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When I got mine, I fished for crappies to learn how to use it better. It's pretty cool watching them inhale your bait or know there's one or more are tracking it down. Pretty cool tool for sure. Better watch our post count though because one or two more comments and we'll have to hear about how terrible it is and how a tournament circuit banned it because we always do like clockwork any time this subject is brought up.

You realize you bought a Ranger and he bought a Tracker right? Rangers still have a matching spare listed as a standard equipment on the RT178.

This spring I swear mother nature has turned bipolar. With temps up and down we never know what we're going to get. Last week we had unseasonably high temps, like record high temps. I believe last Wednesday was nearly 90* and all week the temps were in the 70's and higher. Ice on local lakes seemed to be melting so fast you could see it happen. Even though there are still a lot of little projects I wanted take care of on the boat before the season gets into full swing, this past Friday the urge was too great and instead of working on the boat I decided that even if there was ice left on the lake I was going to go fishing instead. I went to a local lake that normally opens up quicker than others in the area and luckily it was mostly ice free. There were still some floating icebergs, a few iced over bays, and some ice still stuck to the shoreline in places. Main lake water temps were running about 45-47 despite the ice cubes floating around. Day 1 I took some time running the boat around making sure everything still worked and was ready for action. It was fairly windy, but air temps were in the 80's so it felt pretty good. I started on a main lake point with a brush pile with no luck. Tried a little rip rap next to a bit of a drop, again nada. I then hit a few little pockets with the same result. Finally, I ran into one at the mouth of bay/creek on some timber and thought there might be a school there, but after working it over for a few minutes I was no longer convinced. I moved on and found some serious rust that needed to be shaken off. I was coming up to a blow down and pitched a jig at it, mind you this jig was still tied on since last fall...same knot, same trailer, same everything. I thought I saw my line moving, reeled down and set the hook only for my jig to come flying back at me. There was resistance for a second, but with the boat moving and with the wind, I chalked it up to the long winter removing some of my feel and thought I set the hook on a branch. Pitched back, thought I felt it get heavy, set the hook again and again my jig came back. On the same laydown this happened twice more and I started to think I was loosing my mind. Fished for about another 10 minutes and decided to change rods, so as I go to put my jig on the hook hanger...I realized I busted the hook clean off at the bend. The trailer was still perfectly in tack, jig looked great, minus the missing hook ?. As I moved back in this creek, the water temp is usually a few degrees warmer in the spring than the main lake, but the warm weather had me questioning if my graph was reading right. Water temps inside the bay/creek were anywhere from 58-60*!! When I ran into the warmer water I ran into the bass, ended up catching 9 bass, a crappie, lost a few, and had a handful of other bites. Most fish were caught on a Berkley Stunna, with the exception of one on a jig and the biggest one came on a lipless crankbait. Day 2 With rain possible in the forecast I waited until afternoon when it was supposed to have passed. I headed back to the same lake with my girlfriend and wouldn't you know it, a rain shower popped up right after we got on the water and the temp dropped about 15 degrees to the low upper 50's, the water temps were a few degrees cooler too. I thought with the passing front and the sudden wind direction change, it might turn them off a little, but was I ever wrong. Dialing it a little on what I did the day before, it took me about 5 minutes to catch the first one and started rolling from there. They were crushing a jerkbait and I feel like more fish came into the area as they weren't on every piece of cover, but the ones they were on, they were stacked up on. In 3.5 hours I ended up catching 20 bass, a bluegill and lost 2 bass not to mention another handful of bites. I wanted to try to expand on my pattern, but the temps and wind, mixed with being damp had my girlfriend sitting down huddled in every extra piece of gear I brought with kept us in the same area slightly protected from the wind. She did manage to catch one of the biggest of the day and only fished for about 15 minutes of the whole time we were out there. Overall, it felt great to be back out on the water again, and felt like a bit of redemption for how last year ended. Although I didn't catch anything massive, the vast majority of what I caught was above average and of the fish I caught only 2 would have been under the 14" size limit. Most productive tackle for the weekend was without a doubt the Berkley Stunna in Shad Fillet and a Spro McStick in Pro Blue I believe. All the baits pictured did produce though and put multiple fish in the boat. One of the smallest of the weekend, but it was the first bass of 2023 so there was no way I wasn't taking a picture of it along with some of the ice cubes! Below are some of the better ones of the weekend. P.S. Mother nature flipped her crap again, and we went from 70's and 80's last week to waking up to 17" of snow overnight with more coming down during the day. We ended up with about 20". ?‍♂️

If we're talking just a 1 second clip two good ones pop into my head... The gigantic blow up when a big snapping turtle hit my frog I had thrown in between the roots of an overturned tree. It was on a river and I had just missed a smallie in the same spot, threw back and nothing...saw something big splash in the middle of the river so I made a few casts before I threw right back to where I had missed that one. First twitch and I think I've yet to see a top water blow up quite that big since. I've got a picture of it somewhere when I got it up to the boat and then questioned how I was going to unhook it. The turtle had enough and swiped at the frog with it's paw/foot and popped the hook out itself. The other moment was catching a northern without actually hooking it. Took my great uncles out fishing, one was fishing on the back deck and the other was just along for the ride so he was sitting behind the passenger console. We were coming up on an opening were you usually catch one out of and I told them so. Seconds later as I picked my bait out of the water a northern jumped to try to get it, smacked the windshield in front of my one uncle, just about scaring him half to death, and proceeded to start flopping on the front deck.

Only if the rod identifies as a faster gear ratio reel.

If you've got a Humminbird on the console, I'd put one up front too and network them together to share waypoints and sonar if you want so you can pull from your Side Imaging transducer up front too.

I'd be guessing since the introduction of the Victory around the same price point and that the micro guide craze has died down a little I think they probably felt it was unnecessary to have both.

They look pretty decent to me. Is the 800 frequency chirped too or is it just constant. Normally the lower the frequency the more range you have but less detail sometimes you have to mess with the settings though too.

What are people keeping on their docks over there that's so soft it'll rip if a bait touches it? It's not disrespecting property to fish around it. People are human and they make errant casts, it happens, life goes on. It's not like anyone is intentionally going around trying to ricochet their tungsten weight off of everyone's stuff to try to damage it. I see it similar to parking your vehicle right next to a driving range and freaking out if a golf ball hits it. Whoever was practicing their game didn't mean to hit it, but it happened. You have to accept some responsibility too for picking a stupid spot to park.

There are a few routes you could go then. They do make a bracket to make cable management on the Terrova a lot easier, but it's not cheap. https://cornfieldfishinggear.com/product/cable-save-r-cable-protection/ There are a few pole mounts for FF transducers you may be able to adapt to work with a normal transducer, but even most of those are fairly pricy. I think the most cost effective option would be to mount the transducer on the transom and run the cable up front. The only disadvantage is marking things on side imaging, your waypoints will be off a little since it'll be pulling the location from the head unit and reading from the transducer "x" feet away.

I don't get it either. It's part of the risk of leaving anything out in a public place. I know full well my dock may be hit by any number of lures. Not a big deal, none of them will do any damage. The only offence I'd take to someone fishing my dock is if I'm on it and fishing. Otherwise, have at it.

If it's not too far away, it might be worth looking at the Triton. A few things to consider on them is that boat is only rated for a 115. A lot of other boats that size are rated for 150-200. Maybe they run ok, but I would assume they'd give up a little in performance category. That's not necessarily the worst thing for you, but keep that in mind when looking at comparable boats and prices. I'm not sure if 2018's are included, but a lot of the newer Trition's sit really low in the cockpit seats, like low enough that it was very noticeable by the end of the day and I can't say I've ever noticed that in any boat before. I know a lot of guys actually make risers to put those seats on.

Solid information about not overextending yourself is great, and nobody should go broke over a boat as other bills should take priority. Personally, I can't see myself without one though. I've been a boat owner since I was 11 or 12 and haven't been without one since. If I found myself in a situation where I had to sell mine, I'd end up buying something older and smaller to get by until I could afford something nicer again. Fishing is quite honestly my passion and tomorrow is never a given so while I'm here I'm going to do what I can to enjoy life and fishing is a big part of that.

Your active target will work with either trolling motor. If your friend is serious about thinking the AT won't work with a Fortrex he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Just curious, but why do you want to mount a normal transducer on a pole mount up front?

Craigslist, boat trader, boats 4 sale (not updated as often but still valuable), boats.com, FB marketplace, and that one central site about bass boats. I scoured them all for over 2 years before finding mine over halfway across the country (roughly 2,400 miles round trip).

I think I'd rather invest in a pair of ear buds for her instead of putting a stereo in. Better music quality for her and you can still enjoy all the sounds of nature, plus no extra holes in your boat.

To me it depends, on if everyone think's it highly pressured and is throwing all finesse stuff. If they are I might choose to go against the grain and throw the stuff they aren't. If it doesn't work I can always slow down and throw something more finesse after a while.

Generally a fiberglass boats will be less affected by wind, but it does still affect them. I feel like the design and how they sit in the water has more effect on drifting than actual weight. The weight difference between fiberglass and aluminum really isn't as big as everyone seems to make it out to be. I think a lot of it started because the design of the boats were so different. Many of the mod-v aluminum boats were nowhere near the width of the fiberglass boats, they didn't have full front decks, and a lot of other additions that add weight. As the aluminum boats have grown, they've also grown closer and closer in weight. If building one of similar shape and specs you can see from Lund Pro-V Bass and Ranger Z518C are pretty close to the same weight, not enough that you would notice pulling them with a vehicle. Same when it comes to drifting, if you're in a tin boat and it's drifting, my first thought isn't "if I put another person in the boat it certainly wouldn't be blown around as much" because that's about the weight difference we're talking about. You can see from below, how a few popular models stack up to one another regardless of hull design. (Not 100% confident on the listed Tracker weigh, they have the hull listed as the exact same weight as the PT175 despite being a foot longer and the same width) As I stated before, I think more of the drifting has to do with how the boats sit in the water. If you compare these three you can see even though the depth of these boat are similar, the Tracker's front end sits up a lot higher out of the water. When the wind catches the side it's more likely to move the lighter end of the boat causing control issues.

For sure, I believe they even have a 7' L/F in the Panfish line now which would give you a ton more distance over the 5' and 5'6".

I think it would work pretty well. I had an older St. Croix Panfish 6'4" L/F that I loved using for stuff like that.

Well with as inaccurate as the sober ones seem to be these days, you might be closer than you think! My favorite is after the day is over when they say something like "Yeah I ran into a little group of them late in the day. I hooked into a 5 and then went around the corner and caught two 3's and a 2.5 to finish out my limit." Then you look at the results and they weighed 12 lbs. total and big fish for the tournament day was 4.75 lbs. weighed by someone else and they didn't even weigh one for big bass. Something seems a little fishy there. As far as my accuracy, I'm not sure if it's considered good or not, but I'd say I can get within about 1/2 lb.

Personally I'd prefer a light power rod somewhere in the 6'+ range. As much as I like UL's for panfishing with live bait, I feel like if you're throwing some sort of artificial bait they lack the power to actually impart action on the bait and that's where the light power seem much better.

@VaBucknuts I think you're going to like it!

Palomar for me too. Braid, mono, fluoro it works equally well on them all as long as it's tied right.