cart7t

You're really going to need to provide a lot more info to begin to troubleshoot this problem.

You're comparing two very different boats there. The BT190 is a convential aluminum hulled bassboat. The Avalanche is an attempt to recreate a high performance bassboat using aluminum. I have no direct experience with either boat nor anyone that's owned a BT bassboat the past 10 years either. Your 90Hp selection is seriously underpowered for the 135hp rated 190 and waaay under powered for the 175hp Avalanche. You should really rethink that motor selection.

Here's how I try and describe pattern fishing. It's different than what's called "slop" fishing. In any lake, there are fish located in many different areas. In any given cove or arm of a lake, you may have groups of fish relating to different types of structure or cover. Often, the fish or fish that relate to certain pieces of cover or structure are more catchable than the other fish or fish on other cover or structure. When you catch a bass, the first thing you need to do is pay attention to where you caught it, how you caught it and how aggresively the fish attacked your lure. If you caught that fish on a rocky point, on a crankbait banging on the bottom you need to keep throwing there and attempt to catch another. It would be worth it to try another rocky point with the same technique. Keep in mind things like wind direction, current, cover associated with the rocky point, those all might play in to the overall picture. If you repeat by catching another fish on that point or another you're onto a pattern for that day. At this point you could try experimenting with different crankbaits or a slightly different retrieves. You'll find you can duplicate this same fish catching scenario (crankbaits on rocky points) in other areas of the lake. Slop fishing, OTOH, is approaching all types of cover and/or structure, as it comes along, and attempting through various methods to catch whatever fish might be hanging on that cover or structure. you might be throwing 5 different baits throughout the day and catching fish all over the place without any sort of pattern to it at all. Woo Daves was one of the best "slop" tournament fisherman ever. Often, on small lakes, slop fishing is the best approach.

You need to lighten up there Francis. The guy confesses he's never fished legally. He doesn't have a license. He wonders what the fines or penalties would be if he got caught and just who has the right to catch him, a cop or a warden. Good grief, do you need that in neon? BTW, he's a 27 year old big boy now and a resident of Florida. It's his responsibilty to understand the game laws of the state he's in and if he doesn't understand them, check it out with a local game and fish person to help him clarify his illegality or lack thereof. I see a lot of very level headed responses there. I wouldn't have been so nice to an admitted poacher.

Crankbaits produce. Darker colored spinnerbaits. My goto bait is a 10-12" plastic worm in black neon or junebug.

Gotta agree with Ben on this one. Using an aftermarket part voids Yamaha's warranty on the lower unit. Get ahold of your ins. agent and scream bloody hell!

Nice. Hate to tell you but I found other sources for the black matting that cost about 1/2 of what cabela's was charging. Oh well.

I owned a power drive TM for around 7 years. Here's the good points: 1. The wired cable foot control is nice. You can position it anywhere in the boat and steer the thing. 2. They make some nice removable mounts for the power drive motors. This came in handy when the kiddies were younger. I removed the motor for a day on the lake skiing or tubing. That was nice. Now the bad points: 1. They suck because the turning speed of the power drive is way tooooo slow. It's a particular nuisance if you're fighting wind and having to manuever in shallow rock stewn water, The power head just doesn't turn fast enough to get a boat in shallow in wind and waves, for whatever reason, and get it turned back around. I was constantly having to reach down and turn the head manually to make emergency turns in shallow water in wind and waves. The last thing I need is a TM that winds up getting my boat grounded or gets it's own prop chopped or busted up because it couldn't turn fast enough to get me away from a underwater hazard. Get the edge. Good value for the money.

Not sure they're on target or not. He's not giving us much info to work with but if he's running at WOT and he's porpoising all the time to varying degrees depending on trim angle he's got some problems with the setup on that boat. I've owned a few boats in my day but none had porpoising problems unless I was running around midrange speed./

I'm not 100% certain but that particular hull is rated for either a 175 or 200 so you're down on HP right off the bat. What pitch prop are you running on it? Can you tell what type? (Yammy, laser, turbo, etc) What kind of rpms are you turning as you're trimming. Are you able to reach at least 5500 or does it start porpoising before then. BTW, people put way too much stock in trim gauges. A high performance bassboat should be driven by watching the tachometer and the feel of the boat as it's moving through the water not the trim gauge.

What kind of boat, motor, prop setup do you have? Have you done anything to the boat as far as engine height or changing props? What kind of RPM's are you turning on the top end just before it starts porpoising? My previous Champion was very weight sensitive and would porpoise in a minute if I didn't have the weight just right and the trim angle perfect.

I know the 2 Walmarts around me have outdoorsy kind of guys watching over the hunting and fishing isles. It's quite possible that combo was intentionally set up that way. The reel could be a return with no box. Obviously the rod is broken. Perhaps you should ask one of the guys at the hunting and fishing counter about the combo and see what they say.

Describe your rig you're using to fish it with and how are you trying to cast? Carolina rig casting requires a sort of side-arm lob cast on a minimum 6 1/2 MH rod, a 7 footer is better. I've used shorter rods but it's more difficult. Also, it's not the kind of fishing where you're talking about casting accuracy.

Jackplates are most commonly used in high performance boats to increase hole shot when using a high speed prop. The doelfin or hydrofoil does the same thing only differently. Hydrofoils can and do create drag in the water which is why many guys won't put them on high performance rigs. The Jackplate merely changes the pivot point of the engine further back to help create stern lift. Both devices are used to help aid in stern lift. Either this guy was trying to run a higher pitched prop to maximize speed and/or he's got a porpoising problem with the boat or both. Porpoising is the up and down motion a boat has when running in the water at mid range speeds. It's an annoyance but can become dangerous if it occurs at higher speeds. I'd ask the guy why he has both on there. It appears from the pix that he's only got an aluminum prop on the boat. The other situation may be he's got a hooked hull that's causing a porpoising situation. That most commonly was caused by ill fitting trailers. Ask the guy first, it seems odd to me to have both of those on that boat.

The pictures of the mod you're talking about doing were done with a jon boat. A semi-V hull can be tricky, especially at the front. All of your beam is at the rear of the boat, the front is basically the V. Moving the center of gravity as high as it is in that V-bottom boat up front could cause some real tippiness problems. Before I went cutting and screwing lumber onto the thing I think I'd put together a make shift platform at the front, at the height you want it at and then take it on the water and see how stable that boat will be with you standing up there. JMO of course.

I think the question is why and what problem were they trying to solve that required a jackplate AND a hydrofoil.

BPS sells a small wheelie cart for moving those things from the truck to the lake.

A jackplate AND a hydrofoil on a boat that small with a 70hp motor???? Hmmmm...... $600-700. Motor needs to go on a dyno, hooking it up to the muffs ain't gonna do it. As stated, that boat is loaded with wood. The floor and transom are serious concerns. Both can be replaced but not without a LOT of work.

There is/was a 1992 17 1/2 foot Hydrasport bass boat on the swap board recently with a 175 'rude engine for $6k. Looked like a very clean boat though it was overpowered by 25hp. It's on page 2 of the swap board, it might still be for sale. You could probably get a pretty decent mid to late 90's fiberglass 17 - 17 1/2 footer for that price. You'd be looking at a 90 - 135hp motor. Stick with the name brands. Have the engine checked out. You could move up in size for that money to an 18-19 footer fiberglass but it will be older. Make sure to have disposable extra cash for repairs if you go that route.

The law is the law. As for the fine, I've never been caught but someone I know has. His fine was around $60 or so. As stated, fishing licenses are relatively cheap, under $15 in most states and most of those states have a free fishing weekend. If the guy only fishes once a year, why not just wait until the free fishing weekend? Sorry, I have no sympathy for him.

Contact a tracker dealer and describe the problem and that you want to replace the whole live well control valve works. Ask a rigger or mechanic if there's anyway to get to the mechanism besides pulling the tank. They'll probably help you out.

my mistake, doodlin is the term. Noodlin is the term for those crazy guys that hand fish for catfish. Yes, it was long rods used for dunkin minnows but many folks in the early days thought that flippin reminded them of doodlin especially since the rod used, a 7 1/2 footer (a really long rod back in the 70's), was the same thing they were using.

I've purchased 2 boats from distant sellers. The first was my last boat. Saw it in an ad in the paper but the boat was 180 miles away. The guy was desperate to sell and the price reflected it. He had a couple people coming down to look at it. I had bank financing in place before I left the house and bought the thing without a test drive as well. Drove down, looked at the boat, said yes, drove back home, picked up a check from the bank and then drove back down the same day and picked it up in the evening. It had a few problems but I found those on initial inspection. My current boat was found on an obscure fishing forum in the classifieds. 21 year old kid had a nice Champion 18 1/2 footer that needed some cleaning. He'd blown the motor up so that wasn't even an issue. He sent me pictures via email. I got him to drop the price a few hundred. I drove down the next day cash in hand and bought it. No surprises, just as advertised. I felt sorry for the kid, only had the boat a year and had to get rid of it because of the engine and the fact he was getting married. Nice kid and his parents were equally nice.

Being a good walker takes practice. I'll toss a spook out in Feb-APR just to get the feel back so I'm ready when the topwater season actually starts. It's a complete feel retrieve. Once you get the feel of it it's like riding a bike. There are actually a number of dog walking techniques that were perfected by the king of walking the dog, Charlie Campbell. There's the half step and another, I don't remember the name, where the bait twitches somewhat stationary in one spot. A good walker can walk a spook or other walkable bait around a piece of cover. Practice, Practice, Practice.

Carpet A Stanley Utility knife with lots of extra blades Outdoor carpet adhesive (Home Depot or Lowes sells this) Spray waterproof contact cement by 3M for doing deck lid edges. First, the hardest part of the entire job is getting the old adhesive up. You want a clean surface to work with. I'd suggest a scraper and a heat gun or hair dryer. As for the amount? Measure each section. Front deck, main floor, rear deck. Then the lids. Remember, the carpet has to bend over the edges plus you'll want some overlap underneath the door unless you use those door bottom edges. Will you be relining the compartments? You'll have to add that as well. Now lay it out on some graph paper. Make sure all the doors are lined up as they sit on the boat, don't turn them sideways to use up extra unused carpet or that door will have the grain going the wrong way. (It's noticable) Carpet from guys like Cabela's comes in 3 ft increments. Other places sell full size kits in 18 or 20 something foot lengths. BPS and Others sell by the foot. Your standard carpet is 16oz. you could go to 20oz but like TM says, you might run into door closing issues (you can shave the carpet fibre if that happens on the door edges BTW) Whatever you do DON'T be tempted to buy that I/O carpet from Lowes or Home Depot. That carpet is junk, wears quickly and if a fish hook even looks at that stuff it's snagged.