Scott F

While the wire is tieable, it’s not like tying fishing line. The tricky part is pulling the knot tight. The wire will pig tail easily. Because the wire is pricey, I don’t like leaving much of a tag end that I’ll be throwing away. I use a pair of hemostats to help me tie. It takes some practice to make leaders that lay straight without the wire curling. I recommend making them in advance as trying to tie them in the boat can be time consuming. I don’t tie the wire directly to my main line. I make individual leaders that I can reuse. Trying to keep the weight down, I tie a small, oval split ring to one end of the leader that will attach to my main line, and a loop knot or a snap on the other end to attach to my lure. The wire leader length depends on the size of the lure I’ll be using. As a general rule, I make them 6-8 inches long.

I’ve had a Minn Kota Terrova 80# thrust for several years now. My favorite feature is the low profile foot pedal. Those very tall foot pedals on the cable steer motors are out of the question for me. They do turn faster but I can operate my TM from anywhere in the boat, without trying to balance on one foot. With the short cable, you’re are limited to where you can place the pedal. I don’t have the space or desire to cut a hole in the deck to lower the pedal to a reasonable position that limits you even more. Sitting down, I can keep my feet almost flat on the floor and just use toe to steer and turn the Terrova motor on and off. The remote control is great but I use the foot pedal more often. I like having both hands free to fish with. Spot lock and direction lock are also features I can’t live without. Being able to connect the motor to my depth finder would be nice but not worth the additional money for me.

I haven’t fished the St Lawrence in many years, but unless it’s a very late spring, most of the bass should be post spawn at that time. Early spawners should be back on the bite by then.

Being able to break off a snag is the reason I don’t use anything bigger than 10 lb braid….even in the rocky rivers I fish.

I’ve used nothing but straight braid, (10 lb) no leader for a very long time. I won’t use anything else. I don’t have to deal with zebra muscles, and I don’t drag my line and baits across rocks so abrasion has never been an issue.

Since bedding bass are not feeding, it may not be that they “prefer” white it’s that they see that as more of a threat and pick it up to remove it from the bed. A friend of mine who bed fishes, (I avoid fishing bass on beds) prefers white because it’s easier for him to see when the fish picks up the bait. In my experiments with colors and plastics, I couldn’t find and difference in catch rates when using different colors. Using Senkos, which we all know are fragile and don’t last long, I’d change colors every time in needed to replace a damaged bait. It was only when on a trip and switched to a Berkeley power bait sinking worm that didn’t catch a fish, then in exactly the same spot switched back to a senko and started to catch them again. In those experiments, color didn’t matter.

Was the cat still riding the 3 wheeler? 🤣

I use 20# 832 and don’t have dig in problems. Make sure you drag is not locked down, and don’t try to pull lures out of snags using the reel

On my ”home” lake, I have a dozen or so sunken islands that top off at about 4’. Most of these are several acres in size and are in open water not near any shoreline. I use the electronics to help locate these offshore reefs and help me stay just off the edges. 90% of the bass I get are within 10 feet of the edge that drops into deep water. If I lose the edge of the drop, I’m not catching.

For smallmouth, a suspending jerkbait was by far the most successful bait for cold water. For largemouth, a senko in shallow, dark bottom bays was our lure of choice.

While visiting The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Cape Cañaveral in Florida, we were on a wildlife drive when we saw what we thought was a deer lying on the side of the narrow road. As we got closer, the animal which was darker in color than a deer, stood up and started walking away from us down the road. We immediately knew then it wasn’t a deer as we could see the long, brown tail. The panther stopped, turned his head and looked at us for a few seconds before bounding off into the dense foliage. We later stopped into the visitor center and spoke to a ranger about what we saw. He said he wasn’t aware of any Florida panthers in the refuge. My wife and I were extremely lucky to have been privileged to see this rare and beautiful animal.

You realize that in addition to the boat, depending on the regulations where you live, there can be sales tax that you have to pay, boat registration, title, and trailer license plates. Then there are the safety items like life jackets, fire extinguisher, and maintenance like trailer tires, and wheel bearings. And then, do you have a vehicle that can tow even a small boat? Does it have a trailer hitch? I assume you have a place to store a boat? You may have already considered all these things and the budget for them but your original post didn’t say much.

If it’s in a tournament, It’s only cheating if you break the rules of the event.

It’s Larry David!

I had side scan and almost never used it. I found fish are difficult to see unless you are staring at the screen. When l did use it, I was sitting at the console and looking for a rock pile or downed logs, but not for locating fish.