WIGuide

I'll have to give that one a try!

Bobby Lane has a few videos about it as does ***. Some of the "chatter" I've heard about it is throwing big 1+ oz. chatterbaits to off shore structure. The heavy ones are among some of the most popular chatterbaits among the pro's even though they are some of the least popular in the general public.

It certainly isn't shallow haha. I wasn't looking so much at a particular depth, just looking over a map to find a real world example of where a creek meets the river channel.

Tried some topwater the other day...I think they liked it but they just didn't have enough power to break through the ice thick enough to drive a car on....maybe if I find the right color that they REALLY want, it'll change my success. Haha

The Mercury 7.5e is only the equivalent of about a 3.5hp outboard, the 7.5 comes from the 750 watts of power at the prop shaft so you wouldn't have to rule it out yet.

Congrats on the new to you boat! As long as everything is solid, you got yourself a deal. I'd be saving up for a new TM though as technology has advanced a lot over the years and they've got a lot more power now. It'll help a lot if you fish in any wind, grass, or especially if there's a combination of the two.

I side with @J Francho on this. Actually seems like a pretty cool little boat. I don't think it's 12K cool, but still. I'm thinking they'll sell ok, heck Craigcat has stayed in business and even though they have a bigger motor and are fun to drive, that's about all you can do with them and those are 14k. Maybe it's just a little nostalgia kicking in since I got my start with a little 2 man Bass Hound 10.2, but this seems like a grown up version of something like that.

Welcome to the form from you slightly southern neighbor! You definitely live in a good area to target those brown fish, but don't overlook the green bass opportunities around there either! Definitely one of my favorite areas to fish!

Before I got a trolling motor with spot lock, I used them all the time, however I used them to stay positioned on a spot. I had a dark brown one, that when I got into position off shore, I'd drop it just off to the side of the boat so I'd have a reference point to hold on, or if I was blown off the spot while fighting a fish I could pull right back up to where I was. The dark color was very hard to see from a distance and I'd drop it on the side of the boat with less boat traffic so other anglers wouldn't notice. Plus if I did forget it or couldn't find it, most guys would pull up and make casts at the bouy instead of where the fish were. Since getting spot lock, I'm not sure I've put one in the water, and when I changed boats this summer, I'm pretty sure they didn't even make it in the boat. I might throw one back in there when I fill it up next year, but it won't get much use.

Here's a more real world example of what was illustrated. The main channel could have a change in direction that could be a point, but many times it's just a flat break into the channel. There will always be at least 2 points where the feeder comes into the main channel though which is more clearly illustrated above.

If you can take a look at the St. Croix Victory "The Grunt". It's a 7'1" MH/F and would do very well with 5/16 oz. jig. It has a nice soft tip to it so it handles the lighter jigs with ease, it still has enough backbone if you want to move to a heavier jig as well.

There are so many aspects to enjoy when it comes to fishing and that's what makes it so great. The individual can choose to cater their experience to their personal liking. I think the statement is rather pointing out that there is far more to fishing than the actual catch itself and the fact that a large percentage of the time while fishing, there isn't a fish on the line. It doesn't mean you don't want to, desire to catch fish, or never catch fish, but if you don't on a trip you can still enjoy the experience. The people who I feel this pertains more to is those that only find enjoyment out of the actual fish catch itself. I've fished with a few people that are like that and it makes for a miserable day. Even if it's a good day, they're just never happy unless they actually have a fish on. In my experience, they are also the poorest stewards of our waters and the sport because they're oblivious to beauty and condition of the resource. Nothing but the fish catch matters. In that respect, I agree with the statement.

I have a reel that's been a backup reel for a few years now. The brakes in it must not have been lubed very often (or ever) by the previous owner and they have worn down so far they don't do much of anything anymore. I was still using it up until a few years ago and did pretty well using an educated thumb to cast. I pulled it out for a trip this year though and found out my thumb has lost some of it's education haha. It is possible to cast without brakes and you get used to it, but boy do brakes ever make it easier.

Just as long as after he put the 3rd clamp on it he audibly stated "Yeah, that's not going anywhere!" I don't have any pictures of it and it's nowhere near as janky as what has already been posted, but on a boat I used to have the previous owner must have had some great electrical skills. The front switch panel must have given up the ghost on him and instead of buying a new one for $12 and taking the 5 minutes to un-plugging the female ends from the old switch bank and putting them onto the new one, he just cut all the wires off and left them there. He then had a "marine" dealership wire in a non waterproof switch for the trim up there. My first time I fished in the rain, my motor would trim down and the pump would just continue to run.

I fished a few of these events back when Oakley was the title sponsor and really enjoyed them. The format and strategy is definitely a curveball and it's a refreshing changeup. They were professionally run and I wouldn't hesitate getting in them, in fact now that they're finally having one up my way I was one of the first to throw my hat in the ring.

This link is a list of all the B.A.S.S affiliated clubs in Wisconsin. http://www.wisconsinbassnation.com/sponsors.html Great Lakes Bass, Waupaca Bass, and Wolf River Bass are all pretty good clubs that are usually pretty well represented at the state tournament which would lead one to believe they're pretty competitive.

I think that is 100% what the universe is telling you! haha

Gotcha, it could just be a wacky temp sensor that reads high then or possibly it doesn't sit quite as deep in the water as the others or the transducer is still able to retain some heat from the air. Regardless, if you've adjusted the temp offset I would think it would be fine since you said it seems to read consistently warm.

Just out of curiosity, where is your transducer mounted and what kind of boat or watercraft is it on?

If you don't want to get a tripod you can still accomplish nearly the same thing by just leaning your phone up against something like your tackle box, tree, or boat seat and using the self timer. Most have the selfie lens on the front that allows you to see what it looks like before you even take the picture. A lot of phones have actions that can trigger the auto timer like saying cheese, smiling, or shape recognition for instance starting the timer when it recognize a hand open towards the camera. 2022 was a good year for me both fishing and otherwise. I bought a house, bought a new to me boat, and my GF moved in with me. On the fishing side, with the exception of 1 tournament my dad and I had our best season yet. I feel like a lot of this was due to a lot of mental focus and making good decisions even when things were tough. Not that we ever checked out in the past, but there have been times late in the day and things aren't going your way and you're just not as mentally sharp as you need to be. You can guarantee that's when you'll wiff on a hookset or have something else stupid happen. We stayed mentally tougher this year and multiple times had key fish catches in the later part of the day that sent us up the leaderboard. A few key moments jump into my mind, like our first tournament of the year where we didn't catch our first keeper until almost 1 o'clock and then put a solid limit into the boat and culled a few times in the last hour and a half of fishing which put us in 4th place. Another was a key cull that came in the last 8 minutes of the tournament where we ditched a line burner for the fish on the left again propelling us up the leaderboard. Another thing I'm pretty proud of is how consistent I stayed throughout the fall. I didn't catch anything massive, but I stayed on some good quality fish all fall long and managed to avoid a lot of the feast or famine days that go on up here. Not that my success didn't fluctuate some, but there were a few days some pretty decent sticks I know struggled really bad, and I still managed to catch a decent amount of fish. Like I said, overall 2022 was a pretty dang good year and I hope to keep my foot on the accelerator in 2023!

The St. Lawrence actually has a pretty decent number of largemouth although the percentage of fish big fish are probably of the brown variety it's not impossible for the biggest one to be a bucketmouth. Back in 2015 when the Elites were there, 2 of the top 5 finishes were almost exclusively green fish and pretty dang good weights as well. https://www.bassmaster.com/how-to/news/a-limelight-for-st-lawrence-largemouth/

My fishing goals for 2023 will be to get out on the water as much as possible which is the same every year, but this year I know will be harder given that I have a DIY home addition that I'll have to set aside time to work on. My other fishing goals are as follows in no particular order: Finish in the money in all club tournaments Finish in 1st for season points Qualify for the Wisconsin Bass Nation State Team (I've been sooo close multiple times but I want to get over the hump this year) Continue to improve my offshore game Get better with Active Target Catch a new PB Smallie

We need more specifics to answer something like this. Are you talking in a day of fishing or a season? As others stated, the actual body of water would make a difference as well. When you're talking big fish many times you'll find a monster in a lake with a very low population of that species, simply because they don't have the competition for food and cover. As a great example, I caught my PB walleye on a lake not known for walleyes. I've fished it a ton and have been fishing it almost as long as I've been alive and in those 30+ years I've caught a grand total of 3 walleyes out of that body of water. Sure, I'm not targeting them, but if I was trying to beat out my friends for biggest walleye, I wouldn't head there and fish for them as it may take me another 10 years to catch one. I'd say only if there's a viable population could it be worth while. On a body of water where a 20+ lb. bag for one species isn't out of the norm, just playing the number game, you're better off fishing for the predominant species. You could end up catching 5 5+ pounders in the time it takes to even get a bite from the other species, and even then, you're not guaranteed that it's going to be a big one.

A fair amount I'd say. A few of my close friends as well as my dad are into bass fishing so we're bouncing stuff off one another. I'm sure my gf wishes I didn't talk about it as much as I do, even though she does like fishing, just not to the near religious level I do. Outside of that circle though, not all that much. There are a lot of people around here who fish, but their level of interest and understanding isn't quite the same level. Not trying to make myself sound better than anyone, as I still welcome the discussion if they bring it up, but discussing the type of bobber they use the 3 times a year they fish doesn't really do much for me haha.

I'm lucky to live on one of the best largemouth fisheries in my area, in addition to the 100+ lakes within an hour and a half drive. There's quite a variety with that many individual bodies of water as well as species present in them. My tournament schedule and guide trips dictate a lot of my choices on where to fish, but I love to mix it up and explore new bodies of water or fish somewhere I haven't fished in a while.