XcoM274

Lol, yes, a surge protector, aka a fuse. You need one for about 60 amps.

I'm looking to put an hour meter on a BF20. Anyone know where I can find one?

Well I'm a little slow in posting but I figured I'd get it out anyway. Went up to Lakeville Saturday bright and early. Patterned out the fish to shakey heads in laydowns and had a pretty good time. Got this nice 2-14 to set my '08 pb. Got 7 others but none as big. As for my buddy, this was what his day looked like... All in all had a good day. We'll be heading back out tomorrow in hopes of setting the standards higher.

I've got 2 of them and love em. Its the best unit short of getting something in the color screen class. Great buy. Any questions just post.

It'll work as long as it isn't wolminized. Wolminizing chemical becomes an acid that eats aluminum when it contacts water. Otherwise you're good. If you want to tackle the mess of resin, more power to ya, but you can use Thompson's Water Sealant and get the same effect with no mess.

I've got 55lb bow mount with Maximizer and I have no clue how long it will last because I havn't been able to kill it yet. I have a sealed deep cycle battery that has like 850cca so it a little above a standard battery but even so, I'm on the TM all day and she still hasn't died. I fished 13 hours yesterday running the TM, 2 sonars and the radio and the battery had about 15% charge left. That was the closest I've gotten to killing it. The new TM's are very efficient.

I'll cover Michigan. Heading out tomorrow but the water's awful cold. Hope I don't get skunked.

Drop me a line to the one you're selling gorilla.

From this very site there are articles to check out. Look over this page there's some good stuff there. http://www.bassresource.com/fishing/features.html#equipment

Haha. Unfortunately, there isn't a good way, that I've seen at least, to do what you want to do. I know with my sonars (Humminbird 525s) the transducer connector is screwed into the mount. I definitely wouldn't try splicing it unless you've got alot of experience in wiring. My dad's a Master Electrical Engineer and he didn't want to try it so it is backed by someone other than the manual who knows what they're looking at. You can buy transducers with longer cables for sure and you could do a transom mount with one of those. I'm surprised you only got a 10' cable. Mine both came with 25' and I had a hard time finding room for the extra. Haha. Good luck. Get inventive and show us what you came up with.

Gotta go in your face and there's a good reason. The shadow will be cast at your back, away from the structure you're looking at. It's easy for the fish to see you in a shadow, or they may even spook just because of a shadow.

Haha, gotta go with, "Surprise, surprise, surprise." My buddy and I were slaying the pike up on Sage lake last year and the boat next to us is like "what are you using?" Being the nice guys we are we told them. Next thing you know he's got one and he yelled Surprise surprise surprise in the most classic redneck voice possible. We spent the next half hour repeating it back and forth amongst ourselves and laughing to hard to fish. One of those things that gets a chuckle every time it comes up now. ;D ;D ;D

Alot of guys throw deep diving cranks in there but it can be hard. You gotta get a good mental picture of how the bottom looks so you can cast and keep the bait running in or along the channel. Drop shotting is and easy way to fish it vertically. Jigs work great too. Many of us here will admit that our deep water game needs serious help. You have to fish blind which is hard to learn. Being from Michigan and having to look for bass in 30 feet of crystalline water has helped me personally with this but I can see how a devoted structure guy would have problems. Heck, I'll take a laydown on the bank over a deep structure any day but thats just me (along with about 90% of this forum lol).

Wow. Lots of questions. To get started, you can save or add as much weight as you need to keep. I probably added 50 pounds to mine with my project which is totally unnoticable with a 20 horse and my 55 lb TM but I'm not sure how it would play out on a 10. The thing is that its weight in the front which can ruin your planeout etc. Fortunately for me it didn't. Moneywise you can save or spend a wide range too. I spent quite a bit on my boat start to finish. I'd estimate that with the TM, electronics and everything else that went into it it came out in the 2k region. I wasn't too concerned moneywise and I know you can get it done for MUCH less than that. I was most concerned with quality and longevity which (obviously) carries a price tag. Oh and stability didn't change at all on my boat but there are many boats that will be like walking a tightrope when you deck them so go as wide as possible and length helps too. Here's a link to my project. http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1205883728/0#0 Feel free to post your questions throughout the project. I would have made some stupid mistakes myself without these guys. One thing that you might want to know going into it is that you can't use wolminized wood because it will corrode the aluminum hull. I almost did that so there's a heads up. Have fun!

I've been looking into Champions a little myself. From what I gather I see they are a pretty high quality piece. As an owner what can you tell?

Looks like the deeper area narrows down a bit at the north central part of the pond. I would treat that as a ditch or creek bed.

Yes your theory is true. However I see guys make a stupid mistake alot. They see the birds diving and get the idea (correctly) that there are baitfish and hence bass beneath them. They're good and dandy till this point, but then they proceed to drop the TM and slowly head towards them. Now you have an issue because the birds will move to stay away from you but it can sometimes be very hard to tell if they are in fact moving. Watch someone chase birds from shore one time and you'll notice that they sometimes troll right over the bait school in pursuit of the birds. Its comical. I usually get upwind of the birds if possible and make extra long casts to the edges of where I envision the bass schooling. I've never had much luck with it myself but it does produce and its very helpful to get the general location of bass. For example, if the back of a creek arm is full of birds and other life like turtles and even terrestrials like deer you can take a pretty good indicator that there will be fish there vs. the creek across the lake that doesn't exhibit those animals.

Eutrophication is when the lake grows too many weeds, sediment builds over several years because of them, and the lake dries up and fills in. And, weeds boost oxygen levels (I can see that as an obvious brain fart to make) because remember plants use CO2 and produce O2. The ponds depth is what I would concern over. I'm not sure how much ice you get in MD but up here you need 6 feet of water to compensate for the 3 feet of ice in the winter so the fish have someplace to live. Or on the opposite end it could get too hot down there and if the pond is too shallow the fish will cook to death.

Haha. Good point but when you're fishing a tournament and.... well you get the point. I havn't noticed a lot of sharp contradictions like that though...

Okay so I always see guys say that when the wind beats against a bank for awhile, it pushes bait in that direction and discolors or muds up the water and its a good location to target for bass. However I also hear guys talk about their spots getting muddied up and failing to produce. So, when can you tell whether or not a muddy strip will be holding bass?

Well, aside from all the ho-hum about what they're doing, I may have the solution to catching them. I've seen this in a couple lakes here in May (which is probably the stage you're close to now in CA). I have caught bass two ways in that condition. One is a heavier RatLTrap that you cast about a mile past the fish and run it by them noisily as possible. You have to do this Over and Over and Over. 10 minutes of cast and retrieve would be acceptable. The fish don't seem to care about the lure at all and wont move or might turn away. Eventually they'll start trying to bump it and finally one will just open up on it. Sometimes though they'll turn you down for a half hour or better. The other thing that worked for me to a lesser extent was a stranger rig which I believe is called an Arkansas rig. You put a sinker about a foot above a floating crankbait and make the bait look like its pecking the bottom. It becomes more obvious when you try it but I havn't used it to extreme extents myself. The idea is to annoy the bass and try to disrupt whatever its trying to do.

NEVER FAILS: This is a principle of Bass Fishing: Let all heed! When you have been fishing for a minimum of 3 hours without a bite, your phone will ring and you will answer. While you are on it, a fish will hit. You will miss the strike. Honestly though, I've wondered if being on a phone has something to do with fishing. Perhaps an ultrasonic vibration or electric current that transfers from you through the line into the water? I know its waaay out there but when it happens and you're on the water you have a lot of time to think about it...

Haha, I've been bitten by two pike. One I caught in the boat and was taking the hook out of its mouth and BAM! Lets just say it was followed by quite a blue steak and I'm glad no one else was on the lake. The other time one bit my glove while ice fishing and actually tore it. Nasty things but good eatin.

Man its still slow. I know how you're feeling. Last few days I've had the most luck on a Texas rigged tube dead sticked. We're going very slow on the warmup this year and snow's on the way for Friday. Fish slow, and if you think you're going slow, cut the speed in half. I've been throwing a tube and letting it sit for 1-2 minutes before moving it. They'll pick it up and just sit there with it and its nearly impossible to set but it can be done with practice.

You axe out a channel in the ice 20 inches down so you can cast and retrieve a lure through water. You miss a hookset and feel the overwhelming urge to break something. You've ever sheared a prop trying to get into that "perfect spot" and then were dumb enough to try again with the replacement.