Scott F

What would you need to use Navionics or Lakemaster when Garmin includes 17,000 maps with their units at no charge? I dumped my Lowrance depthfinders a couple years ago after seeing how great the built in high def maps that were included for free.

I don't see it that way. Garmin gives away high definition maps with its products. Navionics takes in considerable income from all the Humminbird and Lowrance owners who buy mapping chips. Why would Garmin want to shut off that source of income?

Next April, my Ranger will be 30 years old and I'm the original owner. The motor was replaced in 1995. I've done almost nothing to the motor and it actually starts better now than it ever did!

I'm not sure if your estimate on the average age of fishermen is based on real numbers or just your own observations. From my observations, young guys in the age range of 10-25 are not fishing, they are playing video games. Few of my friends who have kids that age can get them interested in fishing. To stay in business, manufacturers have to make a profit. Once companies saw that anglers would buy expensive lures like Lucky Craft at $16 each, they knew they could charge higher prices and we'd pay up. As long as we keep buying $10 baits, that only cost pennies to produce, Rapala and others are going to keep selling them. If sales fall, so will the prices.

How much leader do you use? When jerkbait fishing, does your bait often come in contact with the bottom where your line will hit rocks or zebra muscles? I do a lot of jerkbait fishing and have never had my lure or my line strike the bottom before. Won't zebra muscles cut fluorocarbon line? I've never fished water where zebra muscles are present. Except for line wrapping around the rod tip, I've never experienced any of the issues you've had like straightening out hooks. To me, the leader is much more of a pain than the occasional issue of the line wrapping around the rod.

What advantage does using a fluorocarbon leader give you?

I seldom eat when on the water but in case I get hungry, I always bring a couple of Cliff’s bars and some water.

Has there been any statements from BP about what exactly their plans are? Closing stores, rebranding, or leaving things just as they are. Does anybody really know?

In the spring, fishing for pre-spawn smallies, the LC Pointer 65 has been my go to bait. We’ve had weeks where smallies ignored larger jerkbaits. Largemouth and rock bass were eating the bigger 80s and 100s, but if you wanted Smallmouth, you had to be using the hard to find 65s. It doesn’t happen like that every year but even when the bass aren’t so picky, I never leave the dock in the spring without a Pointer 65 tied on.

If I were choosing between the Ulterra and the Ultrex, the Ulterra would come on on top in every way. The prices are about the same but the Ulterra has a low profile foot pedal, wireless remote control, power trim and auto stow/deploy. No contest.

If you are getting line twist when using an inline spinner, your spinner is bad. Only the blade is supposed to spin. If the entire bait is spinning, try a different lure.

Don’t worry about the color. I don’t believe bass analyze their food before they eat it to determine if it’s the right species. On occasion, there may be lakes where fish show a preference for a particular color, but no one can predict what that color might be. You just have to keep throwing the bait you have with some patience. It’s a proven lure. The day you threw it the bass may just not been interested in topwaters. Keep trying. The next day you go out might be the best day you’ve ever had.

Now I see why guys buy JDM rods.

Please show ANY scientific studies that link moon phases to bass behavior. I have looked and the only studies I found showed no connection. As far as gravity goes, the moons gravitational pull on a bass is so weak that your boat has more gravitational pull on a fish than the moon does. Tides are controlled by the moon because oceans are so large but even the great lakes don't have any tides that even a light wind can't negate. Moonlight can effect feeding patterns where they might feed more at night during bright, moonlit nights, but that also may cause them to feed less during the day when most anglers are fishing.

Extended warranties are there not for your protection but to provide pure profit for the store who sold it to you. Stores require employees to sell warranties because of how profitable they are. Keep your money. The odds are in your favor that you will come out ahead by not buying the extended warranty.

I don't use anything over 20lb braid on my baitcasters and haven't experienced the line digging in. One of the big advantages of braid is its thin diameter. Using a thicker line just so it matches the diameter of mono doesn't make sense to me. If, you fish water where your line gets dragged over rocks or is prone to abrasion, thicker braid will survive better. Abrasion is not an issue for me so the thinner line that allows lures to run deeper is my choice.

I make all my own leaders. I use wire and hardware that are comparable to the lures I'm using. For small jigs or plastics, I use the thin wire that I can tie. For larger baits, I use different wire and hardware. When the wire gets kinked up, I cut off the snaps and split rings and replace the wire. So what if the fish can see them. They can also see the treble hooks hanging from my baits and they still try to eat those. Like braided line, if they were smart enough to figure out that wire is bad, they'd be smart enough not to try to eat hunks of wood, metal and plastic.

Several years ago, after spending hours fishing for and not catching what I thought were fish that I was marking on my depth finder, I bought an under water camera. Every time I saw what I assumed was a school of bait or game fish on the Lowrance, I’d stop and drop the camera over the side to have a look. I was never able to see fish of any kind. It was always either leaves or some other kind of junk or debris suspended in the water. Im sure there are times when what you see are fish, but those marks aren’t always bait or game fish.

Have you got a cap on your truck? This is what I have mounted inside the cap on the ceiling. I don't have the longest bed so I mounted it on an angle. I can get 4, 7 footers hanging.

The Johnson Silver Minnow was one of my main lures on my many Canadian fly-in fishing trips. I always used a 4 inch white or yellow twister tail as a trailer. I did find that most of the pork trailers I tried absolutely killed the action of the lure.

Either a rod rack that hangs from the ceiling of the cap over the bed of my pickup, or the rod box in my boat.

I’ve been using the Stingray hydrofoil on my boat since the middle 90’s when there were few choices of hydrofoils available. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do. I can get on plane faster and stay there at much lower speeds. It saves me quite a lot on fuel.

I’m a big fan of Case plastics. I don’t know why there are only a few companies that offer plastics that sink that are not shaped like a Senko. Case’s Salty Sinking Shad and Salty Sinking Minnow are two of my favorites. I also think the baits look better than they used to when Charlie Case owned the company.

Ah to be young and healthy. I have a hard time standing long enough to pee... Don’t get me started about how long THAT takes these days.