porkpie

I like the picture and words best. I only watch about 30-40 percent of the videos. I do watch a lot of youtube videos, but they are generally the professionally shot stuff, and I watch at home on the TV. I'm not huge on chest cams, the video is often kind of choppy, but I understand guys like to catalogue their trips. My son wants to mount his gopro at the front of the boat for our upcoming trip. It won't be going on any websites but I guess it will be fun to watch later.

I haven't bought the whole shuts down the bite thing for a while now! I make an annual trip at the end of the school year with my 2 older boys. It generally coincides with the shadfly hatch. We have consistently hammered fish every time! Looking forward to another round. The smallie fishing isn't half bad either!

Very nice, I'll be there Friday with the kids!

I figured we'd hit it head on. Thank!.

Cool video. I'll be there Friday morning with my kids, that's the reason we go. Nonstop stellar fishing! We like it so much we're going back in August! How are the shadflys so far?

Looks like a good time! Some nice pics there.

A towel, small roll of duct tape, a piece of weed trimmer line to clear obstructed tell tales on the outboard, Jumper cables, standard small tool kit, Long handle needle nose pliers, spare batteries for trolling motor remote, small first aid kit, small set of bolt cutters, sunscreen, bug spray, spare hat and rain suit and a headlamp. All things that often get put into use other than the bolt cutters and the jumper cables. But when you need them, you'll really need them! My old dog leaned on a rapala once out on the lake, and it was bolt cutter surgery time! All worked out!

We have caught some pretty nice smallies from the dock at finlayson when my oldest was a little fella. Rig a slip float. We used to sit on the docks in the early evening and cast as far out as we could with a fat night crawler on the hook. To date his biggest smallmouth came right off the dock, and I had a boat there too LOL! Have fun!

Looks good!

Some nice fish. We always get our biggest pics on the giant minnows in the bait dealers tank that no-one wants!

Yep a lot of people buy jumper cables. They can be had for $10 on sale and appropriate wire to extend the motor leads will cost more than that! Yes a 31 is heavy, no question. If your planning on backcountry fishing a small outboard and gas will be lighter.

Drifter, I agree with all that you have posted, but have definately seen more than one trailer that lights would not operate correctly when truck wasn't connected to ball. YMMV

I'd run longer cables to the front for weight distribution and spend $135 on the Walmart group 31. I'm pretty happy with the one I have. My new boat came with optima blue tops but I'm pretty sure that when they die I'll just replace em with Walmart batteries. I'm of the opinion that you can't have too much battery.

It could, and I've chased issues like that in the past in my suv. Mine was related to a short from a bare wire. When you say hooked up, in sure you mean attached to the ball as well not just the wiring hooked up. If the trailer isn't actually hooked up to the vehicle some lights will operate but it won't ground out properly and you will experience intermittent light issues. Ground issues are very common, but it's not the only cause especially with older wiring harnesses in vehicles. If you've cleaned all contacts, checked all grounds, hooked up properly and have a trailer with known good wiring, then start looking for bad wiring on the tow vehicle.

Clean the inside of all harness contact points with a nail or small screwdriver or the like. After trailer harnesses sit for a while they develop a green corrosion that can effect contact. After you've cleaned them up as best as possible then put some dialectic grease on both contact points (Canadian tire automotive section). If that doesn't fix your issue, pull all wiring and start over LOL. Trailer wiring is a PITA! You may check your fuses as well. Unlikely that is the problem but you may as well have a look. If your using a converter box you probably don't have a dedicated trailer stop/turn fuse. It's also possible that your converter is pooched, but more likely that you've got a bare wire somewhere or a break in the wire. So check all visible wiring especially near pinch points in the tow vehicle. Good luck, I hate trailer wiring!

A few things. I have a helix 5 that I use ice fishing. I've been very satisfied with it, but I've never used it on a boat so I can't speak to that, I've had good service and been happy with the 2 previous birds I've owned (597 and 385). I've been running a Raymarine A78 for the last 3 seasons and it's been an excellent unit. Great sonar, downscan is cool and mapping is good and touch screen is amazing for GPS use. I put a lowrance Elite 7ti totalscan on my boat this spring alongside the Ray. So far, having sidescan is way more useful to me than downscan. I only use downscan to guesstimate what kind of weeds I might be over, out side of that its not much better than 2D imo. Sidescan has been really interesting. Right now I'm mainly trolling open water, but it's going to be exceptional when I'm looking for rockpiles and structure for pics later in the season on Nippissing and other inland lakes (and the returns so far are quite detailed). The GPS on it works well and mapping is typical navionics and adequate for my use. Where I've been really blown away is the 2D sonar. Even in 150+ feet of water sonar returns are excellent. It pains me to say possibly better than my raymarine (to be fair the Ray transducer is 3 years old but I still don't recall it being this clear). So I've never been a lowrance fanboy, and if this unit goes wrong I'll be the first to tell you, but for a bit more money than the unit your looking at (seen it on sale for $800) I'd take a look at an elite 7ti. So far very impressed.

About time. The US has never made us check in when fishing border waters. Glad to see this!

I use the improved clinch knot on everything up to 40lb big game. I just changed out the 40lb BG on a meat rig that has taken a dozen plus mature kings last season without failure. It was tied with an improved clinch. I use the same knot on fluorocarbon, but use about 8-9 wraps before finishing the knot. Never have failures. I also use it on 20lb fluoroclear for spoon cheaters. Improved clinch, works great!

Good advice for any kind of fishing, not just musky. Plenty of fish to be caught on time tested patterns, without the new $30 whizbang!

I'm no expert, I just did my first intentional channel cat trip last week, but we took advice and brought along a nice big dead sucker that I had frozen. We cut it up in the cooler and put medium sized hunks of it on the hook. It worked great, and I got my biggest channel cat to date. As for circle hooks I've been using them for years now for live bait fishing pickerel and smallies. Most of the time you can just reel down to the fish and it'll be on, but don't stress about the no hook set thing. I have hooked piles of fish on circles after setting the hook. They work great, and seldom do I get a swallowed hook.

Clean install.

If it isn't on clearance, at a tackle swap, bought used online or at a flea market or whatever, I won't buy it. Too many deals out there to pay full price. I only have a couple of exceptions to this. Black and gold husky jerks and worm harnesses components I will pay full pop for if in need, but generally I buy in bulk when deals come up and then I don't have to pay through the nose later. Sometimes my garage looks like a tackle shop, but I couldn't have the stuff I have if I payed full price for everything.

They actually row ok believe it or not, and sportspal sets them up for that. No sportspal that I've ever met has paddled very well, that includes my buddies old double ender that we used to duck hunt out of. They are lightweight, easily repairable and pretty stable rigs. I enjoyed fishing and even hunting a couple of times out of mine last season. I only use a motor, either electric or gas, but I did test out the oar situation and it works well enough!

I have the wide transom 14 foot sportspal. I'D definitely take the above advice. I have a 50lb thrust Minnkota, and when it's windy and you have two guys in the canoe it makes a difference. I also have a 3.5hp outboard. It will darn near plane it out. If you are buying new I'd look at a wide transom rather than a pointed end boat. Especially if you intend to use it mainly with a motor.

Somebody is a trolling hard! Tight lines huck!