Arcs&sparks

Good choice, Jon boats are much easier to modify. There are entire websites dedicated to Jon boat mods. It would be worth spending a good amount of time reading and looking at other builds to help you choose the proper length and beam for what you want to do. I would’ve been better off with a Jon, but worked with what I had at the time. No deck for me, works good bass fishing and has been fine for trolling larger lakes for other species as well. I’m building up a new-to-me boat for primarily “other species” over the winter, I’ve spent probably 100hrs this fall reading/learning, and quite a bit of loot to make sure this new build will be what I want it to be. I will NEVER get rid of the old one, it will still fit a niche in small waters. My advice is to not rush it and be smart about your decisions, so you don’t want to upgrade next year.

Is it a 12’? That’s basically what I have. Check out the electric boat thread to see mine. Feel free to ask questions, I’m on lunch break but after work I can be more descriptive. I think It would be alittle unstable with a casting deck. There’s a guy on YouTube that shows his build of his 12’ and it’s not as stable as he would like. I’ll try to find the link later. A wide Jon would be something to look for.

If your just using one battery, something like this would be good. Has fuses built in. You don’t have to install an onboard charger, just get something decent at Walmart or Tractor Supply. I did a short description of my small boat build last night in the electric boat thread. I’m running a 55# Kota Edge bow mount I got for $100 on Craigslist, has plenty of power for the size of the boat. 86# 24v Newport Vessels tiller. one thing to keep in mind is you may not want to add a casting deck unless you have a wide boat.

Do you plan of fishing with a partner? Even a tiny boat is a pain by yourself, take this for what it’s worth; I have an all electric boat and love it. 12’ shallow V Sears. It started as a ladder rack boat, it graduated to being modified and more “fishable”(and quiet) which I carried in the truckbed. I built the flat floor from carved foam board to fit the radius’s and topped it with corrugated plastic with carpet over it to save weight.(zero wood) It got even more modified to then getting a trailer and way more upgrades, and later- With it having 3 batteries and lots of accessories, it now stays on the trailer. But since all the motors are quick disconnect, and the batteries are pretty easy to take out, I can still hand carry it with a buddy or dolly it down trails and whatnot if I choose to. My buddy’s little jonboat is easier though. We don’t have many electric only lakes up here, but most of the bass ponds in my immediate area have no ramps. Even with it on the trailer I’ve found ways to launch.. some requiring the use of my own 4x4 plus a buddies ?.... and some brute strength... Here are some old pics before all the trailer mods and upgraded motors, seats..blah blah, feel free to ask about mods if you wish. Batteries are under the seats

Ive never seen a cedar Christmas tree, that sounds very neat. Is that common down your way? I’ll bet the house had a nice aroma.

Look it up;

Ah yes, on older models a TS3 transducer switch would take care of that, won’t work with MEGA though. I agree, probably better off with 2 SI’s.

Yes you can have that configuration. I think I read that when you turn 360 on the SI is turned off? I could be wrong though. But you shouldn’t need to have 2 SI units though, the SI would be shared to other heads, as well as the 360 while networked together.

I could be mistaken about the Helix’s, but with the “numbers” units you’d only need one SI unit, networked to say, a sonar only model to view SI on either screen. Saves a lot of cash. A DI model can’t view composite DI from a SI model but a SI model can view the true DI from a DI model. Just can’t run both transducers simultaneously. 360 is shared through the network.

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Yes, I use this as my lipless rod. The rating is actually 3/8-1, and is accurate in my opinion. I’ve thrown the floating BBZ shad with it quite a bit but it being over 1oz it it definately overloads a bit but hookups are excellent. I don’t have enough experience with other similar rods to give a comparison but I think you’ll be happy with it. I love it. Edit; Fact check- 4” BBZ 1 shad appears to be only 7/8oz(thought it was 1&3/8) In that regard, the 1oz rating might be a bit liberal or my own lack of experience with other moderate rods of this rating. ?

No joke, I was reading this, and as a bachelor I thought to myself “well neither”. Right then someone sent me a text with a picture asking if my tree will look like this; (Something from Facebook I imagine) to answer the question, I think I might go with fake this year ?

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Lol title change; “Most Sensitive Jig Fishermen” (I’m having trouble doing multiple quotes) It was clearly in response to the wife analogy. If I’m misunderstanding the point then I apologize. Seemed you were saying that a beginner won’t be able to tell the difference between a bottom shelf rod and a high end rod. That’s where I disagreed. And by “decent” (open to interpretation I know ?) I meant simply not bottom shelf. The rods I mentioned in my example were just Fish Eagle 50’s vs Bottom shelf. The beginners where shocked at the difference. I don’t think the last part was aimed at me, I wasn’t disagreeing with anything else said. ?

This^ My buddy is a casual fisherman. I took him to a trout river one day and I told him to grab my spare rod to use, I said it would cast the small jigs better than his old 6’ medium ugly stick, but he declined. Standing side by side I caught 10 fish to his 0. He struggled and I could see he was confused and attempting to set the hook here and there. I told him he must not be feeling the bites and insisted he go grab my spare rod. First cast he caught a trout, and after that he kept up with the numbers pretty well and was blown away that he could now tell the difference between the heavy current, bumping rocks, and a fish biting. Same exact thing happened with my ex GF with a cheap Okuma combo at the same spot 1 year earlier. The difference between bottom shelf and something decent are drastic. The difference between decent and high end are not so drastic. @Catt well geez I would hope a professional would be able to use mid grade gear. ? I think you had it wrong that even a beginner can’t be helped by using something decent. It’ll take an expert to properly cast a $20 fly rod. Same goes for trying to play a $50 acoustic guitar and make it sound good.

This was me as well^. ? “Why is bass fishing so addicting?” I’m a multi species guy, so for me it’s just fishing in general. Putting the work in and trying to get the reward. I do know a few, but it’s the same people who don’t have the drive to really learn new things or put any time/work into something.

Not garmin, but If you want a Gen 1 helix 7 DI GPS I’d sell mine for a good price. Your in Maine right? Possibly part trade for the 798

I’m not sure if this is still relevant to the OP, and he hasn’t signed in for a couple weeks. I am a somewhat satisfied customer of a Newport Vessels 86(?)lb thrust 24v tiller trolling motor. The Minn Kota’s of that size get very pricey. I’ve had it a couple years now and it works like it did when I got it. That being said, it has no low gear. Speed 1 is 3.1mph and speed 5(?) is 3.6-on GPS. It literally puts you back in your seat, all or nothing. Hits 4 downwind with only me in it. It’s on a small but heavy electric boat. I had to add my old beat up 55lb Minn Kota back on just to have a low speed on the stern (bow mount up front) totaling 3 motors....... My word of advise is to just buy a Minn Kota or other name brand. Those 12v tillers are pretty reasonably priced and last forever.

Autochart Zero Lines card.

@soflabasser 42?! That’s a lot of trout sir.

I didn’t know that! ...You know you have a fishing problem when your getting your local weather forecast through bassresource.com...

Can you please link this sale on the Helix G2N? Im not seeing it. I’m waiting for the perfect time to get this. Edit; I missed the part where you said it was a Black Friday sale

Looks fine to me. @Russ E that’s not a brook trout. Male rainbows typically have more character than the silvery females.

I frequent a lake in my area (So Maine) in early spring and late fall targeting rainbows. This lake is stocked with 9” trout, but all the ones you frequently catch are 14-18” with some larger ones too. These are fish that have grown up in the lake for awhile. I like to get my boat in the water just before the sun comes up in early spring. I set a couple rods to troll shiners behind dodgers, or a fly rod, and wait for the bugs to start hatching and the birds to start flocking around the surface. I’ll pull in one of the trolling rods when I start to see the fish rising. These are almost always off shore over 40-70 FOW. I slowly troll around and wait for a fish to rise within casting range and put the bait in front of them. I pretty much exclusively use Berkely Gulp smelts on a jig head for all species of trout and LL salmon. I get about a 50/50 shot at getting the rising fish to bite the jig. If I was more skilled with a fly rod, this would presumably work better for obvious reasons. When the fish aren’t rising, I can pick up a few on the trolling rods, or aimlessly cast a small Johnson blade bait so search around. I’ve been out once in summer time and found a few jigging on the bottom. But there’s nothing like being out in the middle of the lake and watching those pretty guys swimming around with their fins out of the water. Two years ago Nov 15 my BIL and I took his bass boat out to a spot we located trolling in my boat the weekend before. In 3 hours we netted 28 rainbows with several doubles without moving more than a couple hundred feet. He used a perch colored blade bait and I used my gulp smelts, fan casting, we caught equal numbers. This spot was outside of a large shallow flat where a stream came in, but over a steep drop off from 12-50 FOW offshore. All taken within 6 feet of the surface with virtually no rising fish in sight. It’s that time of year, gotta go out and re-duplicate that day!

Jaws, since I need a bigger boat.