jbmaine

Just a thought, You would need to do something up in the bow to mount the trolling motor to, and go back and forth to lift the motor up and deploy it. As for FF, I like Garmin but you should look for yourself to see what suits you. As for your Honda, keep it maintained and they are pretty much bullet proof.

We had a Lund WC Delux for many years. Good stable boat. I assume you are putting some kind of casting deck on the front?

I don't know about other states, but it's not a requirement in Maine.

Hi all, I'm sure most of us have one, but for those that don't, A tow line is one of those things not often mentioned, but can really make a difference out on the water. This Spring a fellow boater asked me for a tow back to the launch, his motor had died. He had a tow line and it made all the difference. After that I modified my anchor line with a couple of snap hooks to use as a combo anchor/tow line and I actually put it to good use this week. We were coming off the water and a guy on shore asked for help. He was helping his buddy get his boat out for the season, and had been waiting at the launch with the trailer for quite a while, but there was no sign of his buddy. We headed back out and found him on the far side of the lake, ( it's a thousand acre lake). His motor had died and he was just drifting. We used our tow line ( he didn't have one) and got him to the launch. So just a reminder, having a tow line makes it so easy to help someone else, or yourself, should the need arise. Jim

Congratulations on what looks like a fun day for you and the Mrs.'s . I see she uses a spincaster. That's all my wife uses too. Nobody will ever convince me they aren't capable of handling big fish.

Sorry your season is over. We are rapidly heading that way ourselves. But congratulations on some nice fish and here's to next year, may it be a good one.

Took advantage of the warmer than normal temps. to head out for some smallies. Took a while to find them but did OK. Looks like they are starting to fatten up for the winter. Nothing too big, but boy what a fight.

I'm firmly in the "like many things in fishing , sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't" camp. That being said I usually don't turn my sonar off. I caught my biggest fish of the year five feet from the boat in five feet of water with both sonar's and the TM going. Also, because of Glenn's video, I will be spending more time on so called " barren" structure. Thanks Glenn

This year for us SPRING-- swim senko and strike king swimmn caffeine shad in KVD magic color got all our fish LM & SM. SUMMER-- ned rig in orange green got the smallies for us, but the LM were strange. Overcast days we could catch them all day long on chartreuse spinnerbaits, if the sun was out not so much. FALL-- We lost access to our SM lake for three weeks while the ramp was closed for repairs. We're still playing catch up finding the SM. LM are still hitting the spinnerbaits in low light. all and all not a bad year for us.

If it bent with out cracking then the metal is soft enough to bend back. Hold the flat section in a vise ( put cloth or thin cardboard around it, so it doesn't get scratched) and pull the bent end back. I'm guessing it's probably anodized aluminum ( if a magnet doesn't stick to it is aluminum) so should bend back pretty easy.

Thanks A-Jay, An excellent summary.

My heavy spinning rod is a Loomis E6X inshore rod. Rated for 1/4-1 oz. Fish don't know what rod their being caught on.

I envy you. not a single boat here except some 12-14ft. skiffs out side of the building around the corner.

We were going by the local Cabela's today and decided to stop in. It had been several months since we were last there, and as the title say's it seems even more depressing. At the door I asked the greeter if they still had the bargain cave. Was told no there wasn't, but there is a clearance isle in the middle of the store. We never did find it. Went to the brook trout pool by the stuffed animal display. It used to have a dozen real good size brookies in it. Today there was only a couple of small ones left. Maybe some one was hungry for trout? Then we went to the large fish tank. The water was very dirty and many of the fish were missing. Also ( this has always ticked me off) Who would ever think that salmon, trout, and LM bass could be in the same tank, and be comfortable in the same water temp. We then went to look at rods. I wanted to see what they had for St Croix. The racks are not marked as to brand so it took some poking around but we found a good selection of premier's. A young sales person was near by so I asked if they had any St Croix Avid's. They said they didn't know, but they would find someone who would. Soon another young sales person came by. I asked the same question and got the answer, we used too, I bought one here last year, nice rod, then he just stared at be. So, I asked, do you have any now?. the answer was, I don't think so, then he left. I remember when they put this store in. I was excited to have a store like this fairly close by. Now I don't think I'll ever stop back in there. It's Kinda depressing what it's come to.

Perfect Thanks Jim

Hi all, I love my Garmin echomap chirp, and have been using since this spring. However I have never gotten full fish arches. As the arches come into view they start at the bottom, climb to the peak, start back down but stop. From what I understand this is related to transducer angle. So, to correct this do I move the back of the transducer up or down? I know the easiest thing to do would be to keep tweaking it out on the water, but I'm not as nimble as I was in my younger years so I need to adjust it before I put the boat in. Thanks Jim

Generally speaking, the waters I fish seem to respond better to different shapes than colors. I fish four lakes within minutes of each other, and I've found on one lake tubes are king, ned rigs don't get bit. Next lake over it's just the opposite. I've used a lot of soft plastics over the years, but never had the experience of "this color catches them all the time, this color, not so much."

It's funny you should post this. The lake where this took place just closed their ramp for a couple of weeks to rebuild the ramp. A friend of mine who works for the state told me so many people these days power load their boats ( all kind of boats) that the ground between the concrete piers of the ramp got washed away, and the piers shifted. They are replacing the entire ramp because it got so bad.

That's a kind offer. I appreciate it. Only problem is, with all the big bass you've caught in your lake, I'd come down to try out the rod, and stay, and stay, and stay. My wife would miss me.?

Those are totally awesome new England lunkers! Bet that's a day you'll remember for a long time.

Same here, It's great for picking up all the shallows.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I wrote this in kind of a humorous slant because that's the way we took it. We are retired, so can fish whenever we want. Their buzzing around didn't bother us, it was kind of fun to watch. That part of the lake is fairly small, maybe 200+ acres, so for them to go from point A to point B,C,D etc. at full bore took them maybe 10 seconds. And even then what they did didn't make much sense. They would fish maybe 10 or 20 yards of shore line, then zip to another shore line and do the same thing. We had maybe 200 yards of water all around us so they had plenty of room to give us space, yet they didn't. I am no expert when it comes to fishing, however I have fished this particular lake off and on since I was a little kid ( 60+ years now) and usually have it dialed in, so had they slowed down going past us, and engaged us in conversation, and not ran WOT thru no wake zones, etc.,I would have been happy to tell them the weather had changed in the last day or so, and the bass had moved from the shallows on the shore line to the submerged weeds we were fishing. I certainly no not think they represent the vast majority of tourney fisherman, but their actions do cast a less than favorable light when it comes to tourneys on these small lakes. I think the funniest part is in their zipping along, getting from point A to point,B,C,D, etc. they must have barreled over a section of submerged weed line 4 or 5 times, and after they finally departed to parts unkown, we fished that section and caught one of the biggest LM we've ever caught in that lake. Jim

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

morning sky up in Maine