RobDar

has anyone else noticed this... Red Cajun line is said to disappear in 3 feet of water because the color red disappears underwater.. and yet everyone makes red hooks, weights, and red marked lures they say improve strikes etc... so if red disappears under 3 feet of water...what good do the red hooks etc do? isnt this a contradiction? or am I missing something here?

try a couple of the repair places you find online... Who bought evinrudes trolling motor operations...Motorguide???? You will likely have to find out who is building them now or who bought them. My father in laws new boat had a Pinpoint I could not find any info on...and it is one of the programmable ones you can set to run by itself and set GPS way points etc etc so we REALLY needed the manuals. Motorguide ( mercury) took over pinpoint trolling motors. I GOT NO RESPONSE AT ALL from Motorguide directly...BUT WHEN I CALLED MERCURY...they called me right back and had photo copied manuals to us in 2 days.

...first simple thing to check...( if your 96 has this system in it) make sure that the flotation ball in your oil tank is not stuck or saturated with oil. I had this same problem and several marinas told me that I needed this and needed that and not a single estimate was under $600...took it to an old man we fish with and he immediately took the sensor out of the oil tank and said... "yep...see...stuck and satuarated, if you buy a new one they are made of plastic and they wont do this" took 5 minutes to change and cost $18 for the snesor...

OH Yes...sounds so familiar! After 6 months of the wife being unemployed ( she makes more than I do so it hurts more when she is unemployed) she finally finds a job...we were so relieved...finally get caught back up... We spend all of our available cash to get som bills paid and start catching up again... 1. and the fridge catches fire. so we buy a used one of craigslist... 2. it last two weeks and the compressor goes out...while we were away...and ruins $200 worth of meat we had just bought. so we go get a new fridge and new meat... 3. while transporting some dogs to a rescue my van starts acting up..figure well it is overdue for its tune up..no big deal...take it into the mechanic... 3rd cyliner is dead. needs the heads rebuilt...and it is the only tow vehicle I have so I cant go fishing! WAAAAAAAAAAA! we had to borrow money to get the heads done... and we are now more in debt than when she was unemployed! LOL! I am actually afraid to go out and start the boat. LOL! and I recently found out why the fridge problems happened...one leg of my electric service was way high on voltage...it also burned up a couple lights in the house... while the utility company fixed the problem...do they care the cost me several hundred dollars??? of course not.

you will love that Xpress. It was a good find! two guys fish Xprees boats in our tourney club...I took one of them out for a spin...boat ran like a dream! good job! good luck! and good fishing!

so to all you Illinois Tournament anglers out there... I am searching for someone who has fished one or all three of these lakes... 1. Lake Springfeild 2. Lake Carlyle 3. Kincaid Lake If you have fished a TOURNAMENT at one of these lakes or at all three...I am curious how the loocal facilities/ launch/ etc etc was at these lakes. They are the three top contenders for our tournament of champions next year. I told the director I would ask around and get some opinions. He has concerns about the launch at one of these lakes and I cannot remember which one right now...

so my brother, who is not a fisherman and has never been bass fishing, went out with me the other day. At the end of the day ( he caught two) I asked him if he had fun and he said... "well Bass fishing seems to be alot like marriage...an awful lot of work for just a few minutes of excitement that comes too far and few between." I thought that was funny.

It is great you got to be freinds with your dad. Proof again that fishing is soooo much more than just throwing a shiny thing in the water. You should be fine towing that boat with that truck. That Madza is actually a good stout little truck. My brother in law does some things with his Ranger ( same truck) that you would never think he should, but it does everything he asks it to. He just hauled an old cast iron furnace with brick lining from a job that weighed a crap load more than that boat does and it did fine. my mechanic would likely suggest a tranny cooler and to keep an eye on all the fluids etc.

First...congrats! Friend of mine just bought a very simliar boat...an 89 tho...he loves it! He says the thing handles great...runs smooth and dry. He was a non boating partner on a tourney league and he says this old 89 runs better and feels better than his x partners 01 Nitro. second...Cart7...you have got WAY TOO MUCH info floating around up there in the ole' brain pan. Dont you get headaches??? LOL! Hey if you want to put windsheilds on it...I just made windsheild for mine...it is not as hard as you might think. I actually had fun doing it.

Where I am...the places to launch that you DO NOT have to pay are FAR A FEW bewtween. Public Access around here has always meant, public access+launch fee. There are a handful of places that are free to launch at, but very few...and most of those are in such bad condition or in such bad areas they are not good launches anyway. Around here I actually look for the private and/or pay ramps cause they are the only ones worth a darn. Even the DNR places that do not charge a per launch fee require a DNR lakes and river sticker on your boat which you have to buy every year. The lakes that have free launch and have housing and/or associations have for as long as I can remember had parking restrictions and/or other way to deter outsiders from launching. One lake...if you live there there is a nice ramp to launch on...if you do not live there you have to use the really scary twisty little ramp, usually half washed out, at the end of this really skinny one way street... this is just the way it has always been... you have been lucky if you live in an area where this kind of thing is not the norm.

so you are definately talking used then... I agree..shop alot...but buying used is different than buying new in my book. While i might buy a NEW Ranger...I would not buy one used. Why? They hold their resale value better than other boats and you will get less boat for your buck buying a used Ranger. I would sit down and make a list of what you actually NEED in a boat....and then shop for that. I have a list of what I would like in a boat...from electronics, to rod storage, to fishing deck size, etc etc. If I came across a Ranger and a Nitro in the same price range but the Nitro had better electronics, better trolling motor etc...I would surely choose the Nitro. when buying used I personally would not stick with brand as much as I would function. Triton, Ranger, Bass Cat...all of those you are paying a bit more for the name on the side. Yes there is a reason they have good reputation I agree...but when buying used I kinda feel like you are always at risk of buying someone elses problems. I guess my point is that I would definately not sacrifice something I wanted or pass up a good deal or improved equipment for the sake of the brand.

Bingo! Ann-Marie knows her batteries! You say your battery life is not what you would like... First...are they ever? Second...how did you get to sulfur? There are hundreds of less abstract causes of shortened battery life.

how very existential of you. Had much therapy? LOL! LOL!

I love my wife to death. We have been together through alot of ups and downs...from darn near homeless to fiarly well off...and everything in between... BUT IF SHE OUTFISHES ME AGAIN I AM GOING TO TIE AN ANCHOR TO HER ANKLES!!! LOL!!! I catch a 2 lb'er...she pulls in a 2 1/2... I catch a 3 lb'er...she pulls in a 3 1/2... I do not know how she does it!...and the worse part of it is she sits backs there a grins! GRRR!!!!

B.O.A.T. Bring Out Another Thousand

not strange to me...in fact I am upset you said it aloud. I thought it was my secret LOL! LOL! The pink worm...especially pink senko's...has been my " the fishing is tough" bait for a few years. When the fishing is slow and hard I can usually catch something on the pink. I think it is not thrown alot and it is something the fish have not seen. Just last tournament a few of the guys were teasing the wife for throwing it. "OH LOOK...shes is throwing pink, doesnt THAT FIGURE...got one in mauve as well" we weighed in fish...they didn't.

watch the first boat when the actual video starts... talk about your holeshot...

I will be looking forward to hearing more on this possibility...

......and the end piece of this logic is that if they did not perform, we would not continue buying them...a valid point.

...to try lucky craft lures. Okay I am not a cheapskate and do not mind paying for what works...but $16 for a crank bait? for $16 dollars that lure had better "lure" fish from across the lake and catch fish everytime it hits the water. Anyone have any experience with these lures?

Well first...welcome... second...I live somewhere near you and have fished the Kankakee. The Kankakee...depending on where along it you are fishing exactly...can be deceptive. There are some weird currents on that river. The water is usually dirty and it does not take much on that river to get it stirred up and it to become like fishing in hot chocalate. The first thing to keep in mind is that 10% of the water holds 90% of the fish. If you are fishing for a specific species...like Bass...there will be alot of hit and miss until you find them. We always end up covering alot of water on that river. It is under alot of pressure...the fish are smart and have seen every bait ever made. Do not be discouraged...the Kankakee can be tough fishing. I have never had much luck with surface baits on the kankakee except in some of the backwater turnouts/bays and eddy's...the protected, slow current side of some points. When I go out on the Kankakee I usually look for slack water...the backside of large lay downs, places where there are large rocks, backside of jutting points, the inside of turns and changes in the direction of the river, the backside of weed beds...places where the current changes. I will toss in a spinner or a crank...if I get nothing...I will toss in some plastics and fish them real slow. I do not know how many times during a tournament we have gone in behind someone, or they behind us, and have pulled fish out of a spot we felt was already well fished. The pressure on the kankakee makes the fish kind of finacky. Oh and I usually change my rods to braided line before fishing the Kankakee...too much stuff to cut and snap mono or floura lines...

I would guess that this is like anything else in life...there are good guides and there are bad guides. My father in law used one for a big tourney in alabama...was not helpful at all. They never found any fish and the guide was in the same tourney so how helpful was he really???? A friend used on on kentucky lake and the guy not only got him on the fish but gave him all kinds of paperwork...fishing logs and stuff...as to what to try for what conditions he was fishing in. That was years ago and he still has those logs and still uses them and he feels they still work.

....aye...for us Irish lads sunblock is a religion!

I worry more on those early morning trips out to tournaments...when the raods are free and open...and the idiots are leaving the 4 am bars. in the last 2 years 3 guys in our club have been smacked by drunk drivers...one of them d**n near killed. that scares me more than heavy traffic.

buy the plug in trailer light tester...plugs into the plug on the vehicle...costs about 6 bucks at Bass Pro. I has little green LED's on it. use it to elimante the vehicle as the problem. If it shows clear on the vehicle...you know it is a trailer problem. Check the ground... if the ground does not clear it... remove all the bulbs...and put them back in one at a time...put in the left rear bulb...test it...right rear bulb...test it...until you find where the problem is coming from. ( my trailer had a bad running light housing that made my lights go wacky) If the railer light tester says the vehicle is fine...the ground does not clear the problem...and when you put the first bulb in the problem starts right off... you may have wires whose insulation is rubbed off or damaged inside the trailer channel.