WIGuide

Haha that's impressive right there, I would think it would be some sort of record. I don't know the details of the tournament, but it was one of the big bass format they scheduled down on a lake in Florida with a slot limit. Nobody caught one bigger than the slot, so it turned into a tournament of catching the heaviest 14 incher!

I leave mine on and never use it. Decent reels have good enough drags I don't see a need to back reel. If I need a little extra line I can pull it out and if I need more pressure for whatever reason I can feather the side of the spool.

Usually I use two different setups for swimbaits in that range. For the 3.8" I'll throw those on a 6'6" M/F St. Croix Extreme with 12 lb. fluoro and the 4.8" I'll bump up to 7'1" St. Croix Victory MH/F also with 12 lb. fluoro

I have a couple crankbaits that I've had mixed success with. They are water activated and you can test them by wetting your fingers and touching both hook hangers. The crankbaits I've used have a red light inside that lights up the eyes when it's making sounds as well. I only have experience with the crankbaits, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy them. Even when the battery runs out, they're still a solid bait.

Have you ever considered fishing as a co-angler for a season? If I could go back to when I started, I think that would have given me a huge jump in gaining knowledge. I've figured things out to some extent, but it took a lot of falling flat on my face to do so. Be sure you're keeping an open mind when you get on the water. If you get it too engrained in your head that this is how you caught them in practice and that's how it's going to happen in the tournament you have a tendency to tune everything else out. You're almost always going to have to make adjustments and changes over the course of the day. In fact, some of my best finishes have come in tournaments did terrible prefishing. I think it's because any preconceived notion had been thrown out the window and I just had to put the pieces together on the fly. Something else that could possible help is to use a gopro or similar action camera for one even just to go back and watch yourself from a different perspective. When you aren't "in the moment" you might realize you're doing things you wouldn't notice during the tournament day.

They can work in both scenarios. During high skies, they're normally held up in the shade and when it's overcast they'll get out and roam a little more. If it's raining, I feel the fish have a tendency to target food above them, whether they're looking up from the surface disturbance, or if they're just more aggressive in general, but I've had great success during both conditions. When it's raining, I will work it further away from the edges of vegetation, and I'll also throw it around other cover opposed to the high skies where I usually only work them over vegetation and a foot or two past the edge.

In my experience with boot tails, they're hitting it to kill it. When I feel them hit, I'm swinging for the fences. If for whatever reason they aren't eating like they should, I'll try giving them a split second before I crack them, and if that doesn't work something is just slightly off with the bait either color or size so then I start to experiment with that. In the end, whatever works for you is the right way.

I've caught a few over the years. 1 on a square bill, one on Yum Dinger, and the oddest was on a Bronzeye Frog!

Both are good units for the same price. I'd go to a shop that has both Lowrance and Garmin units and play around with them to see which seems easier for you to operate. Personally, I prefer Lowrance, but there is a lot of love for Garmin units out there too.

Congratulations! Get that thing broke in and get some slime on the carpet!

This past weekend my Dad an I fished our clubs tournament over in western Wisconsin on Balsam Lake. It's an interesting fishery with a ton of fish, but not a whole lot of size to go with it. Temps were hovering around 90 during the day with little wind and the bass were post spawn, but not far enough to really be schooled up out deep. We caught most of our keepers in grass flats between 5-8' deep on wacky rigs. Fishing shallower or deeper still resulted in fish, but they were little ones. Over the course of the day we only managed to catch 7 keepers out of the 50-60 fish we caught. Our biggest came off a small piece of structure we hadn't prefished and I didn't even realize was there until we passed it running to our first spot. Overall it was a fun day, and at the end of it we ended up weighing 10.26 with our best 5. Despite the measly weight, we ended up finishing in the money in 9th place.

There's a small lake I go to generally at least a few times a year that had a winter kill a few years back. I would go knowing I wouldn't normally catch many, but what I would catch would be worth it. Those fish that survived the kill had an overabundance of food and less competition so their growth rate went way up. If they weren't big already, they got big quick which made it pretty fun.

They'll look different depending on what kind of grass and it's growth stage. I don't have any screen shots handy, but if you're looking to figure it out on your own, find some emergent grass and look at those edges on side scan for comparison.

A little elbow grease may be necessary depending on how long the old numbers have been on. Are they on the decals of the 175 or do you have just the straight aluminum version?

@slonezp & @12poundbass ??? Thanks for the laugh guys!

Each one has it's own pump to provide even pressure on each side. I got a heck of a deal on it over the winter and finally installed it when the other one went down.

I agree with @Mike L, the cover will dictate the rod power not the frog itself.

I had wanted a Power Pole for quite some time, but it had always been on the wish list until last year when I upgraded boats it came with an 8' Blade. It worked great, until late in the year it started making noises that sounded like it was low on fluid. The pump was mounted in a pretty inaccessible location, but with some work I found it was in fact low on fluid so I added some and it quieted right back down and continued working as normal. I noticed the fluid in the reservoir was pretty dark compared to what I added. I did some research online and found that the hydraulic fluid should be changed when it gets too dark colored and there's a color scale somewhere out there to compare it to. Since it was so close to the end of the year, I decided to wait until this year to do the flush and while I was at it, I would move the pump to a more accessible location. In the process, I realized the leak in my pump was coming from between the pump and the valve body. I contacted Power Pole to see if there was a seal that needed to be replaced and was told the unfortunate news the pump would have to be sent in for service. I pulled the pump and stuck it in the mail thinking it would be down for some time, but to my surprise the pump was ready to ship the same day they received it. Had it not been for FedEx not showing up when they said they would, total down time would have been a total of 4.5 days, but it ended up being just under a week. I'm beyond impressed given that I live on the opposite side of the country. Best of all, it was completely covered with the exception of the cost of shipping the pump to them. I've always heard good things about their customer service team, but WOW! I'm super impressed and have nothing but good things to say from this experience. It's good to see there are still companies out there who care about their customers. I'm not associated with them in any way, but if you're on the fence about choosing a shallow water anchor, I can confidently say you can't go wrong with a Power Pole.

If you don't have a remote oil fill, un-strap the tape and and lift it up to get a better view. You might try cleaning the outside of the tank to make it easier to see.

No problem, I thought I had it included in my last one, but apparently I was just thinking it, you'll want to pry up from the bottom in the middle as it's hinged on top of that. Installing the new one won't be too hard, it doesn't look like you have a stepped transom so that eliminates a lot of complications. The most unnerving part would be drilling holes in your boat. I'd suggest buying a transducer mounting plate that way if you make a mistake you don't have to keep putting more holes in the hull.

On the bracket that mounts to the boat, it's a breakaway mount so take a screwdriver and pop it free and that whole center section will pop up. The screws that hold it to the boat will be behind that portion.

I think you hit the nail on the head DVT

You can swap the direction of the transducer, or you can change the settings in the SideVu menu. There should be a sonar setup menu when in SideVu mode that says flip left/right. Most side imaging units have that option as depending on the hull, some instillations require you to mount the transducer opposite. My boat is a perfect example as my side scan transducer is mounted to the bottom of the built in setback. If the transducer was mounted so left reads left and right reads right, the wire would be coming out the front and would make a big loop that would catch water and/or obstructions while running or fishing. Being able to switch the reading on the unit allows for a much more streamline instillation.

That must have been quite the sight and one heck of a ride!

Had one on my old Motorguide, I didn't think it really eliminated anything, but it was nice to be able to remove the prop really easily.