Bassun

** Apparently I was wrong about which connector goes to what, lol. I wish lowrance would just use one connector for all, lol.

Thanks 12lb -- Appreciate the suggestions. GPS Store has the Blue connector version (elite's etc) unless I over looked it, Same with Russell's. Green store - had not checked, but did find they had a 50/200 for like $220, but in the image the connector doesn't look right. (But, that is just an image) Same with BBG. Maybe I should consider getting the blue 7 pin and an adapter...

Hey folks -- I picked up a used Hook Reveal 7 for the bow. I bought it at a good price because the transducer (Tripleshot) was broken, which was fine as a TS would not fit on my trolling motor anyway. So win - win. I even let him keep the TS so maybe he can sell it off if someone wants to try to fix it. Here's the problem though. I know I can find the splitshot transducer no problem. BUT - I remember reading that the HDI is significantly better. From what I can tell, for the Reveal you need the "Lowrance hook reveal 83/200 hdi xdcr 000-15640-001". (I guess you may could find a 50/200 as well, but I'd rather use the 83.) So, since I am having to replace a transducer anyway, I wanted to get the HDI since by all accounts it is better. The problem is I cannot find the dang thing anywhere in the US. I found 1 random site that had it, but a quick search showed they were not trustworthy. I have found it somewhere overseas, and so far that is the only option I have found. I can find the HDI's with the blue plug all day long, but not the black connector for the Reveal. There are only a couple marina's semi near me, so I would rather just buy it online plus, with them being pretty small, they normally don't have too much. I may could get them to special order, for a special order markup I'm sure... Does anyone happen to know where you can find it? Or maybe I am wrong about which transducer I should get? I understand the new splitshots are better than the originals with the Hook series, but I read the HDI is worth the money to upgrade. Any thoughts?

I have a souyalyang, actually two. One has 13BB, nice instant anti reverse, and all in all pretty smooth. Only thing I dont like about it is the grip on the handle is round. Hate that. The other, 11 BB I think, no instant anti-reverse but pretty smooth. Not great, not horrible. BUT all that said, the Pfluger Trion is a better reel at basically the same price. I would 100% recommend the Trion over the Souya's.

I'm a hybrid fan I guess. Mono backer (about half spool), 15lb braid mainline, then a fluorocarbon leader of about 10 feet. Spinning and casting gear, ultralight to catfish set up's lol. Just with heavier braid on the big rods.

Do any of you guys have experience with this stuff? I've heard a few good things (and IDK if they are legit), but there doesn't seem to be too much out there about it. I don't expect it to be PP or Sufix 832, but at the price (1000yd of 15lb at $32) it really makes me want to consider it. I've ran Kast King's Superpower for the last couple of years, and don't have any major complaints. I was thinking I would try their Mega 8 this year, but I've seen some good things on Reaction Tackle and thought maybe it would be worthwhile to try running it. Just looking for some honest opinions on it. I know sometimes you get what you pay for, but if it's good, it's good...

I use my Galaxy S9+ as a chart using C-Map all the time. Works just great, although the screen is a little small, lol. The concern I have with a tablet is they are not very bright and hard to see in direct sun. The sammy is fine unless I happen to get a direct reflection of the sun. And it's already waterproof, so no worries there. There are waterproof cases for tablets, so that can be addressed safely. I ram mounted my phone on top of the console. I can record video, and take photos with it where it is mounted with no issues. Turn on the "voice" control for pictures and you can stand back and just say "Shoot" and it will take the pic. Couldn't be easier.

Regarding the headless units, and linking over wifi to tablets. I don't think we will see a headless unit any time soon. BUT - I think a great opportunity they are currently overlooking is dummy displays. Take Lowrance w/ wifi. You can wirelessly connect to a second unit, and you can wirelessly connect to (apparently multiple) android/apple devices. I like that idea a lot, but I'm worried that screen brightness, and water intrusion could be a real issue. Screen brightness of the brightest tablet seems to be about half of what the finders displays are. So - why not kill two birds with one stone. They already have screens which are superior for daylight viewing, and incased in gear that is "waterproof". They could easily sell a touch monitor that does not need all of the components the head unit needs. It could literally be an android control board with the same software used by the tablets preloaded. They could market it as expansion monitors for a few hundred bucks and they would sell. If they REALLY wanted to make the public happy, they could amend the current software so that instead of just being a mirror display it could be an expansion to the display (if selected). Then you could have your HDS Live or Elite Ti2 / whatever - and then "expand the desktop" in PC terms to add displays on the additional monitor. This would give you existing form factors for mounting, common software to use, and a more economic option for expanding your displayed information. Buy one head unit, and two or three expansion monitors and you have one heck of a setup! Going down a different road, I'm kind of surprised that some aftermarket guru has not released a monitor similar to what these units use with a simple connection for a phone to display on. Or even an android solution with wifi already baked in. Would be a unique product that would certainly be picked up by a lot of anglers (assuming the price point was low enough.) My concern with an outsider bringing that to the market would be it could lead Lowrance to no longer support slinging their screens to other devices. If they choose not to, you would have no options. Which really brings me back to their monitor expansion. I would love to see that!

I hate that no one responded to this. I am actually looking to upgrade from some really old and kind of pathetic Eagles to either a Hook2 or Elite Ti2. I was actually thinking about doing the same thing pick up the Elite and mount it with the 3-1 on the console and a cheap 10 inch tablet and put it on ram at the front. I know I give up true information up front (I could keep the old eagle up there for accurate depth at the bow) but it saves a big chunk of money that way. I plan on making a big boat upgrade in a couple of years, and don't want to spend a ton on finders for the current rig. I was curious how well using the tablets has worked for anyone who has used them. It sounds like daylight display is going to be a real issue going that route. My phone is much brighter than any tablet I've seen - would be tiny but may be a temporary option lol. NHBassFisher - if you are still around, did you try the tablet option? If so, what are your thoughts?

Timely to this - Sunday I was fishing some limby cover with a spinnerbait. Felt a bump that felt like I bumped across a limb. I stopped cranking to let it fall, then started to crank again and felt a little pull back like I was on the limb. No biggie, I just kind of raised my tip a bit and reeled on to pull through it. Then she turned her head and I felt that thick heavy shake and saw a flash of big ole white belly. BAM! Hook set!! Or, I should say, attempted hook set after she had tossed it. Drew a blank. Apparently she took it from behind, and I wrote it off as cover instead of banging that hook set immediately. IDK how big she was because I only got a flash, but based on the feel and flash I'm guessing she was 5+, and could have been much more for all I know. Only good hit of the day, and I didn't set the hook. Sad times...

I love to end on a fish, so my last cast may be that fish I land after it feels like it's time to go if I'm fishing solo. If the wife is with me, she determines when the last cast is, usually with a warning of ok -- we've got about 10 mins before I need to go. Generally, the next fish landed was my last cast in that scenario. If I'm with a buddy, and were on fish we may say last cast ... ok, this is really my last cast, oh you got a hit? Ok, last cast... on and on lol. As long as no one is expecting me at a certain time, last cast can be very fluid. One of the great things about cell phones is the wife no longer expects a specific time. I tell here where I'm going, and when I expect to head back - but things get updated over the phone all the time. I generally let her know we are at the lake, and when we load up to head back. A few updates go a long way with keeping a happy wife!

Since this post seems to be reliving - I'll offer my opinion. It totally depends on the storm. A long drawn out heavy storm being pushed by a cold front -- yeah, that (IMO) kills fishing. However, a brief storm that just passes through quickly in the evening - that for me is a golden time for fishing. I LOVE hitting the water after those storms. The topwater bite comes alive and/or tossing something white (grubs, spinnerbaits, etc) always seems to be a winning ticket. Absolutely one of my favorite times to fish.

I personally don't try to hunt what most here consider lunkers. Around here, the massive fish just don't exist, and the large fish certainly don't exist in the numbers they do in some of the better bass locations. The state record is almost a pound lighter than Tom's smallest top 5. And that was caught back in '85. I'm in the mountains of Virginia and honestly, I consider a 2lb'er a good fish. Tom's breakdown of the Northern Largemouth sounds about right, although locally I would consider anything over 5 a trophy fish. In many of our lakes, a legal fish is only 12 inches long - that kind of speaks to the sizing available. One advantage of not having that range of 1lb to 20lb bass swimming around is that when you target bass, you are basically sizing for all of the bass, lol. So I don't toss massive swimbaits looking for that 15lb'er basically ever. Maybe in spring I'll get a wild hair and supersize, but 99% of the time I'm tossing normal sized stuff looking for bass. Now, that said - I don't do well with the boat getting skunked. Usually not a problem, but I will down size until I put something on the boat. I've hooked into some really nice bass on really small offerings, so while I may be looking to get some sort of fish on the deck you can never count out a good fish. Once the skunks gone, I'm generally back to normal mode. So I guess I don't target "large" fish when it's been a number of hours, and there is a skunk brewing. Unless it's a tournament, I will sometimes down size at the very end just to make sure I end on a fish. Not always, but it is always nice to end on one.

I kind of do something similar when teaching someone the basics of fly fishing. Everyone wants to whip the rod around like they are swatting a fly. I literally walk behind them and pull the line backwards to give them the feeling of the load up so they know when to go back forward. Sounds funny, but has worked well to give them an idea of what they are feeling for.

I think teaching bite detection is one of the hardest things. I generally advise this: "If it feels funny, set the hook. If there's not a fish attached cast back again, if you feel the same thing, it wasn't a fish." To me this kind of does three things. It shows that not all bites feel the same -- that it is better to set the hook on nothing than to miss a hawg -- and it teaches what other things feel like. I'm sure we have all fought a flimsy limb a time or two thinking it was a fish... That doesn't cover every scenario - but I honestly don't think you can really teach some things. Experience and instincts come in. There are just too many different factors to consider when it comes to feeling bites. Just a few off the top of my head: Rod specs, line specs, lure type, lure weight, current, wind, other terminal tackle, grip type, hand grip position, grip strength, angle of the rod, boat movement, surface movement, surface debris and I'm sure I could name off a dozen more without much thought. My suggestion is that they overset and learn what isn't a fish. I still overset myself, sometimes I am almost sure that it wasn't a fish but there's that little doubt. Occasionally, I still end up with a fish I didn't expect. Heck, sometimes I set the hook and think ugh... just a limb and then a few seconds later ... wait IS there a fish on...well look at that! I get that more with spinnerbaits than anything lol. Usually a dink though lol.

I used to subscribe to a few different magazines over the years. As I got more serious about fishing, I started cataloging articles in a note book so I could easily find a specific topic and find that article. Worked great for learning how to lake fish vs wading the streams and rivers I was used to. Being able to find a dozen articles about whatever and reread them was fantastic. I learned a ton! Now if I want to look into something, I just google it and usually end up at youtube. I guess it kind of works, I don't spend a lot of time reading anymore - so by the power of the internet I can gobble up some info pretty quickly. That said, I don't think I learn as much as I did reading the articles. I think when I was reading, I would be thinking more about how that technique would apply for me locally. When I watch a video I'm usually thinking - man, I wish we had that kind of fish population here, or that kind of structure lol. It's kind of sad, but print media is certainly a dying form. I subscribe to 0 magazines now, and only mildly miss reading In-Fisherman out of them all. I always felt like they had the most in-depth articles that got into more details vs say Bassmaster. I think when we moved I tossed all of the old magazines. If not, they are boxed up somewhere and haven't been sought out for years.

Have you experienced any issues with it reading while moving? I need to replace both of mine, and was thinking the Hook2 tripleshot is a great lower price option. But, I've also heard they often struggle when going more than like 10MPH and were useless from then on.

I guess I look at fishing for new guys, especially kids, a little differently. I think as a new angler, numbers are much more important than size. If you take someone out who has no experience fishing, a dink bass is a great catch! I always try to put them on numbers. That's not to say nightcrawlers and bobbers necessarily - but I will generally get them rigged with small baits like a little grub etc. That said, I'm taking out the nephew next week - it will likely be 90% live bait. My thought is that if we help them get the excitement from fishing, that will help them "want" to spend the time to begin to understand fishing and learn what it takes to upsize their catches. That said, after a few hours of fishing, if I am being skunked, I will pull out the ultra-light and pick up a bluegill lol. Sometimes just getting that fish in the boat sparks a turn around. I 100% think catching fish is the easy part. The hard part, for me, is finding them in good numbers. Years back I spent a ton more time on the water. I caught a ton more fish each trip too, but, because I was out there I had a better idea of where they happened to be. Now, I feel like I have almost as hard of a time finding the suckers as I did when I first started fishing lakes, lol. Add to that, most of my trips lately have been with the wife, mid-day, when it's closing in on 1000 degrees lol. Bonus fun, both of my fish finders are being stupid. Once is dead and the other only kind of works at reading depths, and only then if its over 10 feet. I guess it is probably time to replace them...

Oh Tom, my most heartfelt condolences go out to you. I know there are no words, so I will just remind you that our prayers will be with you sir.

I 100% agree that a fishery can be ruined by overfishing, more specifically, over keeping. The ambiguity of "fished out" is the problem. No, you will not remove ALL of the bass. But, you do not need to remove all of the bass to ruin a fishery. Slot limits work for a reason, they protect the fish that sustain a fishery. Not all fisheries need the same slots protected; current population, geographic influence, intended consequence all play a role (and others obviously). If you take two large ponds that are identical, you could manage one for "lunkers" and one for "lots of catching bass". Over a period of years, if you follow the guidelines, you will see a significant difference in the fish caught in each pond. You wont catch nearly as many in the lunker pond, but those you do catch (on average) will be much larger than those in the more highly populated pond; especially notable will be the big fish of the day. Conversely, if you want to catch a lot of fish - the other pond is your best option. Granted, pond management should go deeper than just which bass you keep and which you remove - but the impact of which bass are managed is key. Why would we expect anything different? Consider a lake or pond with only bluegill and bass (Not realistic, but shows a simple example). If you remove too many bass, the bluegill population will explode. One may initially think, ok great, more bass food. But, we often forget the bluegill need to eat too. And they will chomp on baby bass. So now we have pulled out the large bass which would eat the bluegill. That also means we have removed many of the bass that would be breeding. So already we have fewer bass, and fewer to reproduce. Now, add in that we have MORE bluegill and they are eating MORE baby bass. Now you are left with less mature bass, less fry, and more predation on those fry which do exist. It's easy to extrapolate the impact to that fishery. Smaller fisheries, naturally, are more at risk - but any fishery can be impacted to some level. Now all that said - this is oversimplification, but I think it easily illustrates the impact we can have on any pond or lake.

Mobasser - Why AC shiner? For me, it was because it was more reflective / shiny than any of the floating Rapalas I had. I wanted to get really good flash in faster moving water. Stumbled into a great little pattern, which has sustained my entire life thus far. Cast at the top of a riffle, and try to swim it down, or cast high and drag it diagonally. I try to target any bigger rocks in the riffles, especially fully submerged ones. Not saying they don't work anywhere else, but I catch more on broken back Rapala's in most other water in the creek. Also, not saying AC shiners are the only thing that works in riffles, just happened to be what I had and used and locked into it as a winning combo. Honestly, I probably catch more on the jointed Rapala's using it like a topwater lure than even swimming it, lol. I love to cast out and let it set a few seconds, then just give it a tiny twitch or a few twitches. Often that is followed by a hit. If that doesn't work, I'll often "quiver" it a bit if I really think there should be something there. If I've got nothing yet, I will usually pull it under a few feet and then dead stick it. May twitch or quiver afterwards depending, but usually just dead stick. I'll do that until I feel like I should have gotten a bite, then move to a swimming retrieve. Some of those just bringing it in fish surprise the heck out of me lol. To be fair, though, if they are just destroying things quick on topwater - I will often flip over to a tiny torpedo and run those.

I do love swapping the the AC Shiner below riffles. IDK why it works so much better, but if I get a long run it tends to outpace even the Rapala.

I've done that repair roadside... it sucks.

I've been wade fishing for as long as I can remember. Love-love-love it! Good light action pole, light line and few key lures will keep you slamming smallies (and redeye) all day. J5/J7 broken back Rapala, Tiny Torpedo, and a small blue/black spinner with an up-sized black Colorado blade - those three have done 90% of my work. (4" Roboworms in motoroil, white grubs, and a few other toys get out occasionally) Honestly, 80% of the time I'm running Rapala's. I did upgrade to some wading boots and a vest which is handy for carrying a hand net.

Hey guys - so I was trying to track down if Minn Kota mounting holes match MotorGuide's. Short answer, the Minn Kota WIDE set do match the MotorGuide set PERFECTLY! At least from my 21 year old MotorGuide ZX 41 to a new Minn Kota Edge 45. Just take off the mounting cover, and the additional bolt holes are easily accessible. Zero drilling needed. I wanted to grab a new MotorGuide X3 45, but apparently they are not in stock anywhere. I know these are smaller than what a lot of you guys have, but 41lbs on the 16 foot Skeeter works just fine. I hated to give up on the old MG, she's been a trooper - but just too many components were failing and I had already reconditioned the motor once. Even a new #41 would have felt stronger given the odd noises and grinding the old one was making - having #45 will feel like a rocket ship lol. Anywho - just wanted to put it out there so that hopefully if someone else is looking they can find the answer more easily than I did.