Dutchboy wrote:

It’s constant when I’m awake. I have friends and business associates on Mille Lacs and it’s not a laughing matter to myself or them.

GLIFWC is the target, I could care less about the BASS guys, in fact good for them. I hope they have fun and a successful tourney. I’m just disappointed in the host venue.

I’m far removed from the Mille Lacs drama, but I would think your friends and business associates would do all in their power to promote and make sure that this becomes a frequent stop for the tour seeing as how it will give a much needed boost to the local economy. Nobody is going to force you to spend money at the casino. But the Elite series is going to draw a huge crowd that will stay at resorts and spend money at restaurants and local stores. For all of the b****ing and moaning I hear coming from the business owners and locals in the area about how business has fallen off, I’d think they would be a bit more grateful that the Elite series is going provide a national spotlight to a fishery and economy that is in dire need of a pick up.

Just my $.02

sticker wrote:

I’ve never seen a gray fox in the wild, plenty of reds, but never a gray. They are pretty cool and fairly rare!!

The bear on the other hand I could do without

I hadn’t seen one either, until a couple of weeks ago when we had a Gray Fox seemingly make the woods behind our house it’s new home. Very cool looking animal. Although it’s screeching I could do without.

fireline wrote:

Tom can you go from CO. 7 to the dam by boat ?

No. Not unless you feel like dragging through a bunch of real shallow riffles. Your best bet is to just suck it up and pay the $20 launch fee at Macs and drift down.

Or float down from one of the other launch points. You can motor around a little bit from Cty 7, but you’d never get all the way up to the dam without a lot of hard work.

Fool me once….

Thanks a bunch guys!

I especially appreciate the tip about the dongle adapters. I thought I’d had everything ordered that I needed.

FryDog62 wrote:

Congrats! Yes, would like to see the color combo between the boat and matching G2 Etec.

Also, if you’re anywhere near the Twin Cities I would buy you lunch, beer (fill in the blank) for a test ride some time.

Fry

Sounds like a sweet rig!

I’d also like to match Frydog’s offer.. I’ve been so close to pulling the trigger on this boat a couple of times, but I keep hesitating because I haven’t had an opportunity for a test ride. Depending on your distance, I’d gladly buy you lunch and beer for a test ride.

Aaron wrote:

Affinity Plus

Ditto. I’m a long time Affinity plus customer, and absolutely love them. I now live about 90 miles from the nearest location, and I still choose to do all of my banking with them. Great rates. I think the only thing they couldn’t beat was my auto loan rate but they weren’t off by much. I believe it was only a .25% difference.

I’ve fly fished for bass since my grandfather thought I was old enough to handle a fly rod (about 7 or 8, I think).

If I was strictly going to use my rod for shallow river smallies, I’d probably look for a 6 or 7wt rod. Generally speaking, smaller rivers don’t require real long distance casting or even big flies. And a 6wt can be used for fishing trout, bass, panfish and even carp as well. It’s a great multi-purpose rod weight. The 7wt is starting to get up out of the realm of something I’d use for either trout or panfish though.

So, either look for a 9′ 6wt or a 9′ 7wt. There are infinite possibilities out there as far as brands go, so just try to find something that fits your budget and has a decent warranty. Don’t worry too much about the reel, as that will act as just a a line holder when you’re fishing for smallies. Pick a large arbor with a WFF line to match the rod weight you get.

After that, all you’ll need is a couple of leaders (I like nylon tapered leaders, like those from Rio), and some 1-3x tippet (or just regular flouro/mono works too).

I’d outfit yourself with a few black wolly buggers, a few white ones, a couple of yellow & black Boogle Bugs, a couple of chartreuse/white Clouser minnows and some of my personal favorite Tequillys (sp?). You could add a few Dahlberg divers too that, but I find that slowly fished Boogle bugs are king when it comes to small stream smallmouth.

Man, if I could get my SI to pick up stuff like that even half as well as yours, I’d be a happy camper.

I don’t want to derail this thread too much, but does anyone have a recommendation for someone who specializes in marine electronics tuning/installation on here? Preferably someone in NW Wisconsin, Duluth, or the North metro?

If you’ve got facebook, keep your eyes peeled on the Musky Flee Market and the Musky Buy, Sell, Trade pages. A good deal will pop up on a used reel quite often.

I’ve got a few lakes in my area that have the new 5/15 panfish regs and am completely in favor of them and look forward to reaping the rewards of good management in the future.

Hayward area. I’ll probably get out to the Chippewa Flowage at some point to nab a walleye for dinner. But otherwise, I’m spending my time going after smallies. Saturday can’t get here soon enough. Crappie fishing today and tomorrow to help me keep my sanity.

walleye216 wrote:

This is exactly what was done with salmon in the Great Lakes to try to control the alewife population, and it is still being done today. There are probably other examples as well.

See Yellowstone 2015/2016: Fisheries biologists dumped Rotenone into Soda Butte creek to attempt to kill of non-native Brook trout. It will basically kill all fish and invertebrates in the poisoned area and will definitely have some long-term effects. I really do hope it works out, because Soda Butte is one of my favorite trout streams out west. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to rebound from the poisoning, and if it really does kill off all of the brookies.

buddah6 wrote:

Anyone have one of these? Been on the fence about getting a kayak. This thread has made me turn the corner! http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=18666536 How similar is this to the vapor? My only problem is that I’m 6′ 7″ and am worried about leg room and being comfortable. Any feedback? thanks

My tip to you would probably be to look at sit-on-top models which will allow your legs to stretch out and hang out of the kayak as you want. They’re a lot more comfortable IMO than a sit-in version. Especially if you’ve got any type of “captains chair” which will raise you up a few more inches without sacrificing too much stability.

Because when I only really kayak rivers, I opted for a Jackson Coosa which I can say is my favorite kayak that I’ve owned out of the last 6 or 7. The other kayak that I regret selling was an Ocean Kayak Trident 13. That was a phenomenal kayak as well.

I find myself rooting for the vet/ex-cop lady from South Carolina. She seems pretty darn tough. But the weather was far too nice to really get a feel for how these people will fare. Let’s see what happens when the wind and rain start going.

I’m afraid the guy from Rush City is screwed. That site he’s in looks awful. At least he doesn’t seem to be afraid of the bears.

Homemade ice cream for me, thank you very much.

It’s always nice to hear about some poachers getting what they deserve.

None up in Hayward WI…. for once.

I’d probably just use Plano boxes for storing them. I’m cheap that way. Or possibly a streamer fly box. Though, all those are is a pistol case with some 3 or 4 mm foam glued to the sides with some slits cut into it. Ease to make yourself if you want to save a couple bucks.

To straighten out the hair, steam them. Boil water in a teapot or whatever, and hold the hair jig over the steam. Natural materials like bucktail should straighten out pretty good so long as they aren’t in too rough of shape.

I was really, really close to ordering one of these last week, but I held off. Part of it was due to my dealer not wanting to take my 2013 Tuffy X-170 in on trade. That kind of surprised me but I could sell it with relative ease if I needed to. The biggest hesitation came because I just haven’t seen any on-the-water reviews yet outside of some of the pros that have done their videos. I want to be able to test drive one before I pull the trigger, especially with a new model like this. I don’t fish huge water, except for the occasional Chequamegon Bay trip. I will likely be waiting until Fall now to potentially test drive one and see what changes they make for 2016.

Not sure if the dealer was trying to fleece me or not (I didn’t bother negotiating anything since I decided to hold off anyways), but here is the price that I was quoted for it in case anyone is interested.

Priced out prov bass with 200 verado
bunk trailer
Spare tire
Guides
Bike seat
Cover
Bluetooth stereo
Ss prop
3 bank charger
Water ready 37399 cash price

Add for talon 12 1999
Helix 10 1499
fortrex 1299
Total before tax 42446

The cradle would have been my suggestion too. But, if you’re fishing solo that could become real tricky. The folding Stowmasters are a fantastic net. I use one in my boat. Some sort of backpack to keep it secured while your walking or wading would be ideal.

Thanks for the tips guys. I ended up over at the St. Croix rod factory last week, and picked up three new rods. Still need to pick up one or two more, but they’ll have to wait a while.

As far as reels go, I’d like to hear your thoughts on baitcast reel speed and application.

Topwater/jerks: 7:1+?

Shallow-Med crankbait rod: 7:1 or 6:4? Faster?

Spinnerbaits: 7:1

I’d read an article last week written by a pro who basically said that he fishes almost all 8:1 or faster reels now. His reasoning was that he can always reel slower, but liked the line pickup speed if/when he needed to crank a fish out of cover or bring the bait in and re-cast quickly. Thinking back on this article makes me wonder if I’m I thinking too slow with my reel choices?

Wow, you guys all have some great trips planned. I’ve got three planned for the next year, and will likely be trying to add in fourth to LOW if I can convince a buddy or two to tag along.

1) June – A week in the BWCA with my brothers

2) September – 2 Weeks Fly fishing in Montana/Wyoming

3) December – A week in the Bahamas fly fishing for bonefish

We’d talked about canceling the Montana trip in favor of a Spring fly-in Ontario trip, but we feel that now it’s going to be too late to get it all planned and booked. So we’ll stick to swinging streamers and throwing hoppers for some big fall trout in Montana.

That Stadium Series game was a lot of fun, I thought. I didn’t have any complaints about our seats at all. We’re on-the-glass season ticket holders, and were told by our ticket rep that we’d want to be mid-ice on the 2nd level. So we bought 4 tickets on the 2nd level, row 1 and had an absolute blast. I thought the sight lines, while a bit further away than I would have liked, were pretty good. It was pretty easy to follow the puck from where we were.

Was it worth the near $300/ticket…. probably not. Would I pay for them again…. definitely. I hope they are given some future outdoor games.

Perhaps I feel that way because of the way we absolutely thumped Chicago. That always makes me feel better about the price of admission.

After nearly a month of a half of dismal play, it is fun to see the Wild back to top form. Hopefully this isn’t just a freak accident and they can keep it up through the rest of the season.

Sold

Thanks for looking.

It was on my 17′ Tuffy X-170. Enough power to troll up to 3 mph.

Thanks!

Bump

I’d take the under for $50, and Denver to cover for $50.

Are you looking for just the ipilot unit, or the full motor?

If you want the full motor, here’s my Terrova for sale in the classifieds.

https://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/minnkota-terrova-55lb-54-w-ipilotus2-2/

I’ve got one, and like it a lot. Plenty of room, and I’m loving the molded sled features. No issues with space or comfort at all.