Fishes in trees

Use suspend dots or suspend strips.

Be careful standing up on a 12' Jon. Be careful with weight distribution in a 12'jon. A 30 lb thrust trolling motor should push that boat around ok. A 55 lb thrust will push it better. 2013 Bass Pro catalog shows a price difference of around $100. A 55 lb thrust with the Maximizer (or Motor Guide makes an equivalent) might actually make your battery last longer. Buy a paddle. Be mindful that a set of oars is better than a paddle and rowing is good exercise. Have fun & catch fish in your new boat. Wear your life jacket. I strongly recommend the inflatable life jackets because they are more comfortable and you will be more likely to wear it.

I know a number of good tournament anglers who extensively use their electronics on practice days and sparingly use their electronics on tournament day. In my case, my console locator produces a noticeable sound, but I never hear one from the bow unit.

I don't think so. I think each lake offers its own set of challenges and to think that one is "easier" than the other is misleading. Bowl shaped farm ponds, + or - 5 acres or so are an exception. I'd say to start with basic Buck Perry principles, i.e. "the fish are deep, or shallow, or somewhere in between. At that point you apply In-Fisherman seasonal patterns (described in detail at the In-Fisherman web site. This gives you the place to start. Then start fishing, change or adapt whenever you feel like it. Speaking as one who gets on Ozark Highland type reservoirs only a few times per year, I don't think that they are that easy to figure out. Right next door to the classic Ozark Highland reservoir - Lake of the Ozarks, is 80,000 acres of flooded forest, i.e. Truman Lake. I don't think that Truman Lake is any easier, and it frequently doesn't have much vegetation to speak of. Week in and week out I fish several smaller conservation department lakes. One, I think that these lakes are a little easier to fish because they are smaller. For me it is easier to wrap my mind around 300 or so acres as opposed to 30,000 acres or more. Secondly, these lakes all have distinct weed lines and post spawn through early fall I think a weed line is a good place to start.

Rod where reel sits into the blank? That's been done.. Research Shimano Beastmaster rods - late 80's. These were pretty neat rods and I don't know why they were discontinued. I'd like to see some sort of easily adjustable count down timer that I could set for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, etc. Bjuild into the rod, or the reel, I wouldn't care. I'd like to get more consistent timing the drops while I'm jig fishing, especially in water deeper than 10', but I am not a big fan of cluttering up my mind by counting seconds while I am fishing. Any aftermarket count down timer I have found won't do intervals of less than a minute to start. That is way too long and not applicable to what I want to do with it.

How rude. A few pages back someone was bagging on Berkley Iron Silk line. That line in 17 lb test was the best square bill line I've ever used. True, you had to baby it for the first few casts of the day, It had to get wet, a squirt of Line Magic every so often helped the manageability issues. But wow, what a tough line. In 2 years of using it for square bills, I think that I only lost one due to line breaking, and that was when I went way too long between retying. Late last year I got some Trilene XL Armor coated and it looks alot like the old Iron Silk. I fished it two days last fall at Truman, throwing deeper diving cranks in timber and didn't lose a crank due to line failure.

I have a few of the Shimano Calcutta 200 TEGT reels. I got them the second year they came out. 2003 or 2004? Anyway, 11 ball bearings and I think that they cast better now than they did when they were new, being fully broke in and all. If you like round reels, I think that these are the best round reels available.

No president day sale? That is too bad. There is no finer way to honor the memory of our dead presidents than by squandering a few dead presidents on fishing tackle. Oh well . . .

Early 90's - Pink was a huge color in the BPS catalog. Bubble gum spinnerbaits, bubble gum cranks, worms etc. Not so much these days. I have heard that in the Ozark Lakes that it is a good color for early post spawn action, in a trick worm or a fluke type bait fished relatively shallow. Wouldn't know, I haven't gotten to any Ozark Lakes during that time of year for a few years now.

update #2 - High School principal called me at 7:30 AM. Didn't know about the upcoming vote in April. I took a few minutes of his time to relate to him why I thought he should vote yes. He thanked me for my time with no commitment. Any follow up from me will be with the superintendent or the school board or the town newspaper. I don't think that the principal gives a **** one way or another - at least that is the impression he left me with.

In olden times, when I was a bank bound, younger fisherman, I used a jig & popper rig quite a bit. It consisted of a larger crappie jig (1/8 oz) with a line tied from the bend of the hook, 6 or 8 inches and ending in a fly rod popping bug. I would fish this on med/lt. spinning gear and 6 lb test line. Many of the ponds I fished then were stunted and had too many 10 to 12 inch fish in them. In these ponds this rig tore them up. Other ponds, with a more balanced and potentially larger fish in them, this rig didn't fish so well. So, there is one more rig - the jig & popper rig.

So far as I know, yeah. The temperature probe is separate from the transducer, just like any other thru hull installation. In my case, I don't have temp on the console because I tore up the temp probe on a stump a long time ago and I don't miss it enough to replace it.

Update - Made an effort to talk to a high school principal today - Richmond, MO. Called at 1:38 got a secretary, took a message, he'll call you back in 20 minutes or so. Called back at 2:59 - got a different secretary, who took a message and said principal would call back "soon" Secretary asked me who I was and I answered "a taxpayer". Called again at 4:15 - got an answering machine - nobody home. I'm going to try again tomorrow. Being blown off by public servants really bites. On another front, I called the MSHAA. Found out that the vote to sanction bass fishing as an "activity" will happen in April. Also on the same ballot will be votes to sanction bowling and chess as "activities". Apparently you can't call chess or bowling or bass fishing "sports" because that would have Title 9 and gender equity funding issues. Go figure. Anyway, I still feel that these activities are worthy of being "sanctioned" and I will continue to bug my local principal about it. Oh yeah, apparently only principals and superintendents can vote on this issue. More to follow - probably.

Welcome to the wonderful world of boating. With a 14' jon boat you're starting small. That is a good size to learn on. The first rule of boating is that a boat is a hole in the water that you pour money into. Now you get to learn all the rest of the rules on your own time, at your own pace.

You'd have to research compatibility with your unit, but I know that you can shoot a signal through an aluminum hull. Vexilar makes a product called the Alumaducer. I've got one - had it for a few years now. It works good. Prior to getting the Alumaducer I was breaking 1 or 2 transducers every season. That got expensive. Research it and it might work in your application.

Good question - I don't know. Thanks for reminding me. I'm not planning on leaving the house til Friday. I've got to remember to get a fishing license this year.

I have a similar set up I run one bank to each of the trolling motor batteries. The cranking battery seems to take care of itself. When my big motor is running, it charges up the cranking battery. I haven't had any power issues. I swap out batteries every other year.

I am having issues believing that leaving your boat plugged into the on board charger is going to break the bank - electricity wise. After you're done fishing, you should charge up the battery ASAP. The fractions of pennies that you will save by delaying battery charging will be offset by the dollars you will spend due to decreased battery life. That's just my opinion, I have no method of doing the math, so that I know what my electric bill would be minus the on-board charger plugged to the boat in my shed.

I'd use the rod it came with for now, you literally have nothing to lose. I don't see any reason one couldn't throw medium cranks and squarebills with that set up.

Absolutely - no question - buy the biggest you can afford. I think in the Minn Kota line, 55 lb thrust is the most powerful 12 volt available. Go 24 volt or 36 volt if you can. Don't assume that you have to put a transom mount on the boat, wait until you see the boat and then figure it out. The old adage about "Would you rather push a chain or pull it?" , is correct.

I'm not an expert on the Carolina rig and I only fish it when I've got to, when it has been proven to me that it is the best option. That being said, I started catching a better percentage of fish when I got the hookset down. Hard and fast TO THE SIDE. I seldom caught a fish when I went up and over my head with a fast, hard hook set. I would try to remember to set to the opposite side that the bait was moving but that wasn't always an option. The key thing for me was the hook set to the side. Oh yeah, my catch rate got better when I changed up the rig I was fishing with. I was using a 7' MH rod ( on the heavy side of MH) with a bait caster and 17 lb mono and15 or 12 lb fluorocarbon leader. I generally used a 3/4 oz weight, sometimes an ounce. I got more distance casting, and it got down quick. I switched to a 7'6" MH spinning rod and a 4000 size reel. 30 lb braid connected to a 10 to 20 lb fluorocarbon leader. Same weight range. Casting range with this rig seems unlimited, and the feel is good when the weight is on the bottom. I know most guys use bait casting gear for the Carolina rig, but I've done better with heavy duty spinning gear.

I still have a few of the IM10X All Star rods, they aren't used all the time but they are in the rotation. I have the top water rod and a couple of their 6'8" spinnerbait rods. I've also got a couple of the IM6 graphite, which predated the IM10X by a few years. All Star rods are great rods and I was disappointed when they got sold to Shakespeare. Apparently the brand has been sold again and the parent company of Berkley owns them. I have one of their crankbait rods and I like it. It is a greenish colored blank.

I think that the best reel for light crank baits is a spinning reel.

Recently, I read somewhere ( don't really remember where) that high school principals were going to be voting this month on whether or not to sanction high school fishing. They are voting with the Missouri State High School Athletic Association or something like that. I really don't have a dog in this fight, my only association with school is that I pay school taxes. However, I think that this is a good idea and that high school fishing tournaments (and the associated clubs that will happen because of the tournaments) are a good idea. I am going to call the principals of the high schools in my area and bug them to vote yes. Or get a really good reason why they are going to vote no. Then I'll explain why voting no is unacceptable. I would encourage other fishermen who live in Missouri to call the principals in their local high schools and do the same thing. Apparently the voting for this is going to happen over the next month or so. If anyone else knows more about this, feel free to respond. All I know is that when I was in high school I would have liked to have been able to join the fishing club and maybe fish a tournament or two. It is too late for me, but if I can make that happen for some nameless high school student, I am good with that.

Why are you so worried about replacing motor decals? The only time anybody I knew had to do that was when they had to replace a 40 HP decal with a 10 HP decal so that on a casual inspection they would seem to be in compliance on various horse power restricted lakes. These days, in Missouri, in the vast majority of horse power restricted lakes, you can run your larger motor at idle speed, you just can't have a wake. I only know of a few horse power restricted lakes where they are really anal and won't let you putt around on your big motor. I've never been on a lake where they wouldn't let you start your motor to put your boat back on the trailer. I don't know about Florida though.