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I've had the drag thing happen before, the worst though is setting the hook and pushing down on the spool release button at the same time! doh!! Oh, and then the time or two I didn't have the reel tightened onto the reel seat tight enough! ;D

Junk until I catch a fish of decent size and then I slow down and try and put something together. Somedays it happens and many others turn into 5 or 6 rods constantly on the deck with several rods taken out and others put back into the rod box as conditions dictate.

My previous Champion was 16 1/2 foot and was rated for a 150hp back in the days of the old inline six 150's. Those old engines were rated at the power head and not at the prop shaft like my current 150hp Yamaha. The engine even looked rather large on the back of my boat but in the 10 years I had it the HP plate was never checked by water patrol when they did spot checks. They were more interested in if you had proper safety equipment on board and whether you were sober than writing up tickets on over-horsepowered boats. Besides, if you're honest with your insurance agent you'll wind up paying for that extra speed in increased premiums.

If you can see the fiberglass under the hull and this area is under the waterline that's not good. Fiberglass will absorb water and will evetually delaminate. You could also have soaked foam flotation in the flooring and the water you're seeing is the drainage from the foam. You could also be leaking from engine mounting bolts, hull drain at the transom or any livewell plumbing you might have.

Hydrillagorilla's got the right idea. If you've got to have a fiberglass boat look for one without an engine. That's how I got mine. A kid had a Champion DC but he blew the 175hp Merc up on it. He was getting married and took on a new job that involved a LOT of travel and he couldn't afford to make payments on the boat and spend $3-4k for a new engine rebuild. I bought the boat, parted out the engine and stuck my Yamaha ProV 150 on the back of the new boat. I turned around and sold my old 16 1/2 ft Champion also without a motor. As for your other question, of course a little 10 horse kicker will move an aluminum tracker quicker than a fiberglass boat. There's quite a bit of weight difference between the 2.

Almost sounds like the hub is breaking lose inside the prop. Have you struck anything recently with the prop?

That's Mercury Quicksilver oil. One in the same.

Procraft boats has been around for many years. Originally they were owned by the Maidencraft company. They were known for building relatively shallow draft bass boats in the mid to late 70's. The company was merged with Astroglass boats, IIRC, back in the mid 80's. Somewhere along the line they were bought out by the Brunswick Corp. (people that bought Mercury/Mariner outboards). I believe Brunswick eventually dropped Astroglass keeping the Astro part of the name and also kept Procraft. Procraft was bought out by tracker marine and Astro boats was shutdown. Bill Dance has been a spokesman of Procraft for years along with Shaw Grigsby. They were one of the early manufacturers to produce an entry level line (cheaper line with fewer choices of hardware and colors and pre-rigged with certain engines at specific price points) along with their upper level line. They make a very competant boat. Not the fastest, not the slowest. Not the most fisable but certainly not the least either.

I like Cabela's cutomer service better but their selection of bass fishing equipment sucks. So I opt out for BPS. As a side note I placed an order from BPS yesterday. The nearest BPS is only 27 miles away but my truck only gets around 19MPG. With gas at around $2.85 a gallon here it was just as cheap to pay the shipping for an online order than it was to drive up there. >

Cajun was another manufacturer bought out by Genmar during their little run of buying out Bassboat companies. Genmar decided not to keep the company and I believe the last year of production was around 1997 or 98. Cajun made a fine boat. They were innovators of many of the standards of today. They invented the first dual console with lounge seat fish n ski's. Then they upped that by inventing the fish n ski's that most all are familiar with today. They were the firsts with aluminum storage compartment lids and they had one of the first digital dash boards. Their boat owners fanbase is very loyal and dedicated. BTW, since the boat is now 12 years old their really is no "support" left. Anything you'd need to have done to that boat could be handled by anyone.

Flipping will really only work while standing unless you're only wanting to flip about 6 foot distance. Pitching can be accomplished from a sitting position but again, it really works best standing unless you're using spinning tackle to pitch with and then it's a whole nother ballgame.

Don't worry, now that ESPN has picked up NASCAR we'll be in for treats like: "Dave Blaney talks spring rubbers and wedges" "Nascar wives cookin show" "The ultimate mouth, Michael Waltrips talks about how great NASCAR is" "Ultimate NASCAR fans video bloopers and weird tatoo's" "My Diecast car show" :

If they're jumping high enough, just a dipnet.

Here's what I do Ryan. As the lure falls you need to have both hands on the rod n reel in case you get a bite on the fall. Pull you elbows in tight to your body so that the rod and you body become like one. Now begin shaking you booty so to speak. Here's a few different falling senko actions you can achieve: 1. Do the twist - This gets the bait really working side to side. Works best on more aggressive fish. 2. Macarena - This gives the bait a sort of up and down twitchy motion. Watch for short strikes. 3. The mambo #5 - This really gets it wiggling. Hang on when fishing in heavy cover. 4. PeeWee Herman dance - I haven't had a lot of success with this one. I tried it twice and tripped over my TM foot control. Works good on lathargic bass I've heard. Good luck!

You're correct, only same model finders can share a transducer. The old in-dash flasher style units (either Lowrance or Hummingbird) ran at a completely different frequency than todays LCDs which is the reason you can't use the same transducer. Have you checked the bilge to look for a thru-hull transducer? I have a pair of Garmin 160's on my boat, nice units. There is a separate wire on the harness for the temp probe if you're using a thru-hull transducer (obviously you can't read water surface temp from inside the hull.) I wouldn't be surprised if you find the transducers for both the in-dash and the Garmin down in the bottom of the bilge.

With only $3 or 4K to spend you're going to be looking at an old fiberglass, probably 1984 - 1990. Fiberglass boats of that age in that price range tend to need some immediate care, ie: like carpet, seats, electronics, engine work, new TM, etc. If having to invest money into a new (used) boat isn't your bag then I'd suggest an aluminum. Just remember that the tendency for tippiness is the result of the beam of the boat insufficient to overcome the higher center of gravity that results when 2 fishermen are standing on raised casting decks. In aluminum that translates into the width of the beam of the boat but especially the width of the beam AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOAT. Measuring the beam of the boat at the gunwale top isn't going to cut it in a aluminum, check the beam width at the bottom of the floor side-to-side. I had a friend buy a 16ft tracker years ago. The beam at the top seemed alright but the sides slanted in fairly steeply making the beam at the waters edge fairly narrow. The boat was pretty tippy when 2 180-190lb guys were fishing in it. You had to constantly be aware of the partners position in the boat. If the guy in the back was going to move to the outside edge of the boat the guy in the front needed to brace himself or move slightly to the opposite side of the boat. Kind of a pain I know but the boat was cheap enough.

I'm guessing you're looking at a full rebuild and that's not cheap.

You'll have a tough time finding a breaker replacement that size at Wally world or Radio shack. Try BPS or Cabela's.

You need to ride and decide. Don't let others choose for you. Both boats are nice. In fact, their manufacturing plants are right across the interstate from one another in lebanon, Missouri. Take each out on the water for a demo run. Pick the one that best suits your needs. BTW, I'd look at G3 boats as well.

Well, if I was a G3 dealer and had built a market on good service along with a fair price and then had another dealer, 500 miles away under-cutting my customer base by dealing in volume and advertising the same boats I had for a few thousand less I'd be pretty pizzed. Not only is that guy skimming my customer base (yes, folks will spend the money in gas to drive 500 miles to save several thousand), but I'll wind up having to take care of any problems that arise with the boat down the road if the original dealer didn't set it up right or there are breakdowns on the boat. Doesn't sound like a fair deal to me.

I'm afraid I'd have to think about divorce if my wife was insisting on a .......deck boat....... vs a bass boat. ugggghh.

I'm right around 60 - 62 but I haven't GPS'd it yet. I have gone to a new 4 blade Predator and am looking to up that a couple mph. At least I'll get a smidge more bow lift.

Get him in front of a computer and tell him you won't take over the trolling motor next time till he joins. It's painless and as for a name? How about just JOE.

There are many boat manufacturers that don't allow the pricing of their new boats over the internet by their dealers. G3 is probably one of them.

If you're stuck with buying the fish and ski I'd suggest looking at something other than a Ranger or a Triton for that matter. Both are nicely built boats but their "name" immediately increases their price by thousands. Most of the major boat manufacturers are making quality product these days, I'd choose a different manufacturer and step up in boat size. That 17 1/2 foot Ranger F&S is going to be sorely lacking in fishing deck and storage area. Move up to a 18-19 footer from another manufacturer for the same price or less. You'll thank yourself.