casts_by_fly

I added an extender for my ram but not to support the boat. I used it for lifting. Instead of lifting the stern while standing next to the bed and twisting my body, I stood between the bed and extender, or at least I stood next to it, lifted, and shuffled a couple steps between it. Then no twisting while holding a heavy load.

This.

I’m up north and I can’t say that it is better or worse than other colors but red shades and accent certainly do work for me.

Usgs surface water data. It depends on your area as to how many lakes will have monitors, but if you’re just looking for ice out you should have at least one nearby to check.

Or get a fleece or down vest. When you hit the shoulder season when it’s foggy and 45 in the morning and then warms up to 75 and sun at by noon it’s time for layers.

In your situation, I would get a pair of LiTime 100 ah. One for the trolling motor, one for all of the electronics. Leave the cranker for the motor, bilge, lights, etc. All of your electronics are drawing about 6 amps. That will give you 12-15 hours of run time. It also keeps you in an all 12v charger situation. i did similar on my boat setup that’s in progress. I went 24v battery to save space, but it limits charger options. And you don’t need a 24v system now, so stick to 12. Get a 3 bank noco now and if you go 24 later, just keep it for the three lithium’s and add a single noco for the lead acid later as a trickle charger. You won’t really need it though really since you won’t be running electronics and the big motor has an alternator.

I fish mostly mono, and supernatural at that mostly. I have 6-16# loaded across the bulk of my reels (big game and suffix elite also play). I like mono for most bait casting (I’m braid to leader for bass spinning) with a couple exceptions for frogs and swim jigs primarily. I’m trying heavy fluoro for swim baits this year. But otherwise it’s supernatural as my base line until I have a reason to change. I agree with you, at the same time to put a 75 yard fill of supernatural on it’s about $2.25. I’ll fish that most of a season or more sometimes. No need so turn it around, just strip it and pitch it. Same as when it starts to get low on the spool, just strip to the backing and fill it back up. to your point, a 75 yard fill of 832 is $7.50 and will go a couple seasons before you even have to turn it around. So it’s about the same price in the end. I’ll lose more braid to tying lures in a season than what wears out.

in a straight 5’ bed probably. My ram is 5’7” and a 12’ kayak was fine. The tailgate adds about 2’ on mine. It also kinda depends on the boat. The autopilot is butt heavy and I loaded butt first into the bed. It was very stable and not going anywhere even without a strap (ask me how I know…). the ss127 has a factory bow plate for motor guide motors. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a minn kota mount available somewhere. That would allow for a powerdrive or terrova with a self rigged way to stow and deploy. Or an ulterra with auto stow and deploy. You’d probably want to cut down the shaft though. Even a 45” is going to be long. There is the auto boat add on but you still need a short shaft motor. Or you have the autopilot. a cut down

good luck! The smaller ones he throws (we also have a lot of smaller tiger muskies) are probably closer to that. With a 4.8 keitech and a musky killer I think he's coming in around 6 1/2" and around 1 1/2 oz. I bet with a big spunk shad on the back you could really burn it back. That feels very bassy for covering big flats.

One of the guys in the local musky groups does something similar. He's using a big mepps and 5-7" keitechs with a weighted swimbait hook replacement like that. The big ones are a mepps giant killer plus a 6.8 on a 3/8 10/0 hook. That will come in close to 3 oz total in the end. It's a 9-10" bait in the end.

yeah, if you want to throw lighter than 1/8 oz then you need a BFS spool. I don't know the curado, but the aldebaran is nice. JDM versions @$250 or so.

isn't a senko just a highly salted and cured hot dog?

Are you thinking about a bow mount on the current boat or a new boat? I think your choices are limted for the most part. Now that Motorguide is no more, the xi3 Kayak edition is gone. You might find new old stock or a used one, but there no more new stock being made. You could get a 45" shaft like a powerdrive and cut it down (or deal with a long shaft). You could go to an autopilot. If a bigger/heavier/more stable boat and 4 mph is fine for you, then the autopilot is a great choice. I loved my 120 which was just sold. Koz noted the many benefits. The fishing aspects of it are incredible. Stand and fish easily, lock into offshore structure, navigation down the bank at constant speed for covering water. You name it. On smaller lakes (500 acres or less) it's pretty ideal. You can make bigger ones work if you have time and/or amp hours. The 1200 acre lake around here is a 40 minute ride from the ramp to the top end at 4 mph. I would never run it straight up there (I'd fish my way up in a couple jumps) but I did run it back once to go home. But a 40 minute run at full speed is going to draw 30 Ah or so. Do it twice and that's most of an 80 AH battery gone. If you're planning to make those kinds of runs, then a 125 or 160 ah might be in the cards. A big newport on the back and in a 136 might see 6 mph or so. Then again, if you're planning for that level of running (and not in a tournament) a kayak probably isn't the right boat.

20-30 yards should be an easy lob.

I think you have it correct. On the black there will be one wire that connects the two. You don't have to touch that one. Then the front battery will have all the other things connected while the back doesn't have anything else. Move all of the 'other things' to the back battery.

So a helix 10 and a LVS32/34/blackbox/10" headunit will combine for about 5-6 amps. A group 31 AGM is about 100 AH. Since you have two in parallel, you've got about 200 AH capacity which should be WAY more than you'd ever need. That said, 12.2V is around 65% full. I'm thinking there are a couple things in play here. 1- the connections sound like they are all on one battery with the second battery in parallel off the back, as opposed to both in parallel but with a primary connection on each battery. What is happening is that you're working the battery that the main connections are on a lot harder than the second one backing it up. Long term, I'd swap one of the terminals if you can so that they are drawing through both batteries the same, if for no other reason than evening out the wear on the two. If the Humminbird is connected to the 'primary' battery in your setup and the Garmin to the backup (for lack of a better term), that could explain why the HBird fluctuates so much and the garmin doesn't. To that end, for the next trip out I would separate the batteries and run one as a dedicated electronics battery to see if that solves your issue. It should be a simple swap and easy to test. 2- It could also be that the units have different sensors and processing of the voltage sensor readings. So the same battery might show differently on each unit. Similarly, the voltage at the terminals won't be the same as at the unit due to losses in the wires between the two. A long skinny wire (humminbird helix power cables for instance) will drop move voltage than a short fat wire. If you have both on the same battery and no motor/alternator playing with voltage, then you can get a gauge on how they are vs each other. 3- Maybe most importantly, you're getting a low voltage alarm but has the unit every shut down or given problems? The min voltage spec is 10.8V. Do you just have your low voltage alarm set at a high number that doesn't make any real difference in use?

So if I'm reading you correctly, you have two lead batteries that are in parallel which supply both the big motor and the electronics? Correct? You say you have one battery for garmin and one for HBird. But you say that the two group 31 are in parallel and also connected to the motor? is that correct? When you have the big motor running it will show 14V. That's the alternator output on the motor, not what's in the battery itself. The alternator outputs at a higher voltage than nominal 12V because that's how you charge. When you crank the motor over, you're drawing power from the battery and the battery voltage will dip as you're seeing. When you stop cranking the voltage should recover (if the motor isn't running). You have a 4 bank charger, but you've desribed 5 batteries? Three for the 36V trolling motor and 2 group 31 (one of which is connected to the 250HP, but in reality both are since they are in parallel). What are the 4 'banks' each charging? Presumably one bank on each trolling motor battery and one bank charging the 12V 'system' of 2x group 31 in parallel? is the bank on the group 31's connected with one cable to each battery or both on the same battery? That isn't surprising if both AGM are connected to the big motor and you were running the big motor a bit. It would have kept them charged up through the day and on the run back to the dock. 12.6 is nominal full voltage on a lead battery, so nothing abnormal there.

That was my first though, hence a picture request.

Not a mountain lion, but got this snap last week 3/4 mile from the house.

A 3/16 plus small swimbait will be plenty of weight. put up a couple pictures of your reel and the last couple guides on the rod.

It would probably give it away.

Guys- he’s talking about 8-10’. I don’t care if you are using 80lb power pro on a 500 size reel or a double quad uni knot connection- you’re going to get more than that. You can pull out 10’ of line from the reel (past the tip) and get more than that. There is a fundamental rigging issue here that requires a picture to diagnose.

I’m predicting that the lm record won’t be broken. I’m not saying where the SM might be broken, just that I wouldn’t be surprised if it is in the next 3 years. And if it is, I know the lake that will do it and why. It might be the first lake I put the boat in this year. But I’m not putting the name out into a public forum.

pitching to cover or dragging (or other)? I’ve never been a cold water jig fisherman as much as I know they work.

if there is cleaner to be had then sure. 1’ isn’t what I’d call muddy though. I’m talking 6” or less type muddy. I’d probably go home if that was the case. But if the water is 1’ dirty then I’m looking for cover on the sunny side of the lake. At 48 degrees I’d expect the fish to be closer to the winter end of their range than the spawning end. In that scenario I’m looking for the steeper transition zones moreso than the flats. also, I’m ignoring ffs for the sake of this post. I have it and would use it (maybe even in the 6” muddy scenario) but not everyone does. And the thought process would still be the same for finding where they are. Just easier to confirm with live imaging.