Happy New Year 2015

Well, for some it's a  happy time for many things.  At LKA, the VA-Outdoors forum for stripers is a waste land of nothingness.

During the summer, I worked on electronics and got both the Simrad and Lowrance installed as I thought it would work.  Sitting, I could see under the units.  Standing, I could see over them.  In actual use on the Chesapeake Bay, the smallish Ram mounts wouldn't hold in rough seas.  Well, rough for my boat.  The God of the sea wouldn't cooperate and kept my boat off the water for most of December.  Only got on the water for about 7 of the 22 days.

Also missed the forward trailer bunks and the bow slid off to the port and damaged the structure scan mount at the stern.  Wasn't a critical fix for the bay, Now, it's too cold and too much sleet to get out and fix it.  Also had the bow cable part while trying to haul the boat to the stop on the trailer.  Tied a knot in the cable through the hook and it's still holding.  The new cable still sits in the cab of the truck.  Certainly isn't doing much good there.

Bow navigation light decided to stop working and I tore it apart only to find that the bulb croaked.  Had a back up, but it happened to have different contacts? :(  Finally figured out how to modify the back up bow navigation light and now have a functional back up. :)

Didn't have a graph installed for the Lowrance that would show the bay contour lines.  At the NCBoatShows held in Doswell, VA, Green Top supplied the Navionics plus.  Had a difficult time getting it to load with my system 7 and google installed.  Finally found the fix in the Help area as only the download screen would repeat without loading.  Had to find the toggle that allowed the "plug-in" for the program.  Guess a computer savy would have figured it out in seconds, but it took me hours to accomplish the deed.

Also changed the TM batteries to Interstate 29s.  Would have rather installed sealed batteries, but time and $s wouldn't permit.  Hopefully these will last at least a year.  I wanted the Deka Intimidator AGM 31, but .  .  .  Now, I'm also considering the Sears Dihard Platinum that is a knockoff of the Odysse.  Guess there's a battery for every wallet!

My fishing buddy got back from Kiptopeke after having boated only one striper.

Back in Norlina, NC, Bill got on the water most every day and limits stripers.  Kerr (Buggs Island) allows posession of 2 @ 24 or more inches.  He says that he uses alewifes and threadfins when available for his cast net.  Other times, he uses jumbo shiners.  Uses a combination of free lines, planers, and downlines.  Much as would be used on Lake Anna.

Nice fat january Stripers!  The Nutbush launch ramp is pictured.

Meanwhile, at Lake Anna (LKA) nothing is happening that can be posted on the VA-Outdoors striper forum.