Super User Scott F Posted July 27, 2018 Super User Posted July 27, 2018 On Monday, I got a call from a friend of mine Pete, who knew I wanted to try out my new boat on the Menominee river, and suggested we take a trip. Tuesday morning Pete showed up at my house and we took off. We wanted to let city traffic die down a bit before we left, so we hit the road about 9 for what was supposed to be a 4.5 hour drive. Constant road construction, detours, and trouble finding a restaurant, turned that into a 6.75 hour drive. After finally arriving, I think we boated about 27 smallies in 4 hours with an average size of 15-16 inches. Only 2 were under 14 and the biggest was 18. The only bait that really worked was a #90 Whopper Plopper. The amount of floating grass got to be pretty annoying, but the amount of action and the great average size of the bass, made picking off pieces of grass tolerable. We might have got more on plastics, but with the top water baits working so well, why change? On the morning of day 2, we got out early and at 6:30 I was preparing my boat to launch. Pete, eager to get started, made a cast standing on the boat ramp. His first cast nailed a 19 inch smallmouth, while I was still messing with the boat. That was to be one of the few highlights of the day. We'd gotten back to the hotel kind of late the night before and I'd hooked up my battery charger but apparently the charger did not get my trolling motor batteries fully charged by the next morning. We started with the batteries about half way charged and they didn't last the morning. Running the jet on plane while motoring upstream, I could avoid the shallowest water. Drifting back downstream, trying to dodge the rocks is more of a challenge and a strong trolling motor makes it easier to zig-zag around the rocks. If you aren't paying attention, winding up stuck on a rock is a very real possibility. Without a good motor, avoiding the rocks wasn't possible. Avoiding those shallowest areas kept us from the best fishing water and our results showed. For the rest of the day, Pete only had two more bass, although one went 19.5". I had 7 for the day with 6 of the 7 between 16-17 inches. We were pretty tired and storms were on the way so we were done by 5. Got up on Thursday morning and checked the trolling motor which showed no battery power. with no trolling motor, we decided to call it a trip. After I got home, I tested the batteries. One showed full power and one was dead. I tested the charger, and one of the two banks was not working. The bad charger pretty much wrecked what promised to be a great trip. I'm glad I found out about this now and not in a few weeks when I am returning for a full week fishing trip. Needing a new charger, I did some research of previous BR forum topics on on-board chargers. It looked like it was between the Dual Pro or Minn Kota chargers. The space that I have in my boat ruled out the Dual Pro so I went with the Minn Kota Precision. It should be here in a couple of days. It's been a while since I have been able to get on my favorite river and tie into these powerful river bronzebacks. Getting to these fish is a challenge and negotiating shallow, rocky rivers increases the difficulty, but the fight, and heart stopping jumps put up by these bass is the big reward. Me with one of the average smallies Pete with a late afternoon bass Pete's 19 inch fish caught off the boat ramp on his first cast of the day. Pete's second 19 incher of the day 12 Quote
Super User Catt Posted July 29, 2018 Super User Posted July 29, 2018 Beautiful fish & beautiful body of water! Quote
Super User Mobasser Posted July 29, 2018 Super User Posted July 29, 2018 Wow! Great trip for you guys. Nice fish! Quote
Global Moderator TnRiver46 Posted July 31, 2018 Global Moderator Posted July 31, 2018 Nice fish! I keep a 3 amp battery maintainer in the boat for just such an occasion. They cost $20 Quote
moguy1973 Posted July 31, 2018 Posted July 31, 2018 With grass you could have switched to a buzz frog like a Horny Toad or something similar. It would have glided right across that grass and smallies love them. Quote
Super User Scott F Posted July 31, 2018 Author Super User Posted July 31, 2018 54 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said: Nice fish! I keep a 3 amp battery maintainer in the boat for just such an occasion. They cost $20 The problem was, I did not have a volt meter with me to help diagnose what the problem was. I did have a separate 3 amp charger with me but had no idea if one or both batteries were low or if one or both banks on my charger was bad. 46 minutes ago, moguy1973 said: With grass you could have switched to a buzz frog like a Horny Toad or something similar. It would have glided right across that grass and smallies love them. The issue was grass that was chopped up and loose flowing downstream. That’s one reason we used topwaters where we could hold the line out of the water. Line laying on top or in the water column would catch the loose grass. Quote
Global Moderator TnRiver46 Posted July 31, 2018 Global Moderator Posted July 31, 2018 31 minutes ago, Scott F said: The problem was, I did not have a volt meter with me to help diagnose what the problem was. I did have a separate 3 amp charger with me but had no idea if one or both batteries were low or if one or both banks on my charger was bad. The issue was grass that was chopped up and loose flowing downstream. That’s one reason we used topwaters where we could hold the line out of the water. Line laying on top or in the water column would catch the loose grass. Gotcha. Harbor freight has voltmeters $5, I keep a couple laying around . Had one that quit working after about a year then magically started working again a year after that! Haha. Quote
Super User Scott F Posted July 31, 2018 Author Super User Posted July 31, 2018 Boat, trailer and motor are all new. Batteries are one year old, and the charger and TM are all less than 3 years old. There was a $200 Fluke multi-meter sitting on my work bench that is normally in the tool box I bring on most trips. I figured, why bring a bunch of tools that will just sit in the truck? Murphy bit me in the rear end. I’m usually the most prepared person on earth but I screwed up. Quote
Global Moderator TnRiver46 Posted July 31, 2018 Global Moderator Posted July 31, 2018 2 hours ago, Scott F said: Boat, trailer and motor are all new. Batteries are one year old, and the charger and TM are all less than 3 years old. There was a $200 Fluke multi-meter sitting on my work bench that is normally in the tool box I bring on most trips. I figured, why bring a bunch of tools that will just sit in the truck? Murphy bit me in the rear end. I’m usually the most prepared person on earth but I screwed up. Nah, screwing up is when you get all the way there and realize you forgot the boat key Quote
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