done

Comes and goes quicker than you believe. There were 5 years from my last keg stand in a rancid basement at a rugby house party, to my first child being born...LOL stuff changes QUICK!

Welcome kdawg, I am actually across the catawba from ya in Gastonia. Hit Wylie all the time and frequent a lot of our mountain streams for trout.

Not really, you gotta know that part of SC, half the guys in town are called Freddy... :

Question and blind guess type idea, can you take off the prop and see if there is anything wound around in there? My buds tri-hull has an ancient ('70's) 40 HP 2 stroke. Was having similar stuff happening to his shortly after the motor was rebuilt. On an total whim, we guessed maybe there was some resistance on the prop, and when we took off the prop found a mess of steel line wrapped around the shaft in there. We took it off and so far it has been going well.

I wanted to thank you now for getting that REM song stuck in my head all day long now.

LOL, man I need some sleep. I thought that said "Pinch Hitler".

Yeah Muddy, when I hit the streams I always carry trash out, as much as I can carry. On one of the streams I hit there must be a golf course upstream, cause I constantly pick up golf balls. I have pulled a couple hundred out in the last couple of years. I actually have been looking for a collapsible hook for the boat to let me pull in some of the trash we run into. It is easy and the county puts VERY large trash bins right there at the launch so it would n ot be tough at all to dump a ton in there cans.

Shawn, I added pedestals to my 1436 topper and it was fine. I should qualify that by saying it was fine when it was just me. When there were 2 of us I stayed sitting down. I had a 8 hp OB on mine, it moved well. I customized the heck out of it. Was a good little boat, it really was. IMO, what you can do is go to Lowes get you some of those thicker Aluminum "L" bars, run 4 of them from the top of the back bench to the top of the transom and rivet them in. That will stop a LOT of the twisting motion that comes from the motor and prevent stress cracks on the top corners from forming. The other part you will need to watch is the bottom of the transom, near to the drain plug (just underneath). The flex from the transom puts that area under a lot of stress. What I did with mine was hire a welder but I later bought and used HT1000 and brazed stuff myself. He took a large and thick "L" shaped chunk of aluminum, and welded it in along the length of the bottom (on the inside). It ran maybe 3 inches on the bottom and 4 inches up the back side. That helps protect the bottom welds more for you. He suggested as well that when it came time to replaced the wood, that I use a much larger piece on the inside. I tell ya though man, I have hundred of hours on that hull in every season, and pulled in hundreds of fish. My 2 oldest daughters caught their first ever fish off that boat and all of us caught our PB's in just about every species that Lake Wylie holds on it. You are gonna have some serious fun with your boys man.

Tell ya what...how would he feel if I show up at his house and throw cigarette butts into his fish tank, pool, kitchen sink? I MAY come off a little militant here but really I am sickened by folks who make up excuses for why they don't carry their OWN trash back with them and throw it out on a trail, river, lake, etc. I get especially offended by fisherman who do this. I do a lot of trout fishing in the mountains and i have come within inches of lacking the restraint to viciously beat someone down for throwing worm packages, extra line, plastic bags, etc into the streams. Sometimes you lose your line, you can;t get to it and you accidentally drop it in the streams, accidents happen but for those of us who spend so much time in the natural world, fishing and taking in the beauty of it all, I would expect more respect. My oldest girl, once and only once, threw trash into Lake Wylie. needless to say she went into the water to get it and from the experience she will not ever throw anything in again.

I personally could not take 6 months away from my fam. That alone would nearly kill me. Doing occasional 5 days away is worse enough. You have already done more than your share for our country. so you do not owe it to anyone. Like others here, the money would tempt me. Personally, talk to your wife and make the decision together. I can honestly say even my worst day would not compare to the best days you had over there. Good luck!

Just do not order the hardees thick burger. You can feed a small 3rd world country with one of those things.

So after numerous injuries, my wife told me I need to find a safer way to play with the kids in the house. So I go out and buy 4 nerf N-Strike guns with a laser sight 1 for each of the kids, and of course grabbed myself the sniper rifle to help pick them off and a box of extra ammo. LOL what a trip!! Have not seen the cats in 4 hours, dog is hiding in the corner, but good way to bond with the kids when you can't take them fishing. I remember my dad doing something similar when I was a kid, we had those guns with the little rubber balls (the yellow ones). We got those things all over the house.

Dan. you are evil and so are they. Can;t believe you made me think about them again. Let me tell you I LOVE, absolutely LOVE their stuff. But you can feel your arteries hardening with every greasy and wonderful bite. Definitely my favorite burger. For those who have never been, if you go order the SMALL fry. I have not ever seen a large but I expect it comes in a wheelbarrow.

So anyone else catch the NGC hooked on snakehead? For those of you fishing in regions with bigger populations (VA, DC), what do you make of the assertion that these things will attack swimmers and such? Is that a real threat or just made for TV drama?

For me, gators ar ejust part of the ecosystem. As a rule I will not go putting myself in a position (if I can help it) to be grabbed or threatened by one. That being said, if I have one threatening me and I cannot retreat, it is going to die. If I even think it is threatening one of my kids or my wife, it is going to die. i think the worst parts are where folks deliberately put themselves in situations where they likely to get attacked. Or like at a client site I was at in Charleston, where people are sloppy as all heck with food and actually throw food at LARGE gators. of course they will start to consider humans as food sources. I have also had a period where i did a lot of deer hunting. Provided it is managed, I would see nothing wrong with hunting gators. Poachers though, should be fed to them.

yeah i asked him this afternoon. he said he is looking into it for me.

Be an interesting market i think. I could see a market for being able to pull boats apart.

LOL....That was funny.

Have ya done any night trips? Down here night produces a lot more than daytime. You are right though, very weird summerfor fishing.

If you fish from shore, find ya a spot where you can put a folding chair down and get ya a net with a long handle, still good to go. Get someone to help you set up, and don't drink to much liquid, and you will be fine. It sucks man, last year I has double hernia surgery and could not go near the water for 2 months. I was so miserable. Soon as your time is up, head south, do some fishing or head west (visit SUNY Fredonia) and hit Erie. they got docks near Dunkirk, or head to Buffalo, and/or City of Tonawanda, the Niagara never freezes just dress warmly.

Is this not almost becoming an academic argument? From what I have read (assuming it is correct) and heard from some of the dealers, they are making less and less 2 stroke models anymore. From tracker I really did not have much of an option for 2 stroke motors. The only 2 stroke they had was the 50. Everything else was 4 stroke only I have to wonder, if they phase out 2 strokes completely (assuming they are doing it) how long will it be before you cannot get parts to work on them.

Hey folks, being the tinkerer I am, was wondering do you know if there are any places to go to grab Tracker boat schematics? I have a PT 175 and I thought it would be a useful piece of information to have. Just to know where all the lines run drainage, livewell, electrical, etc, especially at the front (back is pretty straight forward). Google has not been much help. I do have an email into the dealership to see if they knew where I could get some. I was curious if they have those manuals like you have for cars (got one for each of my cars) for servicing a boat or troubleshooting.

I rarely order tackle online. For a couple reasons. One being the same thing you mentioned here. The other being, I have this need to actually lay my eyes on what I am getting. The only ones i have ordered online have been stuff I have used before and donated to the lake gods. I do not buy from BPS a ton, but when I do, I am fortunate enough that I can just drive to Concord, NC and check out what they got. Truthfully, there are a number of local shops in this area whose prices can easily compete with BPS and if they don't have something a lot of them will try to order it for me. Always liked giving cash to the little guy over the big corps.

Now that we have all screwed up Glenns search usage results for the week...yes in fact not counting this thread there were 2 other times. LOL

BTW cart...please do not take any offense to any of my statements, I really do appreciate the feedback. I would rather have an abundance of knowledge then a lack of it. In trackers defense, the PT 175 is a huge seller and at least on this site, and a few other non-tracker affiliate sites has a pretty high level of positive reviews. There definitely some horror stories though. Seems to be a mess of them with almost all aluminum hull boats I have seen around cracked welds and support in fixing them. I do not see many manufacturers who get high ratings in dealing with cracked hull welds. Hopefully, that will not be something I deal with. They do have a good warranty on the hull though, which has to be in response to the past complaints they have gotten. Given my experience with my jon, I will definitely be keeping a close eye on the welds. I have to laugh, At this point, if there was a hole in the hull I would not notice. I have this nasty habit of stopping WAY too quickly and getting a nice large wave over the transom. Have not gotten back and pulled the plug without some water coming out (getting better at that though).