Ham

I did for a long time. I’d bet I’m the only guy excited to use it for Bowfin.

the graph rides with the black box when not deployed. This will ride in the cab with me and in general get babied a lot. I’m not in a hurry to have to replace anything.

I went with the Fishing Specialties Bowducer for my transducer pole. Lots of guys make versions at home less expensively with PVC and left over parts and pieces. I had neither the time nor the inclination for all that. I wanted a reliable product that would perform well. I have seen this mount in use and felt like it was the best option for me. the depth of the transducer can be optimized. The handle telescopes out a few more inches. I have my handle inline with the transducer to be an easy visual on where the transducer is pointed. close up of how it attaches to the pole. I was interested in FFS only. There are options if you are going to use the other modes. an old Bass Pro bait caster glove is going to be my travel cover for the transducer.

using a Scotty Mount with a 2.25 inch ball. To Mount graph on top of box. The graph will come off for travel. The arm rides in the box with graph.

Here’s the Black Box and the battery adapters. They are mounted with stainless steel hardware and lock washers.

here’s the batteries. Bought as this combo off Amazon. Time will tell if they last at all. Charges two at a time. I will be running two batteries in parallel and I’m hoping for 6 hours of actual run time from each “set”

Patience is a virtue. It’s pretty darn cold and I have a job. I will update with pictures. to me, The Point of this thread was to express my appreciation to Les for all his help. If anyone else benefits from pictures of my setup, that’s lagniappe.

Well, I had gotten to use CheaterScope (TM) fishing with Les, and Johnny and @LittleRedFisherman and another friend not on the Forum. I knew it offered HUGE advantages for crappie fisherman and other anglers too, but I drug my feet because of the cost. well another hugely successful crappie trip and a Black Friday deal from Bass Pro make me go to the dark side. I had ideas of how I wanted to do my version. I wanted to mainly use it in Waldo and I wanted it to be completely portable so that I did not tie into existing power sources on the boat and I wanted to be able to remove it if I did not want it onboard. @grizwilson is my turn to guy for innovative solutions. I borrowed heavily from his experience and I was able to get a kinfolk deal on a 9 inch Garmin since he was upgrading. I got Les to meet me today and we put the system together and then tested in from a dock in Taneycomo. I’m soooo Happy to have gotten this done. I’ll use it for the first time next week. It should have been pretty straight forward, but sometimes my stuff gets sideways. Very relieved that it’s all worked out and functioning well. I will install the Fishing Specialties Bowducer Mount very soon and I’ll update the thread with pictures. I can’t express my Thanks to Les enough. Thanks Buddy !!!

Nice Boat Bill. I’d love to have it. I’d need to sell the BassCat first and I drug my feet doing that.

Sometimes 12 Billion dollars just isn’t enough.

The water level fluctuations that BSL goes through eliminate the possibility of aquatic vegetation. Because of the lack of aquatic vegetation, there are HIGH levels of fry predation by the omnipresent Longear Sunfish and Green Sunfish. High water in Springtime (>665) helps all the young of them year, but in general the estimates I have read about say there are less than 30% naturally produced walleye in Bull Shoals.

I didn’t know about this program.

Yellow Bass are a cool little native fish. Weird when they get moved around. AGFC takes a rather dim view of them.

So many magical fish!

That’s a really Pretty Spotted Bass John. I had forgotten about him. I’m appreciative of the ones you were able to catch and embarrassed that I caught the Ozark Madtom and the only Skipjack we saw. I really enjoyed our trip. I wish we could fish together a few times a year.

You assume too much. I keep a few Skipjack for cutbait. I haven’t created piscatorial alchemy to the tune of 50 lbs, yet. We have caught bowfin, channel cats, and blues.

I’d bet they are available within a certain driving range. I’m about 2 hours away from the nearest ones to me. Use the same gear that you bluegill / Redear fish with and you will be surprised how sporty they can be. Tandem crappie jigs or small Swimbaits.

They are a really fun fish if caught on appropriate gear. These are jumbos and can and do break you off even when I pushed leader up to 10 lb fluro.

Oh yeah, there are guys with commercial licenses that catch them for resale too. Guys are catching them for catfish bait.

We travelled down to Louisiana to visit friends for New Years.We drove back on New Year’s Day, but we got back in time for me to catch a few fish in Cotter just to start the year off right. I jousted with Windmills in Louisiana on 12/30 and 12/31. The Windmills won so it was nice to put that behind me. @FishNDave is going to be fishing with me at the end of the month so I needed to scout the area more. It was a chilly morning, but I knew it would warm so I took off through the mountains to get south to the Arkansas river. It’s pretty fun to trailer a boat on Hwy 7. I got there and the boat parking lot was almost full. What the heck? I’ve never had much company there, but whatever, I dove three hours to fish so I’m gonna fish. I wanted to learn more areas and I was gonna get my chance. Lots of boats, but not much catching. I felt like they would thin out and I was right. I picked out a spot and got bit right away. I got some White Bass, Yellow Bass, and Sauger. I know they were small.I’m still not tried of Sauger on fly. When I had room, I went up to one of “my” spots. It was slower, but I got a small spotted bass and some Schoolie Stripers. Good to see the Stripers, but they weren’t in a great spot for a fly guy. There is an adjacent area that is better for them, but it had a boat there all day. Casting over and over and over to same spot. 🎉🥳 I had wanted to catch five species and 50 fish. I had counted on catching a bunch of skipjacks, and they were there, but not playing. 1/2 the boats there were after skipjacks. Most left with a few, but far less than they were after. Well, I was way off my pace for raw numbers of fish so I slipped back down with current and started learning the areas better. I had my 9 foot Cajun depth finder and felt around for the edge of the flat etc. I had brought a 3 weight, 6 weight, 8 weight, and 9 weight flyrod. I made sure to catch fish on all of them. The skipjack started to fire up a little. I hooked less than half that bit and landed way less than half that I hooked, but I did catch a few. While I was screwing around with those guys I started to pick up Bigger Whites and I even got a schoolie Striper and then another Striper. And these fish could be targeted with fly. Once I got my 50 burger, I put the other gear away and got my 8 wt and 9 wt rods ready. I repositioned the boat back up in the higher flow. Adjusted the TM to run on constant but with just enough juice to make sure that my fly line with drift downstream just faster than the boat. Literally the first cast with the 8 wt, I had a schoolie try to take the rod away from me. Rude! I really took my time with him because I really wanted to land him. After all that excitement, I finally made another cast and BANG another fish. Lengthy fight etc. Another cast and BOOM I got a blow up, but I missed em. No worries, Next cast another Striper! So, I had to call Dave. I bought a sink line for my 9 wt and I have used it successfully in other areas, but I wanted it to work here. I swapped to the nine weight and started working. Nothing, nothing, nothing, missed a good tap. Changed fly. Missed a tap. Missed a tap. Nothing. Missed a tap. I finally woke up and moved back to where I started with the 8 weight. Boom! Hard take on the first cast. Hung one on the next cast and he came off. Missed a hard hit on the third cast. And caught my final fish of the day on the fourth cast. I finished with 55 to hand. I literally left em biting which sucked, but I had that long road home to deal with. Awesome day on the water and I feel even better about helping Dave get a Striper.

There is a Very Large and very easy to read sign at the confluence. Ignorance of the law is not an effective legal excuse and in this case a very flimsy argument. If you run Bass boats on the White and Buffalo for any length of time, I assume rocks are going to educate you to the folly of your actions.

The Feds don’t play. I would imagine there would be a LARGE fine for that behavior.

Round that sucker up to a 20 inch fish. Walleye on the Sac is definitely a thing. Start trying at the head of a pool fishing a swim bait down and across. You’ll lose a few baits, but starting mid February or so you have a shot at Big Females.

I did not see another thread to add to so I guess I will start one. 1) alligator gar on fly 2) musky on fly 3) get Lifelist to 250 4) 50 Bowfin on fly 5) 100 Bowfin on hook and line 6) 3000 fish caught on hook and line 7) get Freshwater Species on Fly up to 100 ( Magic Number is sitting at 11) I want to have Fun! I really got focused on the 100 species on fly thing. I should be a little more foot loose and fancy free this year.

Well, I guess it’s time for my final review of 2023 Fishing Goals 1) I only caught 4-5 North American Gar species on fly. I should have planned a dedicated gar on fly trip as soon as I caught a Florida Gar. My Bad. 2) I got my Life List up to 243 well above the stated goal of 225 3) my stated goal was 75 on fly and 150 on hook and line. I ended up with 104 species on fly and 158 species on hook and line 4) I wanted to get Lifetime on Fly to 100 species. I got that list up to 112 species on fly ( so I caught 104 of the 112 species I have ever caught on fly THIS YEAR !!!). 5) I wanted to add 7 counties in Arkansas. Total failure! I added no new counties this year. 6) Catch a Snakehead on fly. I did it! I had a great year. Looking forward to 2024.