dsidle61

have you ever tried lifting it before?? Those 14ft ones can get pretty heavy you will almost definitely need a second person to help you load and unload. My friends 15ft one is to heavy to lift even with two guys in their mid 20s and he had to get a trailer for it. Just something to keep in mind.

lol yeah I cant give up my honey hole bc its a stones throw from my place and honestly its a good 20-30 min drive depending on where you are in middleburg. The closest thing to you that I know of would be black creek and doctors lake. To be honest I really don't put my boat in much on this side of town other than my one spot. ive done black creek one time just recently only for about 45 min and had one miss. Ive heard doctors lake has some good fishing.

You should be good with that for sure. Just put some reflective tape on it. A buddy of mine had a 12 ft boat he put in a 6 foot truck bed with no problems. Just throw 2 rachet straps on it and youre good to go.

Im trying to forget about what I did lol. Our lures took a beating today, on the one that I lost it took one of my back hooks off the popr with him. And AK is short one of his favorite cranks thanks to me. Its raining like crazy right now hopefully this will all blow through and can get some aggressive fish tomorrow after the rains.

I'm not saying I don't have luck with soft plastics but the only ones I throw are senkos and I barely have the patience for them sometimes lol. Our crew has been on a popr kick lately but it slowed down with the artic blast. before that cranks were the go to lures.

that's correct, if you drive down 95 and see the area that looks like a nuke went off, that's where its gonna be. Try expanding your horizons outside the soft plastics. That's what I started out fishing down here and I was stuck on average fish (14-17") range, ever since ive gotten a little outside the box ive been catching my 4s,5s,6s and 8s.

I agree with the dicks by the town center, it has a much bigger selection than the one over by me in OP. As far as academy I think they are both equal (southside and OP) in fact I liked the southside one better bc they had frog hooks in stock both times I went there. Come summer time that may not be the case however. You can never go wrong with online, if you want something specific but can wait a few days then just go that route. Im hoping the weather holds off Saturday so I can get the boat out in the warm weather. Might be good if it rains later in the day so the fish will be active before the front moves in. Stopped at my pond today on the way home from work and the fish were a bit more active. Had a nice one get away on the pop-r which is currently residing on a log across the pond (thank god for the boat) and caught one decent one and missed one on the senko. Gonna give them a break tomorrow and let them come up a little shallower w the water warming up a bit.

To me any spot with no signs is fair game. If its in a neighborhood or there are houses where you may be on their property just ask. 7/10 times they will have no problems with you fishing there. Im lucky to have my main spot where two houses are empty right where I fish so I can walk the back yards but I know eventually someone will move in and ill have to ask. If its a HOA community its almost not worth the hassle as I found out w AK and Czar, gated communities also not worth it. Other than that youll never know until you cast a line. Don't judge any pond til you try it, I just caught my personal best 8lb 3oz about a week ago in a pond right next to my main spot that I used to see little kids fishing for bream out of and you can cast across it with almost no effort. I used to never fish it bc of that and I took AK there a little while back and he caught some fish out of it so since then ive been fishing it and its produced a 4lb and 8lb among others in that time.

stopped at the pond by my place today for about 25 minutes to celebrate the fact that it got over 30 degrees for the first time in two days. Was throwing the senko and fishing it painfullllllllllly slow. I mean to the point where I was getting bored lol. But it paid off In the end caught a nice chunky 18". I didn't even feel the thing tap my line I just went to bounce my senko and it felt like I had a patch of weeds. I started to reel in and the weeds started swimming so I set the hook on her. After I saw how that thing hit I called it a day bc these fish are still hibernating. Hopefully the warmer temps thurs, fri, and Saturday wake them up bc the boat is getting wet this weekend no matter what.

I got into some fish today but couldn't find anything consistent. I caught one and missed one on each the popr crank and senko. I got all my hits within the first 10 minutes of each bait then it would go dead. Switch baits 2 hits in 10 minutes then dead again. Nothing special biggest was probably 16-17ish and the one I caught on the senko was maybe 8" long lol. Might try some evening fishing w AK tomorrow in the boat around 7. Well see if that brings us luck after that we are basically shut down until Thursday. Temps supposed to be as low as 11 degrees w the windchill here in Jax on Tuesday and still down in the 30s Wednesday. But a nice warm up Thursday and into the 70s for the weekend so hopefully ill get to put the boat to work this weekend a bunch.

yep that's my only concern and why I wont put both of them on the boat. but like you said I don't see the 29 ever draining. Even in the summer when ill be fishing the mornings I don't see myself going more than 6 hours at a time without a break where I can switch batteries. unless the fishing is just that good!

Gotcha ill have to keep an eye on the water I appreciate the advice. I went all out on the batteries like I said and got the 29 series (and the boxes). Right now im only comfortable carrying the one with us and I don't think we will ever drain it the weight limit sticker in the boat is keeping me from tossing the second one in there lol. Today we spent 3 hours on the water and I was definitely playing with the speeds a lot plus add in the wind we would drive into and then drift down and it was at 65% when I hooked it back up to the charger so im comfortable that we could go 8 hours on one battery but I don't think either of us would make it that long without some lunch lol.

When you say water levels are you talking for the boat or for the fish? lol the battery is on charge right now for some use hopefully tomorrow in the bit warmer weather. I got two batteries incase of an all day trip I can switch them out halfway through just to be safe.

Yes today was a good experimental day for me. We spent about 3 hours on the water in some decent wind and didn't even bring it hallway down. So im pretty happy, I didn't skimp on the battery for this reason. definitely have an oar though lol that'll be AK's job if we ever drain it!! hahahha

Just a little Minnkota endura 30lb thrust 30" long. Thought about going for the 45-55 range but guy at bass pro told me this pushes his 12 foot jon with no problems. It worked very well for me today.

Ok so I know we are out Lou for a few months and we decided to give the competition a rest until he comes back in May with some fresh new ideas. Until then however I just wanted to provide a place for us Floridians (natives, transplants, or just visiting) to post our fishing stories and our fish small, large or strange. Just to be clear im not stepping in for Lou and Im not going to be keeping track of lengths or anything like that. There is no need to declare yourself in or anything like that. If you are fishing in Florida feel free to post your fish and stories here to share with the group of us that have been doing this for over 6 months now and we will share our stories with you. As for myself I am going to be getting into some different, and hopefully much better, types of fishing this month thanks to this little guy that jumped in the back of my truck at bass pro the other day. Its no fancy bass boat but its perfect for the types of places ill be fishing. Took it for a test run for about 30 min in the 40 degree temps and whipping wind up here in Jax and it rode like a dream. Ill be out with AK for most of the day tomorrow hopefully we stumble across some fish!

I have read a bunch of people complaining about it being unstable. I took it out today it was 40 degrees and wind whipping pretty good. I had my wife in It with me and I stood up and rocked it to see what kind of stability it had bc I have been on 15'ers before and I was more than happy w the stability of this one. With two seats (not super high up) I think this will work out perfectly for me.

Im jealous of these beasts you guys have. I actually just picked up my tracker topper 1036 last night from bass pro. I fish mainly ponds and small lakes so right now this was a good fit for me. I know im pretty limited in what I can do to such a small boat but first on my wish list is gonna be seats. don't have to be anything fancy I would like swivel ones though. If anyone has done some work of their own on a boat my size id greatly appreciate any help. Im skeptical about building 2 platforms for weight reasons.

Funny bc mine came about a week ago and also happen to be the biggest of my life. Caught this 8lb 3oz on the popr. to get an idea of the length that measuring ruler its laying on is 24" long.

thanks for putting this all together for us Lou. I definitely had the best month of my time on this site which has been since somewhere around july ish. And that 8 pounder that I got was more than 2 pounds over my PB. Its also the second consecutive month ive caught my PB hopefully I can keep that streak up. Im gonna wait and see what next months competition looks like before joining up. I may just enjoy trying to catch the elusive 10lb and trying some new things and places. but regardless ill still be posting my fish and stories for everyone.

Right I get that but say in January I catch 5 fish January 1-4 and post them all on January 5 what's the difference between that and if I would catch them January 26-30? We all know the rules we are here for fun first and to share our stories if he caught his fish from Christmas Day til now it's all fair game. You can't ban a guy from playing just bc he caught his fish at the end of the month.

Not gonna lie and keep in mind I'm the one who would be knocked out but he is following all the rules put forth. I mean what's the difference between catching them all in one week or throughout the month. If someone caught all of theirs in the first week nobody would complain.

alright guys and gals here she is. so as most of you can assume caught it on a popr. Rained all morning when I was supposed to go out w AK and Czar, got a break around 1030 so I decided to head out to my spot up the street. was working the smaller of the two ponds w no action at first. Was about to head over to the second pond but I decided to work this weeded shoreline that I missed a nice one at the other day. This thing hit literally 2 feet in front of me, I coulda picked it out of the water w my bare hands lol. With all the rain it was pretty murky water or else I probably could have seen it where it was sitting. Still put up a nice fight took out a bunch of drag before I got it on shore. So as you can see the tape measure stops at 24" but its also hanging off the front lol so im just gonna call it 24" and as for weight it was 8lb 3oz. My previous pb was 6lbs. Lou ive completely lost track of what I have left to cull but I think its either an 18 or 18.5 so this should put me at 105 or 104.5.

Ladies and gents I can officially say I am this months winner (I could possibly give ak a run even if he ninjas his fish) with the pig I just pulled in. I'm still at my pond so I'm going to make you guys suffer a little while until I get home! But I will say it's a PB by a lot for me

ok so the story of my fish. had to go out w the popr bc it has absolutely been on FIRE lately for our crew. any way to get topwater strikes im gonna do it, fishing the senkos and lizards and jigs almost puts me to sleep. so I got out after work around 330, missed a nice fish on my first cast. not as big as the one I got but in the 18-20 range for sure. the big guy smacked my popr about 10 feet in front of me scared me to death and I ripped my lure back on shore, just tossed it back out to the spot in front of me and popped it once and it smashed it put up a hell of a fight for being so close to shore. took out some drag and mangled my lure. snapped a hook off the back and bent the front ones all up. that was the extent of my action for the day, hopefully getting out tomorrow w AK and czar if the rain holds off, I haven't got to 100" in any month so that's gonna be my goal, I think I have an 18 or 18.5 to get rid of. heres the pic of the lure.