Neil McCauley

I like it. I actually think it was yours I found on google images that influenced a lot of my design. Any issues with it or things you'd change? Good find, that would take care of the battery. I think my only choice with the transducer is just to get the Humminbird 10' extension cable.

Can anyone explain how SMB progress through these phases? Seems like fishing can change pretty drastically depending on where they are in the process. Any specific water temps to look for?

Anything that will float on the surface and remotely resemble some sort of insect.

Has anyone actually logged 10,000 hours of fishing yet? How much time do you actually put in per year? I went and looked at every year I've been fishing, all the way to the childhood days dropping a line off the dock on family vacation. I estimated the # hours/year... really not as many as I thought. About 200-250 as a kid, then everything went on hold during college, <50 the whole time. The last 8 years since then things picked up. Last summer alone I got almost 300 hrs (by the Fall wife was ready to strangle me ) But even at that rate, to get to 10,000 would still take 28 years!

Why not get a canoe? You are significantly limiting yourself choosing a kayak imo.

Great choice of canoe. Probably the most helpful thing for designing mods for it is just to take it out and fish in it. You will figure out how weight is distributed and where you want things situated.

I bet Onondaga has some decent size fish since nobody has been willing to eat any of them for so long. Don't think many people would advertise online forums their top shoreline fishing spots on small bodies of water. Next thing you know there's always people there, littering, fewer and more hook-shy fish. Best way to find a good spot is explore around.

Seen many ways to do this, PVC piping, milk crates, etc. Interested in what people use, however simple/elaborate, commercial or diy, whatever. Mine below so far. It hooks to the canoe gunwales like the yoke but can slide around. It holds a FF and a cellphone w/navionics for navigation. To attach lures and tools I used a magnetic kitchen knife bar and a cork mat. I sorta went overboard but this is what happens when you're stuck inside and can't fish all winter. I wanted the FF and cellphone below the walls to stay out of the wind and sun. But it can also flip over and change the brackets so the FF/cell are on top. One thing I still have to figure out is wiring the transducer. Want the wires fixed to the boat so it is plug and go but the transducer is wired permanently on my trolling motor.

Not a huge risk of depleting them I think. It's a 29k acre lake. Just wondering what kinds of areas to set traps....depth, bottom type, structure, etc. I am thinking rocky bottoms 10-12 fow near shore.

I cast 10 - 2 and if I really need distance I push my whole arm to and fro like a punch, or even twist my body around and reach back, but never ever break the 10-2 rule with the rod, and keep it within a relatively straight horizontal plane, like it's attached to a rail. Takes a lot of energy but aside from that is just the timing and youc an cast a mile. Have to visualize the line traveling behind you when you anticipate the forward motion. Seems to work well for me. You might consider putting it on video from a long-distance side view and watching yourself make some casts to see what you're doing right/wrong.

I have a 9 foot, 5wt Redington 4-piece rod that is a nice general purpose do-it-all rod for me. Was $150 new, well worth it. I have a couple cheap ass reels with different line set-ups. These do well for me with surface poppers and flies for panfish and bass, and the occasional attempt at stream fishing for trout. When it comes to fly fishing check out a fly fishing shop either a local one or something like they have at Bass Pro, then ask the clerk there for some guidance. They are usually very knowledgeable and won't steer you wrong. At least that was my experience when I first got into fly fishing.

Another vote for canoe. Lots of disagreements here. Basically, when it comes down to it, I just can't stand being stuck sitting with eye level only 12" above the waterline. I have to be able to stand up and observe things. Have 360 degrees of freedom to turn myself around within the watercraft itself. I make probably 75% or more of my casts some form of underhand. I also cast and troll some huge lures that pull harder than a 1-2lb bass. And I just plain like having a 55lb thrust motor with three 50lb deep cycle batteries on board to help me cover 20+ miles of water while fishing 24 hrs straight. IMO a canoe is about as close as you get to a bass boat without having to own a truck, trailer and pay for boat launch fees, gas, etc or own your own lakefront property. The main drawback is stability and propulsion in 10+mph winds. But when you consider that kayaks fare much, much worse in those conditions, and can't be motorized as easily, it is a no brainer. For short (<8 hours) trips on small waters restricted to calm-fair weather though a kayak would probably be fine.

Couple little things I got on amazon recently: Quick Release battery terminals, to change batteries easily. And 6-10ga connection plugs between the TM wire and battery cable. Bunch of 1.5" nylon cable clamps: Use these to run your 6 ga battery cable bow-to-stern fastened permanently inside the gunwales and out of the way. Each trip just plug the TM and batteries in, instead of re-rigging the cable.

Put a 75 lb marine battery up front.

Anyone have experience with this? Bought a couple crawfish traps for the heck of it recently but I have never had luck catching craws. Any good bait suggestions, or locations (for a lake) to set them? Might use a few as bait, but would be nice to get enough for a small boil.

Canoe is the way to go. Faster than jon boats and rowboats with the same motor, much more versatile and functional than kayaks. $20k less than a bass boat. Stability really isn't much of an issue. Even in the downright stupid conditions I've gotten caught in with mine it held up OK. The large lake I fish most of the time gets very choppy mid-day with all the speed boats and cruise ships. But as long as the wind is <8mph I am usually good to go. Wind 7-8mph can make traveling into the wind a little bouncy. Fishing standing up is usually easy, the times it is tricky is with another person on board because movements are less predictable. As far as propulsion, the 55lb thrust minn kota tm I have seems ideal on my 14.5' Old Town Guide. I had the 30 lb for a few years and it was fine, but the 55 is a noticeable difference in terms of torquey acceleration and battery life. Ironically I think the 30 got about the same cruising speed as my 55, ~3.5-4.0 mph, but I can get around 20mi from one group 27 battery with the 55, more like 15mi for the 30. If you plan on using a motor then put some real thought/time into the mount. Especially for the 55lb thrust motor because its magnet is much heavier than the 30 and it will put a lot of stress on the mount. What you want boils down to one word: overbuilt. I wouldn't trus commercially made mounts personally. Mine is a beefed up version of this basic design ( http://oi65.tinypic.com/2u9oo3o.jpg ) using 1" thick oak boards, 1/2" dia carriage bolts and stronger L-braces. I didn't find the battery box very useful. On my MK Power Center the battery meter was never very accurate and it does take up some extra space. Aside from the circuit breakers I didn't see the point of it so I leave it home now that I have 2 batteries. Some other things I have are the bullnose rudder and a tracking fin/skeg on the bottom to improve tracking. For better cruising efficiency I got a kipawa weedless prop with larger angle propeller, but it's hard to tell the difference. Also worth getting are portable bow/stern navigation lights for nights/early mornings or if you just get stranded after dark. Next plans are for a fish finder mount and a tool/lure caddy that can attach to the canoe yoke.

Forgot to bring my deep cycle batteries inside for the winter. Is it really that big a deal? Avg low temps have been mid 20s.

Agree with the hook cutter but you still have to remove the hook. Ideally you should have a 25-27 ga needle and a syringe with some lidocaine (WITHOUT epinephrine) and a sterile scalpel. Most of the embedded hooks I've seen can't be "pushed through" and can't be pulled out. You have to very carefully cut a path around the barb and then pull them out, and the sooner the better so there is less swelling. Leave a very minor wound compared to leaving it in. Had to do this twice myself minus the anesthetic using a sharp pocket knife. Otherwise sunscreen, lipbalm, bandaids. Important to have caffeine too for the drive home.

Fly fishing with poppers in 1-2ft water early Spring. Nothing better than battling smallies on a fly rod.

My theory is it is multifactorial- any one element of a cold front can be present alone- bright sun, high pressure, whatever- and fishing will usually be fine. But a major pressure system is a whole collection of adverse changes and no two cold fronts are the same. Some aren't that bad, some are really bad, but the overall theme = bad. I still fish them and so should every one but it's more to learn than to catch fish. By seeing the high skies and storm runoff, feeling the cooler temps and wind, all together at once and correlating with the fishing or lack thereof you start to learn what patterns of cold front conditions affect fishing most. There isn't much evidence behind any of this so your own experience with weather systems will teach you the most.

Great job of landing and releasing her. After seeing the video, you are right, the pics don't do it justice. She was huge. Not easy to hold a 25lb fish straight out towards the camera!

Thanks everyone for the links, exactly what I was looking for. Well you can't argue with near-photograpic detail images on DI and sidescan...but, I am just too cheap. And these things will get better/cheaper soon the way flatscreen TVs and computers did. I think 2D Sonar has a lot of untapped info, just have to be willing to learn to interpret it.

OK everyone say it together: 'They are exactly the same..no difference.'

Is there a way to view the forums in the desktop version instead of the mobile version when on a smartphone? Most websites have this now, usually at the bottom of the page, an option to see the full version of the site as it appears on a computer. I also tried the request desktop view browser option in the upper right but it stays in mobile version. And as a side rant...these mobile editions of websites drive me nuts. Can't see the usual links, fewer options, no details, less navigable, etc. Dumbed down to the point of uselessness. Kind of like fishing with a kiddie rod.