Jig Man

First of all, just because you saw fish doesn't mean that they were bass. For me your depth is medium. If I am by myself, I fish that kind of stuff parallel to the bank so my bait stays in the strike zone longer. If the drops are steep, I'll move in shallow and fish deep to shallow. I use jigs and triggs for this type of fishing.

I have a bunch of molds for lead and plastic. The molds for plastic I make myself. That being said, I make my jig trailers and craws. I mold my own jigs, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and spoons. I skirt and tie all of them myself. I don't make: shaky worms, bass tubes, jerk baits, or Zara spooks and that is about all I use that isn't homemade.

On guard like the fg12 I don't do anything. On the fg30 and 40 I flare them. Makes them better in the bushes and get solid hookups.

Given what you say about the gravel, I recommend that you stay with the alum. boat. Glass and rocks don't mix.

I use the 16/20 with 5 wraps for braid and mono. No slip problems ever.

I'd rather use the Who Daddy than those sissy brush hogs.

I like to kiss the "kitty" but not the fishy because just thinking about JH makes me want to PUKE.

You can hook it to either type of battery but it is best not to hook it up to a battery which is also hooked to a trolling motor. If one of your's is for cranking then put the sonar on it.

Here at the Springfield store they exchanged a fly rod that had been damaged in a house fire. If you send it back you will probably have to pay shipping both ways and that would eat up about 1/2 of the rod.

Hell no. Sitting on the edge of your seat or standing on one foot all day long with every muscle in your body wound up like an 8 day clock is FUN not relaxing. Relaxing is getting home, putting everything away and having a cold beverage and reliving a GOOD day.

If you are not making long trips and keep the boat to the 1500 lbs range you should be fine. I'd drop it down a notch on the gears so there would be less chance of transmission overheat. Like stated the big issue will be stopping quickly. I have a friend who uses 4 and 6 cylinder vehicles to tow 17' aluminum boats. The pulling is fine but I have had to close my eyes a couple of times when he had to romp on the brakes. Once he had to take the ditch because he was unable to stop when a car squatted in front of us with no signal.

Here is a couple of links. Each one shows a different way to tie it.

In shallow clear water straight braid can get your butt waxed. I use a mono or fluro leader in clear water unless I am going below 30'. If you use a leader, learn the Alberto's knot. It is small and easy to tie. I have used it for over a year and had no knot failures.

You have your heat way too high. Lead melts at like 600°F.

The first thing I'd do is skim off all the crap on top. Get the lead out of the pot and give it a good cleaning. Then I'd remelt the lead and flux it. The way I flux is when the lead is hot I drop candle wax into the lead. If it doesn't burst into flame, I light the smoke. I stir the lead until the fire goes out. Then skim off the top again. After this, I flux everytime I heat the pot. If you haven't fluxed, you may be amazed at the difference you will see in the lead. When pouring I keep a propane torch handy. If the lead stream starts getting choked off or the pot starts dripping, I fire up the torch and head the spout for a few seconds. Then keeping the torch on the spout, I open it up and let the gunk flow out into a catch pan. Then I am good to go again.

I don't really think you will be able to see much detail with the low pixel count of the two units you listed. I'd take a look around and see what is out there in a good used one that needs a new home because the owner bought and HD or side imaging unit. There are thousands like that all over the place right now.

Have you tried going deeper for bigger fish?

Tubes and drop shot are the two baits that give me line twist unless I use braid then I don't notice it.

Loose wires more than likely caused the problem. Keep then tight. The thing you need to pay attention to most is the reserve capacity or reserve amps. The more you have the longer the battery will last. I only run 180 or more. Your battery needs to be a deep cycle for use on a trolling motor. It will cost you about $100 +/-.

I night fish about 1/2 of the time. The only thing I do different from day fishing is I fish slower than during the day and I don't throw baits with treble hooks because of one late night trip to the hospital to get a jitterbug out of my cousin's thumb.

Target seperation is largely determined by what unit you have. How many pixels does your unit have?

A quart will make a bunch of flukes. It is not the cost of the plastic that will get into your pocket. You have to also have molds, color, glitter, means of melting. The start up can be costly. If you get in and stay in and make different kinds of baits then the cost will go down.

I may have some ideas for you. Which Fenwicks are they?

Mine has a screw on cap on top of the driver's console. I never check it unless I get some slippage. Then I remove the cap, rotate the motor slowly all the way both directions and fill it up. Mine is 7 years old and has a minute leak somewhere that we can't find so I have to top it off a couple of times each year.

Before I would spend 20 grand on any boat, I'd have to weigh a few factors: my fishing style, my fishing partners, my amount and type of equipment, my tow vehicle and probably most importantly the type of water I would be fishing. Once I got all that in mind then I'd know what size boat and motor I would be happy using. After that I'd make a list of boats that I would want to own and look them up in the NADA guides so that I could be realistic on just what that much money would get me. For me the list would be headed by Champion, Bass Cat, Allison, and last on my list would be Ranger. I would not even look at other brands but to each his own. Now I'd be ready to deal with finding and trying out boats in my size and price range hoping to find a good late model Champion with a 175 or bigger Merc and a good trolling motor.