Elkins45

I went ahead and sprung for a dual use size 27 to replace my size 24 starting battery because it was on sale for Black Friday, and if it ever stops raining I'll install a new battery tray and the new battery. I didn't like how it was behaving on the charger, although with my little 50hp two stroke I'm not terrified of a dead starting battery because I can either jump it from the TM battery or I can rope start it. My first "real" outboard was an 85hp Johnson that had some sort of defect in the starting system that I could never track down even after paying a boat mechanic a good deal of $$. You got about 30 seconds of cranking max before the starter dragged to a crawl. I became a real champ at pull starting that thing; fortunately once if started for the day it didn't take much cranking to restart. Rope sorting my 50 is like starting a lawnmower in comparison.

How many years do you get out of your starting battery? How about your trolling motor batteries? My starting battery was bought in January 2019 and it's taking longer to charge than the trolling battery. Even though it only gets used to crank over the motor a couple of times and run the sonar for a day of fishing it now takes like 36 hours for the onboard charger to give a green light for it. I put a load tester on it and it's still about 80% of the rated capacity but the longer charge time worries me for a multi-day trip. That doesn't seem like very good battery life to me, but I hate to spend $100 to replace a battery that still might have a decent bit of life left...but i would hate being stranded on the water more. How often do you change your batteries?

Is Salt Springs Run and the northern end of Lake George a reasonable spot to try in mid-December? I’m feeling the urge to make a Florida trim before my out of state license expires. I’m also considering Rodman because of the drawdown, but I was disappointed last time. I think the fish were in the flats when I was in the channel and vice versa.

Back in the day before the first Mister Twister there were basically three plastic worms everybody I knew threw. The Crème Scoundrel, the Manns Jelly Worm and the Fliptail. I forgot who made the Fliptail.

Great idea. I already had the picture hung, I just had to add the worms.

I found this blast from the past in some of my grandfather’s stuff. He’s the one who got me into fishing and I still use some of his lures, including an original hand-carved Big O. I stumbled across these today. He died in 1977 and was infirm for several years before, so these are probably no younger than 1972. I can’t decide whether to fish with them or just keep them as a memento.

I did find this, which might be OK if I could live with a 40. https://louisville.craigslist.org/bod/d/adolphus-new-2023-crestliner-1600-storm/7707712910.html

I’m fishing from a really good deep V but I’m getting the urge for a true bass boat as well. I’m not finding any great deals on used boats at the moment and I see you can get the basic Tracker with a 50 HP for somewhere around $17K after all the fees, etc. I was pricing an equivalent G3 and their list price for a bare bones 16ft boat with a 50 is approaching $30K. What’s the go-to deal for a 16-17 foot bass boat if not the Tracker?

Have any of you ever stayed at Bass World Lodge just north of Lake George on the St. John’s river? I stayed south of the lake a couple of years ago year and want to try the other end this time. Is it a decent place to stay?

Lodging is the main reason I haven't been to Headwaters yet. I would just sleep in my truck for a couple of nights but they won't let you.

I'm going to be staying on the Florida side near Three Rivers State Park, but I'm willing to follow the fish. Any fishing reports or advice for December bass fishing?

Go to the Dollar Tree and pick up a couple of bottles of nail polish. I like it way better than model paint and the bottles come with a built in brush. It cures faster than model paint as well.

Sportsman’s Warehouse has long synthetic hair in their fly tying section. You might want to give acrylic yarn a try. If you separate out the strands and fray them it makes a surprisingly good skirt material.

Not the first time ever, of course, but the first time with my good boat. Parked my truck, walked back to the ramp and noticed there was already a pool of water in the floor. I immediately remembered laying the drain plug on the transom when I was removing the transom saver so I pulled off my shoes and socks and tried to insert the plug. I almost fell in when the motor shifted, my glasses almost fell off and my keys did fall out of my pocket. I have no idea how that happened but fortunately they landed in the transom well. I was wearing my inflatable PFD so as I was reaching down to put in the plug and sliding toward the water I remember thinking ‘If I fall in it will cost me $25!” I got the plug in and flipped on the bilge pump, but after 10 minutes the water level hadn’t changed at all. To cut to the chase, I had installed the plug in the live well intake and not the hull drain hole. Once I corrected that the pump didn’t take long to empty it. On the bright side I know that my bilge pump is at least capable of keeping up with a missing plug. On the other side I wonder what possessed G3 to not equip this boat with an automatic float switch for the pump? If it had kicked on by itself I might have known it was taking on water before I walked away. I’ve owned this boat since shortly before I retired and I’ve launched it at least a hundred times, so I suppose I should be grateful it didn’t happen sooner. As a friend once said, there are three kinds of boaters: the ones that have launched without the drain plug, the ones that are going to launch without the drain plug, and those that are liars. If I could make three suggestions to help others they would be (a) have a spare plug immediately accessible (like twist tied to the transom) (b) learn how to identify the correct hole by feel while hanging over the back and (c) wire in a float switch for your bilge pump. Learn from my stupidity!

Has anyone had any luck with rigging a full sized curly tail worm with a jig head and using it on the bottom with a moderate retrieve? Or swimming it at mid or shallow depth like a swim bait? Sometimes I think when fish are suspended but not particularly aggressive they aren’t willing to swim down and get a soft plastic lure being worked on the bottom. This seems like a way to maybe avoid having to use a drop shot rig. I find them awkward to cast with any precision because of the amount of line and the weight hanging below the rod tip.