RobE

As if the ammo thing isn't bad enough, along comes DW to carry it over into the fishing isle, too.

This was posted over 10 minutes ago and not a wise-crack or blonde joke, yet. Very good, kids. Very good.

What does the fouling look like? Any Chiltons manual or the like usually has a color pic reference in the back. It could be anything from a wire not connected properly to a bad plug to (hope not) bad piston rings.

Yep, I learned my lesson the first time. I went with a non-boat friend and asked him to put it in while I removed straps. I failed to check his work. Never again. When I launched, I thought at first that I had a loose prop or something as the boat was very sluggish. That's when I felt my shoes getting soaked and yelled for him to back the trailer back in. Felt kinda like a Bill Dance Moment. Here's one on me, though. I once had a couple of friends out for a day of skiing. We would stop at times and I would anchor and fish while they rested. Well, back to skiing we went. When my buddy yelled "Hit It", I did and I nearly drowned him. THREE TIMES! It's impossible to get a skier up while dragging a 12 pound anchor. ;D

Don't think you're the first one to pull that stunt. :-[

It seems to me that you just found the problem.

Yes, and the Grateful Dead, too. There's just something about the bass line in the song Comfortably Numb that makes catfish hungry. 8-)

Incheon - that's way too cool. But, you folks in the service can't be rewarded enough. Please do me a fave? Save a few of those older, discontinued ones to someday do the same for the young soldier behind you. You now have more than one Constitution.

You, too, huh? :'( I like beer. It makes me a jolly good fellow. I don't drink on the boat, though. Heck, even my Gatorade gets warm before I can finish it. Hot Gatorade beats hot beer. I take that back. I do drink on a boat sometimes. I have a buddy with a pontoon boat and he likes to catfish all-night long. We might take 3 or 4 cases for ourselves and the girls will bring wine-coolers which we usually have to finish for them because "Honey! My drink is too warm. Will you please get me another?". Wine coolers scatter catfish so you can't pour it in the lake unless you have personally filtered it. We anchor in a likely spot and rig up a few rods, toss a few jugs around that 24 footer and put on a Johnny Paycheck CD. Later in the evening, we might argue over CCR or Alice Cooper. It's his boat and his wheelchair so I usually give in. As the night wears on, I help him out of the chair and onto his cot as Pink Floyd plays on the stereo, thanking him for his service in the USMC. He will usually mumble something that sounds like "Wash ta wods, fitch fissin a bith." I usually bring in a few cats before the morning sky begins to glow a deep purple. The stereo has been off for 5 hours. Everyone is asleep and I am on Sentry Duty. Mike wakes up at the slightest light and wants to listen to Charlie Rich. He climbs back aboard his chair and I lay down on the cot. I mumble something that sounds like.. "Cap'n Mike. Dive me onm an keen da fitch. I ef you du beers." That's fishing.

This might be a good time to refer to the Bassin' and Beer thread. ;D

The clear water of Lake Norfork (AR) is where I do 90% of my fishing so I felt I might be able to offer a suggestion or two. However, knowing more about the lake other than "it's clear" would help us narrow things down. First tip has already been mentioned. Don't motor into a spot and shut the engine down and begin fishing. Slowly approach until you're at 100 yrds or so, kill it and go in with the TM, casting as you approach (this assumes that you've already found a spot). Norfork is a reservoir that is clear, deep and rock is the predominate structure. Many major creek arms, where depth can easily exceed 40 ft, enter the main channel. This is where you'll find brush-piles. If this sounds anything like the lake you're fishing, these are my recommendations for the 3 options you listed. Popper. Early morning. Before the Sun breaks the horizon. Natural forage color for the particular lake, worked slow. After sunrise, in this heat, it's pretty useless unless you've had good rains and surface temps have dropped. Again use natural but larger baits worked faster in creek channels that lead to a primary point with easy acsess to deeper water. Buzzbait. Pretty much same as above. I use white/silver most of the time, Black often, and Chartruese when it's cloudy and a wind that just barely produces a ripple. Not much surface or shallow cover here other than boulders. Spinnerbait. The fish will be at your mercy if you know what they are feeding on and at what depth. On Norfork right now, the shad are 3 to 6 inches in size. I'd use a 1/4 oz white with dbl willows or a 3/8 with a single willow, nickle blades in calm water. With any wind at all, 3/8 to 5/8 with willow front / colorado follower, with the CO in nickle. Nothing over 12 lb in clear mono for those three. I'm currently catching them on dark green or brown, 4 to 5" crawjigs on steep, rock-littered banks and by stepping down bluffs (slowly). Get to bed. Breakfast is served early!

dangit, Froggin. I'll draw you a picture, okay? But you have to remember your highschool Physics junk that you never thought you would use in 'reel life'. Okay? The deeper (lower) your engine is trimmed, the faster that it will force the bow of the boat downwards once the engine reaches max RPMs. This downward position also reduces "sucking air" that is likely by an engine tilted too high. This is when you want to trim back up. Slowly. The "Center Of Gravity" in the boat now comes into play. Being Bow- or Stern-Heavy plays into this - hence my ref to fuel in the tank(s). It's your big variable. That fuel is roughly 8 pounds per gallon. The lighter the rear of the boat gets will require minute (mi-nute') adjustments throughout the day unless the person on the front deck drinks a lot of beer and stays seated while the craft is underway. :-X Lift (speed = less friction) is created under a boats hull by the amount of air that becomes trapped between the tension of the water and the imperfections in the texture of a boats hull, OR, features designed into the hull. Boat racers have often been known to lightly use 80 grit sandpaper on an orbital-sander on the rear-most contact areas of a hull to trap tiny bubbles to increase Lift. Of course, on a bass boat, this is not something that a serious fisherman wants to have to dwell on. It may only gain your boat 7 feet of distance traveled in a mile but, in Racing, that's 7 feet devided by .25 and fractions of a second. Operating a boat to its max potential is not like driving a Ford :-/ EDIT - I forgot to ask what the lady looked like. You DO have a mirror for towing skiers. Right? I like short blondes that dig guys in Chevy trucks. LOL

What BassChump said! Think of it like bleeding the brakes on your truck but on a smaller, more sensitive scale. Air in the lines wreaks havoc. Way2 kinda said that in a technical way.

Back in the 'old days' (circa 1980s), we referred to props in 2 basic ways.. Power prop or Speed prop. Power props were best for bass rigs that often towed skiers as a family boat. Speed props got out of the hole and on-plane faster. The trick with a Power prop (unloaded) is to trim the engine all the way down while getting on-plane and then gradually trim back up until max speed is achieved. Keep in mind that being trimmed for max Speed / Fuel economy does not neccisarily translate into max Hole Shot. Too many variables come into play. Even something as simple as how much gas is in the tank. That 4-24 sounds like a power prop to me, as the 175 is more than plenty to push an 18 footer out of the hole quickly under a full throttle. A clean hull does wonders, too. Try my trimming tip. If that doesn't do it, holler back with more info on your rig.

I certainly hope you had trolling lines out as you paddled back. I would hate to see wasted effort. Been there, done that. It sux. :'(

I know of a site that lets me see the fish in any body of water, what they are feeding on and at what depth, how many fishermen are there and what is in thier tacklebox. I know who is catching what. Kinda like Santa Clause. I still can't find that 15' Crappie. >

Rick. If you had more class, you wouldn't fit in here. ;D

NA. I'm almost due West of you in North AR. That doesn't mean, tho, that my advice will work for you. What are the fish that you are hunting for feeding on? If they are on a craw frenzie, a truck-load of Jumbo Shrimp with a 'FREE' sign wont entice them. You also need to match the lure to the size of the food they are eating. With that said, I do have good results with lures of that type. But (and that's a big ol' BUT) they are for targeting fish in the way that you would use a crankbait. I've not found them to be very productive in low light or windy conditions unless a westerly wind (West to East) was driving baitfish into the shoreline. They excell in that condition if you match Size and Color. I never use them at night just because they don't work here. It might be diff for your lake.

A FIFTEEN FOOT CRAPPIE?!?!? I like those Storm WildEyes. They're great around here in the 3 & 4" Shad color.

For the sake of any 'kids' that might be researching Boron rods, I think it best if we describe thier appearance. You know how when you hold a graphite rod at a certain angle to a light source, you can 'see inside it'? It looks charcoal colored and you can see fiber wraps? Boron looks the same but tends to have a golden-brown hue. Boron, for all of it's sexiness, just didn't cut the muster against graphite. If you have a Boron rod, there's no reason to just toss it. I have a custom-built 6' boron from back in 1986 that I still employ as my #1 back-up for throwing T-rigged plastic worms on Summer nights. Dig on this... it sports an old Shimano Bantam 100GT. With 10 test. It is very sensitive and has a lot of backbone. Actually, TOO MUCH stiffness. That's why it is resigned to back-up status. It would make an awesome buzzbait rod, but, I already have a few of those. Just because it's Boron, don't discredit it.

Ever eaten snake? Mighty tastey, my friend!

Not my 'most productive' but is my 'favorite', which I think is what you asked. I love the Hellbender! 8-) I've caught bass, catfish, and walleye with it stock. Add a bucktail jig as a trailer and toss it in a school of stripers! That's fun! 8-)

True Heavy Metal is a blend of Rock and Classical music. IMHO, Judas Priest is the epitome of Heavy Metal. Glenn and KK can lay down some riffs that would make Bach jealous.

Thx Reel Mech and Matt. No offense taken. I took it apart this afternoon and all is good. Maybe it just sat in a garage too long. Fish as you were.

I like most of BPs XPS stuff and have some worm hooks that I haven't opened yet. I have found, however, that the trebles on plugs can stand a little touching-up out of the pkg. How do they dig into your thumbnail?