Bankc

We were the 46th state admitted to the Union, so by then all of the good fish were taken. It was either that or the Gaspergou.

It's supposed to be. They advertise they can ford water up to 43 inches deep. Gotta love that guy on the jet ski that wipes out in the background!

That guy's braver than I am. But those electric vehicles are insanely heavy, so I guess getting traction in almost three feet of water over sand isn't as much of an issue for him.

I have a saying. In the past you'll find your sadness. In the future you'll find your anxiety. Only in the present will you find your happiness.

I do this all of the time. And for the same reason: the wind. Use a heavier bullet weight (up to 1/2 oz.) and don't peg it. The bullet weight will sink fast and pull the senko down quickly about halfway through the water column before the weight hits the bottom. After it does, the senko will fall and flutter more slowly like it's weightless the rest of the fall, so long as you give it enough slack and wait. You get all of the action where it counts, with half of the wait for the fall. Then when you jig it, so long as you give it plenty of slack, it'll continue its slow fall. You want the heavier weight because a lighter weight won't slip on the line as easily. But you don't need to go full mat punching weight. Obviously, it's not perfect. You now have a ton of slack line out, which makes bite detection and hooksets harder. And the wind (and current) makes all of that slack line even more difficult to control without reeling in your slack too quickly and killing your action.

I'm pretty good at DIYing stuff that would have been cheaper to just buy at the store.

Yeah, I don't believe that's correct. In some water systems, they won't interbreed because they typically spawn at different depths. However, in water systems where there aren't adequate spawning sites for both species, they will share and interbreed freely, and produce viable offspring. Hence why most of the black bass on my local lakes are hybridized, or whatever you want to call it. Here's a little story about that: https://www.ncwildlife.org/Connect-With-Us/Blog/the-spotted-bass-state-record-that-wasnt Though you're right about white bass. And unfortunately, since they're our state fish in Oklahoma, they tend to stock them in every lake we have. Which is a shame, because all of our lakes are man-made, and quite a few are isolated from the watershed (no inlets or outlets other than pipes). So they could have been controlled, if anybody wanted to.

I'm not a fan of spotted bass. Their presence has led to a ton of interbreeding, as maybe 1 in 5 bass that I catch can be easily identified one way or the other. And unfortunately, it's rare to catch any bass over 3lbs, regardless of what kind it is. And something has virtually wiped out the smallmouth population around here. I don't know if they're responsible. It could be the white bass population, which is also thriving. But mostly, I just hate how they nibble and tear my soft plastics. You'll feel a big pull, go to set the hook, and reel back half a worm. But I don't normally throw a fit about it. I've got a long list of complaints about our local lakes, and the presence of spotted bass has got to be near the bottom.

Most 30lbs trolling motors require 30 amps to run at full speed, and this one states 25 amps, so my guess is the thrust will be 20-25lbs at most. It may not even be that, given the size of the motor.

That would be one heck of a photoshop job. The lighting is spot on, which is usually a dead giveaway. The edges are crisp. I think that photo's real. My guess is when it rolled backwards into the water, it jackknifed 90° or more. Then when they attached the tow rope to the underside, it rolled over before straightening out and coming up. It does look like the tongue on that trailer broke.

Spinning. Mainly because my spinning reels are on my lightest rods. And this is for when I have to cast extremely light lures, like ned rigs and small balsa cranks. But typically when I use a drop shot, it has a decent sized weight because I'm using fishing in 20+ FOW. So I could get away with a casting reel, if I had a medium light rod to pair with it.

You can give it a try, as is. If it works for you, then you'll be all set. If not, then you can buy a truck bed extender. I have one for my SUV, only I put it on backwards, so instead of sticking out backwards, it sticks up to align with my roof rack. You'll need a flag, either way.

There's no connector on that wire. Where you just tying it straight to the battery? If so, that may have been what caused the wire to burn. It might not have made a good connection, and due to the increased resistance of the bad connection, overheated the wire at that spot. I'd get some crimp on connectors (perhaps spade connectors) to connect that wire directly to your battery, or maybe a junction box if you have a lot of things connected to the battery. You just want a method of giving the device a more solid connection to the battery terminals than bare wire wrapped around a post. On my kayak, I used to have my fish finder leads soldered to the same connectors as my trolling motor. Which brings up a second issue. Your current trolling motor will work fine with your fish finder, as you've noticed. However, if you upgrade to a variable speed trolling motor, you may find that the trolling motor interferes with the fish finder. They don't always, but they do sometimes. If that happens, you'll probably need a second battery for the fish finder, so they're not on the same circuit. Fortunately, fish finders aren't super power hungry, so you don't usually need a large or expensive one.

The closest thing I have to a wakebait is the BPS XPS the Egg. I've done pretty well with it. Reel it in at a moderate pace, and it wakes. Reel it in faster, and it dives down about a foot.

I had a Bass Pro Tourney Special rod. I lost it in the lake a while ago. It was okay. The rod blank wasn't half bad for the money. But the line guides and reel seat weren't very good. And the line guides don't have inserts, so braided line will eventually wear through them. You can certainly catch fish on one, and there are worse rods out there. But I wouldn't recommend one. As for the reel, it's probably fine for what it is. Again, nothing special, and it won't last forever, but you'd probably get a couple years out of them. If you're going to go with a Bass Pro combo, I'd get the Pro Qualifier combo or better. It's a much better rod and a fairly decent reel, especially for the money. And that's around the price point where you'll get something that's worth keeping around for several years. With that combo, your next rod and reel will likely be something that compliments it, rather than something that replaces it. So I too would lean towards the Daiwa. Either the Daiwa or Pro Qualifier would be more expensive up front, but cheaper in the long run if you're still fishing a few years from now.

I don't know exactly how FFS works, but I do know how regular fish finders work. And they're basically just the same thing as the flashing sonar, only they have a screen that logs the previous flash returns. It's a single line that's repeated over and over through time. And that line represents two dimensions of time. The vertical axis is the time delay for the return of a single ping from the time it was sent, and the horizontal axis is the time delay between two or more pings. There's software in there too that filters out noise and helps to interpret what you're looking at based on signal strength and such. Side scan is much the same. You're looking at a one-dimensional signal (sent out in a cone shape) that appears two dimensional because it's mapped against time. For a FFS to work, you're going to have to an entire two dimensional plane out in front of you. And since sound will radiate out in all directions, you can't just beam a bunch of pinpoint pings, like lasers. These sonar pings work more like lightbulbs. You can direction them somewhat, like what a lamp shade does to a lightbulb, but as you know, you can't just illuminate a tiny point with a lightbulb across the room without at least some of the light illuminating the entire room. Not like you can with a laser pointer. So you're going to have to map an X and Y axis. To do that, I'm guessing you're going to have to run a large range of frequencies, and focus them in different directions and sweep both left to right and up and down. And since the ping is still going to spread out, there's going to need to be some kind of software filter that can triangulate exactly which direction the ping returns came in from by comparing multiple ping returns on different frequencies (the different frequencies are to establish which direction the ping left from). So each pixel that the screen shows will likely be interpreted using many different ping returns as there's going to be a lot of bleed over from each ping. Which means there's going to be a lot more noise to filter out. So all of that means you're going to need some powerful computing to do all of those calculations. And you're also probably going to need some kind of sonar device that can direct ping outputs across and x-y axis, and probably eliminate off axis returns. Maybe something like a series of hypercardioid microphones set up in an array, or a single one that follows the pings output direction to reduce noise. Like I said, I have no idea how it works. But I do know that however it works, it's got to be hundreds of times more complex than a typical sonar.

The size of the bodies of water you fish will be a huge factor in the hours you put on the motor. In a 100,000 acre lake, you're probably going fishing 8 times a year to put 25 hours on a motor. In a 1,000 acre lake, you may be fishing just about every weekend to get to 25 hours.

That's crazy! I've never even seen an owl on the water before. They're pretty rare around here, at least in the daytime. It's been years since I've seen or even heard an owl. I was worried the other day about a muskrat that was interested in my soft plastic craw. I've had water snakes follow lures as well. I've even gotten a seagull temporarily tangled in my line on a cast because it was trying to pick off my spook out of the air. But the only time I've caught a non-fish is a single turtle. I've been lucky I guess. I cringe at thinking of trying to unhook one of these animals.

A month and a half straight of almost constant 100° weather has done that to me this summer. I can handle the heat. It's not fun. But I spend enough time outdoors that my body adapts pretty well. But that heat also brings the surface water temperature up. In some lakes, it's over 90°. The bass won't bite when it's that hot. Not for me, anyway. The fishing is as tough as it is when the water temp is in the high 30's. So it's hard to get motivated to go out in the extreme heat when you know there's a good chance of getting skunked, and the best you can hope for is catching one or two bass in an 8-hour trip. However, the fishing tends to explode once the heat wave breaks and the fish start feeding again. And it looks like the heat wave may finally be over. It'll take a while for the water to cool down, but I'm finally excited to get back out there! But it sounds to me like this isn't a fishing problem, but a work problem. I'd talk to your boss. This sounds like the early stages of burn out. And since you work at a hotel, you know it won't be hard to find another job. And if they're smart, they'll know this and try to work with you. If nothing else, the cost to replace you should motivate them to fix the situation rather than just replace and repeat with a new guy. And if they don't care and say it's your problem and you need to deal with it, then you should deal with it by finding a job situation that works for you. Life is way too short to waste it doing things you hate. You don't have to love your job. I mean, that's why you get paid. If it was fun, you'd be paying them to do it. But you shouldn't hate your job either. There's a middle ground there we all can meet on if we try.

99.5% of the time, my line breaks before the hook bends out or the split rings fail. And to me, replacing split rings and hooks just isn't a good value proposition. Now, if I was fishing for a paycheck, that 1 in 500 chance of losing a fish would probably pay for the cost of new split rings and hooks. I'd be fine with it then. But for now, I couldn't even justify the time it would take to swap all of those out.

That's been my focus all year long. By limiting myself to almost solely offshore fishing, I've improved my offshore skills significantly. I'm not saying I'm good at it, far from it in fact. But I no longer feel metaphorically over my head when I'm in water that's literally over my head. I'm to the point where there are days when I feel like something has clicked and I'm starting to get it figured out. But there are more days where I'm struggling hard to beat the skunk. I'm resigned to this year being a pretty tough year for me, so that all of the following years I'll be a lot more rounded.

I'm sure it's a factor. But there are lots of factors involved. The weather being a big one. So not every weekend will be worse than the weekdays, on even the most highly pressured lakes. In the lakes near me, it's not much of a change. And they are extremely pressured. There are more boats on the weekends, for sure. But there are a lot less fishing boats. Most of the avid anglers around me are retired. And they tend to avoid the weekends, as that's when the pleasure boaters are out. So while there are more boats on the weekends, there's probably about the same or less fishing pressure. And most of the fishing pressure on the weekends comes from the fishing docks, as you can't really fish from the bank around here, and being in a city, most of the people fishing are throwing minnows and bobbers. The woods are just too thick with brush and ticks to walk through. So in a boat, you're able to avoid the most highly pressured areas. That, and just about every bass angler around loves to beat the banks at random. So if you want to target bass any day of the week that aren't pressured, it's pretty easy. Just get off the bank. So yeah, it's a thing worth considering, but it's far from the only thing.

I don't have a regular amount. I haven't spent anything in the last 2 months. Some months, I may spend $50 or more. But I'd bet the average is probably under $20. I'm not a magic bait believer. And I'll remelt soft plastics. So most of my tackle money gets spent on replacing crankbaits that I've lost.

Yeah, I was there once. I just bought a Minn Kota Endura 30 and a lead acid battery. I mounted my trolling motor off to the side for about a year. It was the easiest and cheapest option. Eventually, I upgraded to a PCM speed controller and mounted the trolling motor at the stern and installed some foot pedals. Recently, I replaced that lead acid battery with a lithium. It was a lot easier to spread the costs out over 3 years, and it really didn't cost me that much more than if I had spent all of that at once. I installed all of that stuff myself, but I like doing projects like that, so that was part of the fun for me. If you're not into projects, I'd sell what you have and buy a fully rigged one. In the end, it would probably cost you about the same, and you'd save yourself a lot of time and hassle. It would be all up front, however. And you'd have to go through the trouble of selling your current kayak. But one thing that's easy to forget about when undertaking your own project is all of the tools and expendable stuff you'll have to buy, like rivets, well nuts, marine Goop, maybe a plastic soldering iron, something to feed wires, etc. They can add up.

Yup. In this heat wave, I won't even go fishing. Not because I can't handle the heat. It doesn't bother me to fish in 100°+ weather as fishing isn't a strenuous activity. But the fish just will not bite in that 90° water. It's pretty much identical to fishing in 35° water. The fish are deep and lethargic. As for grass, when you fish grass, you just have to stick to lures that will pull cleanly through the grass. If I'm getting grass caught on my Whopper Plopper, I'll switch to a frog or toad. If I can't pull a crankbait through, I'll switch to a swim jig or soft swimbait rigged weedless. Sometimes it can be so dense and loose that it's hard to pull anything through. In those situations, I'll fish the edges. It's all about problem solving. Though, if you're catching a bunch regardless, I probably would just deal with all of the weed removal. Yeah, it's a pain, but eventually you get used to it and don't mind.