WIGuide

A marine starting battery will be fine running that stuff, but if you are thinking of upgrading to bigger electronics, it'd be worth looking into a dual purpose.

I may have seen faster, but had no first hand experience in them. My uncle owned a Gambler with a Yamaha 300 HPDI. Probably the least fishing friendly bass boat I've ever been in but wow was it fast! The high pressure fuel pump took a crap on him and it would still run mid 70's when it was missing like crazy. When it was running right, I don't know he ever learned to drive it to it's full potential, but the guy he bought it from said it'd easily run in the 103 to 105 range.

There are two different methods to try, going beast mode to get the fish out from under as quick as possible. It might be worth moving to a heavy powered rod to aid in that one, but it can be done with a MH rod too. I'm not sure on what actual poundage to set the drag at, but if you're using 17 lb. line you should be able to have it pretty tight. The other option may seem counterintuitive, but when you hook them only apply slight pressure on the fish and slowly work them out from under the dock. Generally the harder you pull the harder they'll fight so if you don't pull very hard, you can somewhat coax them out from under the dock without as much resistance. Try both and see what works best for you. I feel either would let you land far better than 50%.

A few things to try would be to make sure the engine is set to be trimmed down as far as possible as that will aid in any possibly of plaining. I'm not sure that small of an engine is going to be able to produce enough power to plane out though. If you can move any weight towards the front that will help as well and although I don't think engine height will be that critical, you could try moving the engine up higher to where the cavitation plate is about even with the bottom of the hull and see how that goes.

Interesting first post. Are you really that much of a Karen that you have to come on a bass fishing forum and bump a dinosaur thread to complain? Wow...I'm sure your a PEACH of a neighbor! YIKES! Reading this post really makes me glad I don't have HOA's and can do what I want with the property I own.

I've got mine up a little ways maybe 6" to 8". Maybe not helpful on the Ultrex, but Mine is high enough just the top of it sticks out of the water with the TM all the way up. I don't have any issues with it catching the trolling motor head.

I think you probably made the right call. Gambling on a boat with a FICHT Evinrude isn't an overly sound financial decision. Sure it could be a good one, but there's a reason boats with them are normally listed for less with those motors and newer Evinrudes. If they were the older carbed models those were good motors, but unless you're incredibly skilled like @Way2slow you're better off staying away.

Good information. No matter how much time someone has spent on the water it's always a good to get a little refresher!

Nothing wrong with that mentality at all, but you know full well going in at some point you won't be forgiven for something and you have to deal with that. I think that's my biggest issue here is how he seems to be turning this around as some sort of targeted attack on him and how that's taking away from how he provides for his family. If how he finishes is that big of a financial impact on his family, I feel like he would have called the TD to clarify. He also would have made sure he didn't fish a tournament on Lake Murray during an off limits period getting himself DQ'ed from the Elite event either where the financial impact is considerably higher.

I don't think this sand bar is the dam in question. It doesn't line up the same with what we're seeing in the screen shot and if your black dot is where the camera is the boat is passing on the opposite side of where you're showing its path on your scree shot. Being open to public fishing and being part of tournament waters are not synonymous. Take a look at the situation below, these two lakes are open to public fishing there's no law preventing fishing on either one. However, if you have a tournament on one, "tournament waters" would only include one lake as they aren't connected. You can't cast across the road and drag fish from one to the other, you cant jump the road and fish in the other lake and jump back either. How much of any of this is clarified in the pre tournament meeting, I'm unsure as I wasn't there, but I've fished in enough tournaments (BASS affiliated) and not, to know you're made fully aware of how to contact the tournament director if you have any questions, that's what they're there for. I have nothing against Keith's style but his "defending the truth" to me in this case seems more like an "I screwed up" and not wanting to own up to it.

I absolutely love my Trokar's so 1 Trokar TK130's 2 Trokar TK110 3 Don't do it often enough to pay up so I've got a mix of Zman, some off brand, and Eagle Claw 4 TK225 even though I want to try the new TK25's as well. If I need a bigger size I use the VMC spinshots

The Maxxum, Edge, and Fortrex all use the same foot pedal. Personally I think Minnkota puts their buttons on the wrong side of the pedal but that's a different debate. Try adjusting how you put your foot on the pedal so the switch is more under the ball of your foot instead of just your toe. You don't need to line your foot up to fit inside of the heel cup. To directly answer the question though, no they don't sell a different foot pedal for them.

Depending on the settings I would think it could. It'll pick up my little 3 or 4" dropshot baits on 2d so I would think you could see a salamander as well.

Got out prefishing for next weekends derby this past weekend. Managed to find a spot stacked up with some prespawn girls. Caught the first one on my first cast actually and almost lost it being more surprised than anything, but overall I caught quite a few fish until the weather changed. The wind switched around and picked up, the clouds came in, and temps dropped from the mid 70's down to the upper 50's. I feel like the crazy weather this spring, has the fish somewhat skittish to move up and are hanging a bit behind the water temp compared to normal. I was seeing temps anywhere from 59 up to 66, but very little activity up shallow at all. Overall, it was a blast to get out and catch them, but I'm not sure how much if any of what I found will play in the tournament. I guess only time will tell.

Looks like a great day!

It really depends for me. I love to catch fish so if I've found something that's absolutely crushing it I'm most likely going to ride that wave as long as I can. On the same token though, I almost always have at least half a dozen rods on the deck with various things rigged up so "experimenting" may be a few casts here and there where I think something else might work. That may come back to me being a junk fisherman at heart.

Bilge pump is going to be universal. I don't know off hand what aerator pump they use. You'll have to pull that one out to check. Theoretically those are all universal as well, but that's if you're starting from scratch. It's a lot easier to find one that's the same configuration to fit the plumbing already in there. Some are replicable cartridge style pumps that it's as easy as popping one out and the new one in.

I'd go with repair AND buy a new one. With 4" of tip gone, the rod won't fish the same as it once did, but it very well may excel at something it didn't before, so it's worth a few dollars to repair it. Buy a new one for whatever you used it for previously since that'll be the hole in your collection.

Take a look at Suffix Nanobraid. I had picked up a noticeable amount of distance when I switched to that.

Russell Marine used to make one, but it looks like they've been discontinued.

I'm lucky enough to live in an area where I have over 100 different lakes within about an hour and a half drive so it's usually that's about the max, but there are a few places I like to fish that are a little further away. A few places on the Misissippi are 2-2.5 and that's about my max for 1 day, if it's longer I'll spend the night and at least get a 2nd day out of it.

We switched ours up a few years ago since our club had kept growing. Originally we payed the top 3 or 4 places depending on how many showed up. We had some issues on days with poor weather conditions, late season tournaments for teams not doing well, or some just not showing up if they didn't think they could win after prefishing. All of these situations left less money on the table for those that did show up or tough it out. The solution that was proposed was that switch our club to prepay for all 6 tournaments up front. In addition we spread the money out further down into the standings to give teams a greater chance to at least get something out of the day. Our payouts are based off a roughly 95% payback the additional money along with club dues going to the club to cover expenses and improvements. The below is based off of our capped 30 boat field. Place Prize % 1 730 32% 2 380 17% 3 220 10% 4 186 8% 5 130 6% 6 110 5.5% 7 105 5% 8 100 4.5% 9 95 4% 10 90 3.5% BB 300 100%

I've seen Jimmy Houston do some pretty incredible things when it comes to casting accuracy with his roll casts. My parents and I have gotten to know him a little over the years, at least enough that he knew he could trust us to used as props if needed. In one seminar, someone had asked a question about setting the hook. We were sitting about 30-40 feet away at the moment and he threw a bait landing it perfectly under my dad's foot and told him to step on that for him so he could demonstrate. The other time, he was actually talking about casting accuracy and demonstrating while he was talking. He told my dad not to move and threw a cast that landed in between his legs on the little bit of seat of the chair that was showing. I feel like I'm better than average when it comes to accuracy, but that's a completely different level.

Check a few different mapping sources to see what they show. I think it'd be worth graphing the area to see what's there regardless. I've seen boats sit on spots for a long time and there's nothing there....including fish haha. If there's boat other boats there more often though, there's a pretty good chance there's something there. Now if you're on the water and you drive over close and try graphing while someone is there or get close and drop a waypoint so you can come back I'd say that's crossing the line.

I've only had one actual close call with a kayak on the water as most around here seem pretty good about keeping themselves visible, but there's one guy on a lake I fish a lot who likes to take his kayak out in the evenings right out in front of his place. The problem is, his place is right next to the boat ramp and what compounds the issue is as the sun is setting he completely blends into the silhouette, with his dark colored kayak, his dark clothing, and lack of light. The first time I ever saw him out, I had shut down already, but I was only about 40 yards or so from him and despite paying attention to what I was doing that was the first time I had seen him because the angle changed enough that the background was a little lighter. It could have been closer, but it was more along the lines of "What if.." that made it close. Had he been further down the weedline I may have run him over. Now whenever I fish there in the evening, I shut down way earlier to avoid any issues, but it's because I know there's a chance he's there. For someone who doesn't have that information it could make for a bad situation. As important as it is for boaters to pay attention to avoid any possible situations that could arise, it's equally as important for kayakers to make sure they remain as visible as possible also help avoid these situations. They sit low to the water and can easily get lost in the waves at any distance.