jimmieO

rules are rules. I don't pay the bills or the salaries here. Just glad to have a place to b.s. with all of you guys and gals.

Jeez Louise. Most accurate thread title ever.

I would at least give it one more shot. My wife sucks at giving me messages.

You got those H20 Express one's right??? I got some of those too, and I do like them. Just can't buy a bite on em.

Welcome to the forum. Didn't know that had fish in Vermont

Welcome to the site!

Kevin Van Deutsch Wolfgang Amadeus Deutsch

First of all, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! This has turned out to be quite a little headache, but the hardest part has been running down the parts that I have ended up needing. I am finally getting them today and hoping that everything goes on without a hitch....we'll see. However, I do want to kinda give a rundown of what I've learned, so that folks can maybe use this thread in the future for this fairly common problem. I'm also going to try to use as many of the "buzzwords" for this problem as possible so that it will be more search friendly. You guys' posts are basically the only help I've been able to get. There's not a lot in the form of instruction on the internet for this issue. My problem started when I left the dad gum trolling motor down. At first look, i thought my only problem was going to be that I broke the top hinge on the bracket door, and I mean smooth off. Got that taken care of by simply bending the hinge pin down, and it holds just fine. Not perfect, but functional and I don't notice a difference. Thought my problem was solved. The next time I got on the water, I put the trolling motor down and the pedal was terribly hard to turn. Oh crap. This is when I realized that the outer tube and perhaps shaft were bent. What did I do? Applied even more pressure on the pedal and got the motor to turn. I really wanted to fish that day so I fought the pedal for a couple hours and then.......SNAP. I didn't realize what it was, but I knew then that it was time to go home. Once I got home, I started taking apart the motor and the learning began. In order to remove the outer tube, you have to remove the pinion gear. The pinion gear is attached to the shaft and actually turns the head of the motor. This part is threaded and if you ever have to take one off, you better get out your torch. Not your lighter, and not your hair dryer, you need some serious heat to melt down the loctite to get the thing loose. I had to take it to a shop to get this part off without breaking it. We applied a torch to it for about a good solid 3-5 minutes and still had to grip the gear teeth to get it to turn. I would recommend avoiding this if at all possible because they can break, but we wrapped them with a rag before putting the channel locks on them. By the way, I did this at Twin Cities Marine in Opelika. Good people. My next boat will be a triton from these guys. Now I can get to work. Took off the outer tube and found that the best way to get it back into shape was not to beat on it with a rubber hammer, but to wedge it in between something and pull. I used my boat trailer. Did the same thing with the shaft (column). It was only slightly bent and went back into place nicely. Now again, I think I might be done. Well, I get everything almost all back together and then I see what that snap was. The steering cable. It broke off right at the rack gear. The rack gear is the gear that attaches to the steering cable and turns the pinion which turns the motor. (now that whole rack and pinion steering thing makes sense) I wasn't sure just how the rack gear was attached to the steering cable because this is the first one I had ever seen and its broken. My impression was that it was soldered. Not true. This is a threaded fitting. Found this out by drilling out the old steering cable connection just enough to see the threads and then breaking off my bit inside, rendering the rack, if possible, even more useless. So today, I'm finally going to get the new rack and steering cable and get this dang thing put back together. All in all, not a terrible job. We should be running again this evening! Thanks again to all of you guys for the help and advice.

I'm the opposite of RW- My "high end" stuff is still under or right at 100 bucks, so.... "high-end"-Quantum, All Star "low-end"-Shimano Sojourn (25 bucks at Academy, and an ABSOLUTELY fantastic spinnerbait rod)

Yep. Had that a feeling a couple times. First was with a 9lb. drum, 2nd was a 9ish striper. Bittersweet. The whole while, you're thinking PB, oh my god, this is huge, adrenaline, all that jazz...then, it eclipses the surface and you get that sinking feeling. But you can at least still appreciate the fight.

Smartest/Most true thing I've ever heard anyone say!

I for one will not take my kids fishing. I don't want to give up my time chasing the big green girls to catch some stupid sunfish. JUST KIDDING!... SHEESH. Yep, I can remember making up all kinds of games in the yard. My favorite was lawnchair quarterback. One lawnchair at each end. Try to hit one, run down, repeat. Helluva fun game! Too many nintendos and playstations in the world now.

Yep. Shattered my right thumb three years ago playing in a has-beens baseball league. Had a pin and surgery and all that good stuff. It took a year for me to be able to put the plug back in my boat without hurting. Even still, can't really put as much pressure as I used to on it, but its livable.

I definitely don't mean this in a smart #@s way: RW--I saw from the "meet the staff" thing that you are an investment banker..correct??? If you have the time to answer this, I would definitely appreciate hearing your point of view. How do we fix this mess? What are your theories? How do we save our banks? I'm just not buying in to the whole "we're gonna fix our debt problem by creating more debt..." It just doesn't make sense to me.

are you me in north carolina? I've got an SV17 and a 10 month old.... Mine has been used WAAAAAAAAY more than 3 times, and is definitely not paid off. How nice that must be!

I would appreciate that VERY much man!

well...i've hit a wall. I've gotten down to the point where I remove the pinion gear from the shaft, so that I can remove the outer tube and re-shape it. Anyone got any experience removing these? I believe its threaded...but even with channel locks I can't seem to get it to budge....

Well, last week a bonehead mis-hap resulted in a bent shaft on my trolling motor. It is a 40lb thrust motorguide. The bend did not appear to be that bad, but today, I realized how bad it was when I went to push the pedal and I was met with a LOT of resistance. Can I use a hammer to get the thing a bit rounded out again? Can i get a replacement shaft???? Am I totally screwed? PLEASE HELP!!!!! I've got a week to get this thing functional.

Not sure about the renewal rates and stuff, but I my uncle rents out his former house and their rate is 10% per month.

I'll cast 2 votes. The first would be for the state of Alabama. There are some great lakes within 2-3 hours of Birmingham. Guntersville, Logan Martin, Lay, Jordan, Alabama River, Pickwick, Wheeler.... However-I don't know if you can beat good ole' SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA!!! I'm originally from there and there are several awesome lakes literally within 30 minutes of almost anywhere you live. Caddo, Black Bayou in Hosston, Red River, Cross Lake, Toledo Bend (hour drive). Lake Fork is only about 2 hours away! There have been some absolute monsters pulled out of caddo in the last 2 weeks. Its a pitching/flipping paradise.

BPS's spring fishing sale ends Sunday. Not sure if the Extremes are on sale, but at least check out the KVD signature series. You can get one for about 60 bucks, and I love it!

GOOD LUCK TO YOU GUYS!!!! Wear em out for me. Our weather is gonna suck, so I'll be stuck at the house.

I can 100% agree with that. Sorry I took it the wrong way. I've just seen a few folks get unnecessarily aggravated at certain things. That being said, back on topic, I've got a Medium action BPS Extreme spinnerbait rod. Like it very much. Are there better rods out there? Absolutely, but just like a bunch of BPS's stuff, it is really, really good for the price you pay, and on sale 75% of the time.

Hate the wind messed you up, but catching too many 4-5 pounders is a good problem to have!!!

I would LOVE to have some smallmouth. I would LOVE to have standing cypress trees. Home lakes are just about soup bowls. Not much grass, not many trees.