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It looks like on the Escape, the roof rack is purely cosmetic with a sunroof. Maybe you could put some skis up there, but probably not much else. Not all vehicles are like this. My Forester has a sunroof, and it doesn't effect the max load of the roof rack. And it's weight limit is 176lbs. I'm guessing they reinforced it, as pretty much ever model past the base trim, comes with a sunroof.

So long as the wind cooperates, I agree! The silence. The agility. You're really connected to your environment.

In my experience, once the water gets dirty enough, finesse fishing stops working (unless you can hit them square on the nose with your bait). So there are definitely situations where power fishing will produce and finesse fishing will not. But the opposite is also true.

Honesty and communication are the bedrock of any good relationship. My wife hates fishing. She's not too happy about me spending so much time fishing. But she knows I need the break, and she's mostly supportive of it. I try to support her too in her hobbies. I've had situations arise before where I wanted to fish on vacation. But vacation is about spending time with your family. And unless you can get the rest of your family excited about it, it's probably best to forgo the fishing, because vacation time is limited. Last year when we went to San Diego, I had a lot of fishing plans in the back of my head. But we never go bored enough for me to bring them up. I read the room, and the room wasn't interested. And I still had a great time. A good life doesn't require doing what you enjoy. It requires that you enjoy what you do.

North and East, they bite the least. South and West, they bite the best. That's what my grandfather said. And it's generally true. I can back it up with over 100 years of anecdotal evidence. Now, having said that, it's a regional thing. It won't apply everywhere. In this part of the country, a Southerly or Westerly wind is almost always a warm front. A northerly wind is almost always a cold front. An Easterly wind typically only occurs right after a large storm or front has passed through, and usually only on the first day after (they're actually kind of rare). And Northern winds mostly happen during the winter months. So it's not exactly rocket science or a weird superstition. There's reasons behind it that are kind of obvious if you know the patterns. However, it's not 100% either. Exceptions are pretty common. So it's not a super useful tool for planning around, as it's just one factor out of thousands. It's less important than temperature, cloud cover, or wind speed, for example.

I find sonar is most helpful on unfamiliar bodies of water. On my usual lakes, I already know where I'm going. Most of the time, I mainly just use the thermometer and clock. I'll also use it for finding the thermocline sometimes, or if I'm targeting a very specific depth, I'll use it to find those depths. But it most handy on unfamiliar bodies of water. Especially ones where there is no published depth charts. It can save a lot of time, for sure. One thing I don't use sonar for, is to find fish. If my sonar shows fish, it's because they're not relating to cover or structure, which means they're suspending, which means they're either white bass, or sleeping and not in the mood to eat.

First, verify those voltages with a DMM. The Garmin may not be giving an accurate reading. I know my Lowrance unit always shows about a full volt lower that reality (measured with a DMM).

Or me. But I tend to fish a lot of heavily pressured lakes with very little grass (if any), so I think I know why.

No one can really predict the best time to buy a boat. At least not in this current economic climate. The best thing to do when the economy is like it is, is to save up your money, so you're ready to pounce when a good deal presents itself. There's a good chance that inventory will go up in the coming few years, and prices and demand will fall. There's also a chance that if inflation isn't tamed and interest rates continue to rise at a rate that is too slowly to control inflation, yet fast enough to stall the economy, then we could be looking at a stagflation scenario, like in the 80's. Even the brightest economic minds don't really know what's going to happen. But one thing is for certain. The more money you have saved up, the better off you'll be. If inflation and interest rates skyrocket, then you'll have a bigger down payment and need less of a loan, thus reducing your costs significantly. If prices fall and inventories rise, you'll have the means to immediately pounce on any good deal that won't last more than a few hours.

A bumper sticker once told me that a bad day of fishing beats a good day of work. And I'm highly suggestable.

That's why it's taking forever. 5000 grit is a polishing grit, not a sharpening grit. Use about 400-600 for renewing dull points, and 1000-1500 grit for finishing the point. I doubt you'd gain much going up to 5000 over 1500. The type of steel used in hooks isn't a super high quality and cryogenically hardened steel. If the steel was capable of reaping the benefits of 5000 grit, you'd never bend a hook. It'll break before it bends at that level of hardness. You'll need a point with an HRC of around 65-70 to take advantage of that level of polishing grit, and I doubt hooks are much more than an HRC of 45. I use a diamond file of around 500 grit for my hooks to get them sharp. Then I follow up with an Arkansas stone of around 1200 grit to finish them. It usually just takes about six swipes per stone per hook (two per facet), unless they're really bad. Same with conical hooks, only I rotate the hook as I swipe it. I have them in my bag and usually do it in under a minute when I first tie the lure on, if it needs it.

Having gone through a lot of different brands of braid, I have developed a few opinions. First, the more strands (carriers) the better. You get less line digg-in and better distance. Second, Sufix 832 has a strand of gore fiber that allows it to sink better. Maybe that's useful to you, maybe not. Third, some brands lose their color quicker than others. I've noticed Power Pro holds it's color better than Sufix 832, for instance. Though I tend to use braid for so long, that they all lose their color long before I replace them. Fourth, the coated lines cast better initially and go longer before fraying, but the coating doesn't last long. So most differences you'll experience right out of the box, fade away after a month or so of heavy fishing. Other than that, I'm not convinced there are huge differences between brands. My main questions are number of carriers, color, price, and to gore or not.

What kind of switch is it? Is a 3pdt switch? Also, what PWM are you using? It sounds to me like the switch might not be hooked up properly. And it might not be due to the wires hooked directly to the switch. It might be a bad production run of the PWM boards. Like they might have ran out of parts and switched some stuff around, thinking it would work just fine, only it doesn't. Or something along those lines. If you tested the switch yourself with a DMM, and it looks fine, then something is amiss with the board. The motor is fine. If a DC electric motor runs one way fine, it'll run the other direction if the power is reversed. So we can rule out the motor. If the switch looks good on a DMM, then we can rule out the switch. That leaves us with the board or the wiring. On a weird side note, on the PWM controller I bought for my kayak trolling motor, the positive stays on constantly and it's the ground that gets modulated by the PWM to control speed. I would have thought it would be reversed, but it works the same either way. My guess is they ran out of parts to modulate the positive, and just switched it around to control the negative. Or it was cheaper to do it this way. My PWM is just a one direction controller, and I reverse direction by using a 3pdt switch on the output. It's rated to 30 amps at 120VAC, and my trolling motor only pulls 30 amps @ 12VDC, so I figure it'll be fine. With a 55# trolling motor, you'll likely need something more heavy-duty to do the same. Or just return the PWM and buy a different brand. Be weary though, they tend to sell the same things under a hundred different brand names on places like Amazon, so I'd opt for one that looks physically different, just to make sure it works for you. And honestly, I'd avoid the ones that come with a built-in cooling fan. There's not a good way to circulate that much air in a kayak, without risking the board getting wet. And if the circuit generates enough heat that it requires a cooling fan, it's probably a bad design.

Grab a DMM and see which wire is connected to the power full time, and which wire isn't. You'll want to replace the one that isn't. As for the fuse, are you sure there's proper sized fuse on this line already that isn't shared with any other device? If so, then you don't need two. But if not, then you'll need to add this one after the final split. Honestly, I'd ask around to find someone who knows a bit about how to hook these up. These things are expensive, and if you don't know what you're doing, you can do a lot of damage. Or maybe call around to the shops and tell them you've already done the hardware installs and ran all of the wires, and you just need someone to double check everything is wired up properly. Since that wouldn't take long, they might be more willing to squeeze you in sooner rather than later.

It all depends on when, where, and what I'm fishing for. For crappie, it's one Plano box and a soft sided cooler, plus one to two rods. For bass, it's usually two to three rods and a tackle bag with seven Plano boxes. Unless I'm making a long trip on foot, then sometimes it's one to two rods and one Plano box. Sometimes, like when I'm on my lunch break and won't have the time to switch out lures, it's just one rod and one lure. One thing's for certain. Your system works best if it's modular. And those Plano boxes sure are nice for that! I like to keep an empty one on hand. Sometimes I'll decide before I leave what I'll be fishing with, so I'll just load up whatever I think I might use that day into one box. That way I'm not hauling around a bunch of chartreuse DT-20's in a clear pond that's 10ft. deep simply because I want to use a shad pattern DT-6.

I only fish in ponds and lakes, and a kayak has a definite advantage there for me. Some ponds around me won't allow any kind of motor. And kayaks are much easier to paddle. Also, before I got my truck, I had to car top my kayak. I couldn't do that with a Bass Raider. And lastly, in central Oklahoma, it's almost always windy. And ponds and lakes don't have any trees or buildings in them to break the wind. So when you're out on the water, you going to get pushed around. The kayak makes that easier to deal with. I've been caught in 40mph winds with my kayak before. Oklahoma weather is notoriously unpredictable. In a SOT kayak with scupper holes, the waves can crash over the top and flood it, and so long as you don't get hit from the side, it will stay upright and afloat. You and your gear can get back safely (though forget fishing). A Bass Raider is just so top heavy that I'd be afraid to venture out on the water in all but the calmest of days, just in case a storm pops up out of nowhere. However, that doesn't mean it's right for everyone. Not everyone needs to be able to car top. Not everyone lives in an unpredictable wind tunnel. And not everyone fishes ponds that don't allow any kind of motor. And Bass Raiders and the like are easier to stand up in and cast and probably more comfortable on a long day. You don't see many Bass Raiders where I live for those reasons. I think I've seen one in the past three years. Though they still remain very popular in other parts of the country.

I use a Berkley Lightning Rod for those. M/MF. For crankbaits, I don't need high sensitivity. And I catch more fish off this cheap rod than any other I own. Even with this cheap rod, I can feel the crankbait moving through the water and deflecting off things. Bite detection is no problem. In my opinion, the line you use is more important for sensitivity purposes than the rod when it comes to cranks. I'd just look for a rod with a moderate to moderate fast speed, depending on your preference, with a lure weight rating that covers those baits, somewhere in the middle of it's scale.

To me, the difference between 6 and 7 is negligible. I have no issues slowing down or speeding up between the two to make them virtually identical on the water. Handle length makes more of difference for me than these subtle gear ratio differences.

Most all of the lakes I fish have muddy bottoms. I fish jigs quite often too. I don't mess with jigs in deep water. Once the water is past 10 feet, jigs are useless for me. Muddy bottoms usually mean stained water. And deep, stained water is bad enough. But once you start kicking up even more mud by dragging the bottom, it's game over. Maybe if you know exactly where the fish are and can drop it straight on their nose... 90% of my jig fishing is pitching into the shallows. I'm usually looking for timber or any other kind of cover. In the shallows, it doesn't matter as much if you kick up some mud. Besides, they'll often bite it on the initial fall before it even hits the bottom, especially if you're pitching. Just make sure you make a soft entry.

Anything but camo and neon are fine with me. Even then, I'll make an exception if the price is right. I'm a graphic designer by trade. My wife says I dress like a peacock. Yeah, I'm that guy. So I can definitely appreciate a well designed and aesthetically pleasing piece of gear. But fishing isn't the place for that stuff. I dress like a hobo on the water. I'm getting dirty, and I want to wear comfortable clothes that I can get dirty in. And like any good tradesman, I value tools based on how they function, not how they look in my hand. Besides, I gain a certain pleasure from using things that most people would turn their nose up at. I come from the school of Louis Sullivan that says "Form follows function". The true beauty of good design isn't how good it looks, but how well it works.

I'd rather fish a crankbait all year long than any other category of lures. They're my most productive lure in all seasons. But that would be a tough road to hoe. Some of the lakes around me, it wouldn't be so bad. They're drinking water reservoirs that are loaded with enough herbicides to kill off any and all vegetation from taking hold. In others, it would make the lake nigh unfishable 1/2 the year or more, as they often get overrun with vegetation. Still, usually if I can throw a crankbait, I will. Which means more often than not, I am.

You are correct. There's actually a lot of mistakes that I thought about after posting. Like it's not a true RC Low Pass Filter, because the load comes after the capacitor, and there's no resistor placed before it (other than the wire itself). Therefore my math on the cutoff frequency is going to be off. It should actually function as just a standard filter capacitor, like what you'll find on most power supplies following the rectifier. At least that's what I'm thinking now. I'm not an EE, but electronics is one of my hobbies. But in the end, all that really matters is that it works. And I proved that both with a scope and with a real world test. I was initially going to try an LC filter, but the inductor I ordered got lost in the mail. So I opted for an RC filter since I had those parts on hand, but as I said, didn't really make a true RC filter.

I regularly travel an hour for a single day trip. For an overnight trip, I'm more than okay with three. Four is pushing it, but for the right lake, it could be worth it. I don't know if I'd go up to five or six for just an overnight trip. I'd probably need a full day of fishing to make it worth it. Then again, I don't mind long road trips. Many times in my life I've spent 12 hours driving in a single day, often multiple days in a row. Of course, I'll pull over every 2-3 hours for about 15 minutes to stretch my legs and back, plus bathroom breaks and meals. So it might take me 16 hours to get in 12 hours of road time. A lot of it depends on your age. At 43, those 16 hour days are rough, but still doable. At 23, they were nothing. When I'm 63, I probably won't be able to go that long without being a danger to myself and everyone else.

10# is sufficient. I've gone as low as 6#. There are always tradeoffs, and which is best is going to depend on a whole host of factors. But since you already have the 10# stuff handy, I'd go with that until you find a reason to switch it up.

All I can say is, you'll likely catch more fish if you go than if you don't. I've had enough days where I though would be great, but for whatever reason the fish wouldn't bite, and enough days where I thought they wouldn't bite, but they were almost jumping in my boat to know that there's too many variables in the lives of a fish to know anything for sure. Trends may hold out in the long term so as to be significant in the statistical sense. But as far as forecasting the bite on any given day, the only way to know is to get out there and find out for yourself.