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My father's day present from my wife and kids. Absolutely love it.

What you need is a contraption to do this work. Attatch a dowel or some like object to a power drill or something? Walking it off sounds like no fun. Let us know what you end up doing. Or you could just cast it. It's only 500 yards. ?

I was walking out to my shop Monday night and looked out into the field and thought I was losing my mind or just really tired, looked like a clump of grass was moving? Realized what it was and sprinted back into the house and grabbed my .308 and got into the snipers nest on the side deck. 3rd one I've shot in a month, 50 yards behind our kids swing set right at the edge of the tall grass in our back yard. Nasty thing was absolutely covered in ticks. Lake got to come look at this one up close so he could see that they look just like a dog, because we've had them in our yard in the middle of the day. Oddly enough, I've got quail singing again since I've shot the last 2. Haven't heard any quail in over a year.

if you’re a bank beater, throwing a crank bait is just asking for it. throw a texas rig instead.

CAJUN WARNING Due to the extreme drought in Florida, the following caution was issued: The Florida Department of Fish and Wildlife is advising alligators both young and old to take extra precautions and keep alert for Cajuns while in Bay, Seminole, Osceola, Polk, Brevard, and Orange Counties. Alligators should recognize the difference between small young Cajuns and large adult Cajuns. The young Cajun will be the one carrying the Sauce Piquant pot and the adult Cajun will be the one wearing alligator boots.

I worry a lot about breaking the composite shaft on my trolling motor. That's why I put a $1K 360 imaging transducer out in front of it to cushion the blow on anything I hit. ?

I'd prefer it to slip, and not over stress the reel.

Thumb your spool on the hookset...drag won't slip then.

Yes and no. What you’re saying is misleading. Using a 36v motor vs a 24v motor under the same conditions, (watt output) you will ABSOLUTELY get longer runtime out of the 36v. What you’re thinking of, is running both motors at the same amps. In that case you are correct, but that shouldn’t be the case in real world situations. Hypothetically, if both motors draw 300watts to go 1mph, 36v wins. Since the watt hours of a 24v system with two 100AH batteries is 2400WH 36v with same batteries is 3600WH same task=MORE CAPACITY science -Taylor Master Electrician

Powell Inferno, yes I've read all the negative reviews & don't believe most of em. After 8 months & dozens of 6-9 lb bass (see below) in heavy cover I've had zero issues. Academy's H2O Xpress Ethos & All Star's Team series get high marks

4 Years USMC 1/5 0331 - Machine Gunner 2x OEF deployments

First one of the season on the rat First one in 2 years on a chatterbait

I know what you're thinking - Koz has another alligator story today. But it was a good fishing day, too. We were fishing one of the larger lagoons in Sun City Hilton Head this morning. It was cloudy and the water was still, so I started off throwing a Spook. Sure enough, within the next few minutes a juvenile, skinny, 5 foot gator comes cruising out of nowhere so I ditch the spook and put on a purple and green Rat-L-Trap. I hook up on the first cast and start to bring it in. The gator is interested and starts to move slowly in my direction, so I slide ten feet to my left to create some distance. As soon as I get the fish to the shoreline the gators goes full throttle at the fish, so I move further up the bank. At this point almost every gator will just stay in the water a few feet off shore. But not this guy. He crosses the vegetation on the bank and keeps coming. He hits the short mowed grass and he's still coming at me. I don't even have time to pick up the fish and I'm dragging it along the bank and that stupid little gator is still coming at me. I keep moving and he finally stops - right in front of my tackle bag. Neighbors are yelling for my son to go check on me as they see a 50+ year old guy dragging a fish and trying to outpace a small gator. Finally, I'm about 100 feet away from him now my son comes over to unhook the fish - my glasses are in my tackle bag and I can't see where the hooks are embedded. My phone is also in my bag so I can't get a picture of the gator guarding my gear. I head back towards the alligator to scare him away and he just sits there, but he's not on his belly. His chest is above the ground and his head is high with his mouth open. That's a warning for me. He's not budging. Five minutes later and he's still not moving. I finally had to grab some small rocks and bounce them in his direction to get him to go back in the water. Good times. After landing that 2 pounder we moved around the corner to the far side of that lagoon and I managed to land a 3 pounder and a 4.5 pounder, although I lost 2 with poor hooksets on a jig. Went to another lagoon and landed about a 6 pounder to end the day. But there's a story with that one as well. I've lost a few fish recently near the bank when I got the rod tip up and the fish breached. So when I saw the size of it, this time I kept the rod low and dragged him on shore. He snagged a bit on the way up but I muscled him onto the bank. As it turns out, I snagged the snap and bent it open. When I went to grab the scale the fish flopped right off that snap and landed in the water with my chatterbait still in his lip. I fished for another 45 minutes after that trying to catch him again, but the heavy rains and lightning came and we had to pack it in for the day. I feel bad about that. But I will head there tomorrow and with any luck I can catch that one again. Anyway, it was a good fishing day and at the same time I managed to get in some cardio. Not a bad day at all.

I set my drag at 8 lbs when fishing heavy cover using 60 lb braid because the rod can't lift more the 8 lbs dead weight before breaking. As stated use your thumb on a baitcasting reel during the hook set if needed. If a big bass gets wrapped up in heavy cover you need to go to the bass and dig it out, you can't pull it out using the rod. Tom

Insert inappropriate jokes now! Great rod that gets no love...bahahahahah

We didn't get started till after 9:00 because of some boat engine problems. It was interesting to see that there were only 4 trailers in the parking lot when we got there and 3 were guides. Anyway, we got to the hay field which looked almost over run by blooming pads.. There were no floating hydrilla mat's which is what I wanted to target because the water level is so high. We started at the pass and anchored in the middle over submerged spotty hydrilla and ell grass. I started alternating between pitching in between a thick read line and swimming a magnum speed over the hydrilla.. My partner started with a weighless stick bait and a swimming a ribbon tail all over on his side. In about 3 hours we had 8 but all were dinks. There was very little wind, air temp was 88 and by noon the water temp was 87 deg so I said we need to get out of here and try the dynamite holes on the way to the Monkey Box. I didn't like the look of the first one so we pulled into another. When we did it was now 91 and the water 90 and no wind. By 3:00 we got another 5 but both of us were worn out so much, we called it and headed back. All in all we got 13 in 6 hrs with the biggest being a 3.1 and never made it to the box. Had a good time anyway, it was just brutal out there. My boater yesterday is 78 yrs old and when he started to sit and look around more than fish I felt it was time. Mike

What JFrancho is saying about Ah capacity is correct one 120Ah battery is going to have the same Ah capacity as three 120Ah batteries in series but the available power in the terms of watts is going to be more than three times that of one battery. It takes a given amount of power to move a boat at any given speed. The more hull drag from weight, design or speed is going to increase the amount of power (WATTS) needed. It takes volts X amps to make power (WATTS). Because 36 volts can deliver three times the voltage, it takes 1/3 the amperage of 12 volts. That's mean three times longer run time. However, there are several other factors that make 36 volts run much longer than a 12 volt system. First, a 24V TM is about 25% more efficient than a 12V, and a 36V is more efficient than a 24V, so there is less battery drain just from the internal characteristics of the different motors. Second, as the load increases on a battery, it's efficiency and Ah rating goes down considerably. Since a 36V systems pulls 1/3 the amps of a 12V system for the same power, battery load is greatly decreased and run time increases.

I like Duckett Rods great rods very strong sensitive. I’ve been fishing a ghost since 2014 the rod has never given me any issues still one of my favorites. Powell rods are beasts!

In my area, All Star is a sleeper.Now we have an Academy near us, and they carry them. Falcon is good too,but maybe not quite as popular as some others. Both nice rods. Also Shimano makes nice rods, but most guys around here only use their reels, on some other rod brand.

The river by my house is low, which means the gar are thick. They're fun to fight, so I go target them with rope lures and cut bait. This is an average one about 3' This crazy channel cat exploded on a piece of cut bluegill as soon as it touched the water, I thought for sure it was going to be a big wiper.

For what it is worth I fish a bunch of Dobyns as does my wife. She owns a Sierra 705SF spinning rod. That is a very nice rod. It is her jig and frog rod. As for the statement that the Sierra and Savvy are the same blank that is incorrect. The Sierra series is a slower graphite blank than a Fury, Savvy or either Champion line rod. The Fury sorta made the Savvy the odd rod out. The Sierra line of rods perform very well, although I prefer my Champions and their quicker blanks) but since the Fury rods priced out for less than the Savvy rods and the Sierra was going to sell for right about what a Savvy sold for they were dropped. Gary originally continued to sell the Savvy with micro guides only because his customers requested he do so. After time he made the Sierra rods available in micro guides. According to him if he could he would not sell a rod with micro guides, but a portion of his clients want it so he does it. As for getting a quick answer to any Dobyns rod question pick up the phone. Both Richard and Gary are happy to talk rods with you. If they are both not available there are some great guys in the warehouse who know just about as much and will be happy to aide you. They have been really helpful for me in the past. I have one other source of good intel on his stuff if you need it. Email me at fishnkamp@comcast.net and I will give you the source.

I use a 6th Sense Divine Hybrid jig for everything... Well I use the 6th Sense Divine Swim jig for swim jig applications. Those are the only two types I carry and couldn't be happier.

This one saved me from the skunk today. Luckily for me I planned ahead and picked up some crawlers yesterday as my day off sadly landed on the 1st clear blue sky day of our next heatwave. Sadly no luck with the bass today. Guess I should have weighed it and measured it. The hook was stuck in the roof of it's mouth and took longer than anticipated to get out and I wanted to get it back into the water. Figure it was around a pound or so. Never fish for them so I guess it would be a PB of unknown weight.

Berkley Big Game Mean Green ?

I cannot wait to tell somebody this one liner.

99 % baitcasting. 1 % spinning

I'll go 3 or 4 days & not lose a single lure, then lose several in a day. I be like, ya sure ya cast there again! ?

My Dad bought an RV a couple weeks ago and had it out on its first trip over the Father's Day weekend. My buddies dad was nice enough to take us out on Smith Mountain Lake For the day. Its just my luck to go to the premier smallmouth lake in VA, and not catch a single smallie. Day started out pretty decent. We worked some top water baits in a cove then moved out into main lake and started working a point not far from the ramp. Found fish out in the middle busting on bait but they didn't want a top water lure. Caught my first and best of the day (2.5ish) on a jekbait suspending in 90 FOW. My buddy and his dad pulled a couple small striper and got one tiny smallmouth. Late morning the lake got super busy with jet skis, pleasure boats, and pontoons everywhere. Not a speck of wind all day but we dealt with three foot rollers the entire time. The chop out in main lake made it nearly impossible to fish out there. I managed a couple more 1.5 lb largies on a Texas rigged Rage swimmer on an island drop off near the main channel later in the afternoon, but we never could find a consistent bite anywhere. Gonna call it a good day. We had fun (despite the 95° heat) caught a few fish on a lake we've never fished before, and nobody got tossed overboard (even though I was mighty close to it a couple times)!

My grandson was over yesterday. He's 11 months old. When he's with me, I forget that anyone else is even around.

Took a quick morning fishing trip on Father's Day. Smallmouth Bass were gone at my local shore spots but the Bluegill were bedding. I used a Leland Trout Slayer jig dragged onto their beds to get them going. When they picked up the jig to remove it from the bed I set the hook and reeled them in.

Toothy creatures. Sauger was 1/2 inch short (I think...) but The walleye was a keeper!

Its that time of year again. The Noxen Rattlesnake Roundup is going on in Noxen, PA. Got up there today and took some pictures.

I need some recommendations for a swim jig head. I've got some 4.8 Keitech Fat swing impact paddle tails that I normally throw on a owner beast hook, some time with an underspin. I can use this in the upper or middle water column but I am looking for something to be able to fish lower that has more weight to it and will allow me to keep in better contact with the bottom. I am envisioning something that will have a fish style head on it and that has some sort of keeper to keep the soft plastic in place. I have sort of been looking at these VMC Ike approved models.

Fertilize the garden.

Mine has weight transfer ball bearings in it that kind of rattle I guess. If you don’t hear anything when you shake it I’d call tw and ask for a different one.

When I started bass fishing ther was no better lure than the albino slug-go. Allen

These guys nailed it. If you're just gently casting or pitching you gotta become the brakes. They don't do much if the spool isn't spinning fast. Don't be afraid to give it a full send, as long as your brakes are up around 10. I gotta disagree with the guy who talks about turning the spool tension up. The magforce Z brakes do all the work, no need to have the spool tension sandbag your casting distance. All you need to do is make sure your casts are good form and not real whippy, and stop the spool when the bait touches down. Step 3... profit ?

Length of the rods would be my concern. The bottom fishing I do with my family on Jefferys/Scantum/Stellwagon is usually done with a rod around 6' to 6'-6". We use Shimano trevala rods. I took a 7'-4" rod out one day and it just seemed too long and awkward for jigging.

I would not be a part of the roundup but I would give them a hollow point headache.

Tips on how to avoid being bitten by a rattlesnake 1) Don't go to a rattlesnake roundup. ?

Personally, I change when the conditions boat side change. Just this last weekend, we were fishing scattered grass clumps and I was doing well on chatterbaits/senkos. As we moved along we got into thicker grass so I picked up a weightless Yamamoto DShad (fluke style bait) and threw it up into the heaviest grass twitching it on top and letting it sink in small holes. Lost a few to Snakeheads but caught some good bass as well. There's a fine line between knowing if you are fishing the right bait and knowing the fish are there. You need both pieces of that puzzle to make an informed decision. I will run through a progression of baits and if I can't get bit, I assume the fish aren't there or the ones that are aren't eating and I'll move. On the Potomac, you also have to factor in tide. You can be on the fish and when the tide changes, they will shut completely down...completely!! Then it's time to either run to the tide or eat lunch.

I've caught a few smallies on mine, it's the ayu one with a purple bottom. I've also got it snagged a bunch of times so the chin below the line tie is pretty chewed up but it still works. I prefer the 1oz option, my brother caught a 22lb Norther pike on the white/chartreuse version. Swims like a Jig, pricey but it works. I cast them out and drag the bottom and reel up any slack. Couple of pops and bang, fish on.

I snagged this one with a lipless crank, an Asian lady took it for dinner. They are up close to shore, had thoughts of snagging one again.

I change baits when my confidence level tells me I need a change. Without confidence in what your doing, your not going to have any success. Sometimes that could be in ten minutes, sometimes two hours. Its an intangible feeling I get, that tells me a change to another bait is necessary. Experience, and time on the water, allows you to make these rational decisions, when things are tough.

I fish finesse probably 80% of the time. Fenwick hmg and St croix med light rods. I'm using shimano 2000 and 2500 Sahara's.Had these for 5 years, maintain them well with no problems.I agree about okuma. Good products too

My medium light spinning rig has a shimano sahara 2500. I bought the reel because it was during one of those weird ebay coupons that only work with certain retailers. I found the sahara and walked away with it for less than 60 shipped. Couldn't say no, been super happy with it.

I never feel the need to be the first to anything, especially when in a few months down the line it'll be on sale somewhere, with the potential for a stacking discount.

My first new boat. Skeeter zx250