casts_by_fly

That's what I don't like about the fillet- the texture. It's also missing a lot of the flavor that's locked up in the intramuscular fat in other cuts. if a fillet is more than rare I don't like it. Honestly, the best use of fillet for me? Making beef tartare. I love some good crispy chicken wings, but not many places here in NJ make them that way like they did in western PA. We've got a great texas BBQ place that does brisket and ribs and it is some of the best I've ever had. But one of these wins every time for me.

yeah, those are the unicorn days. The days where you feel like you can throw anything, not get it anywhere near the cover, and still catch bass. Those days never seem to line up with the days I get to be on the water though.

@WRB-2.0 Would you say this little plot qualifies as one of those small flats out on a drop (assuming the life zone was in that 15-16' range)?

yeah, you're crazy. My wife has always prefered fillet for as long as I've known her, but I've got her to slowly move from med-well fillet to a med-rare strip. She'll eat a medium ribeye also just fine. She grew up in a house where burgers were always well done and then some. Now that I sous vide to temp most of the time I've got her temps dialed in pretty good.

How does it do for watertightness? It looks like it would be 'okay' if upright though water will sit on the top of the lid which is okay. Do you get seep back into the bags? My boat is less waterproof than I'd prefer and while I love the speedbags (I have one for worms, one for stickbaits, and one for creatures) they aren't waterproof.

I’m with Craig on this one. 4 out of 5 nights I’ll take the ribeye, but I do love a good double cut bone in pork chop. And either of them with a nice glass of Bordeaux or a Washington cab.

I’m Plano 3700 and 3600 for most things. Softbaits are in speedbags and/or ziplocks. For crankbaits and jerkbaits, I use a sharpie on the bill or belly to denote the depth. I don’t care about their weight. Topwaters are similar- don’t care about the weight and they don’t dive so nothing to note. Chatterbaits and spinnerbaits get it written on the head or the blade. Then similar weights get stored together. Buzzbaits I know by sight (and mostly spinnerbaits and chatterbaits). Jigs are a little all over the place but most of mine are similar weights. The odd weights are obvious what they are. And the sink rate plus profile is what I care about anyway.

You could get an Elite FS 7 and FS 9 for $1500, but you’d need to add some more to be able to network them. And then if you wanted to add a compatible trolling motor that’s $3300 for the cheapest Recon. Garmin would be similar. I don’t think two is a practical choice at $1500, but it depends what the OP is going to do with them. At least having the helix means he can put that in the lowest priority spot and get a single ‘good’ unit for the other. Then upgrade in the future.

The 21 pro has 2’ or more on the next biggest choice in the list. I know where I’d be going if all else was equal. that said, having the dealer close enough to you that you can just ‘pop in’ (which for me means an hour or less) is good to have if you ever need anything. I’d start there and rule out any that didn’t have that.

In that case, think about what you want to use everything for and what your future might look like. You have helix 5 now which won't network. If it was how I run things, I would stick that on the front so that you have depth and 2D there, maybe maps. Then get a new console unit. Which one? In Hbird you only have one good choice- xplore 9". The helix is discontinued. It is not touch screen. The helix 9/10 is a good unit and if you have a full boat of them I wouldn't change. But you don't have any yet and are starting fresh. So start fresh with the most future compatible unit. Then in the future you can network things together (the xplore9 should network to a one boat network powerdrive already). You would think that. But the difference between an edge 45 and an entry spotlock is nearly $1k. Add in margin and fees and that's $1200-1500 added onto the cost of a new boat which is a pretty hefty sticker shock. Also, the entry level spotlock motors are all electric drive and lots of people don't like that. For some people, spotlock is only a nice to have so the extra cost isn't worth it. That said, on a high end boat (not a tracker) I'd think it should be there. I'm surprised that one of the major motor manufacturers hasn't come out with a basic spotlock cheaper than the powerdrive just for this occasion. Not for retail sale, just for sale to boat builders. If they could make one at the $700-900 MSRP price point equivalent (discounted for B2B buying) that would be a no brainer.

Is that $1500 for both a trolling motor AND electronics? That will be tough since the cheapest spotlock TM will be almost that (around $1200 for a powerdrive I think). First, figure out what you want to do with each and what is important to you. Absent FFS, there isn't much I'd use the one on the bow for. If you are fishing offshore and using it for positioning on waypoints then sure. Forget side and down imaging in the front- I just don't use it that way. For going down the bank fishing, you don't need anything more than depth really. And seeing the grains of rice looking dots while 5' from the screen (standing up) is tough. Heck, I think I look at my bow unit for the TIME more than anything when I'm fishing in an evening (I'm usually fishing heavier cover with power lures so FFS doesn't play). Occasionally I'll use it with FFS to see where the grassline is out ahead of me, but I could just make a cast or two to find that out also. On the console, side and down/2D are important for me to find 'stuff'- rock and brush piles, contours, etc. My default view on the console unit is side on top (full screen width) with 2D and DI+ on the bottom. SI to broadly find things and 2D/DI to confirm what it is with a different view. My usual method is to mark waypoints that way and then swap to FFS on the bow when I go check them out. Trolling motor wise, it would help to know what you have now to know what an upgrade is. The standard on that boat is a minn kota edge so I'll assume that's what you have and you want to stay with minn kota/johnson outdoors. That is the edge 45# per express's website. A jump to a 24V 80# spotlock unit would be a nice jump. You've got powerdrive as the base model at $1600 (24V/70#/54") and that's just about the cheapest spotlock option (the 12V lower thrust are a little cheaper).

I was going to go to a different lake this week but now you have me curious. I have a couple glides I got here in the marketplace and I think one or two of them might just do it. I also have my magdrafts, though putting an 8” treble hook version down in those trees…

Not being a glide user yet, do they pull fish in from a depth? For instance, will it pull fish off the bottom when throwing one in 15-20’ deep standing timber? I’m not going to sink a glide down into the branches- that’s just a losing venture even with a plug knocker. But I could thread one through where I can see. The water is crystal clear and you can see bottom in 15’. I was thinking a glide through the treetops might be enough to pull them up.

You know, that's where I was at the past two years with a ned rig. It was my finesse bait of choice and on those really tough days I could swim it along and pick a fish here or there. This year? not so much. Every time I've throw a ned on the tough days I haven't caught fish. I've now gone to a neko or a 4" texas rigged finesse worm with a tiny sliding weight.

Glad you found it like that and not in an emergency! Inflatables are class 5 PFDs which means they fulfill your requirement for a PFD on board, BUT there are conditions from the manufacturer attached. To be compliant with the law, you must follow all of the conditions. Certainly with mine (bass pro model) the manufacturer's requirement is an annual inspection including manual inflation and visual check plus a new arming kit every X years (I think it is 3). And of course you have to be wearing it for it to count as a valid PFD. Just being in the boat isn't enough like it would be with a class 1-3.

Nice. Water gap plus. I was riegelsville which is 30 or so miles down. I need to explore the gap and up, and it looks a little deeper generally because it is steeper.

yeah. It didn’t feel like a buzzbait morning today- it was super quiet. No bluegills sucking, no frogs, nothing.

Early morning and some pretty fog made up for the tough fishing. Landed 13 plus two pickerel in the end but only one over 15” which was around 17” and 2.5-3.0lb. A couple more 13-14 and some dinks. It looks like a musky grabbed the 17” fish at some point.

@herder which stretch were you on? I put in on the big D on Wednesday evening to start exploring it. Kinda limited in a prop motor so only fished a single one mile stretch for about two hours (one dink).

For all 12v and a two bank? Noco genius and call it a day. And it is lithium and agm compatible for the future.

It’s getting a whole lot less popular here…. Third early morning this summer that Ive thrown one significantly and not touched a fish on my home lake. I know it’s not the buzzbaits fault but come on…

Like wrb, my thought process is to figure out where they aren’t and then go somewhere else. It doesn’t guarantee you catch anything, but it should give you some confidence that you’re at least putting your bait where it needs to be. If there is a thermocline at 15’ then don’t fish any deeper. If the middle 3/4 of the lake is flat mud bottom at 30’ deep I’m probably not going to fish that. Assuming you know the lake has a decent number of bass (either from catching them before, tournament results, or biologist surveys), they have to be somewhere. my skunk buster currently is a zoom trick worn on a Neko rig. Around here, there are at least some 12” bass around any shalllow cover that will eat it. Green pumpkin or red shad for really clear or mostly clear water respectively.

It’s all physics. Blank diameter, wall thickness, and material stiffness. Bigger diameter, thicker walls, and stiffer material will all make a blank stiffer. Balancing all of those factors is what turns engineering into art. The material that makes a rod blank is a big sheet of graphite ‘scrim’ which is like saying a big bedsheet of woven graphite fibers. The sheet gets wrapped around a metal rod and then baked in an oven until all the layers cute into each other. But since the blank has to taper, the graphite isn’t a straight line- it is more like a weird uneven parallelogram. And the metal rod is also tapered. the metal rod makes the inside diameter and then how much graphite you wrap (and where) makes the outside diameter. You can take a skinny inside diameter and wrap the graphite really thick to make it stiff. it will be a little heavier, but it will have the same stiffness. Or you can make a really big diameter but only use a little graphite to have the same stiffness. If you look at a lot of more inexpensive blanks right now, they are larger diameter and really thin walled. That makes for a lighter blank with less graphite and/or lower stiffness graphite all of which make for a less expensive blank that feels higher end. But it comes at the cost of durability. Just a bit more wall thickness means that impacts are better absorbed. But then increasing the wall thickness makes it heavier unless you use a lighter (per thickness) graphite in the first place. So it is all a balancing act.

yep. Got that FFS suspended catfish bite down pat now. another big one tonight (8-9 ish I think, around 27-28”). My wife came with me on the boat for her first ride so we went to the ‘pretty’ lake and I couldn’t not catch something fun.