Ellesar

A piece of advice, take it to Marshall county to register it. In madison county the registration fee is a percentage of the value of the boat. In Marshall county its a flat $25.00 fee no matter what the boat's value is. It doesn't matter where you live, you can register it anywhere. Its worth the drive from huntsville for me. I don't know how much your boat costs but I would atleast check it out, might save you some money.

Had another great weekend on Lake Guntersville, even if it was really really hot. Temp hit 100 on Sunday according to a local news guy. Started out early both mornings. Good thing about all this heat is that TVA pulls water through the damns a lot to generate electricity. And when they pull water, the fish get really active. Sat the big fish were harder to find, but there were tons of 1-4 lbers schooling up and hitting the shad. Caught 75 on sat. Sunday was better for bigger fish. Only caught about 50 on Sunday but the avg size was better, probably around 3 lbs with biggest fish going close to 6. Sunday also reminded me why I hate grass gnats so much. This time of year you have to hit the grass flats in the main lake to find any big fish, but that means having to deal with millions of those little annoying things. I was covered in dead gnats that stick to your skin and die in your sweat. I have no doubt that there is a special room in hell that they put especially bad people in and that room is filled with nothing but grass gnats that you can't get away from. Included a few pics of some of the fish, and one of my dog Bosley who was very proud of me for catching lots of fish! ;D

Well the bigger fish have really moved out of the coves and pockets on Guntersville. They're a little late this year because the grass hasn't grown up as fast thanks to our weird weather this spring. There are still tons of smaller 1-3 lbers in the coves and you can go and catch 50-75+ of those almost at will. But the bigger fellows have moved deep. Went last night and hammered them on the ledges using my favorite big worm. Caught a few while there was still light, but most came as the sun went down, it was like someone turned a switch on and we caught them one after another. Gonna include a small one that we caught with enough light to take pictures. Best 5 went about 28 lbs. I really wish they'd do this when I'm in a tournament! Biggest fish was 7.6 lbs and caught right as we were fixing to head in. Had my older son with me and he about crapped himself when I got it in the boat. He's never seen a fish that big in real life. We did check some "honey holes" up shallow and I included a picture of the monster I caught there. It was a very ambitious fish as the Pop'r is almost as big as he is! I love having guntersville close by, I'm so spoiled now. That place is so good that it even makes me look like I know what I'm doing! Long live the anaconda! I've had more success with this worm than any others I've tried BY FAR. Can't wait for the new chunk worm to come out. The Zoom speedworm is a constant producer for me and the new ragetail looks like it just might be a better replacement. Can't wait to try it out and put it through its paces on the big G. Big O, If you need someone to product test it on Guntersville, I'd be glad to!

When I had to take my boat in a month or so ago they had it for 3 weeks. Its just that time of year.

yes Im texposing it. I'm guessing it must have to do with having to drag it through the grass. I guess that's fairly hard on them.

Gammy EWG 5/0. Same thing I use on all my big worms.

So does anyone else have a problem tearing anaconda's in half alot? I usually fish them t-rigged and have lately had a problem with them ripping in half where the hook is buried. Even if I havent' caught a fish on them, after 20 or so casts they have a habit of ripping apart. I don't seem to have this problem with other 10" worms. Is there something I can do to help them last longer. I love the action of the tail, and its actually not often that I make 20 casts without catching a fish. But I'm going through a lot of these baits lately.

I remember seeing a piece on a fishing show a while back that compared a 4 day tournament like the Elite's to a marathon. Basically they said that an Elite angler will often burn the same calories in 4 days of hard fishing that a person would running in a marathon.

Its a Shrek fishing pole. I bought it for him before he was born. Well if you ever need anohter mode, the lightning McQueen is a good one. I like it with an extra fast tip and medium action. I find that the sensitivity is very good and its not too brittle and likely to shatter as easy as say the Spongebob Squarepants line is. Ofcourse, if money is no option, go for Spiderman. You just can't beat it, its got its own special polymer line that science has yet to figure out. That matched with the strength, sensitivity, and light weight and you have an all round winner.

Considering what that outboard costs, buy the Merc oil. Follow the manufacturers guidelines, its always the only safe bet. That way if something happens, you don't have to worry about it. Technically they may not be able to cancel your warranty for using different oil, but isn't it worth it not to have your boat down for a powerhead replacement and all that jazz? To me, its worth it. I would get the Premium Plus so you don't have to worry about it. Every Merc mechanic I've ever talked to has said emphatically to use the oil the manufacturer recommends.

It depends on what your boat is doing. Those things generally help with 2 conditions. The first is your hole shot, or getting up on plane. Sounds like that isn't an issue for you. The other is porposing. Porposing is when the bow starts bouncing up and down like you described. If you can't get adequate bow lift without porposing, those devices can help. But if you are able to get good lift, even if you can't trim it all the way out, you don't really need one. Its not uncommon for some boat hulls to porpose when fully trimmed out. As long as you are able to get it to perform well I don't think you need one.

Considering what outboards cost, why take the chance? If the manufacturer says uses a certain brand and that brand is a little more expensive, so what? Cheaper than replacing a powerhead down the line.

That looks like a Lightning McQuuen fishing pole! My son uses one of those!

Well, I got my first tournament win on Sat morning. It was the easiest win I've ever had, no one else showed up! Since the tournament didn't happen, me and my buddy caught the heck out of them. Our best 5 was around 27 lbs, with the biggest being a 6.7. He had one that he first thought was a catfish the way it was rolling the grass, it got off at the boat and was atleast 7 lbs. Ofcourse had the tournament happened our biggest fish would've been 2lbs!

Not all hulls benefit from a jackplate, and the ones that do usually respond to a specific setback (setback is how far back the motor is placed from the hull when on a jackplate). Another thing a jackplate gives you is more bow lift. The biggest benefit is that you can more easily adjust how low your motor sits in the water. All hulls have different "sweet spots" that give the best performance. Even hulls of the same model can have different sweet spots. Usually you will have an idea of where to start but then its a process of trial and error to see where your motor needs to sit to give you the best performance. Without a jackplate you have a very limited number of options regarding where your motor sits, usually a few holes. With a jackplate you can move it up and down in very small increments are really dial your boat in. There are two kinds of jackplates, manual and hydraulic. The hydraulic is nice because you can move your motor up and down eith the flip of a switch, even while you are running down the lake. A manual plate requires you to loosen some bolts to make the adjustment so its not something easily accomplished with the boat in the water, you really have to get it back on the trailer to make an adjustment.

I think if its gone this long without having a problem, you aren't likely to encounter the problems those original ones had. You are more likely to encounter the kind of problems any 8 or 9 year old motor may have. In other words, how well its been taken care of is probably more important than if it was an early production run Opti. If the motor has been well maintained and is in good running order then you should be fine. The important thing is having any motor you plan on buying checked out thoroughly by a trained mechanic. They will perform a leak down test and so forth to help point out any potential problems with the motor. They will also lookup the serial # and see if there have been any service bullteins issued for the motor and they can make sure that those have been performed. A person who has their yearly maintenence done on their engine will be up to date with that stuff. Buying any used motor comes with some risk, but taking the time to find one that's well maintained, has good service records, and getting it checked out by a mechanic will go a long way in preventing you from buying a lemon.

Yes you should have the motor trimmed all the way down (another way of looking at it is that the motor should be tucked in). That gives you the best hole shot. Once you are up on plane start trimming the motor up (or out) which will cause the bow to rise leaving less of the hull in the water. Doing it the other way would definately make it slow to plane. The force would have more of a downward component and less of a forward horizontal component, which means less force pushing the boat forward and getting it up on plane. Once you are on plane the amount of drag created from the friction of the water on the hull becomes your biggest hinderance. By changing the angle of the motor in the water, the angle that the boat rides on the water changes which lifts the hull and reduces the amount of hull in the water. This reduces drag which allows you to go faster.

The thing is I saw several bass do it. I had a few that hit it at the boat. And I would find it very hard to believe that these were bluegill that were hitting the anaconda's like that. I've never had a bluegill hit something and run like a mack truck. I was using #6 swimbait hooks like Big-O suggested, don't think going bigger would've made a difference. They were just hitting and running with the tails in the mouth. I've used this setup before and its never happened in the past. Maybe it was just a weird day all around.

So this weekend I was fishing 10" anaconda's through some grass. I went through a whole bag where the bass bit the tail off without taking the whole worm. I was dipping the tail's in some JJ's. I even tried waiting to let them get more of it in their mouthes but they would swim off and it would pull out, leaving me with nothing but a tailless anaconda. Anyone ever have this happen to them? Maybe I need to dip the whole thing in JJ's. Or maybe the rage tail is just too attractive.

I think you need a tach to be certain. I don't think you can tell where you are in the power band by sound, a tach is the only to be certain. Otherwise you could go up in pitch and end up lugging the motor.

Using the tilt is used for getting in and out of the water, or any other time that you want to raise the motor. A good example would be fishing shallow water, you don't want your engine to drag the ground so you raise it. Trim is used while the motor is actually running. Usually above a certain RPM the motor won't transition from trim into tilt. This prevents you from raising the motor too far out of the water while you are under way. On most newer motors there are a couple of pistons on the back of the motor that control the switching between "trim" and "tilt". When those pistons are fully extended, the motor goes into "tilt" mode. When you launch your boat and get it in the water you will tilt the motor down until the trim takes over (its an automatic thing but you will notice it because the rate of downward travel will slow down when the trim takes over). You want to trim it all the way down to take your hole shot. When you hit the gas and get up on plane you will start trimming up. This will lift the bow out of the water and create less drag and friction on your boat allowing you to go faster with less effort. You will continue to trim up until the trim maxes out or your perforamce degrades. The "right" amount of trim is different for every boat hull and set up. My boat likes lots of trim. Some don't and too much trim can cause control issues like porposing or less speed. When you are coming to a stop, I usually start by trimming the motor back down. The pushes the bow back into the water and helps with the stern wave that wants to swamp the boat as you come off of plane. While you are traveling you may use your trim. This depends on the type of boat you have. The aluminum boat I had last year didn't really require me to touch the trim except for take offs and stops. My current boat requires me to do a good deal more. High performance bass rigs often require maniuplation of the trim for lots of reasons. If Ive got a lot of trim and I'm encoutering waves, I need to trim it down so that the bow can cut the waves better. This smoothes out the ride and does't throw me all over the place. If I'm making a turn I need to trim it down so that the chines can help "bite" into the water and prevent the boat from "skipping". I also need to trim it down in turns so that I maintain adequate water pressure. Not knowing what type of boat you have and hold old the motor is prevents me from telling you exactly how you might use yours, but the above should give you an idea of how it all works.

You should've gone to Guntersville!

That looks like the dreaded WesternCopperheadedRattleMocassin! Ofcourse they all look that to me.

Last time I went out with a guide he taught me a few things about Guntersville. One, the majority of bass live between 1 and 8 feet of water. And #2, if you aren't fishing grass, you won't find bass. Atleast, you have to be fishing close to grass. My buddy and I were talking about it in our last tournament when some grass flats weren't producing the big fish we'd caught earlier. There are so many fish in the lake that you can find them all over the place. All those fish have to go somewhere. He was suprised the pattern I had been working earlier in the week was actually producing big fish because the pattern was very shallow. Theoretically the post-spawn fish should be heading out deeper, but the shad spawn had lots of them up shallow too. We ended up catch fish working docks and seawalls, which he was suprised would work that time of year. That's the great thing about Guntesrsville right now, on any given day there is usually more than one or two patterns that will work. Some work better than others, but a lot of differnet things will catch you a lot of fish. When you need 25-30lbs to win small wildcat tournaments you know the fishing is good!

I agree completely but since it's there I want it to work correctly. I guess I'm a little anal about things like that. I think the point is that it won't work correctly. None of them do. You might get it to register some number, but it won't be correct. 90% chance it won't even be remotely close. When mine actually shows anything it reads 30 mph when the gps reads 65mph. Sometimes it reads 80 mph when I'm going 30mph. Has done that since the day I bought it 3 whole months ago. Never had a boat that was even close to accurate.