RobDar

Wow...some sensitive reactions here. Didn't mean to offend anyone. First...there is no such thing as a $10,000 Tracker. ( not new anyway) Second...Hey if you can afford it and that is what you want...more power to ya! I did not say I think it is wrong...but I do giggle when these same guys complain about putting gas in their 200 horse...or fish electric only lakes...or mostly fish lakes with speed limits...or ( well you get the point) I just could never do it...especialy when you consider I cant fish year round where I am. I did not pay that for my first house! LOL! I guess I am just one of those guys who look at the $30,000 boat and the $50,000 boat and immediately ask myself...is there $20,000 difference here? Can I have as much fun in the $30,000 as the $50,000. Usually the more expensive version has gidgets and gadgets and they just do not impress me much. NOW...IF THERE IS A GOOD REASON for the expense...like the Triton Magnum Series Aluminum boat in comparison to some of the others... The Magnum Series is more expensive...but there is value behind that expense. It is built differently and has some major hull improvements over most mod-v's...so that is money well spent.

the equipment joke post started me thinking... how much difference does price really make? ( my wife is the ultimate cheap skate when it comes to equip...I am not...we argue. LOL!) Personally... I think it depends on what kind of fishing you do...and what your chosen equipment is. as an example... 1. I think tourny fishers benefit from the durability of some of the more expense equip. 2. I think price effects baitcasters quite considerably...although I have fished with a $150 baitcaster and a $300 baitcaster and not only preferred the $150 but also did not notice any appreciable differences other than weight. 3. I do not personally notice much difference between a mid priced rod and a more expensive one...but do notice a difference between a $70 rod and a $10 rod. 4. I do not notice much difference in open faced reels other than reliability. My wife $30 reel works just a good as my $100 open face...when it is new...but she has replaced hers since I bought mine. 5. boats are a whole 'nother story. I personally think there are ALOT of guys out there with MUCH more boat than they actually need. There is this kind of status thing...the whole my boat is better than yours. Our Tourney director talked for weeks and weeks about his new $50,000 Triton ( and everyone had to know how much it cost)...seems silly to pay that much for a boat to me. As the old guy in our circut always says... "the fish don't know the difference between a Tracker and a Triton...they just know tasty!" ( the old man fishes from a beat up old 1980's era Ranger and usually wins)

not looking forward to this weekend tournament. ( I know, bad attitude to have right?) The weather is going to be transitional weather. Rain moving out early in the morning with a warm front coming in mid morning...partly cloudy going to sunny and back to cloudy as another front comes in in the afternoon. I always have trouble with this kind of goofy weather. If it would just rain all day... or be crappy all day... or nice all day... but bouncing around weather always give me fits. I always picture the fish down there looking around like..."what the heck is going on???" maybe I will get lucky and the weather man will be way off base again.

i added the info for the crestliner...and someone pm'd me to remind me I missed triton on the list...so I added it...

so have you got the Crestliner????? it is on my top five list...worth the payola????

my wife says i need a hobby... http://houndsong1.netfirms.com/robdar/boatstudypage.htm she is probably right LOL!!!!!

someone posted about fishing in the wind... the second part about fishing in the wind is the darn boat... so I have heard all kinds of explanations as to why my aluminum bass boat gets pushed around in the wind so much worse than the fiberglass. While fishing in the wind next to my father in law in his javelin...me in my pro team tracker... The wind was pushing me all over the place... He says it is the exposed freeboard on my boat...but if you messure the freeboard while in the water I have less exposed than he does. And a guy we know who fishes from a deep V does not have as much problem as I do. A friend says it is the weight but a guy who fishes from an Xpress...which is not much lighter than a fiber boat...has the same problem. There is not enough weight difference between the upper end Xpress and mid range fibers for me to find this feasable. Why do the aluminum boats struggle in the wind?

OH OH!!! Join the club! Hate fishing in the wind! HATE IT! and considering I live near the WINDY City... my biggest problem with the wind is not what I am throwing..it is my boat. I have a aluminum bass boat and it gets blown around. There are ALOT of days around here where I am left running the trolling motor to keep control and the wife fishes.

bighead asked... Do you know if the fish were spots or blacks? Blacks. Also, did you prefish the tournament? No. We probably should have though. We are the directors of the circut on this lake...and frankly we probably would not travel that far to fish if it werent for that. Not that it is a million miles or anything...but far enough to be difficult between work and our other junk going on. We had thrown a crank to locate already. It is also why my wife ( team tourneys) was throwing a chatter while I was throwing the fluke/Senko. We try to cover the water both ways and use dissimilar lures until we get into the fish. thanx big

ooops... all our fish came from 4-6 feet off of deep water ( 7-10 feet) drops. most of the guys will not share specifics of their catches but I know a keeper or three came from this same depth/location

Anyone else have one lake or place you fish that seems to kick you in the butt every time you fish it? Ours is Worster Lake at Potato Creek State Park. We just cannot seem to catch keepers there. I know there are keepers in the lake because i am co-director of our tournaments there and I weigh in the gorgeous limits at the end of the day. Seems there is something about our style or lure choices on this lake though...we do not have a problem catching keepers other places, but here we catch mostly shorts...EVERYTIME we fish there. It is not uncommon for us to catch 6-10 fish, sometimes more, but usually there will be just one keeper if any. It is frustrating.

well we fished our first tourney last weekend... it seems it is the only time we get to go fishing these days...anyway... we fished Worster Lake at Potato Creek State park in Indiana...and it happened again! I spent all winter reading this and that...and apparently I did not learn anything because again we went out and again...just one keeper. This lake seems to be a problem for us. Everytime we go out we catch small fish. I know there are big fish in the lake cause I weigh the gorgeous limits in at the end. Now admittedly there are some really good fisherman in our club that I would likely not beat no matter where we fished ( i know...not the right attitude to have)...but when I go other places I do not have a problem with catching keepers. It is something with this lake. Something about my style or lure choices seems to produce a good number of shorts but not many keepers. Anyone else ever has this problem with a certian lake? I got so tired of seeing 13 inch fish. Our results... water temp 53-58 air temp 56-75 water stained sunny thin, non emergent weed cover 2 fish-11" caught on a chatter bait 5 fish 13"-13.5" 3 caught on a gray Fluke, 2 caught on a 6" white speckled Senko 1 fish 14.25" caught on same Fluke as above

push button...boat go...good motor! LOL! I chose Minn Kota because more places around me sell them than they do MotorGuide...so it is easier to buy stuff for...I never really noticed a difference other than that...

present bass boat style.... hmm...do you mean with the front and rear fishing decks and all? I am going to go against the grain here and disagree with everyone. I think that effort towards hull designs and low wide boats began as long as the 70's...but as far as real, functional bass boats...as late as the late 80's and early 90's. If you look at boats as recent as 87-92 they did not have much of a front deck and not alot of rear deck either to speak of...they were really more fish and ski style...the boats were really other hull made for other purposes adapted to be "bass style" boats. Boats like skeeter etc while called bass boats were actually building fishing boats...and the boats were designed to be used by multi species anglers... dedicated bass style boats like you see on the water today...built to satisfy the needs of bass anglers and only bass anglers...with big decks and quality storage and electronics...I think that is about as recents as the early 90's

Xpress vs Tracker... Xpress has a double layer hull with more dead rise and a wider beam than tracker. They are a much tougher built boat and closest to a fiber you can find in a aluminum...at least that is my opinion. My major issue with Tracker...the Better Business Buruea website. There is page after page of complaints against Tracker. Now keep in mind there is likely 10 Trackers sold for every boat sold by other manufactuers so they will naturally have more complaints because they have more boats out there to be complained against...it is when you look into the complaints and see the majority of them are warranty complaints and there are enough with "unsatisfactory conclusions" to worry me. I think some of this is that every Tom Dick and Harry who wants to run a marina sells Tracker boats...and there are some real winners out there running marina's...but if you trust your local marina ( I do not).... In the same genre boat as Tracker there are better choices...Lowe Stinger( more stingers in the hull than Tracker)...Polar Kraft Bass America ( more deadrise and additional hull stringers)...G3 Eagle Series ( more compact design and upgraded aluminum skin on the hull) The Triton Magnum, the Xpress, Crestliner, PrinceCraft, Fisher ( also built by Tracker)...are all on the upper scale and not really the same genre boat as Trackers. I agree with your uncle that the aluminums are lighter and you can achieve better performance with less horse power, but this is less and less true with the capable aluminum boats like Xpress and G3...the Xpress weighs in at just 200-400 lbs lighter than similar sized fibers in the same price range...I disagree with the beaching on sand and rocks though. Most aluminums are painted these days....and beaching the boats voids alot of manufactuers weld and rivet warranties. Fibers are generally considered to be more stable. I have a tendency to agree with that for people who fish lakes like Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and other big lakes. If you do not fish "big water" lakes, I am not sure there is much advantage to a fiber ( other than they seem to hold their resale value better) You will typically get a better ride out of a fiber because they can do more with the hull shaping in fiber than they can with aluminum. The problem with fibers is of course increased weight and obviously expense...you can find fibers for the same money and upper scale aluminums ( Cheap Nirto cost about the same as a Xpress as an example)...but you can easily run into the $50,000 range with a fiber as well... I personally think in you price range you can get more boat for you buck in an aluminum...but there are better choices than the Tracker in the 15-20 thousand price range. Better layout, larger gas tanks, more storage, yadda yadda yadda

I thought we were talking aluminum...dont know why...guess you really did not express a preference in your original post. If you are open to fibers as well...alot of choices!!! I like the looks, the info I have gotten, and the reviews I have read on the Legend...but they are just one of many good boats! On the aluminum... There is a guy who runs an Xpress in our club and he is getting the low 50's to high 40's with a 90 horse...upgraded to a 150 and is pushing 70 mph ( he says, never ran along side him...not that I could if he is running those speeds) He says that his Xpress rides just as well as his Skeeter ever did, maybe better. Keep in mind I never saw his Skeeter so I do not know what era is was...could be his skeeter was an old one with a less aggressive hull design. If he fishes the next tourney or I see him at the classics I will find out. If you fish big lakes and big water you will likely get better performance out of a wider beamed and bigger deadrise boat...and that is usually a fiber boat. The fiber boats are kind of unique in the sense that they can do more with the hull shape to make then run smooth than they can aluminum. the mod v aluminum hulls are typically 11 degree to 17 degree deadrise...the v hulls start at 18 degrees. The aluminum v hull is smoother in rougher water because they cut the wave rather than slam down against it...(This is only one factor in ride though.) The most deadrise you will find in an aluminum hull comes on the Fisher at 17 degrees ( but is built by Tracker Marine) The Xpress at 17 degrees The Tracker Avalache ( might as well buy a fiber if for no other reason than the better resale value as far as I am concerned) The G3 is 13 degrees I think if I remember correctly...and most of the other aluminum manufactuers seem to hover in and around this 13 degree mark. As far as the reviews I have read...on aluminums...the Triton Magnum topped out on workmanship quality...but price as well. I personally, if I had a tendency to fish "the big lake" ( lake Michigan) alot...I feel safer in a fiber bass boat. Been out there in my little aluminum, some newer bigger aluminums ( including a G3 and a Triton) and personally I think a fiberglass boat "FEELS" better out on the big water...

I agree with Earthworm...but I would for sure add the Xpress to that list...it is more than the G3 but not as much as the Triton Magnum. Xpress is the only of all of those will the dual layer hull and has more deadrise than both the Triton and G3. http://www.xpressboats.com/

and right there you get the very heart of marine dealers passion and push of the four stroke...service dollars!

any idea what the bait fish are? what are the water conditions? current? stained? mucky? by river resevior do you mean a turn out in the river? is the river still there flowing? or is it a damned up area?

If I were going to take a wild stab at this and guess...more than likely it is a re-tooling issue. Changing an assembly plant both in tooling and in proceedure takes alot of time and money. Sometimes it is just easier to farm it out. Maybe they are working on retooling but wanted in the market right away...maybe they were not sure if the 4 strokes were going to be real successful so they wanted to test the market before committing...maybe it is just damned cheaper to have them built out of country. alot of possibilities.

you seen how ugly a Gar is? If I were a bass I would run!

for $3250 your friend can do much better!!!! My cousin has the EXACT SAME BOAT in maroon...the difference...he paid $400 dollars for his. ( and yes it had some rot to be sure) so the boat is overpriced by about $2850. your bud should be able to find a late 80's skeeter or something similar for about the same money.

hmmm...a good question. I would have to say I am somewhat unconventional. I am pretty conventional when it comes to plastics, but cranks, top water, and other hard baits I usually do not fish them as they were intended. I do the deep diving crank in water more shallow than its rating all the time. I also throw cranks into some places my partner thinks I am nuts and use combo's that do not typically go together...put weird things on the ends of jigs and the like. I am also one of the few guys in our club who throws things like sonic spoons, weedless spoons etc etc...but I think that is just our club since it seems I have heard about guys on here who throw those lures.

18 years as an electrician tells me you need the wires rated capacity to match the full load amperage...there is no "gettting by" with electricity. It is either right...or it is wrong and potentially dangerous. I have a saying...just because the lights come on does not mean it was wired right! upgrade the wiring, if necessary, to match the motor's amperage draw. and if you do upgrade do not use house wire. THHN sucks for this kind of thing. use weldeing cable...it is considering more flexible and easier to fish through tight spaces and has more and finer strands per Sq. MM ( electricity flows on the outer surface of each strand...more strands in the same diameter, better "conductivity")

we were just discussing this at a club meeting...seems like the fish have been alot less "enthusiastic"...alot of missed hits. One of the guys thinks that, at least by us, this has been a better year weather wise than we have had in a few years, actually had normal rainfall and not near as many days of excessive heat as we have had in the past 5 years or so...his theory is that the lakes and rivers are actually healthier this year and thus there is more natural forage available and more for the fish to eat ( I have noticed more bait fish than usual in several lakes and rivers) so they are not as "hungry" or aggressive. sounds plausible to me...but who knows...I just know I am getting tired of missing good fish!