For Giant Grouper and Swords from 1000feet or more would be a lifesaver. I fought either a “holed” grouper or giant shark that broke the drag on an international that if we had electric reels might have landed the fish and saved an hr 30 on my back lol, but I agree I can’t do it. I come from cane poles on the spillway 
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I’d rather pitch a jig or live bait a tuna or mahi mahi on a spinning rod over deep dropping any day.
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All I get around here are normally less than 5 lbs unless I go cat fishing. We do have some walleye, northern, and muskee but don’t catch them very often. It’s normallly .3/4 lb bluegill, 2-3 lb bass, and crappie. I could eat those bluegill all day long though.
I’d love to be able to saltwater fish everyday. You guys are spoiled.
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We only use them for bottom fishing because reeling up 200+ feet of line wears you out. If you’re on the spot and you don’t have a fish on after 30 seconds you might as well reel it up because your bait is probably gone, so you’re right about the huge arm thing. The motors in those reels are pretty tough, they’ll retrieve 20lb snapper no problem but they have a hand crank if you get something real big. If we’re trolling then the big Penn reels come out. I can’t imagine fighting a big fish without hand cranking. I went on a charter boat last year and a guy brought a deep cycle battery and his electric reel.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about fishing it’s catch all you can within legal limits in the shortest amount of time because once the bite turns off it’s a ghost town. We usually only fish 4-6 hours because 5 hours is spent getting out 50 miles and back plus an hour catching bait fish in the bay first thing in the morning.
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That much reeling doesn’t sound fun at all especially after something stole the bait. I didn’t even think about that part of it. Sounds like something you’d definitely want in your arsenal.
I’ve only been out once fishing down in Florida. I was probably 14. I didn’t catch anything except for sea sickness and spent the whole time vomiting off the back of the boat. It was pretty rough out but I’m guessing it wouldn’t have mattered.
I’m about 3 hours south of Chicago but sometimes go up to Lake Michigan salmon fishing. That’s a lot of fun and a good way to fill the freezer. I’d still rather be on the coast.
And just to be clear I can’t afford to fish like that often as we chip in $100 for the day and it can really beat you up. Plus it’s a huge time commitment and totally weather dependent. @mgcmike has the setup I’d use if I lived closer to the beach. Those carts are great for surf fishing or off the pier. I prefer relaxing while I fish and being in the Gulf is constant work. I take my dad’s little Bass Tracker out around here and can catch bass, bream, cats, redfish, flounder, speckled trout, triple tail and sheepshead all in the same day. It’s an amazing fishing area with the rivers, lakes and bays. All the guys around here buy the combo salt/freshwater license because north of I-10 is fresh and south is salt and we run back and forth under the bridge all day.
What species of salmon do you catch up there?
I bet fuel alone getting 50 miles out is a huge cost.
That would be a blast running up and down the river hitting freshwater or salt.
It has Chinook (King) and Coho. Coho are the best tasting but King get huge. It’s prime time for Kings right now. Lake trout is another main one people fish for up there. They also have brown and rainbow trout.
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Reason #15,897 why a boat is a good investment down here… it gets you away from the spring breakers and summer dwellers!
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I grew up 10 minutes south of Memphis. All we had was bass bream and crappie and catfish. Then moved down here and got into saltwater. 3 years ago started a tradition going up north to MN tackle walleye perch and northerns I have better luck up there catching 15” crappie and bass up there in 2 years then I did fishing MS my entire life.
One more month.
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This thread started out fishing. Now wife was sick last night and today I can’t find a parking spot to save my life.
Nah ive never caught a fish that big but i feel like it would take the fun away lol
And is a good money maker
Minnesota is awesome. I bet you’re excited. We went up there twice to for fishing when I was a kid. Here’s a funny story. I was probably 12 years old. My dad and I decided to go out around midnight and fish for catfish. We were out there until probably 3:00 am in the exact same spot pulling in around 100 2-3 lb bullhead. By the time we cleaned them it was pretty late so we slept in. I guess we had been the talk of the campground (cabins) all most the night and all morning because they could see us out there with our little lantern pulling fish in left and right. People couldn’t wait to ask what we were catching and wanted our secrets. Not that we had any secrets we just knew how to catch catfish. You should’ve seen the look of disappointment on their face when we told them what we were catching and keeping. For the life of them they couldn’t believe we actually eat bullhead. The owner of the campground said they’re all spoiled by all the good white meat up there so any kind of catfish is considered a garbage fish. Everyone thought we were pulling in walleye or something…lol…no wonder we were actually catching fish. They’re overpopulated with bullhead. The only other thing we caught were bluegill because my dad would always plan it for the end of July or beginning of August.Too hot even up there. He wasn’t much of a fisherman so was more about family vacation than actual fishing.
If you ever get the chance do a fly in up in Canada. You think MN has good fishing you won’t believe it. The only way to get to some of those lakes is by plane so you can catch walleye up there like we catch little bluegill here.
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@Grizz That pump that shoots water out the back is your bilge pump. Some pumps have a float that activates a microswitch but they of course sometimes fail. Just don’t forget that you’re running it, especially if you have music playing and can’t hear it. Been there, done that on a single battery setup and had to pull start the motor because of drained battery. Bought a second battery real quick after that with the new one dedicated as starter battery.
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The boat was off and i never hit any switch. It came on 3 different times when i was washing it. Ive havnt even checked to see how many batteries it has.
You still get a rush landing fish with an electric reel it just makes it easier. Reeling a reef fish up that far usually feels like reeling in a cinder block, not much fight to them. It’s also about efficiency because there’s really no natural bottom structure on the Gulf Coast so getting on top of a spot and staying there is a challenge. One of my other uncles owns a body shop and over the years he’s stripped cars to EPA regulations then hired a barge captain to cable them together, drop them out in the Gulf and record the coordinates. Imagine how small a group of 4-8 cars looks 200’ down and you’re trying to stay on top of them with wind, waves and current. Gotta hit it fast. There’s no telling how many old cars, washing machines, refrigerators and such there is out there. There are also companies that will weld up metal cage artificial reefs and dump them for you. The predator fish @mgcmike is referring to are always landed with manual reels in my experience. Tuna, jacks, dolphin, king mackerel, marlin, sharks, etc are either trolled at surface or fixed depth, jigged, free-lined or sight casted with heavy duty tackle.
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Sounds like it has a float switch and is always powered. If it doesn’t have a manual switch I’d wire one in or at least know exactly where the fuse is in case you need to cut power to it.
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@Grizz Usually a boat with a trolling motor has multiple batteries so if it does I’d make sure all non-essential accessories are wired to the trolling battery.
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My Granpa who lives in IN same as my great Uncle Ron fished Can. North Dakota and MN all the time. Leech Lake is the tradition he started 3 yrs ago after my southern Grandpa passed away. He wanted his son in law and son to experience it before he passed away. And first year 23” walleye, personal best bass. Idk how many northern. So yea I’m hooked.
But we would limit out on 15” crappie and nice “blue gill” bream.
They wouldn’t touch them. I didn’t know some northerners don’t eat panfish?!? They called them trashfish.
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