fishinwrench

"Tunnel hull Culture" 😅 That's cute. In looking at Defoe's rig.....For the same money he could run a port side jet kicker motor on a jackplate, and not have to carry a spare lower unit and 2 spare props. Best of both worlds.

I've heard that baloney everytime a conversation about forward facing sonar gets started. There is No comparison whatsoever. Live sonar not only let's you know that fish are there, it let's you know how interested they are in your bait and your presentation. Also allows you to follow suspended fish in real time. Have you ever "ballooned" a school of white bass? It works like a charm.

Tiring debate. Once again, I have concrete blocks and/or a perfect stump field to settle it. But of course it would require 2 identical rigs with the only difference being the hull design and rigging. And that ain't fixin' to happen, so... 🤷

I feel likewise. It would be kinda cool to have on my flyfishing flats rig.....to save my arm 2000 casts. But I'm just not so sure that I want to leave my old-school hardass ways behind, and step into the "new era".

The guys that are fast becoming Livescope experts are able to locate the smaller schools of giant crappie. Not by the size of the "blips" but by the number of fish around an object and how they are positioned relative to each other. One dude, a guide from Truman, uses long poles so he can get the fish to follow the jig sideways across the beam. By doing it that way he can tell if it's a biggun. When the fish are facing the boat a 9 incher looks just like a 14 inchers does on the display.

Because I needed a break from paperwork I figured up how much fish we went through last year. 4 limits of white bass + 2 limits that my daughter caught, so that's 90 Whites. 60 crappie 3 Walleye 8 channel cat 1 big flathead 4 trout park rainbows And then we were gifted some Spoonbill, Salmon, and Halibut. That kinda sounds like alot of fish, but it doesn't SEEM like it when looking back. 🤔

Livescope isn't going to hurt the crappie population, but it is going to make crappie tournaments pretty pointless. Nobody needs 13-15" crappie for a fish fry. Besides, the big ol' barn door size crappie don't fight any harder, or have any more meat on them than the 11 inchers do......they just weigh more because they have bigger heads and tails.

Transition time is upon us. The jerkbait/A-rig bite will become a Wiggle wart/Hula grub bite. First locate several good shallow spawning areas and then back off to the nearest steeper chunk rock banks. You should find some keeper sized bass there. Don't neglect to cover the water that is an arms length or less from the shoreline. This time of the year it's always worth quickly checking the super shallow back end flats. Fan cast a lipless crankbait or a spinnerbait out over the shallow flat. If you hit it right (timing) you can load the boat with pigs real quick. As for crappie, depending on water color you should be able to find them around 4-7' brush, or just cruising the banks at the same depth.

Jets are inefficient as hell to begin with. If you start that "tunnel" business..... Shoving a hull that "forms a plume" and all that nonsense, and you just lost yet another 5-10 hp.

I'm pretty sure that if you remove the pawl it will totally freespool. The pawl is the only thing giving it any "drag".

Could have won video of the year if he would have hopped up, put the trolling motor down, and started slingin' an A-rig. 😅

The Livescope gang are loading up on slabs every day. 8-12' deep

I'm not accusing you of lying. We used to enter and exit Duroc bay by dumping the throttle.....then riding the wake over the hump. I'm 100% hip to the concept, but "running" the shallows and "zipping quickly over a high spot" are 2 different things. Especially when you're merely playing over silt/sand vs. gravel and rock. This ain't St.Padre Anglers forum.....This is Ozark Anglers forum. We know not of SAND. Our streambeds hurt, and if your tunnel hull can't safely run 9" over gravel and rock (which it can't unless you have 1/8 mile to get it wound up) then it isn't any more useful than a flat bottom jon that can easily do 9-10" at any speed you choose to go.

When my oldest kid still lived here we could stockpile whites and crappie. But now I'm the only permit holder in the house, so I have to wait until we eat some to replenish. I'd rather get all of my fish cleaning out of the way during the Spring, and then C&R the rest of the year.....but technically I can't.

I like boats, but I'd do just about anything to avoid a 2 hour boat ride every other day. People move to Lake O and buy a pontoon, with the thought that they are going to spend endless days cruising the lake and enjoying life. Then 2 months into the pontoons life it becomes a home for wayward spiders, covered in birdshit. 😅

That's just shy of 1 full hour every single day.....for 15 years. You must not have a wife, attend church. No staying home during hurricanes, or stopping to fish. Just out there in the Gulf running around in circles for days on end.... chewing up sand. 😂 You wanna know how much actual running time I put on my 1987 XP150 in a days time? About 12-20 minutes. And it feels like I'm in a boat more than I wanna be.

Well since they all run Mercs and Suzuki's down there......You can throw that rule right out the window. 🤣😂😅

Gravity is a thing too. A vertical section of hull does not support anything. Which is easier to pull under water, a fat round bobber, or a long skinny quill bobber with the same surface area ? Throw a stick like a spear and the whole stick goes under. But throw it flat and it doesn't even go under at all.

The engine does not run skinnier!!! The engine runs where the engine runs. Where the boat hull is, in relation to the engine......is the only thing that changes. I understand that you guys are hung up on this magical plume of water created by the hull design, and in your mind you see it turning 6" of water into 15" of water, but in reality that doesn't happen. And even if it did.....if you ever slowed down or stopped you'd be dry docked. THEN WHADDYA GONNA DO ? 😅

The only ones I know about, that I feel are most likely over their possession limit on any given day.... are the ones who do the Friday fish fry's at the Catholic church. But it's pretty obvious that they get a nod and a pass. 🙄

@Flysmallie is the guy you need to listen to about that.

True. I had a SeaNymph center console that I rigged as a flats-boat, and I added trim tabs to the transom as an experiment. It did get it to run noticably shallower BUT by forcing the bow down it made it squirrely as hell on fast turns. I scared myself a couple times and then quickly ditched the brilliant trim tab idea. 😂 There's actually one of my little scary spinouts somewhere on YouTube. Almost lost the camera AND MYSELF. 😲 Edit:. Ha! Found it! Right at 1:46 it just about got away from me. 😅

If you know that you're coming up on a high spot, and there's room for you to cross it as you curve a little, you can gain 2-3" of lift by "listing" the boat one way or the other.

Here's a little geometry test you can do, regarding good quality boat/motor setups, and rigging...... Tilt your outboard until the leading edge of the skeg is parallel with the hull of the boat. If the prop and the water intake isn't still fully submerged, then your rigging is flawed. This is how trim gauges are supposed to be calibrated. (but none ever are 🙄) Here you can see that I can crawl gently over anything 9" or deeper with the motor positioned in "shallow water drive" . I can also lower the motor and accelerate enough to get up on plane.....and shoot over it that way also. But either way my limit is 9" without fear of clipping the bottom. My trolling motor requires the same JFYI.

Thank you 😅 I think @netboy believes that I'm just being a jackass, but I'm actually trying hard not to be. 😊 The appearance of a tunnel Hull naturally makes you think that it is running shallower....but the physics of the whole deal actually shows that it truly isn't. If you look at the pic he posted of the prop tunnel hull rig you should notice the amount of negative trim angle. Do you know WHY that motor needs such a "tucked in attitude" to get out of the hole? It's because there isn't enough butt in the boat to keep the nose from stabbing the sky when accelerating. I'm sorry, but that boat, even though I dig the looks of it, is a plowing demon. Whereas a standard flat bottom Jon boat is going to skim right on top......with the lower unit of the outboard at the same depth of water. Would you rather smack a rock with a tucked in (negative trim) angle.....or would you rather more gently kiss off of a rock with the motor slightly trimmed OUTWARD ? Would you rather be able to idle easily over shallow obstacles.....or would you prefer to haul @$$ over them, close your eyes, and say a prayer? IF a tunnel Hull TRULY operated in shallower water, with no negative effects.....then WHY IN GODS GREEN EARTH would they build river boats any other way? C'mon now