Bankc

If the grass is all about the same height and there's room to pull a lure above the grass, then I like to use a lipped crankbait, because they're pretty good at maintaining a constant depth. If the weeds aren't too thick, and I want to fish down in them, then I'll use a chatterbait, as they usually come through the grass more cleanly than anything with treble hooks. If it's a little of both or the grass height and density varies a lot, then I'll use a lipless crankbait, as that can either be pulled over the tops or ripped through. If the grass is thick and tall, then I usually switch over to a T-rig with a heavy weight to get down in it, or a topwater to stay above it. If it's really thick and all the way to the top, I might throw a frog or toad to keep the topwater from getting fouled up. If it's extremely thick, I'll probably avoid the grass and just try to fish around it.

Is it just the hatch lid that's the issue? Do you have more space down blew that? Like on my kayak, I can't fit a 100Ah battery in my front hatch. But I can fit a 50Ah. And I've got room for 2x 50Ah. So I can get my 100Ah battery through the hatch if I run two 50Ah batteries in parallel. Though, I haven't needed to do that, as the one 50Ah works just fine for my needs. One more thing, are you sure you're actually drawing a continuous 2.5 amps? It's not uncommon for them to list the maximum current it might draw in a quick burst, like maybe just during startup. Or even overestimate that figure to make the lawyers happy, so no one can sue them in the even that one rogue unit just squeezed over the line.

I'd start off with the city. Contact the city's parks department first if it's within city limits. If they're not the one's in charge of it, they should at least be able to point you in the right direction. But I'd suggest starting off with the smallest form of government first. The smaller the jurisdiction, the more likely you are to get a straightforward, knowledgeable, and timely answer. So if it's not city owned, move on to the county before contacting the state.

We must have different size bolts or thickness of split ring washers on our batteries or something. I think mine are M6, if I remember correctly. And the split ring washers it came with are pretty thin. You say "There is no way you can properly tighten them with just your hand". But from my experience, it's not even remotely hard to fully compress those washers by hand. And I'm about 6'2" and 175lbs of bone and fat. So I'm not exactly what you would call a physical specimen. Though, if you're using wing bolts, then you're probably installing and uninstalling the battery every trip. So you probably don't even need the split ring washers. Especially if there's no gasoline engine to create higher frequency vibrations. The split ring washers are just there to keep the bolts from backing out under vibrations and temperature swings, and if they're only ever being hooked up for a few hours at a time and not exposed to those conditions, then they're not really going to be serving a purpose. And then their drawbacks might outweigh their benefits.

Yeah, I've got a mutt that looks like he might be a cross between a yorkie and doxon that won't chase a ball or even chew on a toy. Never has. He just doesn't like to play. All he does is eat, sleep, and bark. But I saw him catch a bird in flight once. He just jumped up and grabbed it out of mid air. I'm not sure if he was hunting it or just annoyed that it got close.

If you throw a ball, your dog chases after it. That's because your dog is a predator and it's in its instinct to chase down prey that is trying to escape. If you drop down a plate of food, the dog eats it. That's because it's a predator and it's also in its instinct to conserve energy and eat an easy meal when it's available. Most predators have two modes, lie around and conserve energy and actively hunt. Same with fish. Sometimes they have to be coaxed into eating, by the sight of fleeing prey that triggers their instincts to hunt. Sometimes, they're not in the mood to chase, but will still eat something that's look delicious and easy. If a big bass wants to eat, it will probably find food pretty quickly. Just about anyone can catch fish when the fish are out looking for food. What makes a good angler a good angler, is that they can convince the bass to eat when they weren't actively looking for food. And sometimes that's done by appealing to their instincts to hunt, and making them hunt when they weren't already in the mood to do so, and sometimes that's done by appealing to their instincts to conserve energy and eat an easy meal.

That's what I use to connect my speed controller for my trolling motor on my kayak. Those are great connectors! They easily handle the load of the trolling motor and are easy to connect and disconnect. The only issue I had was I didn't have a crimper big enough to fit them, with the 8 gauge wire. But I did the old school, hammer a flathead screwdriver into them to crimp the wires on, and they've held up for years without issue. Now, what I use on my actual battery is just the regular eye clips with no connector, and I bolt them to my battery using stainless wingnut bolts that I bought to replace the original bolts that came with the battery. I had to get them online, as they're metric in size and the length of the bolt matters greatly. That way I can tighten and loosen them without tools. I might one day switch to some connectors like those above to make things a little easier, but I'm in no rush.

Biggest overall? Nah. There are catfish in these lakes that can get pretty big, and I don't intentionally try to catch catfish. There are also sometimes alligator gars, paddle fish, and other species that I don't mess with that can get north of 100lbs. But I might have caught the biggest freshwater drum in a particular lake near me. It only weighed 12lbs, which is far off the state record (38lbs). But I caught it in a lake that's not connected to any rivers or natural waterways and was never stocked with drum. So it's possible it was the ONLY drum in that lake. I've told a lot of people about it, and no one else has ever heard of anyone catching a drum in that lake, so it might be a record. But it's not a record anyone's gonna be keeping track of. Besides, drums are trash fish. And who wants to be the trash fish king?

I do better with less. I do best from the bank, especially on smaller ponds with limited access. It limits my options for where to fish and without the electronics, boat positioning, and all of the other distractions, I focus more on maximizing what I have before me. In a canoe or kayak without electronics, it opens up more places to fish, and I tend to get more impatient and overwhelmed by options. Add a sonar to that, and you've given me another dimension to work with. My mind focuses on "what else", instead of maximizing what I have access to. In a full on bass boat, I'm sure I'd be completely lost, trying to play complex video games with live scope instead of actual fishing. The less I have to worry about that's not my lure, the better. When 100% of my attention is on my lure, I do a lot better.

That seat may be too far gone to salvage. Once mold and mildew take hold, they're really hard to get rid of. Especially if they're below the surface, which it looks like they are here. I'm not saying you need to get rid of them right away, but rather, I'd save the money you were going to spend on maintaining them, and put it towards replacing them when the time comes. Then maybe worry about spending money on maintenance on the new seats. The seat you have there isn't particularly expensive. I'd also recommend covering them. Get them out of the sun and rain. That's probably your best bet going forward with the new seats.

Sometimes those subtle differences in lures can be huge. I've definitely witnessed it more than once. But most of the time, they don't seem to matter much, at least in my experience. If they hit a Pop-R, they'll usually hit any other similar sized topwater that moves at about the same pace. I'm not the kind of guy who typically believes brand X will catch you 20 and brand Y of a nearly identical looking bait will invite the skunk. Having said that, however, I'm pretty picky about my crankbaits. Certain brands do seem to catch a lot more fish than others on certain days. But I think that's due more the differences in action of a crankbait. One might be very subtle and another very aggressive. Sometimes, even two seemingly identical crankbaits (color, brand, and everything) can perform very differently in the water. To qualify all of this, I'm speaking from the experience of someone who often has multiple similar baits of different brands, but who only really switches them out when I lose one. If one isn't working, I usually switch to something completely different. So it's not like I'm swapping baits often and running scientific experiments on these more subtle differences. I'm more a believer of a magic spot, magic technique, or magic speed, rather than a magic lure or magic color. But I have witnessed a magic lure or magic color on a few occasions, so I won't say there's no truth to that.

Use whatever you like. I switched to 10# braid with a 4# fluoro leader. I tried straight fluoro but grew tired of the wind knots after a few outings. It would have worked fine if I was willing to switch out my line more often, but I'm too lazy and cheap for that. I don't know why I got away from using straight 4# mono. It worked fine, as I remember. But the braid lasts virtual forever and casts really well on a spinning reel, so that's been my go-to.

Check your local regulations. There are often rules about lights you have to have at night anyway, and sometimes rules for certain lights when anchored or moving and such. So it's possible you might not need any extra lights beyond those, like if your stern light is bright enough and your boat isn't too big. But I'd still bring a flashlight, just in case, because you never know. A lot also depends on how well you see at night. But it's about a million times easier to turn off a light you have than turn on a light you don't. And some lakes won't let you on at night. Some lakes close from dusk to dawn or have specific hours you're allowed to be on them. Others have lake hours that don't apply to anglers on the water. So you'll want to double check that as well before making the trip.

The Senko ranks at a 5. The Strike King Ocho is a solid 8! That's 3 better! And that's science, so you can't argue with that! 😜 Seriously though, Senkos are great, and I know a lot of people swear by them. But most any Senko style stick bait seems to work about the same for me. And most of the others are cheaper and last longer. Of course, I have to admit that I don't fish them weightless too often, and that's where the softer plastic of the Senko matters most.

I know the frequency of the sonar ping should be well beyond the hearing ranges of fish and humans. But I can still hear a faint ticking sound on my transducer when I pull it out of the water. It's not loud, so I don't know if it's something the fish can actually hear. But I also know that once I've located a spot I want to fish, I don't really need the fish finder anymore, with a couple of rare exceptions. So why not? And I know the trolling motor is pretty quiet. But is it quiet enough? I mean if the fish are moving away due to the sound of an outboard, are they not at least getting a little skeptical around the sound of a trolling motor, should they be able to hear it? Or maybe I'm overthinking it all. I mean, there are plenty of jetskis and party boats out there this time of year. And cars driving by and planes flying overhead at all hours. It's not like I'm the only man-made sound they hear. Whatever the cause, it does seem to me that fish are getting harder to catch in the last couple of years. And during that same time-frame, there are more people out on the water, and out there more often. Now, correlation doesn't equal causation. And the weather's been pretty funky too in that time period, so that could also be the cause. But what's it hurt to try to be a little quieter?

Don't tell anyone... but apparently the secret to catching more fish, at least in east Texas, is stealth. At least that's what this article suggests. https://www.ketk.com/news/study-finds-how-east-texas-anglers-can-more-accurately-target-largemouth-bass/ I think it's something most of us, if not all, already knew. But it's also something that, at least for me, need to be reminded of from time to time. I'm bad about being lazy and pulling up to my spot with my trolling motor running and fish finder pinging while knocking things around in my kayak. I'd probably do better if I focused more on my noise and have everything shut down and was ready to fish before I pulled up to my spot. I could probably use a refresher course from the school of Ol' Crickety.

Best: Setting the hook Worst: Setting the hook on fish

I love to cook. But I'm not a big fan of eating LMB. I mean, I'll eat it, but it's far from my favorite. I grew up on crappie and ocean fish, so LMB and catfish are pretty far down my list of favorite foods. Though I went fishing with a guy once who somehow had a great recipe for LMB. But, he was super secretive about it. He wouldn't let me near the kitchen to see his secret. He wouldn't even let me clean the kitchen! The one time I actually wanted to do the dishes, I was denied!

I started off using only two piece rods. And I used them exclusively up until about 4 years ago when I bought my SUV, because I couldn't fit a full sized rod in any of my old 2 door cars. In my experience, so long as you don't get a moderate speed rod, they two piece rods seem to be pretty much equal to a one piece. Even moderate fast is okay. The part that bends is still a single piece, and the ferrules do a pretty good job of transmitting vibrations. The biggest downside to a two piece is usually the limited selection. I've heard that these new multi piece rods are also pretty good, but I haven't used on yet. I know in the past they were pretty bad. But that was a long time ago and things have definitely changed since then. So I won't recommend one until I've used one, but I would not hesitate to recommend a two piece rod in moderate fast or faster, since I have a ton of experience with them and have never noticed a decline versus a one piece.

You're not wrong. I was being overly simplistic, because it does get kind of complicated if you really want to dig into the weeds. Like it's not just a factor of how deep you drain a battery, but how fast you drain it, how long you leave it drained, and how you recharge it. And the temperatures those those occur make a big difference too. Pretty much any amount of discharge, be it 80%, 50%, 10%, whatever, will do some damage to the battery, even if it's statistically negligible. Even just letting it sit and not using it will damage the battery, as time and chemical reactions don't go well together. It's just a question of how much damage over how much time. And to accurately give a response to that, you've got to establish a lot of parameters, baselines and blah, blah, blah. My general point is, most LiFePo4 batteries have an estimated cycle count of 5000 at an 80% depth of discharge. While that's not completely drained, it's probably as far a most of us will routinely drain them. That's almost 13.5 years worth of fishing every day! Compare that to the 500 cycle count of a lead acid battery drained to only 50%, and you've got quite a difference. At a dept of discharge of 80% on a lead acid, you're typically looking at a cycle count of around 200 on a lead acid or AGM. At a 50% depth of discharge on a LiFePo4 battery, the cycle count is up around 20,000 to 30,000, which is way, WAY more than 5,000! At those numbers, the battery will likely fail due to some other reason before being worn away due to reaching its cycle limit. And you start to approach a cycle count of 100,000 at a depth of discharge of 25% or less! But those figures really only matter in a lab or a setting where you'd be cycling the battery several times, daily. Not in situations where you're going to be using a trolling motor.

I went with a cheap Chinese knock-off battery. Specifically, a Weize 50Ah for my trolling motor on my kayak. It's held up great so far! No complaints after, I guess I'm coming up on 3 years now. What persuaded me to go that route was price. I figured that if I bought a quality brand that was headquartered in the U.S., I'd still have to ship my old battery to them for a replacement and be without for a while. And at nearly 3x the cost, I figured my "warranty" would be the money I saved and just buying a second one if this on ever failed. And I could still buy a third replacement and pretty much break even with the big name brands. But fortunately, I've never had a problem. It's a gamble, but in my mind, it's a smart gamble. They're all made in China, no matter what brand you get. No one makes these batteries in the U.S. Some companies might assemble them here in the U.S. from Chinese parts, but the guts always come from China. If you look up Will Prowse's DIY Solar YouTube channel, he has a bunch of tear-downs and reviews of several Amazon brands of lithium batteries. Some are better than others, and he gives an honest assessment as to what you get with those brands. He's geared towards the solar panel backup market, but it's the same batteries we use, so it's good advise. It'll at least help you demystify all of those weird names a little bit. I also recommend the Noco chargers. They're great little chargers and not crazy expensive. I have a Noco Genius 5, which while small, it still charges my battery overnight. You can use them for regular batteries too, which is handy, as they have modes for lithium, AGM, and lead acid. One more thing to note is that lithium batteries can pretty much be fully drained without damaging the battery. They recommend you never drain a deep cycle lead acid battery below 50%. So in essence, a 50Ah lithium battery has about the same amount of usable power as a 100Ah deep cycle lead acid. But half the size and a tiny fraction of the weight (like 15lbs versus 65lbs or something).

We had a big storm roll through the other day with 85mph winds. It knocked the power out all over the city. It was a day before they got it back on. A day with 102° temperatures and no A/C. I couldn't even run a fan! And since we got all of that rain, the grass is green again. On the plus side, I'm adapting to this heat.

I took a dog fishing once. He threw up like crazy because he got seasick. I'm never doing that again.

All I can say, is keep trying. Sometimes the bass want something fast. Sometimes the want something slow. Sometimes they want something in the middle, or alternating fast and slow erratically. Sometimes your lure is too big. Sometimes it's too small. Sometimes they just don't want a topwater. Sometimes they're busy focused on something else and you have to match what they're chasing almost exactly. Sometimes in that same situation, you want something totally different from what they chasing to grab their attention. And sometimes, they just don't bite no matter what you do. Generally, when it comes to topwaters, I'll take the cue the wind is giving me. If the water is glass smooth, I'll typically slow down. I might through a spook or popper and just twitch or pop it once every ten seconds. And if the water is pretty choppy, I might go with a buzz bait and just burn it in quick as soon as it hits the water. But that's just a starting point. More than once, I've discovered that even though every indication says they should be feeding on topwaters, I've struck out. But then found success by switching to a t-rig worm or something that was the total opposite of what I expected to work. So just keep trying different things until you figure out what they like at that moment.

#1 goes over the side. Sometimes I'll pull into a cove for some cover. Worst case scenario, I'll run aground and find a bush or something. For #2, I'd probably find a portapotty. I usually scout them out ahead of time, just in case. But I try to make sure I've solved that issue before I launch.