jbmaine

Thanks for all the input everyone. I think LOML is finally convinced JB

Hi all, To my wife and I fishing is the one " thing" we do all during the warm weather months. Every else takes a back seat. However my wife is sensitive to the sun and always lathers on the sun screen. One day she forgot and paid for it for a week. To help her out I bought her a very wide brimmed hat. It does a good job keeping the sun off her face but she feels self conscious wearing it. She thinks it makes her feel "dorky". I keep telling her the only thing that matters is we're out fishing and it doesn't matter what we look like, but she still feels funny wearing it. So I told her I'd ask your opinion. So let me ask, Do you care what you look like when you're out fishing? Thanks JB

Hi all, Hit Mousam lake again yesterday and did well. fished a couple of coves that had SM beds. It seems the spawn is over as there was no fish on them but we caught several nice ones randomly casting a senko in the coves. Also hit the shallow water for LM. Again, no fish on the beds but picked up a couple in the area randomly casting. Water temp was 65-68. We are going to hit it again on Monday. Any one else on here fishing these waters or am I the only one? JB

Got out a few times this last week. Mousam lake-- Hit it twice. water temp 60-64. This is a lake we have been fishing for years and usually do very well. However this year it's been tough fishing. have to work really hard to pick up fish. Saw some beds but no fish on them. still it was fun. Square pond-- Hit this on Tuesday and had a perfect day. air and water temp both in the low sixties. low wind and few boats. only two other boats and myself on a 900 acre lake. Also had fun watching a sea plane practice takeoff and landings. Fishing was great. Got dialed in right away on what was working and caught SM all day. Nothing over 3 lb but tons of fun. Here's a few pics. Anyone else fishing up this way? I'd love to hear how your doing. JB

We have a 14 ft Lund with a 20 horse motor. With two on board I have to use around 3/4 throttle to get up on plane, so I would think 15 hp is the way to go to give you the zip you need to get up on plane. JB

will do. Do you ever get up this way? JB

I've seen beds from one foot to eight ft. there may be some in deeper water but eight ft is about the max visibility on the waters we fish. JB

Hi all, Since getting laid off three weeks ago my wife and I have had the chance to spend more time out on the water and I thought I'd share how we are doing. we live in the Kittery area so have been hitting waters around here. Mousam lake- have fished this several times. A couple of weeks ago the water had hit 60 degrees and we started to see fish around the beds but with the cold weather the temp dropped back down to 57 and the fish disappeared. Yesterday the water was back up to 60-64 and we started to see a few fish. Only got three in the boat ( a slow day for us ) but one was a decent 2 1/2 lb SM. Caught it on a tube, the other two on a jitterbug. Square pond- Fished this for the first time last Friday. Water temp 58. Saw quite a few beds. Due to the wind we had a hard time fishing. We only have a small boat with no trolling motor so had to keep throwing the anchor out to stay put. We didn't pull any into the boat but a friend of mine was up there and got three or four. We are thinking of hitting it again in a couple of days. Side note- this is the worst black fly season I have ever seen. usually we only bothered by them along the shore line but this year they find us out in the middle of the lake. If anyone is interested I'll keep you updated on how we do, if you'd like to share how your doing, feel free and if you see a 14ft green lund WC deluxe with a 20 horse honda out on the water it's probably us. free free to swing by and say Hi. Good fishing JB

Thanks for the replies everyone. It sounds like it might be worth a look. JB

Hi All, I was wondering if anyone fishes Great East lake. The description of the lake sounds like it should be a good SM lake but I've never talked to anyone who actually fished it. Anyone here give it a try? If so how did you do. Thanks JB

Hi all, this is a kinda good news/ bad news type of thing. My work has been steadily downsizing the last year or two and I was always telling people " gee, if I get laid off I hope it's in the spring so my wife and I can get some serious fishing time in". Guess I should have been more careful what I wished for cause yep, i got laid off this week. Although I will be spending some time job searching i want to take advantage of my forced down time and get some serious fishing in. We usually spend our time fishing at Mousam lake. My family had a camp on mousam when I was growing up so I feel real comfortable there, can almost always catch fish, but the pleasure boaters can be a pain. I would like to take this time to expand our horizons, try new places. So I was wondering if anyone might like to recommend new places to try. i know I could just open the map and pick a place but I was hoping for some first hand experience on waters you've had good luck on. we're in the kittery area and am looking for anything reasonable for day trips. we've tried horn pond ( tough fishing for us) and Great East. We don't have NH licenses but would consider picking them up. Also Don't have a big boat so big waters might be a problem. Thanks in advance for any tips, thoughts, suggestions and advice you would care to share and if you ever see a green WC Deluxe lund with a 20 horse Honda it's probably us, feel free to swing by, I'd love to say hi. Thanks again JB

Thanks for the imput everyone. The book that came with the trailer said to tighten to 30 inch pounds. I don't have a torque wrench and it seemed a bit much to have to go buy one. I will readjust the nut back one position. Thanks again JB

Hi all, I've got a two year Karavan boat trailer I'm getting ready for spring. I repacked the wheel bearings and adjusted the castle nut. I brought it up untill the wobble was gone and inserted the cotter pin. I found both tires will spin free but one more than the other. I backed off and retightened it several times with the same results. I seem to be stuck at backing it off one cotter pin position and feeling a wobble or tightening it up one cotter pin position and not having it spin as free as the other tire. Is this a possible concern or am I just being a little paranoid? A trip up to our favorite lake is about 30miles. Your thoughts please Thanks JB

Thanks everyone, this helps alot. JB

Hi All, I am thinking of picking up some paddle tail swim baits. Yum money minnow or strike king shadalicious, 3.5 or 4.5 lengths. I also need to pick up some hooks. Looking at BPS they sell / lake fork tackle swim bait hooks/ eagle claw swim bait hooks/ davis x-swim lock/ luck"E" strike bass magic head hook and magic belly weight hook. They all seem similar except the weights are on different areas of the hooks. Does this make a difference? Any one better than the others? And sizes? I'm guessing 3/0 or 4/0 for these size baits. Your thoughts or recommendations please. Thanks JB

Hi all, The TYCO building across from the launch is now called COBHAM, I work there. but have never fished in that area cause I come down from out of state. However, I have heard some of the guys at work talking about good SM fishing under or around a railroad bridge close by. Good Luck JB

Hi Sam I usually take all the hype about "this lure is bigger, better and will catch more fish" with a grain of salt. But, in this one case, anyway, it seemed to work. Before trying the Coffee Tube we tried tubes by YUM and VENOM without so much as a tap. And as I said, once we tried the Coffee Tubes, we were picking up fish at a steady rate. Same color, same presentation, same spot... I can only think the coffee flavor helped. We were slowly dragging the tube across the bottom in about 25 feet of water rigged with a 1/8 oz and 1/4 oz weighted tube hook. We are hoping to get back up to the lake the end of this week and I'll let you know if this is a pattern or one time fluke. The Coffee Tubes are made by STRIKE KING. The colors were Watermelon with red flake, and a Goby colored. Both seemed to work. jb

Last Thursday, my wife and I spent the day fishing up at our favorite lake. This is a lake that we have fished for years and usually we are pretty dialed in on what works. However, this year has been kind of strange. So far, the fish don't seem to be where they are expected to be and although we had a couple of good days, most of the time we had to really work for them. We were fishing a stretch of shoreline that drops off pretty quick and we noticed that we were picking up fish on the fishfinder in about 25-30 feet of water. Each of us were fishing a different color/brand of tube, bouncing it across the bottom without much luck. Finally, for lack of any better ideas, I put on a coffee tube. We had bought a package of these this spring, but hadn't really done much with them. Long story short, I started catching fish. My wife switched to a coffee tube and for the rest of the day, we did well. The surprising thing is, that we caught small mouth, large mouth, and even a pickerel from the same spot all in about 25 feet of water. We much have caught a dozen fish, two pounds or better, and lost 5 or 6. The only down side, is a couple of the fish were deep hooked and I wasn't sure they made it. It was surprising how much they tried to inhale these tubes. Even one small mouth was spitting out small yellow perch when I brought it up to the boat and it still had the coffee tube halfway down its throat. I think next time we are going to try just running the hook through the nose of the tube, to try to get shallower hook set. I can't say for sure that it was the (coffee) that did it, but they sure weren't hitting any of the other tubes we were tossing at them. We are going to try for a repeat performance the end of this week and we will let you know how it goes. Jb

Thanks for the info, I was able to get the battery cable out by threading it under the floor. I will definitely look into the quick disconnect for next time. Yea, it is really warm here too! It is suppose to be in the 70's all week. Unfortunately, where I like to fish, they lowered the lake level so that the camp owners could repair their retaining walls before winter. All my fav fishing spots are now puddle deep! :-/ Again, my thanks.

I am removing my Honda motor for winter from my boat. Does anyone know an easy way to get the battery cable off. I unhooked it from the battery but don't see a connection to undo from the actual motor. I can't pull it under the floor because of gormets that the cable goes through. It's a Lund, with a Honda 20 hp. Any help would be appriciated. Thanks

Hi, we use the white with blue/black/silver- flake- senkos all the time with good luck. My wife will toss a white one while I toss a green one until we see what the fish like best. Good luck JB

Hi Dave, I bought a 2006 20hp Honda this spring and so far it's been great. It pushes our 14ft Lund with out a problem and will run all day on a couple gal. of gas ( or less). With less than 8 hrs. on the 15 you are looking at, it's not even broken in yet, plus it should have a 3yr warrenty. You could check the Honda web site to make sure it's transferable. Hope this helps. JB

IMHO everyone has the same right to enjoy a public body of water so long as they follow the laws. Around here I believe the rules are headway speed only unless you are 200ft away from the shore and other boaters. Sad to say, not everyone does this. It is so bad on the lakes we fish that camp owners have had to put up floats in front of their property to give their kids a safe place to swim. And it does seem jetskiers are the worst. I was talking to a marine patrol officer the other day and he said stopping reckless jetskiers kept him busy all summer. JB

Thanks for all the replys. It seems there are valid points on either side of this. The next time it happens my wife will move our boat back. My over riding thought at the time was, because he insisted on launching his boat, we had to wait for him to drive up and park his truck, walk back down, start his boat and take off before I could pull ours up and every one in que waiting to get off the water was stuck in a t-storm. My wife does everything she can to help me but because of hand and wrist issues she can neither drive a boat or a car. She can only fish for a short time before resting her hands and anything of any size she hooks I have to bring in for her. I did not mean to generate hard feelings by posting this, only to get opinions on if we did or did not do the right thing, and if not, to learn so we could do the right thing next time. Thanks JB

Hi ghoti, thanks for the reply. I am using a shimano compre spinning rod cps- 66mb med-power, fast action with 6 pound yo zuri hybrid ultra soft. I use the same setup to toss t-rigged senkos with gammy offset shank worm hooks and almost allways get a good hookup in the mouth/ jaw. Could different style hooks affect this? Thanks JB