5/24/24 Report

I don't even know what happened. This trip was weird. It started fine, hitting no red lights on our 3-hour drive under the light of the full moon. We arrived at Fenwick before sunrise but not so early we would need navigation lights. We got out there near B Can and soon marked fish. The new LiFePO4 batteries were powering the Minn Kota well. We got our bandits with inline planers in place without any tangles. The first hit came at around 6:30 and it was a plump 26" walleye. Netted it well and it was in the box. We continued to find success.

Then the Minn Kota started getting loopy again. We had to keep restarting it, waiting for it to home in to GPS, waiting for it to figure out it needed more throttle to get to 2.0 mph. By then the 6 lines would be tangled and we had to pull everything in, untangle, cut line, re-tie swivels, re-deploy. And then the Minn Kota would malfunction again. I thought the LiFePO4's would fix that problem, but no.

We gave up on the Minn Kota after an hour of tangle after tangle. Switched to manual steering the Yamaha 50 - which means tangles - and lines wrapped around the prop. One line broke, losing a bandit and a planer board which disappeared.

Yet it was pretty cool that many times, we were pulling in a tangled line by hand and there would be a fish on it.

Once, my daughter was reeling in a tangled line and it surprised us with a fish - but it also had snagged another line. But it wasn't one of our six lines. It had snagged the line we previously broke an hour ago. And it still had the bandit on it. And a fish was on that bandit. So she reeled in two fish on two lures at one time with one pole. We netted them together.

Another time, we were all tangled around the prop. We stopped and unwrapped our line only to find another line around the prop too. Pulled it in by hand and sure enough there is another of our lost lines, and it also had a fish on it. Another lure recovered.

I could do without the constant tangles but they did keep us busy. We called it a day with two limits of walleye - half over 20" - and 9 tasty drum, 1 cat and 1 striped bass. No shorts.

Thanks for that crazy story of trolling malfunctions and tangled lines.Amazing that you could bring in fish on those lines too.These fish are hungry and the bite has been amazing this week.

Thanks for the report! I have used a Minn Kota Power Drive for several years and it would shut off out of the blue and I would have to restart. This year I have a new Terrova . First time I used it was yesterday and low and behold it shut down in the middle of the Ferry Lanes. Everything tangled and had to start the Mercury up to get out of the way. Anyway, I'm now thinking there is a wiring issue and not the motor. May want to check that.

My circuit breaker was pretty hot and my connecters are pretty corroded so I will replace the wiring. I also the motor bearings feel a little rough to me so I will rebuild the bottom end.