carpcatcher

I fish a lot here in central Pa. on the Juniata river which is a trib to the Susquehanna. We have seen the exact same thing here and I feel the water quality is better than it has been for many many years. I talked to a PAFBC guy this spring and he said they were going to do a study and see if they could figure out what was happening to the walleye's. I think one of the biggest problems is that they are so dang good to eat that as soon as they get close to legal size they get harvested.

Had the pleasure of spending all last week on the river. While we had a couple rough days fishing because of the weather we were still able to catch a boat load of fish. We mainly fished for bass in the mornings and afternoons then turned to eyes in the evening. Every trip in the boat we had enough activity to keep it interesting with some real excitement mixed in. I was able to witness the largest fresh water fish I've ever layed eyes on one evening when a musky tried to steal an eye from me. We were able to get the entire thing on video so that made it perfect. I'm 100% sure the fish was ATLEAST 55" and probably pushing 60". We ended the week going in to Clayton to watch the Elite's for a weigh-in. I know most of you guys on here don't care for tourney fishing but this was definatly something that every fisherman should attend some time. I sure hope that this fishery stays thig good for my grandson to enjoy when he gets older.

We spent all last week in the A bay area and amazingly enough didn't loose one hour of fishing due to weather. The bass fishing was rather tough this year. Not sure if it was the constant north east wind that had them shut down or just in a spawning funk. Surprisingly enough we were able to find a school of eyes that stayed in the same spot all week. My son and I were able to boat 12 nice eyes and lost a few more. I know that doesn't sound like a bunch to some of you guys but for us, catching eyes on that river is a blast and we were very happy with that number of fish. I cant wait until August to come back for another week.

Spent all last week on the river anywhere from A bay to Singer Castle. This was the first time ever we didn't loose a single minute of fishing for weather. Beautiful cool crisp mornings, great sunshine all day and tremendous sun sets every evening. Boat traffic wasn't bad at all and the fishing was normal (GREAT). We mostly targeted smallies but got a wide variety of fish including pike, bowfins and large mouth's. I can honestly say we caught fish from 1' out to 70'+ deep water. All I can really say is you locals have the world by the ass up there. The only thing we needed to worry about was the water level. It seemed to be roughly 16/18" low and that sure does make a difference. If you headed that way any time soon just use caution when boating, the rocks up there don't move when you hit them.

I just purchased a used boat with a minnkota trolling motor on it that can be switched back and forth between 12 and 24 volts. The previous owner has wires going everywhere and not hooked up to any batteries. There is three wires coming off the pedal, Red, White and black. I've never wired one that has had the third wire so I'm not sure what would go where. Does anyone have a "wiring for dummies" scamatic I could see?

I had two friends up last week and they got ran out within 15 minutes of crossing over and fishing. The funny part is that one of them had a season license from earlier but the other one had just purchased a 1 day license. Why would they sell him a 1 day license if they knew he couldn't use it. (being sarcastic, I know why. MONEY)

We spent all last week in the Chippewa Bay area and it was pretty good. A fare amount of the female bass we caught were spawned out and that was great to see after the last couple of years. We caught plenty of smallies deep and shallow, loads of largemouths shallow, more than normal amount of both pike and bowfins. I love catching bowfins, they are one hell of a fighting fish and I would love to see more people get educated on them. I hear a lot of people saying they are snakeheads and you have to kill them. My son caught one while we were fishing beside one of my buddies and he hollered at us to kill that SOB, they eat all of the bass. I told him that fish doesn't kill near as many bass as he does so start releasing your bass. One of the highlights of the week was the school of crappie we ran in to. We were able to catch 39 balck crappies one morning and all of them were between 11" and 15". You can get a pretty good slab of meat off a 15" crappie. The next 5 weeks can't go fast enough so I can get back for another week.

Thanks for the reports guys, I appreciate it. I would just love to see most of the bass have a chance to spawn before they get pounded too bad.

It's just a few short weeks until I can spend a great week on the SLR. The past few years the water was cold and the bass were spawning when season came in and everyone was just hammering them. Does anyone know what the water temp is currently? I sure hope they get a chance to spawn out before the opener. I know down here in Pa the temp came up fairly quick and the smallies are spawning now.

I'm helping a friend do some mods on a boat he just came across. It is an Odyssey 175SS made by Forest River. He wants to lighten it up some so he's looking to replace the plywood decks with aluminum. The problem is we can't figure out exactly how the carpeted plywood is fastened. The carpet is rolled under the edges so it wasn't put on after he plywood but there are no visible screw/rivet heads in the carpet. Does anyone have any experience with this brand and how they do things?

I am not an expert by any means on the river but I would say that you are going to be very limited with shore fishing. I know when we are there my son does a lot of fishing from docks but that's about it. That is one thing about that area, virtually all of the shore lines are steep rocky banks with a tangled mess of trees. With all of that being said, rig them up a slip float and put on a 1/2 of a night crawler and they will catch something.

Sorry, I can't be much help with the crappies. We only catch a few and they are all by accident.

We fished all last week everywhere from Alex bay down to Blind bay. The large mouth fishing was fairly good but the smallies were really spread out. We caught a few more accidental Pike than normal but not a lot (while bass fishing). We also were able to get two eyes and a bowfin with some nice perch and crappies mixed in. All in all it was another great week on the St. Lawrence river . The worst part is now waiting until next June before we head back.

This was going to be my exact post except for I've been using my black and decker for at least 20+ years and its still the original set of blades. I've used it on every type of panfish, bass, pike, trout and who knows what else. The new Bubba cordless look very inviting but that sure is a lot of new fishing lures.

I'm looking at upgrading my current 12v trolling motor to a 24v. Currently I have two batteries in the back of the boat. One for the trolling motor and one for the starting motor/electronics. I don't really have room for a third in the back so here is my question. How far apart can two batteries be that are wired for 24v? can one be at the back and one in the front? I am willing to give up some of the storage in the front for a second battery but not sure it ill work being approximately 10' apart.