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I would have thrown a smaller spinnerbait as well as different colors, probably something darker even though white isn't a terrible choice. Do you fish this pond often?

It usually is, but it still interrupts my fishing lol.

Boat landings are the funniest! One of the best I've seen was this older couple. The wife was younger than the guy and I'd say probably pushing 300 lbs and the husband was quite the opposite. Anyway, the landing at this particular lake had two ramps. One of them has a hole on one side at the end of the concrete which can be reached with a trailer tire when the water is low and it just so happened to be. The lady starts to back the trailer down with their van, decides to pick that ramp, and what do you know manages to hit the hole right in the middle and the trailer drops. She didn't notice it, and her husband didn't either. He's in the water monkeying around trying to get the boat on the trailer and finally does after much struggle. Wife is still sitting in the van tries to pull it out and does nothing but starts roasting a tire on the 1 wheeled wonder. She tries to back up to get a little more run at it and you hear the axle scraping on the concrete. They start hollering at one another as she guns it again and gets nowhere. After another 10 minutes of arguing and then getting the boat back off the trailer, the lady gets in the water. She walks over and picks up that side of the trailer with one hand as the guy pulls up. Then they spend another 10 minutes getting the boat back on the trailer. It was quite the entertaining half hour for me as a little kid!

Probably a bit overkill but you'll be good to go.

All lower units should be the same as far as changing the lower unit oil. There are two screws going into the side of it and the procedure is as follows: 1. Trim or tilt motor all the way down and place a drain pan under lower unit. 2. Remove bottom screw, then top screw. 3. Let drain. 4. Check seals or gaskets on screws. Mercury uses a felt washer. I don't know about Mercury's that old but I would imagine it's the same. These usually need to be replaced at every change. Scrape any of the old washers off the lower unit before re-installing screws. 5. Start filling lower unit from bottom hole and fill until oil comes out the top hole. 6. Replace top screw before removing fill nozzle. 7. Remove fill and replace bottom screw. 8(optional) remove top screw again and slowly continue to fill the little that was lost when replacing the bottom screw. 9. Clean up and you're good to go! I'd recommend wearing latex gloves while doing this since lower unit oil has a very potent smell to it and does not wash off easily. Changing it should be done probably every 6 months or so. Be sure to look at the old oil as it's coming out. If it's go a milky whitish tint to it it means it has been exposed to water, which requires immediate attention. Usually it's caused from the seals on the screws, but it could also be from the rear seal. Pretty easy job overall though. It should take 15 minutes up to about half an hour at the most.

Both Stren an Berkley offer blue lines.

I would have taken this as a sign lol. I'd rather not hear music, a race, or a ball game when I'm out in the boat. My phone is annoying enough during those times. If you are one of those who insist on it, they make these great inventions called head phones! Let the rest of us enjoy the peace and quiet.

I've looked at a few smart phone apps and some seem to be ok but I haven't found one to do everything I want it to.

Quite a few shows are filmed in private waters. You have to remember some of the older guys aren't fishing the tours anymore so they aren't traveling all around the country. It takes more time and ton of money not only to go around the country fishing and then have the expense of a film crew on top of it. Some are saying his show is just one long commercial, but it's more educational than given credit for on here. Yes he's putting in plugs for his sponsors, he's sponsored....that's kind of a requirement. He's teaching you how to catch more fish though. Fishing private waters helps that because he can go out and get enough fish for show fishing however he wants to for that show. The man can still flat out fish though! If the man is such a hater, he should try fishing against him.

Awesome footage man!

Either 10 or 12 will work great for your application. If you fish around heavier cover, I'd throw 12 instead though.

I'm not sure where people get this idea that you can't fish slow with a high speed reel. Those with this misconception need to remember there is a handle on the side of them that the slower you turn it the less line it picks up and the faster you turn it the more line it picks up. Just because you fish a 7.1:1 reel doesn't mean the bait is going to be moving x.xx mph no matter what.

Remember trickle means slow. It's not going to charge it as fast as a normal battery charger. Trickle chargers are meant to be used more to maintain a charge than to charge it from being dead. Being that it does have a 6A side it will charge faster but not as fast as a normal one.

Bummer, but hey at least it works out and stays hidden!

You aren't limited to what you fish by the name of the style of boat. Given the type of water you fish I think you'd benefit from the layout of a bass boat. There are very few inland lakes that a bass boat can't handle.

My rod locker is pretty small so I just use Rod Gloves and Reel Gloves on all my setups. If I had a bigger boat I'd still use them in conjunction with an organizer.

If you've already got it, wouldn't it be easier to just measure it?

Other than gas there's really not much of a difference in operating cost. Maintenance will be slightly higher on a bigger boat regardless. When you replace batteries you'll be replacing 3 or 4 instead of 1 or 2. Your going to have that even on a bigger aluminum boat though so that's a wash. If you look around enough, you can find those that have been well taken care of and that'll be pretty evident. To make sure the motor is good you'd want to do a compression test on it. Depending on how old you're talking, you might want to look into getting the oil injection system taken out and run premixed gas. You'll run through a few more sets of plugs that way, but a few bucks for plugs is a lot cheaper than a new power head. If I were you though, I'd go glass.

Pretty simple to install and definitely a diy job.

It looks good although I'm pretty sure you could have taken the extra out of the front end of the locker. I had the same issue on my 320 which is a 16 footer. I took some foam out and extended it from about 6'8" to just shy of 7'6" and with a little more foam removal it would hold a 7'6".

You can also remove the rear tray that gives you access to the pumps and hoses before you run it down to the landing. Leave the back straps on and back it down so the transom is about where it sits in the water if not slightly lower. The added water pressure should make the leak become evident pretty quick. If the lake isn't very close, go with SLO's method.

Certainly not a bad idea. They work on something as small as a kayak all the way up to small bass boats. If it's worth it depends on how you fish.

Yum Dingers and some Trokar EWG Hooks. 4/0 is great for the 5" Dinger.

There's nothing saying that you couldn't use it the way it is. You'd just have to be conscious to "swim" it instead of working it in once place like you would a drop shot. If you're just going to add weight to the bottom, you might as well eliminate the wires then too and make a true drop shot instead. You'd do that using just a small hook and a drop shot weight.

I use the regular hollow bodied frogs the most. I'll fish it anywhere and in the heavier salad and pads I'll use that more. I'll use a popper when the wind starts to pick up or if the water is really dirty. You want to create more commotion so they can find it. I'll usually shy away from the poppers in the thick stuff because they tend to want to get caught in the grass more than a normal hollow bodied frog. I'll switch to a solid body frog when I feel the fish are chasing baits a little more and also in more open water.