Scott F

Lots of good suggestions. One extra thing I carry is a bottle or jug to pee in. The majority of people who fall off a boat do so while relieving themselves over the side of the boat. They make a jug specifically for the job that includes an adapter for females to use.

I've had the same engine for 20 years and typically put it away for at least 6 months during the winter. I add Stabil only after my last outing of the year. I have never had any issues with gas problems. I certainly would never drain the tank.

Use a snap if don't like to retie, but loose the swivel.

Always cast back to where you caught the last one. And keep doing so until they stop biting.

Depends on the water but while wading, my reels often take a dunking. I've never stripped one down afterwards because I've never had a problem.

Try radio shack. Any volt meter will work.

Cold and windy today and getting colder. Water temps 54 degrees. The largemouths are a lot more active than the smallies are for some reason. Paul got a big fat 19 inch largemouth that had just a tail sticking out of his throat but still ate his jerkbait. Water was rough traveling to and from our fishing spots.

The spawn on my lake is still weeks away. Water temps went down last week, recovered and are heading back down again in the next few days. Lake effect snow is predicted just North of where I am. Lows around freezing for tonight. Largemouth fishing has been good, smallies not as good.

I'm halfway through a vacation in Northern Wisconsin. The first week found clouds and cold almost every day. On Tuesday, we had snow showers! The water temperature had fallen in the main lake from 57 degrees to the low 50's before recovering slightly on Saturday. The lake I'm on while not considered a trophy fishery is a bass factory with huge numbers of both smallmouth and largemouth. The steady stream of cold fronts has made the bass fishing more of a challenge than we usually see this time of year. By any other standards, we'd be having a great trip but our numbers up until yesterday were down from a normal year. I spent the first week with Paul Trybul Sr. and yesterday, his son, Paul Trybul Jr came up to take his place for the second week. It has been a multi-species trip. While we have only been fishing for smallies and largemouth, we also got walleye, muskies, pike, perch, crappies, bluegill and rock bass. Suspending jerkbaits have caught the majority of fish but senko type baits have been working and topwater baits has been taking largemouth in 54 degree water. I've also caught fish on spinnerbaits, and lipless crankbaits. A new bait I've been trying, the Rapala Shadow Rap, in the #11 size has caught bass, pike, crappie, perch and walleye. This walleye I got was 26 inches Northern pike 34 inches Paul Sr with a smallmouth Paul Jr with a nice largemouth Some crappies that invited themselves to lunch. One of my better smallies. More cold with lows predicted to be 32 degrees on Tuesday morning but I'm sure we'll work our way through it.

I don't believe the moon has any effect on bass or any freshwater fish. There are no scientific studies that shows any connection between the moon phase and the spawn. The difference between a new moon and a full moon is purely visual. The moon does not change, just the amount of reflected sunlight we see. The boat you fish out of has more gravitational pull on a bass than the moon does. Weather, on the other hand makes a big difference in the behavior of fish.

When I fish prespawn smallmouth in Wisconsin, I happen to be on such a trip right now, it is not unusual for me to get get well over 100 smallies in a day. The wind, weather and colder water right now has slowed things up a bit, but I caught 55 yesterday.

Hayward is 100 miles west of where I am. Temps are already way ahead of where they were the last 2 years when the ice went out so late. My guess is that the bass will still be in prespawn when you get there.

Temps on the main lake that I'm on are 56. Cold weather up here is going to be lowering that number in the next few days. High temps will only be mid 40s tomorrow. Right now the spawn is at least a few weeks away. The Eau Claire area is not going to be as cold so I can't say what's happening there.

I started a 17 day fishing trip to the Vilas County area on Saturday. I left my Joliet, IL home at 6:30 in the morning, picked up my friend Paul at his home in Rockford, IL at 8, and was in Northern WI by 1:30. We unloaded the truck, launched the boat and we were fishing by 2:30. The main lake water temps were 57 degrees. It had rained Friday night and the front that followed was in full swing. Air temp was 60, with a 10mph wind from the north. I fished a milk run of offshore rock reefs that historically hold schools of prespawn smallies. We did not find the concentrations of biters I normally do, but there were a few on every spot we tried. I fished the new Rapala Shadow Rap mostly and my partner stuck with a Lucky Craft Pointer 65 which has always been the go to bait on this lake in the spring. Tired and hungry, we knocked off at 6 with 34 smallmouth and 3 largemouth between us. Nothing was bragging size. The lake I'm staying on is known as more of a numbers lake than a trophy lake which is fine with me. The weather forecast for the next few days is going to have falling temps and rain on Monday. No stable weather for a while.

Are you sure that the 4 wires present did not at one time hook up to a 2 bank battery charger? In my boat, I use 2 of the wires that run the motor to connect to my battery charger and ran 2 extra wires to complete the charger connections.

After reading all of these posts It is apparent that there is a very fine line between crazy and stupid.

I guess it's how you look at it. To me, all 3 of those fish have light colored bodies with dark markings. Which to me would make them all muskies.

You should show the picture to a DNR guy or a county biologist. I've caught a lot of muskies and pike and I've never seen or heard of a muskie or tiger musky with a dark body and light spots.

No, I don't think you are.

Smallies are moving onto their beds with water temps getting over 60. No matter what you throw, the bites will be tough for a few weeks.

Any bait that dives 6 feet in one of my rivers gets stuck on the bottom. Same with silver buddies. Both of those baits are snag city in the rivers I fish.

When the water in the river is in he low 60s, the smallies are starting to move onto beds. That's when I look for something else to fish for.

There's your problem right there.

Do you fish clear or stained water?