WIGuide

Congrats on the pb and one heck of a story to go with it!

On a $200 budget, I'd be looking at the St. Croix Avid X line. For what you're wanting to do with it, I'd go with either the 6'8" M/XF or the 6'9" ML/XF. They can be interchanged for most techniques, but I'd pick the one that best suites what I'd be throwing on it the most. For example I have no issues drop shottting with my M/XF rod, but the ML/XF is better suited for it. I don't think you can go wrong with either though.

I stick with 50 lb braid regardless of where I'm fishing.

I would check the water level in your battery and add if needed. If you're still having issues, I'd be looking into getting a different battery

Fighting a fish on a frog is a lot different than most types of fishing. If it's all open water it isn't, but if you're fishing in the slop or thick pads/grass you shouldn't be playing them too much. The idea is to get their head turned and get them coming up so they can't bury you in the crap. If they do, more likely than not they'll be gone. A few things facilitate you in doing what needs to be done to keep them buttoned up: a heavy powered rod, braided line, and a high speed reel. With that combination, you can get them up on top of the junk and lose less fish. That being said, loosing fish on a frog is inevitable. It's far from a 100% catch rate once you have them hooked up. Heck, I lost a big one this last weekend that I wrestled out of a section of pads but it managed to get itself into a section of grass in between the pads and the boat. Replaying it over and over again in my head, I don't see where I could have done anything different to prevent it. The trade off is it's an absolute blast catching them that way, and I'm convinced that you catch a higher percentage of above average fish on a frog.

Grab some super glue to revive the ones that haven't. As long as they aren't super shredded, you can get quite a bit more use out of them. The Booyah Pad Crasher is my favorite frog. I only buy others if I can get them on sale, with the exception of a certain color Spro that I've had a lot of success on.

I've been fishing since I was roughly knee high to a grasshopper. I bought my own boat the summer between 5th and 6th grade and never looked back. Despite all that fishing experience, one bait I've never had much confidence in is a jig (with the exception of a swim jig). I'm not sure why, since I know how deadly they can be, but I haven't had much luck with them and have felt that I can outfish them with a texas rig. Last fall I had finally decided to toss them around a little bit since you always hear how effective they can be in cold water. After catching a few fish on them and loosing a monster, I decided to continue practicing with them to gain some confidence and knowledge with them. I've been doing some here and there this year, but earlier this week I set out to kick it into high gear. We have gotten quit a bit of rain lately, and I know that they stack up pretty good on a few spots of a local lake when the water is high so I headed over there after work excited to see what I could do. Pulling up to the landing, my excitement quickly died. The water wasn't up just a little, it was up a good 3 feet, which I know to you southern guys is nothing, but up here on our natural lakes 3' is highly abnormal. From high water in the spring into the drought of summer the water may fluctuate a foot to maybe 2 total so to go up 3 over already high water left half the parking lot under water. Despite my best efforts I couldn't get my boat off the trailer there. This last one really shows how far I was from getting to the landing itself. Anyway, I packed things up and headed to the next lake over which was only a few miles down the road. This one was up a little but not anywhere near like the first one. Once I pulled up on my first spot, it didn't even take 5 minutes before I connected on the jig. I was a bit surprised when I pulled up a dinky walleye. Not that it's super surprising to catch one on a bass jig, but it only came out of a few feet of water with a lot of grass. It wasn't too much after though I connected on a few largemouth. I was trying to fish it in the sparser areas of the grass flat, and then swim it over the thicker stuff which paid off. While I was still up shallow, I just couldn't help myself. I had to sling a frog around a bit. I missed a fish right off the bat, and threw the jig back and caught it. I'm glad I pulled the frog out though as it netted me the biggest bass of the night, a 17 1/4" that I know I wouldn't have caught on the jig simply because I wouldn't have thrown it where I threw the frog. Man did she annihilate it! The skies started to clear off as the front started to move through so I slid out to fish the outer weed line and pick off a few more fish on the jig. I'm slowly starting to get a hang of this jig deal. Definitely not an expert, but I've got a lot more confidence in it than I used to. I fished for about 3 hours, and boated 9 largemouth, a walleye and a decent northern.

Cool project!

Before you start, I would call Ranger. They may be able to answer a few questions and possibly hook you up with a wiring diagram. To do a total rewire would probably be a fairly labor intensive job. I'm totally guessing here, but I'd be thinking it'd cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 to have it done.

If I were you I'd be looking hard at the new gen St. Croix Mojo's. With the upgraded blank $120 is a great price for that rod.

Tracker had both aluminum and fiberglass boats in 88. I believe they were made in 86-90. That's when Nitro was acquired.

So much of a boats value lies in the condition of it. If it's beat to crap, faded out, needs things replaced then nope it's not worth it. If it was well cared for it might be worth it. With the details given, it's hard to tell you one way or another.

Why not get a boat lift with it? You can get those with canopies so you don't need a cover and they lift your boat out of the water so you don't have to worry about it getting scummed up.

Congrats on the new rig!

Glad you like it!

I use a M/F for my lighter T-rigs and weightless senko style baits. I'll throw a weighted ribbon tail or lizard on there as well. I think the M/F would be the best option for what you're throwing as well.

I would go electric. You wouldn't need a very high powered one for a canoe. If you do get something in the 40-50 lb thrust range try to get one with variable speed. (one that doesn't have 5 preset speeds) They cost more, but are worth it as with the preset speeds it seems one speed is too slow and the next one up is too fast. I would suggest one of the Motorguide R3 Digital models.

It's a little more money, but check out the Sun Dolphin 102. It has a better layout, especially if you're planning to add an outboard. I had one as my first boat and it treated me well for quite a long time.

If it were me I'd have one transducer on the tm and one on the back. If you do or want to do any vertical fishing over a school, having the transducer 18' away from you doesn't work very well. Also, it's not possible for these units to share a transducer.

There are a few different ways of using it. You can either cast it, which is my prefered technique, or you can fish it vertically when you're over a fish, or a school of them. Most small plastics will work on it. I usually fish it when things are slow as it'll generate bites, but it's also in my lineup anytime smallmouth are present. They really seem to love the ds

Not self hooking story, but I was fishing with a few friends when one of them landed a bass and when he lipped it to unhook it, he just picked it straight up without applying any pressure to the jaw basically inviting the bass to flop. Anyway within a few seconds he was attached to the bass. One of the treble hooks had 1 point embedded in his thumb, and another point of the same hook in his middle finger. Both were in way past the barb. With us all being in our teens and not knowing how to get both out, we brought the boat back to the cabin hoping my dad could get it out. He knew the hook trick, but didn't think he could make it work since the same hook had multiple points in, and we didn't have anything to cut it with. My friend ended up taking a trip to urgent care. Remember he is only a teenager and already uncomfortable and freaking out because we didn't know how to get it out. When he gets to see the DR. he takes one look at it, looks my friend in the face and says "I can't get that out" and walks out of the room. Absolutely freaked my friend out. Apparently the DR was only joking, but it obviously didn't help the situation! haha They had to cut the hooks out of him and he ended up with stitches.

Almost every baitcaster I own is of the high speed variety. I have no issues slowing down, but could see where some would. The few baitcasters I own that aren't in the 7:1 range are those that were not offered in that speed, but I bought the highest geared one they offered. One of my favorite baits is a squarebill, and I have no problems catching fish on them with a 7:1 reel. I don't have issues catchin' them on those other techniques with a 7:1 either. There's no right or wrong way to do it, only what works for you.

I'll second what Mike said. I'd go for a spinning setup for finesse fishing. I throw just about everything on my casting reels, but I still own spinning rods for the lighter side of finesse presentations. It's not that you can't do it with casting gear, but it's generally easier on spinning.

If you want them on the gunnel and don't want to drill holes, I think this is about your only option. They aren't great though. Otherwise you could probably fab sometihing similar up with larger c-clamps bolted to a piece of wood that you could mount some bases on. It'd give you a better rod holder as well as more clamping power. Just be sure to use something to prevent the clamps from marking up your boat.

Looks like a good buy if everything checks out.