Seth

I tie my leaders on at home with the FG knot, but use the Alberto in the boat as it’s easier for me to tie. I don’t have any issues with either when it comes to breakage, but the FG is a little bit thinner and slides through the guides a bit better.

Those swirling winds can be a real pain in hill country. I used to hate hunting in wind until I realized that it made it a lot easier to avoid getting smelled. Now I hate hunting in the evening when it's calm. A good cold, crisp morning where your thermals are rising is my favorite though. It'll allow me to get a few hours in on a risky wind direction. Sometimes you just gotta do it and hope for the best when those bucks are cruising during the prerut!

I'm with you. A deers nose is it's greatest weapon. I never spray down and rarely wash my clothes, but do play caution to the wind and I couldn't tell you the last time I was winded by a deer. It's impossible for a deer to smell you if you're downwind of them. Besides, how do all of those scent containment clothes prevent a deer from smelling your breath? If I can smell somebodies breath then I know darn well a deer in bow range will pick up on it if the wind is wrong.

@JestersHK probably turned me on to it after I saw him using straight braid on his jerkbaits and catching plenty of trout. This was at night as well. I think I could throw 65# braid and those suckers would still bite at night time.

That's understandable. It does get to be a hassle with all of the different streaming apps. I guess I'm just used to it after dealing with the Bally Sports BS over the past few years.

You better let Tackle Warehouse, Bass Pro, and every other tackle shop that they aren't categorizing their lines properly.

I always use my braid/fluoro bass setups when fishing jerkbaits for trout, but never for bass for somer reason. I've always used a 6.5' medium fast casting setup and 10# mono or fluoro when I fish a jerkbait for bass. There's not really a logical reasoning for this that I can come up with right away either.

I know I haven’t done a good job of reporting all of the fish over 20” that have been landed in my boat. Most come during tourneys. We are too busy fishing during the tourney to get pics and measurements. Afterwards we just want to get them weighed in and returned to the water asap.

I’m surprised so many people are is this pressed over $6.

There are plenty of videos on Youtube of guys taking the different battery brands apart and comparing them. Most of them are the exact same thing with rebadged cases.

Yeah you lost me on this one. I’ve never been mad at somebody for fishing a spot in my life. People get mad at me for being too honest about spots and techniques. I believe one of our first interactions was you, Scott and others getting all sorts of pissy towards me for mentioning smallmouth and a certain spot at a certain time of year as if it was some major secret. It was far from a secret.. 🤣

I'll throw a pink worm all day long when it's putting money in my pocket! It hasn't been worth a flip for a while though since the largemouth fishing has gone down hill so much on the Gasconade. It'll catch smallmouth, but it shined on the largies.

I recall hearing about a few lithium battery fires in boats several years ago, but nothing in several years.

Just offering some advice to try and help guys like you not lose all those fish from break offs. It doesn't matter to me if you listen or not. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, or something like that. 🙂

There are a ton of videos on YouTube comparing every knot you can think of. It ain't hard to figure out which knots are the best for an application. Even knots like the FG aren't hard to tie with a little practice. I'm always hearing about guys breaking fish off and it happens VERY rarely to me and I attribute part of that to choosing the right knot for the application. I'm also using a spinning rod and lighter gear than most much of the time so my chances of breaking fish off should be even higher.

What model is your MK charger? You can use a precision charger set to AGM, but I don't think any of the digital models will work with lithiums. This will also limit you to using 12v lithiums. The 24v and 36v in one batteries requires special chargers for those voltages.

Rub it on a rock or a piece of angle iron like you find on a dock. The results will be the same.

I've ran mine hard all day long in riffles chasing summer smallies and during high water while targetting Taneycomo trout. They were still as strong as the end of the day as they were at the start. My lead batteries, even when fresh, would be noticeably weaker by the end of a day like that. I'm not sure how much more real world it gets than that. 🤷‍♂️

That's why I went the 100AH route myself. The 50s would have probably sufficed. Now I can go multiple days of fun fishing without having to worry about charging the batteries up. That's handy when you're on a trip somewhere and the hotel doesn't have good access to external an external power outlet.

I've had too many weird break off with straight braid. Touch a taught piece of braid with a sharp knife and then do the same thing with mono or fluoro and see which one cuts the easiest. The braid will cut with hardly any pressure and the fluoro/mono takes more effort.

I find myself using 15# mono more and more these days on my casting gear for the same reasons you've mentioned. Once I use up the rest of my 10# spool of Trilene 10% fluorocarbon, I will probably go with Trilene XT or Maxima Ultragreen and start using that for my leaders on my spinning/braid combos.

3lbs Maxima is all I run for my jig setups. Throws like 2# with the strength of 4#!

This is how I figured it as well. If my lithiums lasted 6 years, it would be a wash on the price. That doesn't take in to account the performance improvements and weight savings. If you've never had issues with your 31s getting weak, you could probably go with the 50AH models. They are about half as long and cheaper. A 50AH lithium is very comparable to a 29/31 series lead battery in run time.

I'm sure it would be fine. I know plenty of guys running a single 36v battery in their river jets and they haven't had any issues.

I use a Sandiego Jam Knot for my spinning gear and a double Sandiego on my heaver setups when using Fluoro. I've always heard a Palomar was a no-no for fluorocarbon. Break offs only happen if I do a slack line hook set with a short amount of line out. The only time that really happens is when a smallie darts out and bites me right at the boat and I get a bit too excited. I'm not a fan of straight braid simply becuase it's not nearly as abrasion resistant as fluorocarbon. Plus if I break off, I rather break off a leader of fluoro versus a length of braid and save the braid. There are a few instances where I will run straight braid though. If I'm throwing a big whopper plopper or frogging/punching in heavy vegetation, then I will run straight 50-65# braid.