PotomacBassin

Ok, so I took the boat out today and it had about 3/8 of a tank in it according to my gauge, but when I looked at the tank it looked over half way full. It was old gas (3 months) so I wanted to burn as much as I could out of it so I didn't put any gas in it. Well I drove about 30 miles on the Potomac today and when it hit about an 1/8th of a tank (gauge reading), my gauge dropped like a rock. I was a little worried, but not too much, that I wasn't going to make it back to the dock. I looked at the tank when I got back and it still looked about half way full. My question is, do the gas tanks have thick solid bottoms for supporting the gas weight? My gas tank is segmented (hard to explain) but the bottom part looks like it has gas in it, but I think this just may be solid plastic or filled with something other than gas. I'm wondering if this makes the tank look more full than it really is. I'll be able to tell the next time I fill it up to see how much gas it takes, but I don't want to do that until the season starts so I can have fresh gas (please no ethanol treatment comments). I guess either my gas gauge is way off or the bottom 1/8-1/4 of the tank is filled with something. Any thoughts?

I'm sorry to hear that man. You have me worried about going out tomorrow in 40 degree water/50 degree air.

Did you change your gear oil before the winter? Just wondering if the bad seal on the lower unit started over the winter or in the cold water...

Yep, that's how I knew there aren't any leaks. Nice and green/blue!!! If I hit something, I'll be sure to replace. I'll just be cruising around the main river though... so no worries.

Fair enough and noted. Talked me out of it. Thanks. Are you talking about the gear case? It has fresh gear oil in it and there weren't any leaks at the end of the season so I'm not too worried about getting water in the gear case.

Well what's worse for it, water laying in the lines that freezes? Or a .5 second crank (not started)? Outboards run about 1-2 seconds without water in them when you start them...

I can't take the wait any longer. We have two 50 degree days in Northern Virginia followed by an overnight low below freezing. I'm a little worried about de-winterizing the motor, but I have a 2 stroke direct injected so I don't even fog the motor (I just add extra oil to the cylinders). I figured if I take it out this is better once in a while over the winter to oil the cylinders rather than letting it sit longer. Everyone is telling me that as long as I store the motor at the full down position, all the water should drain out and water freezing shouldn't be an issue. I can also crank it a few times outside of the water to help push any residual water out from the impeller. Lots of guys around here don't even winterize their outboards since they take them out during the warm fronts.

I have this ap as well. I think I'm going to buy a mount to mount my phone on the boat and use this as my GPS. It also tracks your path for the day and how far you went. It will tell you how many gallons you'll burn going to waypoints. I don't know how many Gallons per hour I burn so I don't know what to put in there or how to figure that out.

Yeah I'm dying to get the boat out on the water to check this out again. I'm not 100 percent convinced that I have a leak yet. This thread was mainly about keeping the livewell dry; but I get a little bit of water in the bilge even if the livewell isn't running. So I'm not really sure what that is about. Again, I just kind of thought it was some water coming in from the bilge pumpe out hole or over the transom. Who knows.

I don't think this is too thick to use as a filler. The thicker it is, the more space it takes up, meaning you can fill more space with less line. Just helps you save more money.

I've had issues with uni to uni knots when using braid because of the smaller diameter and the slickness of the braid. I've since switched to the albright knot to connect my braid to my leaders. I use uni to uni or a blood knot for connecting mono to mono or mono to FC, but never on braid. It's all personal preference though, I just have bad luck with uni knots and braid.

Does anyone else use cheap line to fill 1/4-1/2 of your spool before spooling on your main (more expensive line)? I don't see many people talk about this on here, but I buy some cheap mono (in my case BPS XPS mono) and I use this to fill half my spool before I spool my braid or fluorocarbon on. With the cost of braid and especially FC these days, I feel like this saves me a ton of money in the long run. I've done this for years and I've never had a fish run on me enough to pull out some of the cheap line. Just wondering how many other people do this or does everyone think this is just a waste of time with tying all the connection knots.

I will be there 3/23 - 3/27... can't wait!!

Thanks ZP. That makes me feel a lot better. I think we'll be over that way. I don't know exactly where that is, but I saw Brown Creek road which is on the other side of the land where we're staying. We won't be staying in one spot for the couple days that we're there, so I'm sure we'll hit it up.

Does it ever start to get crowded on Guntersville? My wife and I will be coming down the last week of March, probably Sunday through Wednesday. We're staying at the Best Western Plus, but we've never been there and are hoping it's not too crowded. We're coming from the Potomac, which is known to be too crowded and overfished. Just glad there's a lot of water up here to at least try and space out.

Nailed a bat with my fly rod a couple years ago because he was chasing my fly.

Awesome deal and great boat!

That they are... still worried about freezing water when it's on my trailer. You may have talked me into taking it out. I just feel like everyone that takes their boat out in the winter has heated garages.

Well not that it matters but those are 9.9 and under obs. I know the concept is the same but I've got a lot invested in this thing and am still a little scared to do this. You've got me tempted though.

Ha. That's what I do right now so rain water doesn't get in. So you're saying I could be fishing on these warm days?

Aren't you worried about water freezing and expanding in you water intake and exhaust and what not?

Well we have 10 degree weather coming up and if I didn't winterize and ran my boat this week I would be concerned of any expanding frozen water in the internals of the motor. Main reason for this post is for removing and making sure the trolling motor is tight. But I'm probably going to leave it on from now on and just not worry about it

So those bolts probably didnt loosen at all right. They probably were just turning with the above screw. Ill double check to make sure they're tight though.

This would make too much sense. Ha. But I guess I'm just worried that I messed something up now. My jon boat was so simple before. And I definitely want to know how to take the mount of now for future reference.

Ok, I feel kind of silly asking this. I don't have a depth-finder on the bow. I'll have to check it out later so basically I didn't harm anything is what I'm worried about. The nuts on the underside are likely still intact since they probably just turned with the screw I was attempting to loosen. Am I right in understanding your description?