dickenscpa

I fished between the rain showers, kinda, not quite in between got caught about two miles out in the rain. Weatherman said rain gone at 2PM I get on the water at 2:30 and bottom drops out at 5:13. Oh well beat doing taxes and battery worked great. All back to normal. Thanks all for the insight and suggestions.

I haven't had a chance to get on the water yet. I just installed and plugged everything up last night. Had the green light on the charger this morning before leaving for the office. Yeah I agree, if I still have a problem I'll have to look into the unit itself. All the wiring tests out fine. I really hope I don't have a problem with my Garmin. I upgraded from a 7" screen to the 9" summer of '21 and I love the usability, simpleness and the pic quality on the Garmin but developed a problem right off the bat. They sent me a new unit in about a month but I'm out of warranty now and hope that's not an issue.

I picked up an Amp'd Outdoors Lithium and their brand charger. Much to my surprise the Amp'd Outdoor charger actually fit the Yak Power box's charger input perfectly. They both had the squared off SAE end opposed to most SAE ends having that protruded rounded end keeping them from fitting. So that was a nice little bonus and one less thing I had to splice and dice. All I did was cut the F1 ends off a one of the three sets of Yak Power battery wires and splice in F2s. It charged to full capacity and everything seems to be in working order. Just need to get out on the water and make sure I can use my graph all day. If this doesn't fix it then unfortunately I may have to look at my graph closer.

Old Slickory is rough.

I see you live in Mid TN, why don't you take me and teach me how to fish!

I called Yak Power yesterday and first off I left a VM and the tech guy called me back in under 10 minutes. Secondly he was extremely helpful and informative. Anyways I have a battery tester I can use to test under a load and didn't think to use it. I guess I assumed it was car battery only but he told me it was fine for any 12V battery. His advice was one or all three batteries had went bad and he said when I hooked up multiple graphs and ran the battery dead but didn't hook it back to a charger for almost 2 weeks that was probably a death nail right there. I put all three on the tester and all three tested bad. He suggested getting a quality lithium and lithium charger and splice in their end which I already happen to have one. I'll be the first to admit I'm cheap and I cheap out on batteries and it bites me and I go back and do the same thing.

I've often wondered if KVD, Zaldain or Ott's Nitro got a little extra love at the factory to insure it didn't become a nightmare for the world to see on TV. Living in TN and so many pros living in TN I have a lot of them as clients but don't really have the relationship to ask them if their Nitro is the same Nitro the public would get. They're always in salesman mode. I do have one pro and when I was a freshman and QB for freshman team he was a senior and QB for varsity. He wound up playing football in college and I played baseball in college, but we had never spoke. Fast forward 25 years and his Dad builds a house in my neighborhood and asks if I can help his son taxwise. Now for 10 years he's been a client and we're good friends and it's weird - we didn't talk in high school but still feel like we've know each other for 40 years. LOL! He had a boat deal with Nitro for a long time and he really loved those Nitros, He was offered a better monetary deal with Skeeter year before last and took it. One year in the Skeeter he opted out of that deal but did not have a deal with Nitro and just paid for a new Nitro. He loves them.

Unfortunately you're exactly right. I'm really into competitive archery and this is a big deal with bows. Just about every bow manufacturer gives a lifetime warranty to the original owner. Problem comes down to that fine print. The bow companies are all trying to one up each other every year so a flagship model bow might be manufactured 2-3 years. So your usually good 2-3 years after that you'll get the "we don't make that bow anymore or parts" story and you'll get offered a trade in of your broken bow on their new flagship. I've never seen anyone get what I would call a "deal" when trading that broken bow in on their newer flagship bow, but the real caveat is that new bow you just got doesn't carry the same warranty. I get EXTREMELY frustrated dealing with warranties - consumer things I buy, vehicles, etc. I feel way more than often that warranties are thrown out as selling points with no real intent on honoring the warranty and loopholing the crap out of it to get out of it. Obviously there are exceptions. I prefer to buy something at a local store and know who I take it back to and I just tape the receipt to it and hope for the best. The place you buy the item from has WAY more to do with your warranty experience than most realize. The place you bought it contacting the manufacturer and going to bat for you has always worked better for me than me calling them direct.

Yeah I tried each one separately, same result. All three act like they're the same battery all exact readings.

I really appreciate you taking the time to reply. All three batteries are the exact same and same brand/specs but I either bought two and the third afterwards or bought one and then two afterwards so they're not the same age. My Dad owned an electric and plumbing company and I grew up in electricity but it was residential and commercial and I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to batteries. I did check the wiring and feel confident there's no problem there. I let the batteries charge to full and turned the graph on (the big one) this morning and it read 13.7V and within seconds dropped to 13.1 and in under 2 minutes was down to 12.5V. Unplugged that one and plugged in the smaller one and it read 13.1 and dropped to 12.4 almost immediately. Checking the batteries with a multi meter without load they are all three in that 12.6V area, but with a load my meter is all over the place. 12.6 down to 8.4 and almost every number in between. I didn't realize running batteries in parallel was a no no. The Yak Power box comes prewired to run three in parallel. Here's my conundrum - I've got a lot of time invested and of course money wiring everything up with Yak Power and prefer to go to a lithium battery. However, the YP charger is SLA only. The SAE end of the charger looks normal but it is a proprietary SAE end and other brands won't fit. So if I bought a proper Lithium charger it wouldn't fit the YP box port. Every time I charged my battery I would have to remove it from the hull, take the battery out and charge it separately and put everything back. Kinda defeats the purpose of the box. One thing I forgot to add is my three batteries are the Cabela's brand $20 apiece 12V 8ah ones. I have since read mixed reviews on them.

I fished a kayak tournament 3/18 & 3/19 and hooked up two fish finders to one Yak Power box with three 12V 8ah SLA batteries. One battery was about a year and a half old and the other two about a year. I usually run just one graph that pulls .67 and can go forever. The second graph pulls .4 so together 1.07ah. Running both ran all three batteries in parallel down EXTREMELY quickly. Turned off the smaller .4 graph and voltage jumped to about 10.5 and got me thru the day. Got home and backed over charger crushing in-line glass fuse. I had to order the weird sized fuse and it took about a week to get so it went maybe 10 days with no charge. Repaired and fished this past Thursday and went back to just one graph that pulls .67ah. Battery dead and graph shut off at about 2 hrs. Thought maybe it didn’t fully charge. Fish today and when I turned on graph it said 13.3V. Two hours later it was dead. Both days that it died so quickly it could be turned on after a bit and would say 10.4V and go down to 8 rather quickly and shut off. Unless I went to 2D only and it would go 20-30 minutes and shut back off. Got home today and put a multi meter on all three batteries separately and all three read 12.65V, turn on graph and it said 11.5 and dropped within a minute and shut off. If I unplug power cable from graph it reads 12.65V as well. Questions: 1) Are the batteries bad or the unit? 2) Connecting two graphs or going so long uncharged ruin them? I know I could just buy more batteries to “see” but batteries ain’t cheap so I thought I’d ask. Sorry so long I tried to be as detailed as a woman’s mini skirt - long enough to cover the subject but short enough to stay interested.

Water temps went from 55* on Thursday to 48* on Sat/Sun. In Feb the water temps hit 62*, there were even some early spawners in my area. Tomorrow is low of 61 and high of 76. Go figure.

I'm in the same boat (no pun intended.) I got into tournaments about 3-4 years ago heavy but been fishing heavy all my life and I'm 51. I did real well until May 2010 we had a devastating flood here and it really, really changed things up on the ole home lake. It seems most of my competitors have adjusted and adapted and for some reason I have not. Take 12 tourneys/year and I'll finish top 10 but out of the money twice and literally skunk 10 times. Sometimes the fishing is just bad and we all skunk, but I've had more than I'd like where I skunk and everyone else slays them. My pre-fishing isn't really a gauge either. More times than not the better my pre-fish the worse the tournament and vice versa. I think my biggest obstacle is I need to better educate myself. Like here recently we had Feb-Friday Mar 17th in the 60-80* temps. Water was 58-62*. Opening tournament on 3/18 & 3/19 air temp was 18* with a high of 29* JUST the two days of the tournament and water temp fell to 48*. Where I'm uneducated is what do fish commonly do during pre-spawn when a snap cold front hits like that. I think that's what separates a wannabe like me who can catch'em good if I stumble on to where they are and a guy who knows where to look based on the conditions he's dealt.

I live here in TN as well. We had 80* temps in February. I fished a tourney this past weekend 3/18 & 3/19. Temps were in the 70s all the way up to Friday and had to be off the lake by 7PM Friday night. THE TWO DAYS of the tourney Saturday morning I get to the ramp it's 21* high of 41*. Sunday morning at the ramp it's 18* high of 29*. Both days had wind 20mph with gusts to 27mph. All I caught was wind burn. Monday back in the mid 60s and getting close to 70 today and climbing the rest of the week. All the pre fishing I did was for nothing. I couldn't even find fish on the graph I couldn't catch. In 16 hours of fishing I saw the tiniest bait ball I believe a graph can pick up and it was 13' deep. We had over 100 boats sign up, only 44 showed up day 1. Half didn't show for day 2 and half of them called the TD before 11AM and said they were going home. Only 8 caught a fish and even though I skunked I finished decent because my last name starts with a "D" and the skunkers were done in alphabetical order. LOL!

I started with a Harbor Freight trailer and to be honest I had very little money in it. I have a HF within 4-5miles from me and they were out of stock. So they sent me on a drive to another HF that was quite a haul. It comes in two boxes and they gave me one box from the 1795 and one box for the 1195. I was mad and had to make that drive again to return it. Before I could get upset with them they fell all over themselves apologizing, so that calmed me tremendously. They got me the right boxes and I wound up getting the whole thing for $217 -pre pandemic purchase. It never gave me a problem and I added bearing buddies but it just seemed I was always working on it and adding crap to make it "work" for me. My local kayak pro shop sells kayak specific trailers and they had one all decked out with bunks, racks, cargo basket, etc. I forget the price but they charge an extra $200 or so to assemble it. They sold it and assembled it and the person never came to pick it up or pay. So they made them pay the $200 assembly charge. I stroll in and see the trailer and fall in love. I had just finished a tournament in the money for $500 and won a $200 gift certificate to the store in the after tourney door prize. I sold my HF trailer for $500 and they gave me a HECKUVA deal to get it out of their show room.

When I very first started kayaking it took me quite a few trips of being 30yds from the ramp and getting that "ooops did I forget my plug?!" My VERY best friend since diapers - and the term "best friend" gets thrown around - but he and I were like brothers from diapers until his unexpected death at 32 from a brain tumor. When we got our drivers license at 16 we bought an OLD 16' fiberglass bass boat. It was Ensign with a 60 hp Mercury that was 1 year older than us. He had a truck and I had a sports car so it stayed at his house and he did all the towing, launching and loading and I paid for boat gas and oil mixture. As we got older we bought nicer and nicer boats. When he died (he wasn't married) his parents sold our boat. I saw it at the end of their driveway for sale and even though I paid for half there was no way I was going to his parents wanting the boat or half the money. I also couldn't have bought it and fished from it anymore. My son was 2 at the time and loved being with me fishing so I bought a new Skeeter and picked up on a Friday in April. That Friday it was 77 degrees. I took my wife and son fishing the next day and it was 48 degrees. Upon getting to the ramp I realized I'd owned and fished from a bass boat for over 16 years but never launched on my own and to be honest a bit nervous. I put my wife and son in the boat and backed the truck down a STEEP ramp. Radio on and window up 'cause it was cold. I didn't hear my wife yelling STOP! STOP! We're taking on water! I hadn't put the plug in. I'd swamped it so bad some of the stuff in the boat was floating and I had to retrieve it. Luckily I always keep spare clothes and a blanket in case I get stranded in bad weather and I got wife and son squared away and the heater on. I was so embarrassed. The next day after Church we took the boat back out and I sat in the parking lot for just a bit until I saw someone who looked nice. Walked up and told them my story and offered him $20 to show me how to launch a boat by myself. He was super nice, refused my money and took the time to show me everything to do.

That used to be a part of my routine and no problem. I might have a smidge of water in the bilge and I always pulled it and let it drain on the way home. My garage has a floor drain and I left it out and it was routine and part of my launch procedure. My last boat spoiled me. I actually sold my last boat to a client after I bought my first kayak in 2019. I saw it wasn't getting used and sold it. Recently he's been going thru a nasty divorce and I bought it back so he could pay attorney fees. I haven't even thought about taking it out and when he gets his stuff in order he plans to buy it back.

It very well can be. There's a difference (to me) in light friendly conversation on the water and getting stuck with a Chatty Kathy. Whenever I'm the boater or co the other guy is usually a better fisherman than me and I do appreciate good advice and insight. I fished a little tourney on Center Hill Lake last year and out of the blue the guy started telling me about how the sticks were floating (horizontal vs vertical) in the water and that told him about the barometric pressure and we needed to go to X spot. We hadn't caught anything all day and then we started catching. I've fished my whole life but I'm self admittedly ignorant on a lot of things like that and appreciate someone setting me straight.

I've been checked one time leaving a ramp and when they saw that my bilge was dry as a bone and I'm not sure I ever put water in my livewell, they told me to carry on. I keep some straps for transport in that back area and have to get in it to get them and secure the boat to pull it home. If I ever saw water in there I would obviously comply and pull my plug. I will say one thing - when you RARELY pull your plug and so used to it being there and ready, if you ever do pull it like to wash it or some rain, it's super easy to forget it on your next fishing trip. Yes, I know how TN is. From May to Oct there's about a 100% chance you'll have a pop up thunderstorm. I used to ride Harleys and there was a saying here in TN - "If you take off on your Harley in the sun and get caught in rain you're unlucky. If you leave in the rain you're stupid." LOL! I think this is why I have taken to kayak fishing so much. I LOVE TO BASS FISH. But, I live in the burbs 25 miles east of Nashville. My office is in Brentwood 42 miles from home. I'm not pulling a boat thru downtown rush hour traffic to and from home. I'll throw a kayak in the back of a truck though. I would get a new boat every 3 years or so and because of my schedule, commute, etc the boat was a pain. There were times my boat only got wet 2 times in a year. One year not at all. So kayak fishing really gave me the opportunity to fish again and fish more often.

Actually I don't really fish rain. I've went fishing when it was nice and got caught in some surprise rain but even that was rare. If something like that happened then obviously I pulled the plug and let it drain before it took on much water. But if I was on the water and it started raining I was heading in. Where I live if it rains you have about a 99% chance of lightening. I'm only afraid of two things in this world - birds & lightening so if it started raining I was heading in. I rarely fished a tournament in my boat. Now I've gotten really into kayak bass tournaments and if there's big rain in the forecast I don't enter. If I get caught in some surprise rain and paid my fee I'll usually stick it out unless it starts lightening.

My boat stays in my garage 100% unless I'm out fishing. It also never even takes a drop of water in the bilge, etc. So I never take my plug out so it's one less thing to forget. I went fishing one Saturday and got back late and knew I was fishing after Church the next day. No threat or forecast of rain so I left it out in the driveway with a cover. Since it lives inside it was not a waterproof cover. While at Church a down pour came out of no where. When I got home, since I didn't pull my plug, my boat was completely full of water. My on board charger was ruined and a lot of gear. I had bought a scale although I never use them and not sure that one ever got used but there was water inside it and tilting it back and forth water was in the screen.

I fish the KBFTN trail and they allow Hawg Troughs but prefer the Ketch boards. I imagine it'll all be Ketch before long. I got the plastic Ketch board because it was shorter and lighter. I have four Hawg Troughs in the garage and three are broken and the 4th is cracked. I was getting out of the water for the day once and pulled my kayak halfway onto the bank. I was gonna lift and put my wheels under it to pull it to the trailer. I was taking a few things out to lighten the load and I grabbed my Hawg Trough and dropped it on the grass. I was bent over and it didn't drop far but broke when it hit the ground. I was HORRIBLE taking a Sharpie trying to color the lines/measurements on the Hawg Trough so they could actually be seen in the pic I submitted and a couple of fish later it would wear off. Hawg trough missed a big opportunity when they knew their boards were flimsy and Ketch came out but had no brand recognition at that point. Hawg Trough could've beefed up and already had name recognition. Why they still don't color the graduated measurement lines just bewilders me.

That is correct, even if your scale is off it will still tell you which of YOUR fish weigh more than each other. I'm about 100% kayak tournament now and we measure every fish and let'er swim and TourneyX pretty much culls for you by default anyway, so that's one less decision I have to make. Kayak tournaments are basically like the new rules in MLF. Catch all you can and the app or program culls for you. Good for dummies like me. I was born with ZERO depth perception so if I shoot a 3D archery tournament I have to shoot a known class and use a range finder. You could tell me we were 3' apart or 30' apart and I'd just believe you. By the same token I HAVE NO ABILITY to look at a fish and say that it's 18" long or 11" long. Ours have to be at least 12" long to count and I can't tell you how many fish I've caught and thought "he won't make it" and be 17-18" long. I've also been sitting on 4 fish and caught 5 or 6 in a row 8-10" long and got so excited thinking I had my 5 and I could start culling. I just make it a habit to measure every catch and go from there. I own a CPA firm in TN and there are a ton of pros in TN and I do a lot of their taxes. One pro in particular went to high school with me, he was 3 grades ahead. We didn't know each other or talk in school but he's a client and we're great friends now. I go fishing with two of my clients quite often and they absolutely bewilder me when they say "she'll go about 5lb 9 oz" and they're either spot on or real doggone close. Definitely a talent I don't have.

I've only co angled twice and that was just because someone couldn't make it and they asked if I'd take their place. I prefer to use MY boat or actually I prefer kayak tournaments and there are no co-anglers. I always tried to be very respectful and my goal was for them to forget I was on their boat and I offered gas money. I dealt more of having a co-angler on my boat and 90% of the time we became friends and did stuff together after the fact. The other 10% wasn't a bad experience we just didn't talk or interact and went our own way afterwards. I only had one bad co-angler and we really got into it and it was bad. I drove him back to the ramp and forced him off my boat.

I've heard the bird thing all my life but never seen it happen or knew if it was true. Here in middle TN we're pretty much completely surrounded by water. We don't necessarily have to have a flood but just a good rain will overflow and if you dug a pond in this area and keep it holding water you'll wind up with fish.