gatorblazer

water is around 8lbs per gallon.

it was registered at some point so the make and model should be on your bill of sale or on the title

Not a bad motor, i liked mine when I had it. 4-5 was a major speed difference. I definatly liked the pedal feel of the value line minnkota vs the value line MG. I didnt like the shaft prop fork thingy on the mount, it broke the second time that i pulled the motor up, but didnt affect the functionality or storage of the motor. My honest advice would be to check craigslist for a tmotor or call your local tmotor repair shop to see if you can get a deal on one. I've seen lots of bigger motors for sale locally for $200 or so as guys are upgrading to newer units on their fiberglass rigs

Nope, did the Saturday event. Moved Kennedy, Shaw, and Martens (Lady Gaga CD blaring when I cranked his truck, Really?). Funniest part of the day was watching Taka run across the parking lot to stop a guy from backing his motorhome up. He didnt want anyone to touch that thing. He kept yelling "No Back, No Back!"

This year at the Classic, I got to help load boats for the pros. While backing Shaw's trailer in, I realized that ESPN camera's were filming me, along with fans taking pics of the truck. Talk about pressure. An old fart once helped me when I was backing his trailer up. He climbed in the seat next to me, put his arm around me in a grandfatherly way and explained, "Its not hard to do. Put your hand at the bottom of the wheel, look at your mirrors, and turn the wheel the direction that you want the trailer to go. If its in your right mirror, the trailer is going to your right. If its in your left, its going left." He says all this with a calm voice and follows with this, "If you cant see the trailer................ITS RIGHT #$&@*@ BEHIND YOU! DONT DO ANYTHING, ITS STRAIGHT!" Then he calmly got out of the truck. I'll never forget how to back a trailer up, ever ;D

I think its well thought out however, there is the issue of it fitting in a garage. I think its just a little to wide to fit in a standard single door.

For 9K you can buy a lot of nice used boats. If you just have to buy a new one, tracker has a grizzly that is 17' with a bigger motor for roughly the same cost. http://trackerboats.com/boat/motors.cfm?boat=3270

798 should just be a two wire power hookup plus the transducer cable if you are not linking it with another unit. Follow your existing power wire and run the new one there. If your confident that your existing GPS is a two wire as well, you could just tap into that wire and avoid having to fish any wire through your boat. Personally I think its easier than a car stereo to hook up.

Gatorjet fish and ski with a 454 motor and a flippin deck all the way to the consoles. They will run high 50's to low 60's in real skinny water and fish like the glass boats.

towing + family friendly = Dodge Sprinter

Biosonics makes that exact device and KVD and Skeet swear by them. As to sounds spooking fish, anything that they are not used to would spook them. In a farm pond, a gas motor is going to be a foreign sound. If your in a shallow area that is not pressured much, a transducer might trigger that spookieness. I try to be as cautious as possible as I do not know what will spook them. Its no different for deer hunting near a highway vs somewhere where deer do not hear cars. We are pretty close to each other so we might need to fish together some

On the coosa, bed fish are spooky too. My point is why would you risk any noise if you know they are going to be spooky. I definatly would use the SI for practice and spot locating. Once you find something, mark it as a waypoint and tell no one. When its time to fish it in competition, turn off the sonar and just use the GPS to guide you to that spot.

That shallow, Im not sure that you need it or want it. In less than 5' of water I always turn my transducers off. I am convinced that fish can hear/sense sonar pings. If I am trying to be stealthy, make quiet movements, gently flipping my bait in with little to no splash, why would I have something ticking away under my boat? Same with my bilge, I make sure that its not going to turn on when I am in a quiet situation. If you must know your depth and bottom type, dip your rod tip in and feel for it. I can only see the side scan being useful in scouting trips just to map whats there, but would turn it off when actually fishing.

Good discussion going here. I'm leaning towards the inflatable for my boat as it wont top 40mph, and then using the standard pfd when i go as a co-angler in an actual bass boat.

I read on another site where two guys had a pretty bad boat wreck. The doctor told one of the guys that his PFD saved his life, but not from the water. He was wearing a standard non-inflatable PFD. The cushion from the PFD prevented his heart from being crushed when he hit the console. The doc said that had he been wearing an inflatable, he would have been killed. Any thoughts from you guys regarding PFD's and your preferences?