Jig Man

I have done mine once when I was planning a 1500 mile trip. The mfg of my stuff says I should be able to do 100,000 miles with no problem but I still had to have a look.

Send GMAN a pm and see what he can do for you.

I tried a bunch and the best I have found is Costas amber and they are darker than I want but Annie the "costa queen" at BPS said grey is much darker.

Before I bought any Wal-Mart deep cycles I'd check the warranty. Some stores have discontinued the warranty on them.

Use the lard up pretty quick as it will get a very rancid odor after it gets old.

I had the same problem with that bait so I switched to the Boy Howdy. I sits with the tail down in the water. I got many more hookups that way. So maybe you should add a bit of weight to the back and see if that helps.

Here is what I do.

I am running an Opti and when I keep the throttle back it gets really good mileage. Mine has 500 hours and only regular maintainence. I ran a Lowe for a lot of years and they hold up really well. If you are not going to be on big water it will do you a good job and should run in the lower 50s wot.

I sometimes use this method with an insert. Just make a slit in the bottom and stick the head inside. 3/0 hooks work best for me. The hook in the pic isn't imbedded. Just skin hook it.

Of the ones you listed I'd go for the Lowe though you didn't mention what motor is has except 115.

It looks more like a pike than a pickerel to me but I haven't seen one in years.

We use lure dye and magic markers.

The 2d sonar from one to the other can be a problem. I'd set sens at mid 80s and see how it does. Use the 200 kHz sonar frequency and the highest number 800 I think for SS. I run contrast in lower 60s and normally 100 or less on side scan range. On 2d I use upper and lower limits to take away surface clutter. Ping speed on my console unit is set to 19.

I can see them better on down scan than side scan. For me on sidescan they are usually small white dots around cover. I think this is a big cat swimming under the boat. Here is a spoonbill swimming under the boat. Here are some white bass close to a school of shad.

Never. I know of no reason to run the gasoline out of any motor. I used to do that with a chainsaw until the tech at the shop said it was bad for the carb. He said if I were concerned then use a stabilizer.

X2

Measure the inside diameter of the hole.

I don't know if it would digest or not. I saw a similar instance once. I had a smallmouth on a jig with a beaver trailer. It jumped and spit the jig. The beaver was gone. A few minutes later my fishing pardner caught a smallmouth. While he was unhooking it, it spit up my beaver which it evidently had swallowed.

X2 on the xducer protector. I have one from transducer shields and savers.

I've never had a problem with the wire and some of it has been tied long enough that the rubber is about to dry rot. If you want to get into this easy, contact GMAN or CADMAN and have them make you up some heads either painted or unpainted. CADMAN also sells powder paint very reasonably. If you jump into this hole hog it will cost you a few hundred dollars for everything you need. You can get started with some skirts and or skirting material and pre made heads. That may tell you whether or not you want to proceed.

To me hand tied means hand made. I do mine 3 different ways: tie with thread using a bobbin and whip on the bucktails, tie with copper using 2 pairs of pliers on the living rubber jigs, and band the silicone ones.

Pom is still 5' up but the COE is pulling it .5' daily. The rain they are getting today may bring it back up. The bass were still in and/or close to the bushes yesterday. My neighbor and I fished in the am and caught 26 bass. probably 12-15 keepers. One strecth had spots and some of them were about 14". We never got anything over 2.5# and they looked like spawned out females but who can tell for sure. We caught most of the smack dab in the middle of the bushes on plastics. They would not take a jig for me or cranks. About 5 were on spinnerbaits and I saw all of them hit outside the bushes. They attacked from directly under the spinnerbait.

John may have them at Ztackle.

It could be a wire in the plugin came loose. I've had that happen on stuff.

You state that your buddy is going to make soft baits but you neglected to mention what you plan to make. My suggestion to you is go to www.tackleunderground.com and do some reading. Most everyone on that site is a bait maker. You can get info from the simplest to the most complicated bait making (soft plastics, jigs, swimbaits, spinnerbaits, etc.) Do some searches and you will be able to find instructions and pics of how to do most any thing you choose.