It stretches around Snake as he runs the trolling motor. And, mounted on the fence right in the middle is a bottom machine, his most important piece of equipment. Womble knows the general areas of the Flint River Arm of Lake Seminole that consistently hold big crappie. He steps around extra rods and reels and a heater, slides around the ice chest holding the minnows, pushes the well-worn tacklebox out of the way with his foot, and then steps up onto the front casting platform. He lowers the hand-controlled trolling motor through the fence and hooks up the homemade extension to steer the motor.
Foot switches on either side of the casting platform are the stop and go buttons for the motor.
In one smooth movement, he turns on the bottom machine and picks up a marker buoy. For the next three minutes, he concentrates on nothing but the small screen directly in front of him. The bottom machine indicates that the water is 18 feet deep along a drop-off and smaller blips signal the presence of crappie at 13 feet. The evening before, Snake had re-rigged the assorted rods in the crappie boat. The Giz-Mo is another secret.