mudcatwilly

This year, being 1 year into bass fishing, I learned that texas rigged worms are my go to bait, followed by jigs in a close second. I have not yet gained enough confidence to power fish with cranks and spinners. The lakes I fish tend to be clear and deep so finesse tactics have worked best for me.

In CA, most of the places I fish have steep, rocky walls along the shoreline. The water depth goes from 0 to 20 feet 7 or 8 feet from the waters edge. What are some good tactics to use to pick off those bass hanging out on those steep walls?

Alright motor experts, I need a little help. I've got a couple of issue with my outboard. It's a 1990 Suzuki 85hp 2 stroke. 1. For starters, I know this is dumb, but I can't get the cover off the motor. It has a little button in the front (facing the stern). I push the button and a little hinge inside the cover moves back and I'm assuming that is supposed to release the cover. The problem is that whether I push that button or not, I can only lift the front of the cover a few inches and it gets stuck on something. I can't lift the back of the cover at all. Has anyone encountered this and if so, how do I get the stinking cover off? 2. The last time I had my boat out, it stalled several times, even after it was warmed up. I have portable gas tanks that have the squeeze bulb that primes the fuel filter. I would squeeze the bulb and I could see fuel go into the filter and the boat started fine. After a few minutes of running it, the motor shut off and I noticed that there was no fuel in the filter. I squeezed the bulb again and then the motor started, but a few minutes later the same thing happened and so on. The weird thing was that after about an hour on the water, it quit doing it and the motor ran fine except when I shifted to reverse and then back to forward slowly, the motor stalled again. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks

If you live in California, offer 9K. Boats out here are very expensive and that sound like a pretty decent setup.

Thanks for the tips. I'm launching out of Pirates Lair and I will either head to Frank's Tract or to White slough via Potato Slough, depending how nasty the winds are. The sweet beavers have been mentioned a lot lately for guys who have 20+ fish days. I think my main strategy to start with is to go topwater with buzzbaits and hula poppers (overcast skies) and then fish jigs in the tules and cranks along the rip rap. If that doesn't work, there are also some big striper running through there right now, but we won't worry about that unless it's 3:00 and I don't have any fish in the livewell.

I'm about to go out and fish the CA Delta for the first time. This place has both numbers and trophy bass. My conditons will be overcast skies, possible light showers. The delta has a muddy bottom with tules on the banks and floating hyacynth and a myriad of docks, pilings, and rip rap banks. The water is tidal, so there is high, low, and slack tides. The water will be stained to slightly muddy with water temps in the upper 60's. If you were hitting these waters for the first time, what what you try? FYI, buzzbaits, jigs, and cranks have seemed to be hot lately according to local reports.

My philosophy: When in slump, fish texas rigged worm and throw it everywhere that looks fishy. The senko and roboworm are my slumpbusters.

Go with the max hp rated for your boat and add 15 to 20 hp, but only get a 2 stroke because it's lighter than a 4 stroke. If you get too heavy of a motor, your boat won't run right unless you can dig the prop in more than 90 degrees. My 16-foot boat is rated for 85 hp and I have an 85 hp 2 stroke and when its wide open, she gets 40 mph. That's all I need. If you have a smaller boat, get a good used 2 stroke. They're not too expensive and if it blows up, throw it in the gutter and go buy another (quoting Eazy E from NWA, circa 1988).

Ranger Z series with a 300 hp merc strapped to it. Even if I get skunked, 75 mph on the water is a blast.

If you fish solo or with a buddy, the bass boat it the way to go. More stable platform, but on the downside, you may need a bigger motor to run the bass boat. I split the differnce. I got a 16-ft trihull with an 85 hp. You can comfortably fish with 3 guys and it's fast and stable. I paid $2K and it was worth every penny

Smokin Deal. The motor is probably worth more than what you paid for the boat. I have a project boat myself. It was my first real boat and when I took it out by myself for the first time, I felt like I was just so free and the fish were at a major disadvantage. Good luck with it.

I've caught a ton of quality lures, especially in timber. Once snagged a Huddleston swimbait. I was stoked. Then I hung up and lost it 15 minutes later. Easy come, easy go.

Release the big ones so your angling bretheren can try to catch them. Release the medium ones so they can get big. Release the small ones so they can grow to medium. Eat the three pounders on a steak roll (but only one).

RW knows his stuff. I started with senkos, caught some bass and thought I was an expert angler - wrong! I had to go back to basics and learn how to fish again before I figured out that attention to detail is the difference between a good day and getting skunked.

In CA, we have a mix of Northern and Florida Strain. In the CA Delta, they are mostly the northern variety and I have seen them blow up some topwater lures like it was their last meal. These fish also get very big.

I took it out to the lake and was able to drop the motor all the way down after I bent that little piece of metal out of the way. I roared like a champ! Operator error was my problem (as is often the case). That little trihull with the 85 hp 2 stroke is a quick hunk of junk!

I recently had a problem with my boat planing and couldn't figure out why. I messed around with the engine tilt and that easily fixed it. With mine, I gun it with the tilt about 75 degrees and as I'm taking off, I dig the motor all the way in and it planes out very quickly.

I bent over the little piece of metal that was keeping the motor from going all the way down. Now it goes all the way down. I'll take it on the water today to see if that fixed it.

OK, I discovered something that may be causing the mystery prop issue. I was looking at the boat after I lowered the motor all the way down and noticed that the alignment of the prop shaft is not horizontal when the motor is in the fully down position. The prop shaft was pointed slightly upward (which would be toward the surface of the water). That would explain why the boat does fine at low speed, but the prop doesn't grab after the boat planes at high speed. When I open the throttle, the boat digs into the water fine because when the bow lifts up, the prop angle goes down into the water. If I'm not mistaken, when the boat planes, it rises a little higher in the water. If the prop is then closer to the surface, I would think that if it is angled upward slightly it's just pushing water up to the surface and not pushing it horizontally like it should. Anyway, just a theory. Put aside my theory for a minute. My outboard has power tilt. When I lower it until it stops, the lower unit rests against a thick metal bar. I noticed that on each side of the lower unit there are two semi-circular cut outs that look like they would rest against some round bars that go through the motor mounting bracket. Those cut outs never make it to those bars though because the thick metal bar behind the center of the lower unit stops it. Is there a way that I can adjust it so the motor comes all the way down to 90 degrees?

Hey boat experts, this is my first boat and I need some help! I have a 1975 Lund trihull with a 1990 85hp Suzuki outboard. I have what seems to be a twofold problem. For starters, I had the boat out on the water for about 7 hours or so the other day. When I took it out of the lake and pulled the drain plug, about 10 gallons of water came out (this is a 16-foot boat). When I was on the water and got it up to plane, the boat would porpoise badly. I figured since I was the only person in the boat, the porpoising was probably due to the water sloshing around under the deck. Does that sound right? The boat doesn't have any noticable holes in it other than some screw hole penetrations in the back and the previous owner caulked those. Under the boat, the gelcoat is worn off all along the centerline and you can see the fiberglass, but it's smooth looking fiberglass. I figured that most of the water must have been seeping through the worn off gelcoat where the fiberglass is exposed. Does that sound right? Second problem. The boat putts around just fine, but when I open the throttle and the boat planes, the motor revs high and the boat slows way down, almost to a stop with the motor still revving high. If I back off the throttle and then punch it forward again, the boat picks up speed, planes again, but then the same things happens. Every once in awhile, I can get the boat to plane and maintain speed, but it porpoises so badly (because of the excessive bilge water, I think) that I have to back off the throttle again. Assuming I can solve the leak problem and stop the porpoising, what do I do about the problem with the motor? Right now, I have an aluminum prop on the motor that is 13" in diameter with a 19" pitch. The motor gets about 5500 RPM wide open. I have another prop that is 12.75" with a 24" pitch that I haven't tried yet. I doubt the larger prop pitch will help because it seems like a transmission problem, but then again, I don't know. Is the prop loose? How do I check? Or should I just take it to a mechanic? I would like to fix it myself so I can learn, but this might be over my head. Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

How do I get the prop off my motor? I can see it has a nut, but there is some sort of pin around it

I have an older 2 stroke and looked into it a little because I'm in California and there are some restrictions. Out here, we tend to have pretty strict environmental laws when compared to other states. There is the federal regulation for emmision standards, then there is California's emission standards which exceed that of the federal standards in most categories. It's kind of a bogus law anyway because we are not required to get our boat motors smogged every two years like our cars, so really, the emission regulation can't be enforced unless a game warden or some other government type happens to see excessive smoke coming from your motor. Even still, it's not like the game warden has an emission test kit to check it anyway. Knowing that the law can't be practically enforced, some lakes in California have put an outright ban on 2 stroke engines. We're talking maybe 5 to 10 lakes in all of California, which has somewhere between 500 and 1,000 lakes. I think that the federal government has finally caught on to what California already knew. The emission laws can't be enforced on the water so the feds have mandated that all new motors be either 4 stroke or 2 stroke with a certain emission criteria. 2 strokes are not banned anywhere except in some places where local governments have passed laws to ban them or where the lakes are privately owned. The problem is that it has become difficult for manufacturers to make a 2 stroke that meets the federal emission criteria and sell it at a price that people are willing to pay.

My boat sometimes wants to porpoise at full throttle (about 30 mph), but that's only when I have other people in it. I have an aluminum prop on there now, but I also have a second prop that I have never used that the guy gave me when I bought the boat. That prop is much heavier and stiffer and has sort of a rubberized coating on it. Does anyone know what that kind of prop is for?

I have a 1975, 16-foot Lund trihull with a 1990 Suzuki 85 hp 2 stroke. 85 hp is the maximum rated for that boat.

I have just bought my first boat and have so many questions. OK, props. I want a good prop that makes my boat faster reduces fuel consumption and lasts a long time. Will I be telling my wife that I need to buy a stainless steel prop? If I have to fork out $300 to $400 to replace my perfectly functional aluminum prop, can someone please give me some selling points that I can tell my wife so she will let me buy it? Thanks