MOBass

Ditto what Travis said. When I have one of my kids with me it is nice to tie up and go have lunch. Good fishing off the docks also.

Sorry I did not make it with the buffalo chicken dip. After going to the gym my son wanted to go see Star Wars and I wanted to do something with him before school started back. Happy New Year to all and hopefully I'll be down for January 1 2019.

Pretty sure I'll make it again. Put me down for buffalo chicken dip and chips.

https://scout.com/outdoors/bass-fishing/Article/Peak-Rock-Capital-Acquires-Strike-King-Lure-Company-110047420 More changes in the fishing industry this morning.

I am going Sunday. I don't care if it is high skies and 80 at this point. I don't care if I catch anything. I just want to be on the water.

Arrived at the Branson Campground ramp about 8:30A to see the last park space fill up. Bailed to Cooper Creek, 4 or 5 rigs there. Fished the creek below Branson Landing, spooked a nice fish off the corner of a shallow dock and that was the extent of the action. Ran to Rockaway and had one fish chase a jig out as I was winding in to cast again. Finally hit a gnarly tree with a picnic bench under water below Rockaway and lost a nice largemouth to slack line and a pulled hook on a Senko, same area caught one small largemouth. Back to the creek below Branson for one more fish on the Senko skipped under a dock. No love on spinnerbait, worm, jig, plopper. Lots of boat traffic, trout guys, kayaks, canoes, kids camp, the new jet boat tour. Thankfully no Craigcats and no one being overtly stupid.

I'll be down there Sunday and will post a report.

Can you share some details about the boat? I have been looking to go down and fish the Gulf again.

While I did no see it running I did see the jet boat at the landing Saturday. The wake from that thing might be a concern to some, but I saw a few other things that as I boater I will have to be aware of. In addition to the stand up paddle board and kayak rentals at the landing there are also 'water bikes', both peddle and trolling motor powered on the water. They are up higher than 'yaks and were easy to see, still something else to watch for. There were also CraigCats at a dock that appear to be for rent and I saw a couple of them running around. They were moving pretty quick so hopefully the people that rent them use some common sense and not run out in front of someone.

After resolving fishfinder, trolling motor, and prop problems I wanted to shake the boat down and make sure nothing else was going to malfunction and try to wet a line. State park ramp and parking situation was good except for someone stopped in the lane just before the staging area. It wasn't busy so not much of an issue, but certainly odd to just stop there. No debris on ramp, both courtesy docks were usable. I ran to Clevenger and spent most of my time throwing a spinnerbait in the bushes. Summary for the session.....small fish, lots of short strikes. I was not in the mood to fight the wind and confidant everything was working good I put it on the trailer and was having lunch by 11:00.

I scrapped fishing to recover from life this weekend. I'll crack open the control and getting anything out of there that might be a problem and see if I can find the parts to fix it. From the description it was a plastic 'ear' of some sort that broke.

Found someone with the same problem. Their plastic plunger had a piece brake and that was the cause. You can start the motor and it operates fine, just can't do the throttle only. Too nice to not fish right now and the old motor likes the warm weather so I'll deal with it until fall.

Is the courtesy dock usable at Mill Creek? Was it crowded? I hope to come down Saturday, but will be launching solo and will take a little time to get off the ramp. It sounds like State Park has been pretty busy and I don't want to gum up the works with launching solo.

I appreciate the information on the docks. Hopefully I can get down there early enough to find a space. Weather is looking good this weekend and I figure there will be lots of folks down there.

Are the courtesy docks usable at State Park? I'll be launching solo and having a courtesy dock to tie up to for a couple minutes makes things easier for me. I saw a few post and it sounds like parking might be hard to come by. Any word on this?

I had to do that a couple years ago on my Nitro. I work slow and it only took a couple hours. I tied off some para cord to the old cables when I removed them and used that to help fish the new. Steering went from two hands wrestling the wheel to smooth as glass and a light touch.

After fixing the bow fishfinder wiring, finding the trolling motor battery with a dead cel and replacing it, and getting the 'road rash' off the prop I found another minor annoyance. The throttle only button will depress, but I can't advance the throttle. I did a search on the forum here, google, and you tube without much luck. Does anyone have experience with this situation? Motor will start, but is a bit of a bear when cold and the throttle only certainly helped on really chilly days.

Nice fish. Walking the banks or from a boat?

Does anyone have word on the reschedule and if they are taking additional entries?

I recently had to run a new power cord for my bow unit. Ancor 14 guage duplex, easy to fish the one wire from battery to bow.

Final update on fishfinder and new project- I hooked up the new power cord extension to the battery and bench tested it before fishing cable and everything worked well. The only area that took a bit of cable fishing was right at the console. All told 20 minutes from battery to bow. The extension was a bit long so I coiled and secured it. Rechecked everything before crimping....green lights all the way. Made the crimps and still works. Transducer went back on the troller, bow console screwed back down, final check, and put it to bed. New project- Decided to check the troller as last time out the 24V side seemed wimpy. Same deal yesterday. 12V was turning the prop noticeably faster on the same speed setting. Not good. This one was much easier to sort out. Battery 1 reading good, battery 2 was reading 7.2V. Yep, it's dead Jim. At least this will be a muscle and wiggle project and not require as much brain power to resolve.

It was baffling why I couldn't get the unit to work when I read good power all the way to it. My guess is something damaged the current cord in some way, but not enough to just kill it outright. New power cord got a bench test and it works. All that is left is running it, attaching to the battery and screwing the bow console back in place. Hopefully it goes as well as the steering cables I did a couple years ago.

UPDATE- Only had a few minutes to work on this recently. I cleaned the contacts both on the power cords and wires at the bow and still won't turn on so I shoved the probes in to the contacts on the power cord and got a reading, pushed power button and voltage drops below 12. Seems like I have a short or something under load. If weather is fit Sunday I am going to get the new power cord ran so I can hit the water Easter weekend. I'll keep working on the issue and see if I can find the ultimate cause of the problem.

I'll give everything a scrub before I run new cable and I'll be buying a new 3 amp fuse link anyway so I can plug that in and see what happens. That won't take long as I have everything tore down already. If it don't work all I have to do is run the new wiring and get at fishing.

Double checked that. It had worked fine for three years so everything was hooked up right, but I did double check to make sure nothing weird was going on. I also pulled another unit out of storage and checked it. Same deal, no worky at the bow, works fine direct connect to battery. Someone suggested that there might be a bare spot on the wire and when a load is put on it is loosing voltage through the bare spot contacting something. I plan to run a new power cord and bench test it along the way to make sure it works. If that works and gets me fishing I will deal with it when I have more time.