thomas15

I grew up on the Jersey Shore, lots and lots and lots of fishing opportunities both fresh and salt water mostly salt water. As a kid growing up in Belmar we had 4 or 5 tackle shops that we could ride our bikes to but in general at that age we just bought the basics and that was it. As an adult we lived further south in Tuckerton, NJ, same thing lots of fresh and salt water opportunities. Tuckerton (Little Egg Harbor Twp) is actually a destination for spring/fall marine stripped bass. There was a bait and tackle shop there, Scott's Bait and Tackle that had a huge selection, always something for even those on a budget, fantastic advice on where, how and what no matter how clueless you were they would patiently draw you a map of where you should start, what you should do. They had quite a bit of black powder supplies also. Everything was just crammed into this small building. We left NJ in 2004 and since then the owners have retired and the business closed. It was the place to buy supplies and get advice and literally their advice was sought out by everyone, from those pounding the banks to those with 85' twin screw offshore rigs. Very sad this place is no more. Side note, the actual building that housed Scott's is now an authorized Penn Reel parts/repair company if you have a Penn reel and need a part that is where you get it but no tackle. They have parts for my 60 year old Penn Long Beach 65.

Not fishing but from the same mold I have all of the editions (20 I think) of Handloaders Digest. The 1st edition was published in 1962 then again from time to time I think the latest is 2016 or there abouts. The articles and "how to" of the early editions are fun to read and even sometimes hard to imagine (sort of like reading how to build single seat airplane using a 1962 Popular Science) but today it's advertising and PC feel good content.

In January I will be able to buy a senior lifetime for $52. here in PA. So that's what I'm going to do. Getting old.

It's not your boat, there is a defective satellite out there in low earth orbit.

Another possibility is an air leak, even a little one will be a big problem. You might not even see gasoline dripping from the fuel lines. If it were me I would get carb rebuild kits and clean-replace all the parts. Examine the carb floats very carefully and if there is any fuel in them replace. Make sure the float level is set properly. Drain and really clean the fuel tank also there very well could be debris gumming up the works. Both a fuel line leak or float needle valve not seating (for whatever reason) can cause the condition of not being able to pump up the system after running the motor. A lack of good spark is not causing that problem but it could be contributing to a lack of performance. I assume this motor has two carbs, they need to be in syncro and idle mixture is properly set. The OMC shop manual for your exact motor will give you the sequence to check everything, worth getting if available. I have in the 8 years I have had my boat acquired the shop manual, float measuring tool, spark gap testers (3 of them), I already had a strobe timing light, I stock two full sets of carb rebuild kits, two sets of carb gasket kits, water pumps, spark plugs, extra fuel pump, lines, filters and clamps and more! No spring is complete without having to tear into my outboard to find out what's not working. Everything I know about 2 strokes I have learned in the time since buying my boat. While I have used regular 87 octane fuel, plus 89 works way better for me. I put Sea Foam in the tank every time I buy gas. Make sure your fuel lines and hoses are all rated for ethanol use. As others have said 6 months shelf life is it once I get to that point I put the fuel into my car and buy new. None of my two strokes are anywhere as picky as my Merc 50 outboard. My chain saws, leaf blower or weed wacker can sit for 6-8 months or more and start right up. My boat can sit for two weeks and then kick my butt. When it runs, it runs fantastic. When it doesn't it makes me want to sell it then take up playing chess.

I get the $100 Cabelas or WalMart covers and plan on getting two years out of them. During the winter I put a tarp over the cover because the snow slides off a tarp easier. I always say to anyone that the worse aspect of having a boat is dealing with a cover. I just don't want to pay for a custom. I'm due for a new cover either this fall or next spring. It's a problem.

At my home lake there is stuff left there all the time, I just leave it. When I was in college in rural West Virginia back in the summer of 1980 a friend invited me to go fishing at a farm pond, he knew the farmer and had permission for both of us to fish it. I found in the weeds a tackle box, it had a few things in it a few spoons mainly. I asked to farmer if it was his, he said no and that we were the only people that he allowed to fish there in the past 5 years so whoever left it there was trespassing so he said take it which I did. I still have that box 42 years later, used it a lot when my kids were little it became my catfish tackle box and I have used it this year even. Another time I was fishing a small pond in town in NJ about 25 years ago. Spotted a broken fishing pole in the trash can, the pole was toast splintered one end to the other but the reel was a Shimano 2000 series. It was still there two days later, I still have that reel and also still use it.

It's more like a virus, a perfect organism that infects everything it gets near to. It will beat you up, steal your lunch money, and yet we still want to be friends, we still go back for more!

I am far from being an expert boat launcher but please allow me to chime in on this topic. Unless I have someone with me that really knows what they are doing, which is rare, I do all of the work involved in launching my 16.5 foot Starcraft AL deep V boat. So if my wife is with me the only thing she does is drive the truck off the ramp, that is all. Late in the fall the state DCNR removes the floating docks at the ramp or sometimes they draw down the lake level putting the docks on dry land so I have beached my boat many times. I avoid a place with rocks but the sand or pebbles have not damaged my boat. If you are new to this my advice is get some practice launching at a time when there are few people using the ramp. My local ramp is jammed with boaters on the weekends until about 6:00PM so I avoid the place and instead use it after work during the week or late in the evenings during the summer weekends. As others have said you will need to refine your methods for efficiency, spending as little time on the ramp or in prep areas, getting right down to business. A ritual of getting everything ready with walk arounds is very helpful. If beaching your boat be mindful of the tilt on your outboard in shallow water. You want to have it low enough to get cooling water into the water pump when running but you don't want to drag the outdrive in the lake bottom or suck all kinds of crap into the outdrive. There are tons and tons of youtubes on solo boat launches. Some are good others are not. You will have to develop your own method from experience but if little old me can do it anyone can. Again I'm not an expert but I can get my boat launched or retrieved quite quickly solo and in the 100s of times doing so I would say I've got my feet wet 2 or 3 times, very rare. The times I have got wet were due to engine issues not my trailer techniques. It seems some people are fine with hopping into the water I'm not one of them. Enjoy your new boat, be safe have fun!

I live 1/4 mile from a 1000 acre impoundment that gets hammered during the weekends so I don't go there at all during the day, I might go after 6:00PM but that's it. It's a state park and this past weekend on Sunday the park closed at noon to new visitors because the parking lot was full. This is the 10th time since Memorial day they have closed it due to reaching capacity. It seems in the last year most of the boaters are just tearing up and down the lake not actually fishing but I can hear the boats and jet skies from my home and then I don't even want to go fishing in that mess. I just got a pair of chest waders and I'm going to start trout fishing in a local stream just to get away from the crowds. But I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow and will get out in my boat for at least a few minutes.

Getting back into bass fishing and fishing in general after a 4 year absence. I bought my boat in 2014 and that got me off the bank which kicked up my desire to spend more time fishing. Along with that desire to fish more came the desire to have a well stocked tackle stockpile and a bunch of rods and reels for every conceivable situation and the associated bric-a-brac. From a period between 2014 and 2017, I ordered a lot of stuff, too much stuff actually. Literally thousands of dollars. Online, click click click. It's easy for things to get out of control and I was somewhat out of control to be quite honest. I neglected to properly winterize my outboard winter of 2017/2018 so spring 2018 it ran terrible but I didn't have the time to work on it. As a result I stopped boating and fishing and thus buying tackle. Also, not tackle related but in March of 2018 we decided to get an overall handle on our household finances so from then until now we haven't spent much money on anything except things we need (food and stuff), implementing a general austerity program which we really kicked up into high gear starting January 1, 2022. Now that we achieved zero household debt, and are putting funds into savings and own literally everything we have, we are looking to declutter our lives and actually the boat and our tackle was on the list of things to get rid of but since it (the boat) didn't run properly I didn't want to sell it so long story short I spent the past 6 weeks and about $200 for parts and now the thing runs better than it ever did. So we are keeping the boat and restarting our fishing hobby because we can fish as a couple simply for fun and to have time together and really not spend all that much money. In the process of fixing the outboard I have acquired a much greater understanding of how the motor works and feel confident that I can keep it running without help from a professional mechanic. So now I'm in my shed going over all the tackle and fishing stuff we have and finding it hard to believe how much stuff I have acquired. I have to go through it and do an inventory, I have stuff I don't even know what it is. As an example I have about 10 shoeboxes stuffed with plastics, I don't even know actually what I have and have forgotten what to use and when. I know this is a saga sorry about that but we live literally 1/2 mile from a small lake in NE PA. There are some lunker bass in there but it is very seriously overfished and pressured. So I have been looking into changing species for more success and have decided to try fishing for stripers. The stripers are deep 30-40+ feet so I have purchased 1 entry level downrigger to try out and learn on. I have about $220 spent so far for the downrigger and other related stuff. This is the first fishing related item I have purchased in over 4 years. In summary I don't plan on buying anything new until I organize what I have and I intend to keep it simple and basic and on a budget that will be about $25/month for tackle ($300/year) which I think is plenty. I currently have 4 or 5 large cardboard boxes with brand new lures and tackle still in the original packages that are not in the rotation yet so I need to get a firm handle on that before I buy or do anything else. Although my tackle bags are well organized I have lost track of what is in each of them and so it's like I have all this stuff and no idea where it is and what to use on any particular day. It's like I'm a beginner but I have all this stuff. I'm really excited about getting back into fishing and feel the time away from the hobby was beneficial in that what we do in the future will be within the confines of a firm money/time budget. My goal is to maintain my stuff so that when the pre-spawn hits next year I'm ready for the water not trying to figure out why my boat will not start. I have about 5 years before I retire and I intend to spend some of my time fishing once I retire so I want to pick up better skills and knowledge now and really enjoy my time on the water but do so in an organized way.

You might want to consider replacing all of the fuel lines and rebuilding the carbs. It might run great on muffs but under a load is a different thing entirely. Good luck!

Fiberglass boats have wood stringers and transom that are covered with mat and coated with resin. Then there is foam that is used to make the hull more floatable and adds strength. Once the foam becomes waterlogged the wood stringers and transom rot. The repair is to gut the whole thing, remove the foam, rotten stringers and transom and replace. This requires a lot of time, energy and money. A laymen can do this even if they have never worked with resin. It is however not an easy project. There is a forum called iBoats that has a sub forum packed with peoples projects and many many pictures and discussion. I would spend time there looking over the projects it will give you a good idea of what you are getting into.

Boats are strictly a luxury item, including a used beat up plastic $50 craigslist canoe. Such a vessel will find a way to suck that last buck out of your wallet, maybe even a few dollars that haven't made it to your wallet yet.

When you buy something and then discover that you already have it but forgot, then you are close, but not quite to the threshold. At that point you need to create a system for tracking your tackle. When you consult your tracking system and then still purchase a duplicate, threshold crossed, monkey in control.

Lots of truth in this thread. One reading it might get the impression that owning a boat is more misery than fun due to the costs involved LOL. I think it's really hard to put an actual price on the cost of owning a vessel but as mentioned some of the regular expenses are there. But to me it seams that no matter how well you care for your boat there is always something that needs attention or is looking at your wallet for assistance. Having said that I really enjoy having a boat so it's worth it to me. If I enter a weeknight tournament in my local lake that might attract 30 boats I will not have the least flashy boat there but there will be many that are much more impressive. But my boat is suitable for such an event, I just have to make some comfort compromises but nothing too bad. A 16 foot alum has its limits especially in big water but I don't have 10s of 1000s of dollars tied up in mine either. The main thing is if you spend the day fishing and return home the last thing you want to do spend an hour getting the boat back in shape, especially when there are cold ones sitting in the cooler. But the keeping maintenance costs down requires discipline and planning. If you are always reacting to problems instead of performing routine maintenance then your costs will be obviously higher. And then there is always the unexpected. Last year I was planning on replacing the water pump as preventative maintenance. I could not get the shift linkage to separate for nothing. I tried and tried and finally, to make a long story short had to replace a lot of shift linkage parts and not only was it a cost factor it was some time to figure out. I ended up having to remove two of the carbs to gain access to the linkage so this required new gaskets and the carbs were not part of the original problem. I mean the water pump is in the lower unit and all the shift linkages are under the hood. Right now I have a looming expense in that I really need to replace one of the lights on my trailer and the electrical control in one of our tow vehicles. That is going to cost about $100.00 total and take a few hours of my time. But this reminds me of another cost and that is for items related to your trailer. hitches, electrical, ball mounts and so forth. A good class 3 receiver hit is a couple of hundred dollars or more depending on it you install it yourself. That may or may not be a problem as many trucks come with hitches from the factory. So I think it hard to make a comprehensive list of expenses. If your on a budget then in my opinion it is wise to keep the expectations of the actual boat/motor a bit more towards the modest side. I personally think aluminum ages better than fiberglass and smaller motors are in general easier/less costly to maintain. I will say that my 16ft aluminum with 50 HP Merc if I had to pay someone to fix all the things that I have fixed myself in the last 4 years I would be totally broke. Most of us who live in the north put our boats away for at least a few months in the winter. It is easy to put off doing things that will bite you in the butt in the spring when all you can think about is bass sitting on the beds. An hour or two winterizing the motor, while no guarantee, can avoid problems in the spring. 2 cycle fuel sitting in an unused motor for months at a time can cause real issues when the weather improves. When shopping for a used boat from the 90s just be aware that there be potential money holes lurking under the carpet. I would highly recommend that you educate yourself on those issues. A small soft spot is an indication of a large problem.

I guess we all have our protocols that work. Mine is I pull the plug out the minute the boat is out of the water and only put it back in when were ready to launch. At home I put the cover on before I do anything and crank the trailer jack to it's highest point to direct any water that might make it's way into the boat to the bilge and the open drain. There is nothing that a boat hates more than water sitting inside the hull. I finally put the SS Minnow in the water this weekend. Sunday evening. I was by myself, motor started right up, came off the trailer with no issues, made my way out to open water and gave her the gas. No problems. So, I'm just out trying to make sure everything is ok before I start my fishing season. I approached a boat that didn't look right and sure enough the boaters were waiving to me. Two men, two women and several kids. They said the battery was dead, this was an approx. 19' with inboard/outboard drive. So I agreeded to tow them to the ramp. The battery was dead but the whole time the bilge pump was busy pumping like mad. I was with them for at least 15 minutes all the time the pump is doing it's thing so my gut tells me the battery was ok but they forgot to put the plug in and the motor was underwater.

Gentlemen, With all due respect. The customer in the OP has purchased a new boat and it's not seaworthy. We are not talking about a minor issue. This is a real problem and the dealer, regardless of how concerned sounding on the phone, really needs to put a little bit of priority on this one. The dealer is basically saying to the customer drive a total of 12 hours back and forth and we will fix our problem for you. Forget about the loss of use of the machine, 12 hours is two days spent correcting the dealers lack of pre-delivery prep. Dear customer, guess what? It will cost you two days driving, two tanks of gasoline and days without your new boat for us to correct this problem. I get that this is a machine and things happen. Like everyone else here I have a boat and I have my share of motor frustrations. I spent over a year trying to get my outboard motor running correctly. But my boat wasn't new it was used. And it ran ok it just didn't run perfect under all conditions. And in the end it was me, the customer, that studied the problem, researched the possible solutions and incurred the cost. Good for me because I have a much greater understanding of my motor because of my time and expense. And through it all I never expressed any kind of hostility to the dealer operating under the notion that you attract more bees with honey than lemons. But the lesson I have learned is if anyone were to ask me about the dealer I would be honest and say they try, and they are pleasant, but it's your boat and if you want anything near perfection then you better hit the books for yourself. My guess, and this is just a guess but it really sounds like there is more to this than just the prop. There is probably more than just the prop and the dealer knows this. As has been pointed out swapping out a prop is a 5 minute job. The owner of this new boat will not see it for, when it's all said and done, a week or maybe more. If they have to order parts then a week will be optimistic. I do not understand all the cheerleading for the dealer. It is possible that once the dealer get's the boat and does his thing he will make some kind of gesture for the customer that will take some of the sting out of this experience. It is possible that the dealer is putting forth the worse case scenario and will have the boat seaworthy in a day as it is easier to promise a week and deliver in a day instead or promising a day and delivering in a week. It is also possible that the dealer can have the boat tied up for a week or more and still not solve the problem in the long run. I think the customer is basically a captive party and has to play ball at the visitors ballpark. So while I don't see any point in hissing and spitting because things happen, I likewise don't understand all the accolades afforded the dealer which hasn't earned them...yet. If this were me, at this point I would be on the phone with the boat and then the motor manufacturer and I guarantee you the end result would be the next day someone from the dealership would be picking up the boat and returning it functioning properly within a day or two with a full tank of gas and a wax and buff. Full disclosure I'm currently and have been for over 30 years the sales manager for a company that makes custom electronic components for military/aerospace applications. We are not a retail supplier rather industrial but I have a very good idea of what suppliers can and /or should do especially when the customer is not at fault. I own a Mercedes Benz. Everyone knows that these are expensive cars. When new, it developed a noise in the transmission. The dealer asked that we bring it in and they inspected it while we waited. Before we left they said drive the car and in a few days we will call and set up an appointment. We will pick up the car, leave you with a loaner, and call when your is fixed. Because of logistics I dropped off the car after work and the next day at 2 PM they called the car was ready to pick up or they would come to me, my choice. The fix you ask???? MB put an entirely new transmission in the car. No jerking around with adjusting this or tweeking that, 6 hours they had the car and the problem was solved for all time. Another thing, the actual dealer that did the work and the dealer we actually bought the car from are not the same dealers. That, my friends, is customer service. Now, is it reasonable to expect the same for every circumstance? No it's not, but... Others disagree with me which is fine and this is not personal in any way just business practices as I see them.

I am convinced that the main reason I don't catch as many fish as most is due to the lost lure preventative measures that I instinctively put in place. I simply hate to loose any tackle. Anyway, I have a favorite lure, It's a $2.00 Walmart flw brand med/shallow diving crank green sparkles on top, cream underside. Caught my first LMB on it about 20 years ago, numerous others since and a lot of chain pickrell. Replaced the hooks several times. It has been snagged on submerged logs numerous times and once it was snagged on a limb dangling just out of reach but in plain view, I spent 2 hours getting it back. So about two years ago I took it out of service and placed it on display in a china closet. I'm a bit tardy getting started this season but I've decided to take more chances this year in the hopes that it will result in more fish.

Again not any help but when I lived in NJ and worked in an industrial park there were several small ponds of just a few acres, literally 2-3 acres, one was right across the street from my work place. For years (I worked there 19 years) I thought there wasn't any chance there was any fish in the pond although we would see people sometimes try. One day I went over at lunch time and tossed in small pieces of bread which as attacked by bluegills. Next day I spent the entire lunch hour reeling in blue gill after blue gill. After doing this for a couple of weeks (and forming an ad-hock fishing club), I decided to see if there might be something bigger so I dragged a few texas rigged plastics and darn if there weren't LM bass in there as well as some nice sized carp. I fished this pond (actually a glorified mud hole) at lunch time for several years and found a few others in the park that were just as productive. So look around you might be surprised. Small ponds like this do not get much if any fishing pressure. Also, in my area in the old Lehigh canal some of the canal has water in it and there are some nice sized catfish. I have a boat now and in Beltzville it's difficult to fish without one but I actually caught more fish when I was bank bound than I do now. It takes a lot of time to get a boat from home to the fishing spot and back again. This might be of some use https://www.hookandbullet.com/c/fishing-fayetteville-pa/ Allow me to say when I first started bass fishing it took me forever to catch my first. One the day I hooked my first LMB I told myself when I left home that if I got skunked again then this would be it, I gave it (LMB) a shot but it's not for me. This was easy my 20th time trying. I tried a bunch of spots that I was told had bass, nothing. Finally I purchased a book that listed many lakes and streams in NJ and how to fish them and the pond I hit pay dirt at was right behind the municipal building in Absecon NJ. It is a public park and kids fish it but not many serious bass fishermen so it's not a bad fishing hole. My neighbor took me to a brackish pond across the street literally from Great Bay in Tuckerton. I caught many LMB there over the years and hardly ever saw anyone else fishing there. This is in an area famous for strippers and weakfish.

I'm personally up in NE PA in the Poconos so I'm useless here but it would be helpful to know if you are you bank fishing or boating? Have you asked at any of the local tackle shops? How far are you willing to travel?

Sounds like you picked the wrong dealer.

Probably an air leak somewhere between the fuel pickup in the tank and the carb to motor block gaskets. Replace every bit of fuel line, rebuild the fuel pump, replace the fuel filter. If that doesn't work rebuild the carbs.

I fish Beltzville and live right around the corner from the Pine Run launch. Sorry to say that due to things beyond my control I haven't even taken my boat out of winter hibernation yet and have yet to fish at all 2017. A friend of mine was out last weekend. He told me the fish are still on the beds and that the water temp was 65. That was almost a week ago, the weather hasn't been good so I would assume the temp is still below 70 on the surface. Wish I could be of more help.

I agree with A-Jay The hull is totaled. Under the fiberglass floor deck is foam and wood. I would be very surprised if the foam wasn't waterlogged which is not good for the wood. The motor is probably totaled but if it were free I would do a compression check, rebuild the carbs and see if I could get it running. It very obviously spent a lot of time sitting in the water. You might get something for the trailer if it is all there and sound.