fireandice

Sounds like a great boat. I definitely recommend taking a well experienced bass boater with you for your loading, unloading, driving, trimming, etc. lesson. I learned most of this by myself. I sure wish I would've taken someone with me on the first trip at least. I never tore anything up, but I really don't understand how, other than being very lucky. As far as upgrades, I'd first worry about the tune of your motor, the water pump impeller, and condition of all batteries. If you're going to start spending money, I'd start with a bigger trolling motor, but I'm from KS. GPS is nice though, I can't argue with that. Enjoy yourself, take all previous advice here, and don't be overly confident too quickly. If you think you've got it all figured out... think again, you probably missed something. Make sure you have all proper stickers/paperwork for your state, fees paid, insurance paid, good tires on trailer w/spare... no exceptions here. Double, triple check everything. It doesn't take much to ruin a day you planned to spend fishing.

I've caught tons of bass on a jig in conditions like that. I don't particularly like the Stanley jigs though. I prefer 3/8oz. or 1/2oz. for windy conditions or heavy cover. I like the Strike King Denny Brauer "Pro Model," or the Denny Brauer "Premier Model." They seem to have a good skirt, rattle and hook. I use different trailers, but usually it's a Zoom Chunk or Super Chunk. If I'm throwing a finesse jig, it's gonna be an Eakin's "Eaker Shaker." In muddy KS waters, we always throw black/blue, blue, or pb&j colors. If the water is pretty clear, throw naturals such as brown, green pumpkin, watermelon, etc. Use very heavy or tough line and throw it clear back in the "junk." Stick with it, lot's of practice. It is always my big fish bait. If they won't hit it, then I tone down and finesse to put something in the boat. 8-)

I've been doing this an using a blood knot. Today I tried a Uni-Uni knot and that one is pretty tough for me. Is the blood knot the best knot to use in this situation? Trilene XT 14lb. has been my leader of choice on 20lb. Fireline. It seems to work pretty well, I was just looking for a really strong, easy knot.

I'm in Augusta, KS. I usually fish Augusta City Lake, El Dorado State Lake, Butler Co. State Fishing Lake, and numerous small bodies of water. 8-)

The main problem I've noticed with "bargain" spinnerbaits is that the swivel that attaches the blade to the wire is usually not very good. Hold one up and flick it and see how well it spins, then hold up a Wedge or a Terminator and see how long it will spin with their high quality barrel swivels. The wires usually seem sort of flimsy too, but sometimes that can be an advantage. I'm not going to lie, I've caught plenty of bass with them.

I'd say it has a lot to do with your situation/presentation. I flip a jig most of the time if I can, and in that case, the rod is 98% and the reel 2%. I have to be able to feel the difference between rocks, gravel, submerged timber, and a bite. The more sensitive the rod, the better. Now if I'm throwing spinnerbaits and crankbaits all day, the rod is still more important to me, but not near as much. If I'm throwing them in the wind all day making long casts to spooky fish, then I need a smooth, good casting reel. I just know that I have one rod that I hate for everything. It's a Bass Pro Shops Tourney Special 7'MH casting rod. It makes no difference what reel I put on it. It has that powerhump that makes my hand ache, and it's twice as heavy as any other rod that I own. If you throw a spinnerbait with that rod all day, you'd better be prepared to spend some time at the chiropractor. :-/

Bugman, I've been flyroddin' for bass for a while now. Here's what I've learned so far. It's fun to catch a 2-3lb. fish on a 5wt. but it's not going to give you much pull to keep them out of the trash if they want to run and try to break you off. A 9ft. 7-8 wt. is much more suited to what you are trying to do I'd say. The only consideration I'd have you look at is the size of fly that you'll be throwing and the wind. I like using a decent 7wt. rod and overloading it with an 8wt. WF(weight forward), or a special bass tapered flyline. The overloading helps punch a big fly forward in the wind. You'll also want to use a tapered bass leader that will help turn over your large flies for a good presentation. I have some fairly expensive trout rods, but for bass I agree with going with a Cabela's combo unit for price. I'd try to find a 4pc. rod if you can. It makes throwing it in a trunk or small space so much easier. I know in the traditional bass world, the one piece rod is king, but they're not 9ft. long either. The 4pc. rod will work great and have better feel than you'd expect. I could go on and on so if you would like to discuss it any further jut PM me or reply on this thread. I love fly-roddin' for bass. I just did some today and caught a couple of small largemouths on a white beadhead bugger.

Welcome aboard Nathan. Glad to see some good guys hangin' out catching some nice fish. Man how does that saying go? "It doesn't get any better than this!" Nice to be alive on a day like that. 8-)

Well, I'm no Skeeter expert, but here's my advice: Don't buy it unless you can get it to a trained marine mech. and get the compression checked on the motor, leaky seals, etc. Also the transom is wood I'm sure. I would get the motor off of the transom saver, so it's weight is on the transom, then grab part of the lower gearcase and see how far you can move it up and down while looking at the transom. You shouldn't see any flexing. It has to be very, very rigid. Walk around and make sure there are NO soft spots in the floor at all. Look closely at the bottom of the hull for any repair work that may have been done in the past. Be very up front with any questions. Don't be afraid to put the owner on the spot. Hopefully he'll be completlely honest with you, but don't count on it. If they won't let you take it to a shop, I'd at least take a qualified person with you who knows what to look for, and even if you can hear it run on the spot, you're still taking a chance on compression. I'd highly recommend taking it out on the water also, but be careful there too! My last boat ran great after I bought it, until the third trip out, when I started fouling plugs and running bad. Yeah, my compression is half of what it should be. I almost stole the boat and I knew what I was taking a chance on, but I had three other people fighting to buy it, and knew I had to pounce. Make sure if you take a chance like that, you can afford a $3000.00 powerhead or something along those lines. You can never be too careful or thorough when looking at any boat.

Buddy of mine selling a 1999 Ebbtide Dyna-Trak tourney ready w/150 Merc in really good shape. It has a Hot Foot, ProTrim on column, SS prop, Motorguide TM, ready to go. The carpet is pretty worn and has one small seat tear, pass. side windscreen is missing, but for $6500.00 it's a good deal in my book. I've fished out of this boat all spring and it will go into some places that we couldn't get into w/ a 2003 Champion 19ft. That price is his bottom $$. That's what's owed on it right now. Located in Wichita, KS

Try http://www.lunkerville.com I've found some awesome videos on here. Most aren't meant to be instructional, but I've learned a lot. Some of these guys don't look like much, but I've seen some pretty amazing catches on these videos.

Hey, maybe your wife and my wife should get together and go bowling or something! They sound a lot alike. Super sweet NITRO Wait until you're spending more time with the boat than you spend with her... then you're really gonna hear it!

Hold on to your hat. That thing should fly! We use a motor similar to that in a 12 foot jon boat with two fisherman and all our gear.

Check out pg. 70 of the Sept./Oct. Bassmaster magazine. There's a boat toter that is simple to make, and should allow you to walk your boat right to the water, assuming you don't have any really tough terrain in your path. Just an idea. It would be simple and cheap to construct.

Baaaadddd Boat Monkey... Baaaaadddd! I thought I stuffed that little guy into my livewell after he bit me. He must have escaped! : These guys are know to travel in packs of three. Watch out for Divorce Monkey!

Just thought this was a good video showing how to correct chine walk in the proper manner with just steering adjustments. I always tense up and do the wrong thing. This video shows you that it usually won't get too out of control unless you do something stupid like trim down and throttle down at the same time. http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k186/bigharry_2006/vids/?action=view&current=fullvideo1testversiondelete2.flv

Sounds much better already. I think even before trying that 24p. I'd drop it back down about 1/2"-1" and try it then. My buddies new Champion did the same thing until we lowered it back down a little. You'll still be in good position to plane and get good speed, but chine walk can be very dangerous. Did you happen to look back at your roost? It was probably above the motor. It shouldn't ever be higher than the top of the outboard. You should also be able to trim it back down when the chine walk kicks in. I know it slows it down a bit, but it's much safer to have more boat in the water and be more stable.

I'll take a bass on a foggy morning with a popper any day of the week on my 7wt., but the more I fish for trout and bass, I seem to want to be in a bass boat with a baitcaster/spinning outfit for bass, and I prefer my flyrod for trout fishing or panfish. Maybe one reason is that I live in KS. I hate flyrodding in a crosswind on a bank! I can do it, but I absolutely hate it. I would recommend anyone who is already a bass fisherman, to take up fly fishing. I've never experienced anything quite so surreal. I can fly fish for 8 hours and it feels like 10 minutes. When I'm bass fishing, 8 hours feels like 10 hours. Something about the rhythm, the quiet, the cold, it just works! I'm addicted. : It could get you divorced though. If you get very serious about fly fishing, it's nothing to spend $700.00 on a Sage or an Orvis rod.

The motor being too low could hurt your performance somewhat especially if your cavitation plate is riding below the waterline. If your throttle cable, linkages, timing are all correct, then I'd be back to looking at the prop perhaps. Did you notice when looking at the boat like yours if the prop was the same size? How about the amount of weight in the boat, etc. ? Did you question the owners to see how their boats performed, avg. rpm, etc? I think if I were you, I'd adjust the jackplate to the preset height if you can tell what that is, take it out and try it. If your boat chine walks, or the roost is above the cowl of your outboard, then your motor is proabably riding too high. Adjust it down a couple notches and hit it agian. Take the tools to the lake to do this and see if you can get it fine tuned with passenger, gear, and such.

Very good points 2slow. I hadn't even thought about a misadjusted throttle cable or linkage, or timing for that matter. It would be a good idea to make sure the motor is sound and tuned properly before spending $350 on a new prop. Good info.

Don't get me wrong, I think the measurements are important, but with your low rpm and your crappy hole-shot, I'd say you need to just free up that prop and then see where you end up. Find the recommended cruising rpm for your motor and try to hit that. When we say free up the prop, what we mean is that you need to step down in pitch. If your boat has a 26p, then step to a 24 or 25, etc. The props dimensions are written on the hub area if you look forward into your prop from the back of the boat. You may have to experiment to find a pitch that works well for your setup, but it sounds like you could go down in pitch, because you don't need to go 70mph, and in the meantime you're going to dramatically improve your hole-shot and planing. Just be careful not to exceed the engine manufacturers recommended rpm.

I'd say with the info. you provided that you should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 5000.00-6000.00. Sounds like it's been kept up very well, just make sure you have cyl. comp. checked by a marine mech, and look to make sure that the transom has no cracks where the motor mounts to it. Solid floor, etc. We're starting an ebay auction this weekend for a 1999 Dyna-Trak, tournament ready with some minor flaws and we're starting it at $6500.00 with a Mercury 150 EFI. I did look at a 1998 Stratos with a 150 about 2 months ago locally and they wanted 6800.00 for it. It sat, and sat, and sat. It wasn't gorgeous, but it was tournament ready. These prices should help your decision I hope. Never hurts to shop around for quite a while. Make sure you feel great about your boat deal because you're usually going to find something wrong with a used boat.

Like, oh my god... that info. is like... so last week! LOL Just playin. ;D

Buoyancy?? I can't see how a Senko will float up on a c-rig, when it sinks if I fish it weightless t-rigged. Have any of you ever checked to see just where the different types/brands of soft plastics float at? I'm guessing that a lot of these soft plastics are probably sinking to the bottom with a 3/0 or 4/0 hook in them. Maybe that's why we have such poor luck with this rig most of the time. I've personally never caught anything on one, but I'm probably retrieving too fast among other things. Also my partner I'm used to fishing with, likes to run the trolling motor all the time and never stop or slow down much. Makes c-rigging more like trolling along the bottom most of the time. :

Better get my waders out... getting pretty deep in here!