Erik's fishing rants

By the time you get to go, the ice will be melted.

 

I know! I hate it but with all the home school stuff I'm finding so little time to go. At least in the summer I have a few hours after work I can go.

 

Tuesday night walmart trip!

No new baits, but I found 2 lifetime wave kids kayaks tucked away in a corner... I pulled them on the webpage because they had no price tag on em. $78 with paddle! deal, I grabbed both of them for the kids. Not the colors the kids wanted, but when the normal price is $200 each, I think they will manage with lime green instead of pink and orange.

I asked the kids what they wanted to name their new boats.
My daughter is naming hers SS Lime Bob
My son is naming his Titanic II

 

I love Wednesday mornings. Great score!

 

Spent a little bit of time at fleetfarm today looking at some new baits in prep for spring. Got 2 more pocket frogs, hoping they do well in the spring, I also got another bag of the power bait swim shad, I love these things, they are 3 inch, pre-hooked, cheap and they work really well.

 

I picked up some Googan baits awhile back, but I haven't tried them either. They look like they will mimic the action of the Strike King Rage Tail baits with the raised edges on the appendages. A Rage Chunk or Craw on a Bitsy jig is one of my most productive baits for Largemouth Bass, and i've caught a few 6-7 LBers on them. Good luck with the Googan baits! The season is getting close!

 

Yeah, Im excited to give them a try soon. I am actually tempted to bring my kayak down to my normal lake, they set up big pumps to keep open water in 1 side of the lake. While everyone else is ice fishing I could be kayak fishing in the open water

Ive started reorganizing my boxes again, turns out I have more boxes than will fit in my bag, and its all stuff I want to bring with me. So, I am combining my pond spinner box with my pond hard bait box to be a single box. 1 row pocket frogs, 1 row mini hard baits, 1 row small spinners.
This way I can bring my jig/terminal box and catch big fish if they are around. Plug the jig/terminal box goes with the 3700 box full of soft plastics.

 

Re-organized my boxes to maximize how much I can bring in my sling bag. Condensed 4 3600 slim boxes into 3.


First we have our spinners, hard baits and mini frogs





Next we have soft plastic swim baits. This box is like 90% not needed, but I bring it with anyways.




Last we have the jigs, terminal, and some bigger frogs. This box is going to get re-done soon too when I redo the soft swim bait box.

 

Well now I have to do some more organizing!

Got a mystery tackle box in the mail today (my ice fishing sub has been turned into bass for summer) Now I have 2 new bags of soft baits, 2 new hard baits (including my first jointed bait) some hooks, a jig and a fuzzy underspin.

So, I think I might be switching my jig/terminal box into a jig box soon and making a terminal box.

 

Went to dicks sporting good tonight after dropping my daughter off at math tutoring.

Checked out the baits, got a few things. A few cd1 rapalas, some split rings and some weedless jig heads.

Then I saw it, they had a pelican catch 100 pwr.... $999! I've wanted one of them since I saw them last year! Took everything I had to not drag it to the cashier.

We will see how my stocks do next week and maybe I'll go back and get it.

 

Another shopping trip done. In full view of my wife, I went into the oakley store, and spent $230 on some new glasses. She was less than happy, but I got her like $200 in clothes at the mall too.

Love these glasses though, I got the split shot shallow water lens ones. They fit great, dont hurt my head, and work pretty damn good.

 

Added some lights to the front of my kayak, going to use these for more evening fishing between 8-10pm, but will be great in the fall when the sun goes down at 6pm.

I just used some plus nuts and put them in the hull of the kayak, so I can remove the lights for when I go bridge fishing and we need spot lights on the water "to see our bobbers"

 

Have a link to those lights?

Thanks

 

Cant find it anymore, but they sell them at your local walmart in the automotive isle. $22.98 each. They are made by alpena (trail fire is the model)

 

New caster reel. Any Arizona fisherman!?

 

OO pretty.

 

Ok, Im not happy with my wire job on this stuff, I did the wiring over the span of like 3 months, so its all over the place. I ordered a bunch of new wires, all sorts of colors to work with so I can make each switch set to a different color. Im going to loom everything from the fuse box, to the switches, then back to the fuse box area. Going to put a terminal strip in there for the switches to feed into to make sending power out to the other parts easy.

Plan is to have 1 loom on the right side for the usb/volt meter, then on the left side will be 2 looms, one for the storage well lights/relayed power to the rear, and one for the 3 switches.

Im going to do all the wiring outside of the kayak and just tape them down to the top of the hull. Then I will run them all as one big harness.

 

Alright, I got all my new wires, my new looms, and I redid the base wiring for my whole system. I need to build a fuse box platform from some HDPE that will keep the fuse box, high output relay, and main power switch up off the floor and out of the water. I think I am going to use magnets to hold it in, I figure since the fuse box will be tucked up in the hull, its going to be hard to get to the fuses or if I need to replace wires.

Now im just waiting on LEDs and 2 SAE flush mount plugs to show up. The SAE plugs will be run to the relay and there will be 1 plug in the front, and 1 in the back. The LEDs I am getting a little on the expensive side, but I they should be worth it. Im getting 2 flush button head amber lights, 2 90 degree amber, and 1 flush mount UV.

The UV one will be placed right next to the USB/volt meter so I can charge up glow baits
I need to figure out which light will work best up front to light up the deck between the flush mount and the 90 degree. I would like to use the 90s as they will shine down at the deck, but they stick out a bit, so they may get snagged of kicked.

Then finally I need to get a distribution block for all the LEDs, as it sits right now, the triggers for the switches go back to the fuse box area, so a terminal strip will go there so I can hook up the LEDs to the terminal strip, and then just hook up the triggers to that.

 

LEDs showed up today (well most of them) I got 2 flush ambers, 1 flush UV, SAE plugs, and some 12 inch green strips. Going to install the UV, SAE plug, and the green strips tonight. Friday I should be getting the other 2 amber LEDs so I can decide which style I want to use to illuminate the deck.

 

OK scratch the flush ambers.... I couldnt find a good place to put them that doesnt either glare in my eyes or just shine on my legs and not the deck. Friday the other amber lights show up, hoping they will work better, but im thinking they will be the same.

But I did get the UV one installed, and its great! I can flip a switch and charge up my glow baits. Also the SAE plug in the front is perfect too, I made a Y-harness that goes from SAE to the amp plugs I have on my spot lights so I can plug them in easy.

So, I have 3 switches on the kayak
1: front SAE plug for lights
2: UV light
3: ??? I need to figure out what to put on this 3rd switch. I think maybe a 12v fan would be a nice add to keep me cool.