Bird Watcher

Xi5 comes in 105# thrust. 36v. two different shaft length options.

I think that's one of the things they addressed with the Xi5 compared to the previous generation of motorguide wireless. I've heard the Minnkota is somewhat noisy as well. My Xi5 is pretty quiet. I've been catching crappie in 3 foot of water right in front of it on the spider rigs while I'm operating it. I guess that's proof enough for me.

I guess I don't really know what you mean. If you mean steering responsiveness, it's great. I run a spider rig of 12 and 14' rods off the front of the boat and I poke it all around between docks and stumps with no problem. I think the 20 different speed levels really helps. You can find one just right for what you need to do instead of only having 5 different levels to choose from. I mostly fish for Crappie, walleye, and hybrids, with maybe some blue cats and white bass thrown in from time to time. I've often wondered why you don't see any bass fisherman running them. You could put in on anchor to fish a brushpile or dock, or if you wanted to run a bank with a crankbait or spinnerbait or similar, you could set it on auto heading and go right down the bank. I've used it for throwing jerkbaits this year for walleye and it was great. with a 15 mph South wind blowing into the bank I was fishing I just put it on Anchor and fished off the back of the boat.

I just put the Xi5 on about a month ago. I've been pretty happy with it. I know it's a different world for me compared to my cable driven motor.(for the better) I can't believe how much more enjoyment I get out of fishing without having to ride the foot pedal non-stop. The anchor function works great for me and i love being able to "bump" around the anchor point in 5' increments. I've never used the foot pedal. I thought I needed one in case a situation came up and I didn't use the lanyard remote. It's so simple to use the remote in my hand, very intuitive. I've fished with it all day twice and have never used more than about 20% of the battery as shown on the indicator light. I did get to the lake the other day and the remote battery was dead. Kind of weird since it worked the last time I fished with it.. After a run back to town for more batteries, it worked fine. Overall, I'm very pleased with it. Supposedly, If you have a Lowrance HDS Gen2 model, they can now interface with your troling motor the same way Humminbird does with the ipilot. Mines Gen1, so I'd have to upgrade, but I'm not sure I need it at this point.

I'd offer to help in joplin, but with my schedule I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to accomodate the distribution very well. I wonder if Academy would be receptive to keeping some at the firearms counter. If I'm in there this week I'll ask them.

Table Rock Bass fisherman are really silly sometimes. They seem to take themselves VERY seriously.

Nice job Terrierman.

the first time it's 75 during the day and 55 at night for three days in a row, there will be blacks up at my early spot in McDonald County. Of course crappie will be on the bank and Turkey season will be open somewhere too. Not enough hours in the day during April.

That's kind of ironic blue. I go to Stockton to pick them a lot of times.

A friend of mine called me earlier this evening just to brag about how many he's caught the last three days. Says every day he's caught as many as he wanted to, but he's catching them in the deeper holes. He's moving around until he finds a good school of them with his electronics and then sitting off them and wearing them out. Says he hasn't caught a fish shallower than 12'. Says if you aren't in contact with the bottom, you won't get bit. Fishing his grub real slow hopped on the bottom.

Your retrieve sounds good to me. Slow roll on the bottom. Vary your twitches between a "jerk" and just letting it fall until you figure out what they want. What you might try if you aren't finding fish by casting up towards the bank, go out in the gut of the channel and fish 16-20' deep. Throw upstream or across stream and use the same retrieve. let it go to the bottom and slow roll, twitch, pause retrieve it back.

I think you must have me confused with someone else Wayne. I'm more of a "loose lips sink ships" kind of guy. Well, not entirely...only when it comes to freelance duck hunting and hybrids up tributaries. I've learned my lesson on those topics. On the other hand, If I were to meet you on the river I'd tell you everything I know about them. Well, probably. Unless you looked or acted shifty to me:)

lol..what about bacon, cream cheese, and jalapeno? I thought that was the universal stank cover up recipe.

I think the same thing when I read about people fishing A rigs and float and fly rigs. I would lose my mind doing that nonsense. Then again, if you would see what I put myself through to catch and keep live shad at the house you would probably think i'm ready for the asylum. One man's trash is another man's flicker shad or something like that.

You guys might want to register for this if you are going to do some bass fishing on Grand this Spring. Seems like a pretty neat deal. I might even register in case I catch an accidental green perch with a tag. For 20 bucks and almost 6 weeks of contest, it seems like a fun. Kind of like a lottery ticket. http://www.grandlakeextravaganza.com/home.html

Must have been the weather..I was up there Saturday afternoon until about 6pm and they were definitely biting everything being tossed in the water. I overheard so many discussions about the "secret bait", yet each boat had a different one? I'm thinking they were just biting anything being thrown if the retrieve was right.

We went there on Fri. Caught three really nice ones late in the day. Should have stayed but we wanted to go up to the dam and throw jerkbaits for awhile. Should be getting right this weekend. Probably see you there Duane. I'll be looking for you.

Those things were stacked in there this afternoon. I went up there to crappie fish but it was pointles with all the whites in there. I probably caught 8-10 spider rigging a row of stumps. I was graphing some awesome looking schools of them idling up the channel. Everyone up there was swinging them in the boat as fast as they could. Water temp was 54 this afternoon.

Well, since you don't even pay MO taxes, would it be ok with you if they put a 50$ buoy on top of it to mark it a hazard or is that going to spin you up in another rant?

If you buy the OK license, I would also reccomend checking out the old Moccassin Bend park. It's located at Hwy 10 bridge. Walk NE along the South side of the River for about 200 yds and you will come to a nice shoal and gravel bar. 62300-62998 E 100 Rd Miami, OK 74354 36.871319, -94.762406 Or, something a little closer to Baxter would be Bicenntenial park. There is a nice gravel shoal and riffle right there that could easily be bank fished 63766-63998 E 40 Rd Quapaw, OK 74363 36.959321, -94.721509

Sorry for so many posts, but I just realized that I've read your blog before and thought I'd tell you that the area below the park is a great carp and buffalo spot, especially if the river is low and clear enough to sight fish.

Also, to answer your question, it's not too far upriver. There's a nice Spring fed creek, five mile creek, that comes in down below there about 2.5 miles that I've caught so many out of I was sick of catching them and left. You have to have a boat to get to it though and it's in OK. I've seen a lot of them caught right there in the park at Baxter though.

There could very possibly be some there after the rain last weekend. Spring River had a nice rise that could have pulled some up there. The nice thing about KS is that you can get a one day license for I think 5$.

Lol, now you are asking just a few too many questions. Yeah, they are there. You have to be pretty dialed in to be consistent on them though. There's just not that many in Grand. I have a couple of spots that when the River gauge in Quapaw hits a certain level and the water temp is a certain temp and it's a certain time of year, I know I can go catch them, but I've spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours up there fishing for them and I can tell you it's not something that you are going to do randomly and be consitent. You'll hear of and see occasional fish caught by trollers, white bassers, crappie fishers, even guys catfishing, but to actually target with success is completely different ballgame. It's a "needle in a haystack" type of endeavor.

You will see people catch them on just about anything. There will be people trolling crankbaits, people casting rooster tails, people throwing various jigs and grubs. I like the white and chatreuse colored plastics, so I like what you are bringing. Sometimes a plain head works better for me than a roadrunner head. I think the most important thing is vary your retrieve until you get bit. Most of the time in the spring what works best for me is a slow roll and twitch trying to maintain contact with the bottom from time to time. Most of the time I see people fishing too fast with jigs and plastics. Keep your rod tip low to the water and try to tick the rocks every so often. If you feel a tap, set the hook. They can be extremely light biters during the spring run for some reason. Some days they will be up shallow in 4-6, somedays they will be in the channel 20' deep. Somedays they are both. I can easily see them on the graph when there's a bunch of them moving up the river, but don't worry too much about it. I haven't even been up there this year but I guarantee you there are some in there right now.