gobig

All you need is an ice fishing set up. You can run off of 18v cordless tool batteries.

If you’re in direct competition with the boater as a coangler that is a dumb format. Unless you have control of the boat half the day. With or without ff you will more often than not get your a#$ handed to you on the back fishing against someone of a similar skill set. Has nothing to with ff and everything to do with format.

I redid all the wiring in my boat except for the engine harness. Every time I turned around there was an electrical gremlin. Just old wiring. Got rid of the old fuse panel and went with the blade style. Now everything is isolated and labeled. Super easy to find any future problems. I wouldn’t be surprised if corrosion was not the causation of your problems. As for your graph I wouldn’t put any money into it. You can replace it with a working one that is newer for pretty cheap.

You need to get a hold of garmin. That doesn’t make sense that both cradles would check out the same and it would be frying the head unit.

I fall into the camp that structure should be identified as the shape of the earth and I’ll try and simplify why. Let use a hypothetical lake that has docks all around the whole lake. There are going to be docks that are far more productive and will produce larger fish than others. Why? It has to do with the relationship to the structure. By looking at a map you can identify these key areas with out even knowing if a dock is there. This can be applied to any type of fishing. On wicked tuna they fish the outer banks. If you start thinking about it there are a ton of examples. Catt has mentioned break lines several times and no one has bit. This is Pandora’s box. There are hard break lines and there are soft. There are break lines that move by the minute.

I agree with Catt 1000%. Structure is the bottom contour. It is important to differentiate structure from cover because the best cover is on or near prime structure. Structure is the baseline. All under water life relates to it.

This question lacks a lot of context. If you haven’t been beat by your coangler you haven’t fished with enough people. So much stock is put into the bait and not the person wielding it.

Most of the nor cal lakes are doing very well despite the weed control efforts and the obvious negative effects they have. The number one thing I think have seen impact the lakes has to do with water levels fluctuating drastically. Has that changed over the years? LMB don’t seem to do well in those conditions.

Clearlake in the late spring and summer will get dead zones. Depleted oxygen to the point where there is little to no life. You can lose a live well full of fish if your not on recirculate. Constant reminders from tournament directors to fill your live wells out on the main lake.

I think Garmin has the best ffs. You can tweak the settings in different situations and get better target separation than the other two. Lowrance would be my second choice. Much more plug and play than Garmin and a better choice for someone who just wants something to work out of the box. I was not impressed with Humminbirds ffs but their mapping, side scan and 360 are fire.

Tom, I agree with most of your posts but the action of a dart head is completely different than a shaky head or a ball head. They are not the same. Are you going to loose some? Yup. Is there a learning curve? Yup. Dart heads seem to shine the most on spotted bass lakes where ounces separate the field. Ill deal with going through some baits to gain a different look than the 20 boats that just fished a head of me.

I have to completely disagree with you on this one. Working a dart head down a ledge like a jig works wonderfully. I like the Gami dart heads with a robo worm. They have a spiraling action like a tube but with a straight tail worm. Not saying that they are not great for suspended fish but they work at all depths, all year long.

I reel and sweep at the same time. You will be moving way more line and generating a lot more force to the hook point. If your rod tip moves 48 inches of line on a hook set and you add two turns of the handle, you would be moving about 50 inches more line in the same motion, close to a total of 98 inches of line. On soft swimbaits the general rule with trebles is that you don't want them to be wider than the bait. Unless you are fishing in totally open water otherwise this is a good way to get hung up on every other cast.

Bingo.

I love this time of year. Like Bluebasser said this is when the big girls eat. I see a lot of guys talking about going small with baits, this is also the time to go huge.

I'll throw in my two cents. A big fish is relative to the body of water. Trophy hunting is different than tournament fishing. When the two worlds collide it can be magical. Big fish relate to key structure and the cover elements related to that structure. Dumb luck happens, people win the lottery. More often than not luck is not the determining factor. Magic baits exist, however the magic never lasts long. Thinking outside the box is good. Just don't try to reinvent the wheel. Spend more time dissecting key structure than color of your lures. Many times you are inches away from the catch of your life. Angles and direction are key. Big fish do use and return to the same locations, believe it or not they are predictable.

Thats how clearlake is. 30 boats on one spot.

Best answer

Yes, use a swivel. Don't listen to the na sayers throw that thing in some bad places. Where the rest of the crowd says to throw something else.

I can't believe Bluebasser is the only one mentioning using braid.

The problem has not been the rain as much as the temp drop out here. Clearlake water temps changed 6 degrees from one weekend to the next. This time of year a few degrees can change to bite drastically. Now that the ground is saturated the next few storms should help the bite but is has been tough as hell to get bit over the last few weeks.

There is something speacial about the Keitech's.

One word.... Ultrex

I really like the spro phat fly and I have a few other customs that I like. One of the things you want the fly to do is sit horizontally under the bobber. I fish two separate systems. One is a fixed bobber that allows the fly to pendulum through the water column. The other is a slip system where you use a thread bobber stop so the fly stops at the desired depth. I use the later most often because it does not require a really long rod, you can cast easier and fish it faster covering more water. I generally use 1/16 oz or 1/8 oz flies.