done

"Raining too much to fish"????? WTH?" I was waiting for someone to say that. I am still waiting to thaw out from when I went mountain trout fishing In January. It was fun though. It was about 2 degrees out and I had to keep breaking ice off my rod. I did catch some nice trout though and they REALLY made me work for it.

If you were in NY I would say definitely but here in NC, you might could get away with that. Maybe not in Charlotte though. I know in the mountains they define justifiable homicide by declaring "He needed killin'" and someone stealing a childs fishing rod from a boat would certainly fall into that category.

Alright, I do not LIVE for this game, but as something to do when the kids are in bed and it is raining too much to fish, I recently went out and grabbed "In Fisherman - Freshwater Trophies" and installed it. To my surprise, it is actually pretty fun. They also have some half decent pro-tips in there that you can apply to real fishing. The real bad part is, I get so used to using the boats in there that you end up disappointed when you get back to your own. Anyone else have a PC game like that they have ever played and have the guts to admit they like.

I was trying to find a link, but I remember a while back hearing the US had tried to seed a hurricane. If the report I saw was not a spoof, they did it on a hurricane that was weakening and offshore, not threat to land. The gist was after they did whatever they did to it, that the hurricane strengthened significantly, turned around, and ran into the US and caused significant damage. Not sure if it is true or if it is your typical anti-government rhetoric but, given how little we really understand the weather pattern as a whole, it would not surprise me. Ha....found something on it: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hrd_sub/stormfury_era.html LOL, looking at Esther's path, IF it is true this could be the one they messed up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Esther_(1961)

yes, it can be taken WAY to far. Like in this case: http://cbs3.com/local/kimberly.jernigan.second.2.801089.html LOL. People kill me sometimes.

I actually went to Depot a while back and grabbed a length of heavy duty galvanized chain, I run it through the wheels on my trailer, around the axle a couple times and it meets up with a rather large Pad lock. Still not impossible to steal, but i plan to make the thief work for it a bit. I like your idea of an alarm to it. A big honkin' screeching alarm would certainly get a thief running. Especially in an area where they may be people who would heard it.

Yeah I have seen ones here who break a car side window to get in for pocket change. I WISH you could get something like that trunk monkey commercial. That would rock.

Yeah i would stress insurance. No matter how much you protect it, if someone wants to steal from it bad enough, they will eventually get what they want.

Yeah, I would continue to work and get out and get a new job. Buyouts always suck. I was with a company that got swallowed up and they offered us $100 retention bonuses (80% payable after 10 months, 20% at 12 months). I did not last long but when I left I gave them 3 weeks notice, and the employer I went to was really impressed with that. Good luck man. Out of curiosity, what field do you work in?

Dude that sucks! Was it off Lake Norman or Wylie? Just curious. The both have had a bad rap lately for that type of garbage. Almost makes you wish it was legal to wire a 110 line to the lock when you leave your boat. Course then he would probably get melted to the deck. You'd never get that smell out. I would not be so understanding about the battery. One of my friend just bought one, He had to save up for it. It was not cash he just had lying around. I would not see it as a need. You do not need to go out in your boat. Not to mention, I am sure you do not pick your money from trees in your back yard. That is pretty darned low taking a kids stuff though. I would bet it was because of the "cool" factor. I remember seeing one of those in target.

I also have an ulterior motive as well. Muddy sort of hit on it with "Since I have to monitor the internet usage of the minors in our dorms ". Having 4 kids, I am big on staying up to date on the tech out there. I work in the IT field so that helps. I also try to help teach non-IT parents out there some of this stuff so they can monitor their kids internet usage and in particular they can help be protected from their own ignorance. My brother was surprised when I showed him his kids MySpace pages. It was a complete shock to him. I took him aside and tore him up a bit on how he pretty much ignored that entire side of his kids. It came down to he didn't understand it so he never looked in there. On that note, I also took issue with many of the internet logging and monitoring software out there. There are too many postings on how to beat the popular ones. People don't give kids enough credit. So I have been writing my own software to manage it. I guarantee my kids will not see that coming. LOL. To be clear, i also prefer the good old fashioned method of talking to people or hanging out. I have friends I communicate with from NY to FL, to IL, and some in CA. While I do try to call them as often as I can, and occasionally visit, facebook allows me another avenue to keep in touch. LinkedIn is great for professional networking which is what I use it for. Then you have BR which helps me out with the REALLY important stuff!

I finally got the front hatch in (see pic) and second battery, so now it is pretty much completed. I bought a Eagle Cuda 168 I will be adding so for the most part, I just need to see what the hurricane will be doing and then get this puppy out for a test run.

Of those of you who do not use anything, how many of you live in the area you grew up in? facebook for me is a good way I keep up with the folks in NY I grew up with. LinkedIn is really a professional networking site. I would say, of the time I have online that does not involve work, this site is the one I spend more time on.

One of the threads on facebook made me wonder, besides BassResource, are there any social networking sites you guys and gals use frequently? I would be curious to see what you use and ball park ages (teens, 20's, 30's, etc) I am mid 30's and on facebook and LinkedIn. facebook for social aspects and LinkedIn for professional.

I got an account out there too. Makes me wonder....

Start with the links posted on the top of this section around customized boats. They have some awesome examples of what have been done. That's what gave me my ideas. Looking at the photos may give you a good brainstorm. One thing to note, list out the options you are going to add before the customizations begin. I was not as good at that and it almost got me in trouble when I ended up pulling an extra 20 ft of electrical under the deck. Would have been much easier had I planned it and run it before I did. That would also allow you to budget the project better. I can't say how much I spent for certain but I would guess I roughly spent as much on customizations as I did on the boat itself. Ditto on the pressure treated wood with Aluminum. It does some nasty things. That was one of those things I learned on here. Had not heard it before and I am glad I did cause it really seems like a no brainer to put pressure treated wood in the boat. I would recommend using aluminum for your superstructure. They sell it at Depot and Lowes. It has great strength and really low weight. I went with 1/8" thick "L" beams, grabbed a riveter from Lowes ($30) and some heavy duty rivets to attach it. If you deck it, I would follow the advice of someone else on here who recommended wearing clothes you don't mind getting wet and going out and really testing the stability of the boat. Depending on how that goes, it may help you decide how high a deck you would want. The possibilities are endless though.

Awesome job dude!! It really looks sweet. The very clean finish is always the real mark of a craftsman.

Alright, I gave up and I am making one of my own using the left overe Aluminum I have from addind a deck to this boat. Shgould save me a bit of cash. Will take some pics when I am done in case anyone else wants to try it.

Very cool!! Couple of things to think of. First of all, whose property is it? If it is on private property, that is not yours be VERY careful. I do not know the laws governing public property. When it comes to digging it up, same thing. I would really have a private chat with an attorney on it if you plan to pursue it on a serious level. If it is private property and the guy who owns it is not in a good mood, they could make your life miserable. So could the good doctor at the University if he knew where it is located. Me, I would probably try to dig it up just for the cool factor, and chat with a lawyer if I found anything else. Keep posting though. be cool to hear what else you find.

I have gone through McAffee, Norton, and a few others with mixed results. Have been using Microsoft's OneCare for about a year now with good results. They have a free 60 day trial you can use to test it out if you want to look at it.

Does anyone have a good photo of a homemade transducer board? I am thinking I may make my own, and try to stick it there with C-Clamps, there is a good chance with my trailer configuration I may end up needing to move it when I trailer this thing. Just looking for some good samples.

Was out this past weekend on a private pond up in the NC mountains. Was hitting them great but having issues with some fundamentals I am hoping folks here will have some insight on. Had a good C-Rig set up, so I thought. Had consistent issues setting the hook. The plastic worm I had would slide down the hook rather than the hook popping through and hooking the fish. Had 1 work perfectly, the first one, then lost about 5 or six. Pic of types of hooks (closest I could find anyway) Any ideas on what I was doing wrong? Besides that issue though, we caught a TON of LMB. About 5:30 they started hitting and did not stop till we left when the sun went down. After I cast out and missed the pond entirely, I figured it was too dark to continue. LOL.

I had one get me a month ago. Had the hook out, was just letting him go and he gave me something to remember him by. His side fin got me right in the index finger, went right to the bone. I had someone once tell me if you wipe the slime off a catfish onto the wound, it will make the sting go away too. Me, I sucked it up, put some antibacterial crap on it and went on with my life.

Hey everyone, a constant problem I ran into when looking for my jon boat, was I could find nothing on review for them (had not found bass resource by then). TONS of reviews for larger boats. In the interest of solidifying some other thoughts, I was wondering if everyone would be willing to offer up your thoughts on various brand names. I can throw the first one out there. I bought the following Model: Tracker 1436 (without the Livewell). Motor(if any): 8 HP 4 stroke Mercury outboard Pros: - Low cost - very light - stable - moves at a nice clip with a 8hp motor - easy to trailer and keep in driveway Cons - Not as much board on it as I would like, I would get nervous in heavy wake. - Transom is not as heavy duty as I would like (the LW version corrects this). Overall, I have been happy with the boat. I wanted a low cost, lightweight, and usable Jon to get me off the shore. I needed to fit it into my driveway without taking a ton of space from my vehicles. To date, it has accomplished what I asked of it.

I bought one of those outboard motor locks, got a padlock on the hitch itself, and a relatively large chain that goes through one of the rims on the trailer, round the axle, and around the frame then is locked with a pretty good padlock. However, even with all that if someone really wants it, there is not crap you can do about it. I catch him, he will be in a wheelchair the rest of his life, if he has a rest of his life. Thats also because my boat is in my driveway and if someone is there next to my house like that, especially at night, he will be looking down the barrel of a semi-auto 12 gauge when he turns around. I am really sorry to hear about this though dude. It is good you saw some decent humanity out of it with your new boat. Hopefully, you mod that one, and do some work on it, you can end up with many more hours of enjoyment with the new one. My bud has a paddleboat and had it taken from his back yard. From a rather suspicious tip given him by his neighbor, he went across his pond into the woods and found it about 50 yards into the woods covered in worms and beer cans. Who knows you may find it yet.