Functional

teach me to fish a jig and ill come out and teach you about spinners.

I get where you are going but that is so far into the weeds you should be pulling up dinosaur bones. The knot, mostly is there to keep the line from slipping. Knots that do that while keeping the line straight to the hook the straightest without any kinks will be stronger. Once you go bending or cutting into that main line you are putting forces on it that will make it break quicker. If you do any engineering think of free body diagrams and cross section thickness, should be pretty clear pretty fast why some knots hold better than others. Adding shock just magnifies a knots problems. Also, shock weight is different than static weight, look at safety harnesses for people. The lifeline is rated many times greater than the persons weight because adding speed (momentum) (the fall for harnesses, slackline hooksets for fishing) drives the need for higher ratings. personally, Palomar for braid, SDJ for everything else. FG for leaders and when I tie hooks for my nephew worm fishing I use a fisherman's knot just for nostalgia.

I might be overkill but I throw spinners into everything. 17lb Trilene XL. I prefer a little give in the line and rod fishing spinners, I find I can keep them pinned better and my success rate is much better than braid or YoZuri.

I just got into frogs last season. They never produced for me up north except 1 lake that I only fished 1 week a year. Its almost as exciting fishing a jitterbug in the pitch black...almost. So hopefully this year is as good as my late summer frog bite.

Spinnerbait and frog. Historically i've gotten the most consistent bites from both on the lakes i fish. And now that I've said that, neither will produce for me this year.

sounds very similar to my 175 tracker. On average conditions I get 34-36 and on like glass conditions 38 with my 60hp motor. With the 75hp I think its only about 40mph and you need the right prop and hole mount to get the full 42. With the weight of the boat, I'd still probably travel in the low to mid 30s and only really get to use the full speed at first and last light if I had the 75. I dont think youll miss much with the 60 over the 75.

Organized the boat, gave stuff I don't use to my nephew. So naturally I had to fill up some of the empty space again. Actually really excited and scared to use the trace.

Welp. Picked up 3 things to try Kvd wake Manns baby-1 6th sense trace slow sink swimbait Local tackle shop is incredible and awful all at the same time.

Ha 27'...yea that was almost the size of my parents boat. When i meant dingy i meant like 9' row boat with a 5hp motor and electric on it ?. Never felt poorer than when i worked a boat yard and had to do service on boats that were larger than my first apartment.

get a cruiser and make sure it has a "dingy" mounted on the back as the boats "tender" No joke, thats how my father got around a similar issue. Mom bought into it and he got to detach from the mother boat and fish parts of the hudson while she and my sister relaxed. Took a lot of cool overnight trips as kids and got to fish some spots i'm not sure we would have if it was just a fishing boat. Nice part is the dingy can be trailered to other locations.

I've been torn between the two for years...the fact that I'm going shopping for bins to organize my tackle better tells you who wins more ?

still eyeing this stuff and will likely do some order this weekend (Jesus help me), not planning to go nuts but at least one 6th sense and 1 Manns to see which I like better first. With that, you horrible (lovely) people got me looking at swimbaits. Thoughts on the SPRO Shad 4" swimbait? Thinking their sexy lavender in slow sink would be nice to dip a toe in the water with.

its because of SMM that I own one. Could have had 2 more Tharps during their sale for the Victory had I known better.

I put my ARK Tharp up against my St. Croix Victory any day. You get one hell of a rod for what they sell them for.

I've used a garmin Force for over a year now and there is zero lag between the peddle and the TM. I've used both cable and electronic foot peddles in older MK TMs and the Force beats both hands down. The Force peddle is adjustable for tension so you can make it as light or heavy as you want to match your preference. The peddle isnt tethered by any cables either and can be moved around on the boat. I dont know its range but it comes with a really fancy remote I've yet to use. If I was letting someone fish out of the front I'd steer with the remote (or foot peddle if it reached) from the back. Otherwise I prefer the foot control to remote control 100%.

For my average retrieves I'm 5-8ft max and 8ft is if I'm really slow rolling. I have fished 3/8 down to 25fow but I let it hit bottom and played with speed until I felt it barely dragging. Fishing outside of 5fow with a 3/8oz is the exception in my case, anything more and I'll step it up or more often than not go to a whole other bait. I havent had luck running spinners deep with the exception of one really nice 9lb cat.

Haven't ordered and spinners or bladed jigs from him yet. I'm excited I think the color will work really well here.

Agreed, the extra weight would get me some more stability and handle rough water better but the areas I fish I don't have those issues. If I was fishing more of the tributaries or something like the great lakes I'd probably have pulled the trigger. Definitely some pros but it wasn't enough for me to justify picking up a new payment.

I could go on about wake boats. While I hate restrictions for anything I struggle with wake boats lol. I tend to break out my "fake" wake when it's an extreamly tough day and I can't get bit on bottom, top or my beloved spinners. Something about the wake and barely before surface brings out just about every type of fish. Bluegill, perch, snakehead/dogfish, pickerel, bass, cats. I've caught almost every species the lakes I've fished had in them. If you already have a few I really recommend trying them.

Mike is becoming a problem. My wife now knows when she sees the name on the package it's fishing stuff. She's pretty sharp.... but I thought I'd have at least 1 more order before she caught on.

Yea like I said I've fished a lot of my floating like a wake bait and been very successful. Just wanting to try something purpose made for that and see if there is any difference for me. It's a technique I use enough I'm fine investing in a few lures to give it a try.

I've always had luck with poppers when I lived in NY. Specifically Storm Chug Bugs in Shad color. Jitterbugs in black also worked very well. Smaller squarebills and rapalas were also a main lure tied on around that time.

THIS is information I really wanted to hear. I slow roll the rapala to make the V just under the surface, just fast enough to get that action. Was hoping to get that in a proper wake bait.

Appreciate all the input. I think I'm going to snag some of the 6th sense movements and the Mann's baby 1-. Likely 2 of each. Trying to just settle on colors. I've typically not had luck with chartreuse colors but I've never truely gave them a fair enough try and they seem to be pretty popular. Thinkin... 6th: Sexified chartreuse shad (maybe 4k shad) and Blugilla Manns: Chartreuse shad and Fire Shad Forage on my lakes are majority threadfin shad and on some bluegill are also on the menu. Sexy Shad typically does well so hopefully these work but I'm open to color selection for those 2 baits.

Not that its comparable to the prices talked about here but in 2013 I bought my Tracker 175 txw for $13K out the door. Same exact boat today is $23K+. I was on a kick about 2 years ago to get a new glass boat until I finally sat down and realized i'd be paying 3-4x the amount I paid in 13 to have the same capability but be flashier and a bit faster (although with all the d**n wake boats now who can really go fast and not tempt death). I enjoy fishing but I dont want to stress about a payment for fun.