fishinwrench

Brush or rock structure in 7-12' is producing as well as the deeper 15-25' stuff (basically anything they can get next to is worth a try until you get a few bites and can put a daily location pattern together. Don't overlook No-Wake bouy cables out in the middle of the coves as one or two of them are likely to have a school of suspended crappie hanging around them, you can often pick up 4-5 before they get wise and quit biting or move. Remember which bouy it was and check it again on the way back in.

The article doesn't mention how much it supposedly weighs, what's the current record? Who can do the math? Big sumbitch regardless.

Let me get a grip on this.... Placed by the hand of God and then protected by humans. -verses- Placed by the hand of a human and protected by humans ? And who placed the humans? Oh yeah...nevermind, I know the acceptable answer to that one. Soooo, what was the question again? (this is a genuine mind bender)

Awesome! !!!! LMAO

With the immensely upgraded hatchery operation up and running now SURELY the trout holding portion of the Niangua will become awesome soon. Right? Or did they just do all that in order to improve the "already good" fishing within the park?

Several good bass patterns are likely for mid-April. It's without a doubt the best time of the year to do what you do best....and succeed. If you get here and don't have a reasonable amount of bites pretty quick then just gimme a shout. Everything mentioned so far indicates that you're on the right page. Although the suspeding jerkbaits should prolly be swapped for a Fluke or one of its cousins.

Note to self: Do not mention the word "otter" in front of Chuckie unless I have no plans for the rest of the day. Thanks for the heads-up.

Joe, I'm guessing he was preoccupied with the myan calendar and the fiscal cliff. And now that all the "sequester" and Pope prayers are flowing in I'm afraid we might be on our own with the whole rainfall business again.

I'll see it when I believe it

A fight? Or fly porn?

Were you satisfied with the tires that came on your truck when you bought it? You make a good point though. The most reasonable "starting point" towards propping it out the way you like it is by running it first with what it comes rigged with and then adjusting from there ....if needed.

Great!

You just made me realize that the pelicans have been absent here this year. Usually they are here before now and stay until the spring floods. Haven't seen a single one yet.

LOL That's great!

No the last one was pretty much gone except for the bladed piles. The local radio station says that we got 8-11 but I only measured 5 3/4 on the south side of my deck. Lots of drifts so it's impossible to be accurate. It was ENOUGH that's for sure. 3000+ out of power here since sunrise.

24p Trophy would be a reasonable starting point I think, but I'd run it by the crew at BBC before I bought anything. www.bassboatcentral.com

Round deux, anyone? Summer Dreamin'

One other thing.... Your old 12/24 is probably "constant current controlled". More modern TM's are "modulated" so that voltage is pulsed to increase battery life after the initial start up. So....in a modulated unit the thrust rating is the MAX THRUST AT STARTUP, so once you stand on the button a few seconds the actual thrust will fall off somewhat. Some MK and MG 24v units have a "HBP" (high bypass) switch that bypasses the module giving the brushes constant (non-pulsed) voltage for continuous max power. Operating like that for more than a few minutes at a time though will really heat things up and suck your batterys down with a quickness. Does that make ANY sense at all? I have it solid in my head but be dammed if I can think of a better way to explain it.

Pounds of thrust does not equal ft./lbs. #Thrust is a unit of force, while a foot-pound is a unit of torque. Trolling motors are rated at their maximum thrust. Power (expressed in horsepower) is another thing altogether. Power, as it pertains to propeller drives, is torque times rpm. The actual pounds of thrust from any given horsepower will vary depending on a number of factors, including prop diameter, number of blades, inherant flex of the blades, and pitch. For what it's worth, rating electric motors by power would be more meaningful than thrust ratings. If you change the pitch of the prop, for example, you could increase or decrease the thrust of the same trolling motor. So, a 54 lb maximum thrust motor would not always give you a maximum of 54 lbs of thrust. I have a working understanding of all of this but not well enough to "teach it"..... so here's a link that serves as a good baseline for choosing the proper system for any need. http://www.trollingmotors.net/trolling-motor-resources

Wish I could see them. For some reason they won't load for me, all I see is blue boxes.

LMAO! OK well maybe make it a .410 for those who are a bit light in their loafers.

In a team tourney your usually only weighing the best SINGLE limit among 2 (or more) anglers, so a cull technicality is "usually" overlooked.... and rightly so.

I have always let my dogs (Labs) have free reign because it is generally safe to do so where I live, but I have lost every one of them because of it. One day (for whatever reason) they just decide to go on an adventure and either come dragging in late and injured or flat out vanish into thin air. It's frustrating and heart breaking, but I'd rather not even have a dog if I have to keep him/her penned up for 3/4 of its life. I want to get a pup this Spring but after 3 such losses in 20 years I'm seriously having second thoughts. I'm tired of dealing with that panic feeling everytime they get out of sight or don't come immediately when I holler for them and gas is too high to be going on massive countywide searches 3-4 times a year.

I still have a bit of the guide mentality. If I know where the fish are and how they are biting then I wanna take someone. But if I've been suffering through a dry spell and know that I'm going to have to spend some time and effort figuring out the bite then I prefer to do the struggling solo.

22--38 Might as well be life. Not like he's gonna get out and have a life afterwards.