mac7373

I am looking for a BASS club in central oklahoma. I live in Yukon and am very anxious to get back into a club. Allot of the websites I have found online for clubs are mostly outdated. Thanks

In the central time zone... looking at tomorrow morning for instance...Bassmaster University comes on at 4am, followed by Greatest Angler Debate at 430am and then from 5-6am its Bassmaster, were they recap the latest BASS tournament, likely the latest E-50. I Tivo this stuff every morning and it starts with Loudmouth Bass at 4am followed by BassCenter at 430am on most mornings until Thursday when it changes to the above lineup. As far as watching tournament coverage Saturday morning is your best bet...from 6-9am. If you have satellite or digital cable maybe you have the OLN channel (outdoor life network) and/or The Outdoor Channel on my Dish Network guide it is 287 and 288. They both have various fishing shows throughout the week and one of them plays episodes of the show hosted by Fish Fishburne of BASS called Classic Patterns. I watched the one yesterday with Skeet Reese, whom I am not very fond of...but he was at Clear Lake, California and I found the show to be one of the more instructional ones I have ever seen. There is also a set of DVD's called Classic Patterns made by all the top Pro's. My wife is supposed to get the set for me for my B-day...it runs around $130 for the set of 13-15 DVD's. I know this is not what you were asking about but none the less its some useful info. Those two channels I mentioned above are pretty good channels. I am not a big fan of Al or Ron Linder so if you can handle them you should find these channels helpful. Both channels are also big hunting channels as well, so if you have a five year old daughter like me...DON'T LEAVE THE ROOM WITH THESE CHANNELS ON!!! I though she had fallen and broke her neck the other day she was so hysterical but come to find out she watched these two guys mow down a couple of mule dear with some high powered rifles while I was in the back room. She was not too happy and now every time "daddy" picks up the remote she leaves the room fearing I will turn it back on that channel. Later.

Born in Woodward, OK. Grew up mostly in Pauls Valley, OK. Lived in Germany for 5 years. Moved to Lawton, OK. for a couple a years then moved to Roseburg, OR. and Portland, OR. for a total of 5 and a half years. Recently moved back to OK for good...I live in Yukon, just west of Oklahoma City.

I would have suggested float tubes as well. I have three of them that haven't been wet in over four years cause I don't like going alone and I don't have anyone that is willing to go with me. The problem that I have found with tubes is that, at least around where I live anyway...it would take a big set of "cajones" to get in one and not be jumpy as hell. Lots of the ponds around here have serious snake problems...and although I am not afraid of snakes at all, when I am in the water I prefer not for them to be around or for me to be in a boat at the very least. That old saying that "snakes don't bite underwater" is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard. Thats my reason for not liking float tubes anymore...but allot of people love them.

I would normally just fillet them without worrying about them being alive. The ice suggestion is the best one I can think of. That way they are "out of sight, out of mind" for a while. They are not like the other popular west coast fish the salmon...they don't need to be clubbed and hung up and bled before keeping them and cleaning them.

Muddpuppy- Yep I have also done everything you can imagine as well just short of any type of surgical procedure. Over the course of 3-4 years I had two different neurosurgeons, an ortho physician, two different occupational health physicians, four different physical therapists employing at a minimum of no less that 7 different approaches on how to fix me, an acupuncturist who was the real deal born and bread in Japan (this helped other things but not my back), and two chiropractors...and a partridge in a pear tree. I was dependent on a mixture of neurontin, carisoprodol, vicodin, darvocet, percocet and then ambien or sonata to sleep at night...everyday for the entire 3-4 years. Although I felt a difference after the first visit or two to the chiropractor it took a week to 10 days before I could drive to the store or just down the road 3-5 miles without pain. But after that first week to 10 days it was drastically better each visit. The clicking thing you mentioned sounds like the activator. But as I said in my previous post, if you look at the website and go to the link that allows you to find a doctor near you and your chiro is not on that list...you might as well let my 5 year old daughter have a shot at your back with her toy doctor kit because she could do no worse than a doc who is employing techniques that he is not trained to do. If they are not on that list they don't knbow the method to the extent to make it work properly. At the end of the day Muddpuppy, you could be one of the growing percentages of unfortunate people in the world who do and will have chronic back pain till they either quit moving around altogether or die. These people are the ones that have tried everything to no avail and had surgery and only found that they are the same or worse as before. A huge percentage of my wife's patients she sees every week on nonsurgery-clinic days, and she see's around 50+ patients a day...I'd say half of them fall into this chronic category. My wife gets two to three calls every night 7 days a week for patients having trouble with pain management and wanting something stronger for the pain. There is only so far you can go with the painkillers though. This one lady who calls my wife ALLOT is going through 24-30 vicodin or percocet every 24 hours!!!. Anyway I am sorry nothing has worked for you and it is really unfortunate that you have to live with this crap. I am only 31, and I have been warned that because I have spinal stenosis (degenerative narrowing of the disk spaces in the lower lumbar spine) that I will be at an exceptionally high risk of re-injury later in life...but less now because I avoided surgery, I have lost 50+ pounds and I work out 6 days a week with special attention being paid to my back muscles and stomach muscles for lumbar support. I refuse to let my back keep me out of a boat fishing for three years again. That was the worst three years of my life. One thing that I was shown that made a drastic improvement on my pain in my leg...I have this huge wallet that has everything you can imagine in it and I carry it in my right back pocket. I told the doc that I was really benefiting from the treatments but that when I would drive for longer than 10 minutes that I would have pain in my leg and more specifically my calve. He told me to quit keeping my wallet in my back pocket when driving and it has made a huge difference. It has to be followed religiously though. You can't just remember to do it sometimes, it has to be followed everyday, every time you drive, ride or sit in a seat or chair. The other thing was that my wife acquired an TENS unit for home use(electro-stimulation). Whenever I am sore I put four of the electrodes on my lower back around the area were the disk is located for about 12-15 minutes with an ice pack on top of the area and it helps after a couple of days. I think they can be purchased for about $60-$100 dollars. They really help with the inflammation you get when you have back pain. Later.

I am going to ask you guys what you might consider a stupid question but just hear me out. I have a bad back...herniated the disks at L4-L5 and L5-S1. I spent from Nov. 2001, when I was first injured up until last summer going from physical therapist to physical therapist...from pain killer to pain killer and one opinion to another until I found what fixed me. I opted out of having surgery because my wife is an Orthopedic Surgery PA and I know a little more than the "average Joe" about the post op success rate of lower Lumbar Fusions, Lumbar Laminectomy, Lumbar Microdiscectomy...etc. Success rates are not as high as some would have you believe. The success rates rely heavily on the surgeon's skills and believe me, not everyone gets a great surgeon. I have had trigger point injections, Epidural Injections (these helped), every PT technique and philosophy known was attempted on me at least once. I tried the chiropractor bending me and manipulating me and none of these worked much at all. After it was all said and done I had leg and hip pain that sometimes caused me to have to crawl to the bathroom and sit while taking a shower, I had and still have to this day muscle atrophy in my left leg...I lost 1.5 cm on my calve and 2 cm on my thigh. I am still struggling to gain the muscle I lost back completely. I had one of my spells after we moved from our apartment to our house when we lived in Oregon and after about two hours of moving I was on my back and I could not stand up. For three days I was stuck in my bed and literally unable to move my left leg. I was very desperate and I was begging my wife to write me a prescription for some pain medicine even though I knew it was unethical and very against the law in Oregon. Anyway my mother-in-law came in and said, she had made me an appointment with her Chiropractor and that he was not your average one...he was better than most and very good. I told her that the last chiropractor I saw just hurt me more than anything else and to cancel it. The next day I was willing to try anything and I went. No for the stupid question...have any of you guys with bad backs, either lumbar or thoracic gone to a chiropractor? If so have you seen one who is "Advanced Proficiency Rated" with the Activator method? If not please do so...it changed my life. You can find all the licensed chiro's who are rated with the activator on the website below. Some of you may go to the chiropractor and they do those high velocity joint manipulations with you and you get just a little better...give this stuff a try. When I went in I was all out of whack and could barely walk. Three days later I was hopping and skipping to my appointments. (that's a little over exaggerated) I was out of alignment in ALL my vertebrae all the way up my spine and my pelvis was really titled to one side. I am straight as an arrow now. I go in three maybe four times a year for readjustment and realignment and I never have trouble standing all day long. If I do anything like play 36 holes of golf for three days straight I might need an emergency trip to the Doc but otherwise I depend on my maintenance visits to keep me going. This is not regular bone cracking chiropractor stuff and they HAVE to be proficiency rated in order to know all of how to apply the activator methods. I saw a guy who was not rated but was a licensed and very well respected Chiropractor in my community who said he knew how to use an activator and I could have done what he did myself. He was lost...period. Them having the proficiency rating is the key. They might ask you for your most recent X rays as well and if you don't have them or a recent MRI you may have to get at a minimum X rays. I spend about $45.00 a visit. I would pay allot more if I had too, for how good it has made me feel. The other thing that has helped me was when I was hurt and off work for over a year...I gained 70 pounds...from 200 to 273. I am now back down to 225 and still losing until I get back down to my in shape weight of 195-200. I still benefited from the chiropractors treatment even before I lost weight though...losing the weight just multiplied the benefits and my well-being. If any of you guys want to email, ICQ or I will give you my cell # if you want to talk about this further. And...NO, I have no vested interest in chiropractors or this method of treatment other than I want others to get back to feeling how they once did...I can't explain how much better I feel now and I would just like to see others share this feeling cause I KNOW all to well what this chronic back pain crap is like. http://www.activator.com/

Just a short story about something that happened to me one time in a boats first time on the water. It was my father-in-laws brand new Thunder Jet 19' Sport Jet boat. We were in the Coquille River in Bandon Oregon and I went out with him to kind of watch over him and make sure things went smoothly his first time out. It was him, me and his older brother of about 60. We were done hanging up and losing trolling gear for the day so we took it in to the dock and told his brother to go back the trailer into the water. I stayed on the boat with the father-in-law to help him get it lined up and on the trailer...it took forever and he finally got it up on the trailer all the way. I told him to go up and secure the winch hook to the boat and give it a couple of cranks to make sure we were up in the trailer snug. When he got up he did something with his hands that indicated to his brother to pull out, and he did-before the boat was hooked up...I was in shock and afraid to yell at him to stop because I was afraid it would make the aluminum boat slide right off the UHMW plastic covered bunks and slide off the trailer on the boat ramp. We would have likely made it out OK...I have seen it done before as long as the driver is smooth pulling out. My father-in-law on the other hand yelled STOP...and the boat slid right off the trailer and onto the boat ramp. It totally destroyed the trim plate and the transducers for all the electronics, not to mention scratched up the bottom pretty good. We had a hell of a time getting it trailered again. My father-in-law was pi$$ed. I was too. His poor brother to a butt chewing for the entire hour ride home. It was a lesson learned and needless to say my father-in-law got pretty good at trailering a boat by himself after that...unless I was with him. He doesn't trust anyone now except me to help him. It was embarrassing as hell.

All of the bass I have ever had tastes really good. My dad knows how to cook it just right. I have seen people catch 7-lb.+ largemouth's and say "I can't wait to get it home and eat it." I actually saw a guy when I was camping several years ago catch a 10-lb. female that was just fat as hell with eggs and he cleaned it and ate it and later said it was the worst fish he had ever had? go figure? I was always told that the smaller ones in the 1-3 lb. range are the best because the older ones start to get grainy and don't taste as good. I personally have not eaten any bass in over 12 years...about the time I started becoming active in Bass Clubs and fishing tournaments I just felt it was more important to catch and release.

When I broke down and finally learned to flip and pitch. I never fished a jig until I learned those two techniques. I was always a plastic worm, spinner bait, and top water kinda guy but learning just something as simple as pitchin a jig -n- pig was a phenomenal advancement in my productivity and has actually caused me to be more competitive in more tournaments. A close second to learning those techniques, I would say was forcing myself to use spinning gear again and then learning the right situations for using it as well. I started out on spinning gear as a small child. When I made the dreaded switch from spinning to bait cast, my dad use to make me go out in the backyard when I was little...around ten or eleven or so, and throw my bait cast rod and reel with a weight on it at several different Folgers coffee cans spread around at various locations in the back yard until I could at the very least hit each can pretty much at will. I use to do this for hours and hours every day. He wanted me to be able to use one well before he took me out with one and he wanted me to be able to deal with my own backlashes/birds nests without him having to stop fishing and untangle it for me. I got really good with placing my lures in the right places without having to learn other techniques...but now I am glad I have taken the time to learn some new stuff cause it has made a huge difference for me. I still go out and find a target or two and throw at them while in the yard when I am trying out a new line or something. It's an old habit.

Thats a big freakin fish Raul. Where was it caught? (other than in the lip, and out of water...LOL) What state? I'm guessing Cali?

Hey BD... I would and will take you up on your offer if I get access to another lake like that. The one I caught the 10 pounder out of are over in the Leedy area in western OK. There were two reservoirs on the property and I fished them for close to 10 years. It got really over fished over the years and has not produced anything in a long long time. There were lots of 8-10 lb. bass taken from them and mounted over the ten years I fished them. Needless to say I feel guilty every time I look at the mount, I could've been just as proud of her with some good photos and let her go. I know that my dad and me had a small hand in the decline of the production of those two "honey holes". The other one was another private reservoir over in the Sallisaw OK area. I only had the privilege of fishing it 2 times. Both times I had to fly out here from Oregon to do so. (I lived in Oregon from 1999 - this past Dec.) Of all the private reservoirs I have ever seen and fished it is absolutely one of the best. Good size. Something like 9 miles of shoreline - around 200 acres, two camping areas and a boat ramp. If you had no idea it was there you would never find it. The guy that owns it ended up leasing it out to a company out of Tulsa and in the lease agreement the owner gave up all of his rights to let his friends fish it. His immediate family can fish it, on Mon., Tues., and Fri. I think but they are not allowed to camp out at it...etc. Needless to say it is another good private lake that will probably be ruined in ten years and I will likely never fish again. I caught the 12 pounder in that lake pitching a brown and watermelon jig and I must say that when I stuck her I thought I had snagged one of the big carp or catfish that are in there as well. When I got her up and she rolled I thought I had the state record for sure. I actually thought to myself "what a bunch of crap...I move to Oregon, live there for the past three years, come back to OK for 3 days and I catch a state record." Once I got her in the boat I had the feeling that she was not quite big enough for the record but she was still huge and probably the biggest I will ever catch. She was full of eggs and there was no way I was keeping her. We ended up measuring everything measurable on her, and I think we took close to 60 pictures of her, weighed her with three sets of scales that all came up within about an eighth of a pound from one another, and then let her go back where I caught her from. Now that I am back here in OK for good I have a few other friends in the Wagner - Muskogee area that have some other "sweet spots" they keep telling me about and I am trying to get away from work in order to get out there and fish some. Maybe I will look you up sometime. I am working on locating the pictures of my Big Bass so that I can find the negatives and have the pics put on disk so I can share them with you guys. I have one pic of the 10 pounder that I caught when I was 16, but where its at is anybody's guess. Apparently when talking to my dad about my fish he swears I am wrong about the times. He says I caught the 10 pounder in 91' and that we kept it frozen at the taxidermists for almost 4 years until I paid for the mount myself. He says that the fish I caught before I left for the Army was an 8 lb+. bass at Lake Vincent. Anyway later guys...I'll stop rambling on.

No I am not a member of the Lunker Club so to criticize some of catches in it, as I am about to do may seem kind of cheap, but so are the scales some of these guys use to weigh their catch. I have caught my share of fairly large bass in my life. I have caught an uncountable amount in the 5-8 pound range. I have two mounted fish on my wall, one is a replica and one is an actual skin mount. The replica is 12.2 lbs caught here in Oklahoma 3 years ago and the skin mount is 10.6 caught in flood control reservoir here in Oklahoma back in 1995 1991. I have caught several more in the 9-10.5 lb. range all mostly from smaller private lease lakes here in Oklahoma with the exception of a couple of them. I have seen fish out in California caught at Clear Lake, and the Cal Delta while I was fishing there in the 14-19 lb. range. Like most of you I know what a fish might weigh, at least ballpark, by looking at it. I realize pictures can sometimes be deceiving...but do you ever wonder what some of the guys in the Bassmaster lunker club use to weigh the fish they submit? Every single month I sit there and say "wow that's a monster" or "look at the size of that smallmouth" and then there is always a few "there is no freaking way that fish weighs that much". In the June 2005 issue in the bottom right hand corner there is a bass caught in Florida that is listed as weighing 18.1 lbs. NO WAY, that fish is lucky if it breaks into double digits. If you look at how its being held in comparison with the size of the guys hands and the guys head...even the width of his shoulders gives some indication that this fish is not 18 lbs. An 18 lb fish is going to be at least 25-28 inches long and just fat as hell somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-28 inches as well. For that fish, as skinny as it is, it would have to be 35 inches to weigh 18 lbs. The only thing I can think is that they got the info for the two at the bottom switched...but that would mean that the fish in question would weigh 11.8...still I say no way. Check it out if you have the mag. Later

I was watching one of the fishing shows on ESPN the other day and one of the pros who had just finished in the top 5 for the first time or won the tournament or something to that effect stated he had "used aerial photos" to locate some of his targeted areas on this particular lake. He said the guy he gets them from has or can get just about any major lake in the US. He gave the guys name and website but I was lying in bed half awake and half asleep and I can't remember the name or website to save my life. Any ideas as to where I can find this stuff, not necessarily the same stuff, but a good site with printable aerial lake photos? Thanks

I would like to see Bill Dance named the Greatest Angler just to watch Skeet Reese squirm in his seat and whine for the next 10 years about it. That guy is such a joke...what a baby. He's just upset that Gary Klein wasn't ranked higher. If I was to just pick the ones I felt deserved it just based on competitive angling production...in no order it would have to be Martin, Clunn, KVD, and Nixon or Davis. If you go by who popularized the sport and made it what it is today...made it something worth having this debate about. Without question Martin, Dance and Parker and maybe even KVD.

Not a big fan of ProCraft...don't really know much about them other than I don't see very many of them and the ones I have I haven't really liked the looks of that much. May be great boats...I just don't care for the looks of them. I am really leaning heavily towards Skeeter. There is not a close second at this point...Stratos is a distant second with Ranger not too far behind, if at all.

Thanks for the input. I realize its a petty question but it was eating at me. I did some of my own research along the lines of your explanation and found pretty much what you said to be true. It's basically like Triton and Skeeter are the rides for pros fishing BASS, and Stratos and Ranger are with the guys fishing the FLW tour. I really wish it wasn't like this but it all comes down to the "all mighty $$ in the end". Thanks again for your input.

This is silly but its kinda bugging me. One of the things I looked at when I first started looking into a new boat was which Pros fish with which boats. I had Kevin VanDam fishing from a Nitro? He is in all the Nitro commercials and the Bass Pro Shops catalogs for Nitro...right? In my new Bassmasters Techniques 2005 Magazine on page 18, it has a section authored by KVD, but the picture has him fishing from what appears to be a Triton? There is a Triton sticker off to his right on the boats gunwale. What's up with that? Do these guys just put random stickers on their boats? And if so why a sticker of a competing boat manufacturer?

I have posted this in a couple of other threads, but I am leaning heavily towards Skeeter at this point. The only complaint I had with the handfull of Skeeters I looked at and the one I rode in yesterday was the fact that the trolling motor foot pedal is not recessed into the front deck. I don't know that thats going to keep from gettin one though. I really liked everything the Skeeter guys had to show me and the ride was pretty good as well. I am still not going to buy one for another 6 weeks or so, so I still have lots of time to shop around. If thats what you have to pay for Tritons, its safe to assume they are not getting a second look from me at this point. Mac

I just got my requested brochure from the Triton dealership here in Oklahoma. It wasn't something pre-printed or anything like that...it was more like an invoice that someone had taken the time to write out. Anyway...the quote they sent me was for a 2005 Triton TR-21XD, 2005 Mercury 250hp Verado + trailer and the standard extras on most boats...$51,500. That's a steal of a price huh? I should jump all over that? Yeah right! I thought that was a little high, and for that matter, so was the guy giving me the quote evidentially.

I just got back from the Skeeter dealership over here really close to my house. I am impressed with these boats. I thought when I saw that there was a dealership close to my house that they might have a couple of used Skeeters and the ability to order a new one if you want.... That wasn't the case though. They had at least one new boat of every model except from the saltwater line. I really liked this 2004 TZX 200 with the 3.1L V-Max 200 that they have. Its brand new, never been off the showroom floor and its marked down to $26k due to it being the only 2004 they have left. It's got all the bells and whistles. The one thing I noticed was that the trolling motor pedal is not recessed like allot of the other new boat-makers are doing now. The salesman told me that they have found that more people like to be able to move it around rather than having it recessed and fixed to one spot? The salesman was really nice and all of the techs were really nice as well. They have 5 Skeeter certified techs right there. The one big plus is that this place is less than 10 minutes from my house. It's just so freakin convenient. The other thing that really got me to thinking Skeeter was that I was able to go for a ride with one of the salesman in a customers boat; the customer was there as well. He has a 2005 ZX 250 with the freakin V-Max 300 HP, that sucker would flat out "get up and go". The one thing that bothers me about these V-Max motors is that you can't fish with them in California because they are all two strokes. Not that I go to Cali allot, but it would be nice to know that I could take my boat everywhere I went if I wanted to. Anyway, I really was impressed with what I saw and heard today from Skeeter, I think they make a good product but again my frame of reference is more limited than allot of you guys.

I was going to post in the thread I started about "what type of boat to get" that I checked out Skeeter's website as well. It was really nice that they had all of those videos available to watch. They definitely persuaded me to go to the closest Skeeter dealership and take a look and maybe a drive. I wish that other websites had more performance related video's to watch. The ones that have videos like Ranger and Triton seem to focus on too much technical stuff in how the boat is manufactued? I care about that, but to have the other vids would be nice as well. I found a couple of sites that have some video reviews of some Bass Boats... www.boattest.com and www.goboatingamerica.com ...they have some decent videos and reviews. Mac

One of the boats I have found in the past couple of days that is local is a 1 year old Stratos 201 Pro XL. It is loaded with about every extra imaginable and has less than 25 hours of use. It is parked at a Marine dealership where I live but it is not being sold by the dealer, he is letting the owner park it there as a favor. The dealer wouldn't give me a firm price because its not his to sell but rather he will contact the seller for me with my inquiry. I have a hunch it is less than $24k cause the owner is going through a divorce and wants to get rid of it. The question I have is- it has the Yamaha V-Max 3.1L OX66 250 HP motor on it. I have noticed that lots of newer boats are going with the new Evinrude E-Tec and Mercury Verado...is there a reason that I shouldn't get this boat because of the motor. Anything bad about them or anything personally you have to add would be helpful. Thanks Mac

Once again many thanks to all of you who are giving your "2 cents", it is appreciated. I have belonged to several different Bass Clubs from Oklahoma to Oregon and I have ridden in lots of different boats for 5-10 minutes here and there. The problem is that I have only had the opportunity to long extensive hours in the two boats I mentioned in my initial post. This leaves me with numerous other unexplored options that could take me years to attain the hours of on the water experience I need to make a truly informed decision. This leaves me with the next best option and that's you guys. I don't want you guys to tell me that boat "A" is better than boat "B" because maybe you have owned one of each and you had a run in with a customer service person at one or the other when taking it in for service or something like that. That could be as much your fault as it was the customer service persons. In other words, try not to give me a biased opinion on anything other than the boat itself. I want to know your opinions on how well they hold up mechanically, how well they handle in various conditions, how comfortable is the ride, does your equipment stay dry under "ALL" conditions, do the live wells have sufficient insulation in the lids to prevent them from over-heating under direct sunlight (I realize that the water is circulated in the live wells to prevent this but there is still that space in between the lid and water surface that can get really hot and have an effect on the fish). Just stuff like this. I don't want to be like Gerald Swindle of BASS and be out there breaking my rods to get them out of their storage and tossing them in the weeds. I am not sure if this was pre-Triton or not. I don't think he would tell the story if it was about his current ride though. I guess comfort and fishability are my first two priorities. Top speed is important but most of the top end boats will run plenty fast enough for me and I have no reason to do 80+mph....70+ is fine with me. If I can find a boat that is the ultimate fishing machine and flat out hauls a$$, that's great but not required. Thanks to all of you again. Mac

I appreaciate the input that you guys have provided thus far. Something interesting that I found on another site... These are from JD Power & Associates Rankings of Bass Boats 2003-2004 Builder, Overall Rating, Quality & Reliability, Value for Money, Ride & Handling, Exterior, Features Ranger 5 5 5 5 5 5 Javelin 3 3 3 3 3 3 Nitro 2 2 2 2 3 3 ProCraft 3 3 3 2 3 3 Skeeter 4 5 4 4 4 4 Stratos 3 3 3 3 4 3 Triton 4 4 4 3 4 5 (Ranger won the overall award in 03-04) 2004-2005 Builder, Overall Rating, Quality/Reliability, Value, Ride/Handling, Design, Fishing Bass-Cat 5 5 5 5 4 5 Ranger 5 4 3 4 5 5 Nitro 2 2 2 2 3 3 ProCraft 2 2 2 2 3 3 Skeeter 4 4 3 4 4 4 Stratos 3 3 3 3 3 3 Triton 4 3 3 3 4 5 (Bass-Cat won the overall award in 04-05) I thought that these were somewhat interesting and I was suprised to not find Champion on either list considering the mention that Champion has been getting from others on other forums I have been watching.