Jig Man

NO you do not have to take the jumper wire off before charging the batteries. The plug will work just fine if it fits the male unit.

I fish at least 100 days each year. I get 3-4 years out of a set of batteries. The key is to get 185-200 reserve amp batteries so that they will last all day long. Charge them up as soon as you get off the water and keep the terminals clean and the water level over the plates.

Deep is a relative term. In TX they say anything over 5' is deep. For me deep is 40' and deeper. For that type of fishing I use jigs, grubs, drop shot, and jigging spoons. 71' is the deepest I have personally caught fish and that was on grubs.

Congrats. Best wishes with the fishes.

My wife pulled my 21' 1400 miles on a fishing trip to TX. Just make sure that you use tow/haul.

10v is a dead duck. See if it will take a charge.

If I were buying an aluminum boat there would only be 2 that I would consider Xpress and Lund. A bud has an Xpress. It lifts and rides like a glass boat. It has the general wind issues of any alum. so you need a strong trolling motor.

Let's start with the fish and ski boats. The best advice I can give you there is to take a 7' rod and go get in one at a dealership. Try to put it in a rod box. Try to lay it down some place. Now imagine you had 6 of them and 2 other guys in there. Nitro boats now are better than they used to be. They used to have all kinds of things come loose in a short time. I haven't checked them lately but for many years they were the fastest depreciating boat on the market. They are notoriously under powered. Stratos is a pretty good boat made my Genmar. Previous to about 2001 it was an OMC product. Champion is a good boat made by Genmar. Previous to 2002 it was a privately owned company in Arkansas.

Rick while you are at it check to see what version of the software is in the unit. Mine had 1.2 and was 2 updates behind. The newest version is 2.3 and will accomodate the Nav. 3D card.

Your dual purpose battery is a compromise between cranking and deep cycle. It would probably be ok for a starting battery since you already own it. It is designed for cranking and/or light deep cycle duty.

Fireline is crap. I had some and cut it off and threw it away 6 or 7 years ago and switched to Power Pro.

You have to have power to the antenna as well as to the head. The NMEA must be powered with the red going to + and the bare and black wires going to _. Check to make sure the fuse is good. When you get that taken care of do a reset. Turn the unit off. Press and hold the pages key while you press and hold the power key. Release both buttons when you see the US map.

I use the San Diego Jam because it is the fastest knot I can tie.

X2 on the few lures. Pick them and stick with them until you catch fish on them regularly. Worms and jigs are enough to start with.

Gather up the pieces. That rod should have a lifetime guarantee. A friend of mine broke a 10 year old hmg and sent it in. They replaced it at no cost. At least give that a try.

In a perfect world you could take the amount of amps drawn from the batteries and divide that by the amp output of the charger and get the answer. One way to find out is to get a hydrometer and check the specific gravity in the battery cells as they are charging. Once it reaches 12.7 v you will know the amount of time.

I'd check my dealer and start using my warranty.

An important thing to remember is what you are seeing on the screen is not what is actually there. It is a record of what has been picked up. Fish shown are not always under the transducer. They may be off to one side or the other. The figure shown is not really how deep the fish is but how far away from the transducer that fish is. In the pic below the fish were actually located on a ledge right under the transducer and I was able to get one to take a grub.

I really don't know how long they last. I replace them after 4 hard years of service. Get large reserve amp capacity and maintain them and they go a long time.

San Diego Jam for me

Naptha which is found in cigarette lighter fluid is a very good solvent for cleaning bearings and other reel parts of oil and grease.

If it were me, that would be the last one of those babies that got into my boat. EVER!

X2 Good looking rig.

I use about 5 inches of rubber for one jig. So if you bought a 10' piece of rubber it would make 2 dozen jigs.

Since you are just getting started, I recommend Jann's Netcraft. You can buy small amounts of the rubber in the colors you want. All you really need is some jig heads and some rubber. You will need a way to attach the rubber (copper wire is great) to the jig. A pair of scissors for cutting and some pliers to pull the wire tight and you are set to go.