat dealer is them having someone who calls various banks depending on how good the credit of the buyer is and arranging loans. There are also companies that do it for the boat dealers. I have never seen a dealership big enough to carry loans.

Depending on what I am wanting, I use Bear's, Jann's and Lure Craft.

Trailer hook.

I went to the main store in Spfld. MO. There was nothing special that I could see going on and the lot and store were not crowded. I didn't see anything that I wanted so I guess I am stocked up.

I use lots of different things in a variety of colors depending on what I am doing. I use anything from small chunks to large chunks, single tail grubs, twin tail grubs, hula grubs, critter craws, all sizes of gene larew craws, and zoom swim chunks. I don't lock onto colors until I find a pattern because sometimes crazy stuff will get a good bite. I rarely try to match the jig. I usually contrast it. One of the best nights I had last year was a red living rubber skirt with a while kalen grub. It cow killed them. My favoite is the one that they are biting best today.

Two things I'd recommend: Kosher salt and a coffee grinder You can make the salt into powder with a coffee grinder and it only takes a few seconds. Kosher salt has way less impurities that regular table salt.

Credit unions are not created equal. Mine loans to members at 1% above prime while my neighbor was asked 22% from his on a new commercial lawn mower. I got him a loan through my bank for 5%.

I used to be in the boat business. One of my duties as salesmanager was to arrange financing for boats. If you are an adult there is most likely a bank out there that will give you a loan. Some will loan as much as 125% of the boat's value so you can pay the sales tax, license, and insurance when getting started. They will grant those loans for a really long time. The problem is the interest rate. The more you need and the longer you need it, the higher the interest rate. The is where the "upside down" comes into play. There is a high number of guys out there who have boats for which they are paying and have a boat that is not worth nearly as much as they owe on it. I'll give you an example. One of my salesmen was trying to become a professional fisherman and jumped into a brand new boat. He didn't have good credit so wound up paying a high interest rate. After a year he wanted out of that boat and buy another one. (He was getting them from us at cost.) After he kept talking about the tradeup I had him come into my office and I showed him where he was. He had made like 13 of his 180 payments and the interest part of the payment was much larger than the principal. We printed an amoritization schedule so he could see just how things looked. In order to just have the interest and principal become equal parts of his payment, was going to take 6 more years and 2 months. At that time he would still be upside down in his boat. What I hope I am explaining is; talk to banks and credit unions and find out which are willing to give you loans and what the interest rate would be as well as the terms of the loan. If you go through a dealer they will contact banks all over the US and the interest rates really vary. Owning a boat is just the first step so take your time and think this thing through. Good luck.

Check out this knot. It is the best I have ever used. If you do a search a while back a video of it being tied was posted here. http://www.stripersonline.com/Pages/Articles/article_arby_albertos_knot.shtml Yes I use mono as much as fluro as a leader for braid because I'm not a big fan of fluro.

You guys may want to look at GMAN's jigs. He is an active participant on this forum. I got a couple of hundred poison tails from him last year. Roadwarrior also uses his stuff.

I fish tubes a lot and mostly in rocks. No matter how I rig them I lose a bunch as I never go after a hung up bait that costs less then $5. I also provide them for 3 other members of my family. So I got into making my own heads and tubes a long time ago. I have a way I rig them weedless to save a few from the rocks and me from retying. Here are some pics of the way I rig them most of the time. [img width=350 height=262]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/JigMan/DSC02205-1.jpg [img width=350 height=262]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/JigMan/DSC02206.jpg [img width=350 height=262]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/JigMan/DSC02207.jpg

cwen, my suggestion is to do your research first and be sure who owns and controls this body of water. Once you find that out for positive then you can proceed. I would then start a petition and get as many interested parties as possible to sign it. If it is city then get permission to speak before the city council. Take your petition with you and as many of the intrested parties as you can get and go on to the meeting. Present your position and give them copies of the petition. Then you can listen to their reasons and go on from there. If it should happen to be the state then do the same with the petition, get an appointment with your representative or senator and take several interested parties with you. I have been in situations with both city and state and you always want to be formal and not argue. My dealings with city took 5 years of going to council meetings and reminding them of the situation, but my side finally won. My dealings with the state got heard then dropped as soon as I walked out of the capitol building. Good luck bud. BTW: Where are those lates kid pics.

There are too many different units for anyone to hazard a guess. If you go to the lowrance site and look up the units it will show which power cords and transducers work with what units.

I'd coat it with a good strong epoxy or some fiberglass resin like Bondo.

I bought some and used them for Trigging. They were terrible of hetting hookups and keeping fish on. If I still have them around, I'd send them to you so you can see what I mean.

Keep a penny under your tounge and you will have all the spit you would ever need.

Put the fish in your dip net and hang the scale on it. You will get the weight of both and can subtract the weight of the scale.

The main thing that I would want to know and would probably have to have a mechanic check out, has that motor been blown and rebuilt. Many of the OMC engines of that vintage blew. If it never has then it was one of the good ones. As for value, go to the NADA guides and look up the boat motor and trailer and get an average retail value.

I have used the wind in the fall for many years. I rarely go unless the wind is blowing. If it comes from a different direction every day as it sometimes does in the fall in is not necessarily a good thing as the food chain moves around too much. The absolute best fishing for me has been when has come from the same direction for at least 3 consecutive days. That definitely has the food chain moved to windy banks. That is the main reason I have a long heavy boat with a strong trolling motor and extra shaft length on it. I have seen the wind switch to the north and stop the bite dead dog dead. But it usually is accompanied by a cold front.

X2 This is the only knot that I use for any line and any bait except drop shot.

It looks to me like you are in the middle of the project so you should be able to figure out a way to put in a pvc pipe under the deck work and use it to run the various wires and cables through. If you need it put one on each side. You may also want to plan on an additional battery because hooking electronics to a trolling motor battery is usually not a good thing.

I have State Farm and from a Tbone fiasco year before last I could not recommend them to anyone, ever.

I'd take the seat to an upholstry shop. The carpet isn't bad to do. You can get the old up with lacquer thinner.

I have a 3.8:1 cranking reel. You don't have the hard crank as with other reels. When I'm not using it for cranks, I change out the gears and make it a 6.3:1 best of both worlds.