RHuff

Yep man fire it up and take off..

I have had the most success using the Keitech Paddle Tail Swimbaits as a trailer. The Easy shiner works well. I also always match the color as close as I can to the skirt color.

Shaky Head!

UPDATE: I took the entire drain plug case out and used a soft wire brush on a dremel to sand away all of the old sealant down to the aluminum hull. Resealed a ring of flex seal around the insert with another ring around the edge and reattached the insert into the hull. Let it dry for 24 hours. Took the boat out for a couple of hours this evening and when a pulled the plug after loading on the trailer it was bone dry. Problem fixed! Good Feeling!

This seems like a possibility........My questions is how do you get to the dang thing??

Is the bilge the same thing as the battery compartment when I open the back hatch in-front of the outboard? This part is bone dry while the water is exiting out the drain plug hole..... How do I manually fill the bilge with water? Or are you talking about fill up the livewell with water?

Guys the other day when I pulled my drain plug after a fishing trip I had a pretty good flow of water coming out for a minute or two. It seemed to be probably 7 or 8 gallons of water. I noticed the seal behind the drain plug was starting to dry rot a little so I took my drain plug case out and resealed it really good and put the plug case and plug back in. I have the type that twists into the plastic case. I let it set about a week. I took it back yesterday evening for a couple of hours and when I pulled the plug it still had a flow of water but not nearly as much. Seemed like about 3 or 4 gallons. It was a steady stream for about a minute then slacked off to a drip. It went from having nothing at all to this. I have not damaged the hull or done anything. There are no cracks or gashes in the hull. I also noticed that my bilge will not pump anything out. I can hear a buzzing when I turn it on but it never ejects any water. I'm afraid the pump has gone bad. Will this allow water to flow in the bilge drain if the pump has gone bad? My feelings towards this is water is getting in from the bilge drain or another seal around another drain has gone bad. It isn't enough to even noticed when your on the water. I only noticed it when I pulled the drain plug. Like I said, it went from nothing coming out after pulling the plug to this from one trip to the next. Anyone know what it could be?

I was told that all that is really needed to be done is to Change out the lower unit oil, change filters, replace spark plugs, fill tank full with fuel, add seafoam and sta-bil. Regrease the trailer barings and prop. Remove batteries and keep tended. Does that about cover it?

This will be my first winter with my bass boat I bought this year. It is a 2008 Triton Aluminum VT-17 Tournament Sport. It has a 2008 Mercury 50HP 2-Stroke. Can someone with this motor and similar setup please explain to me what you do in order to winterize your boat. I'm going to try to keep it in my father-in-law's garage this winter but there is a chance I may not be able to and will need to keep it outside my house by my drive way. For us fishing season is pretty much non-existant from November - March as the lakes freeze. I do have an all-weather boat and motor cover that I keep on it every time its not on the water.

A 20 inch bass is usually right around 5lbs.

I've always hear not to run Premium. I certainly will if you guys think I should. Again, it is a 2008 Mercury 2-Stroke 50 HP..

Triton also makes a really good 17 ft aluminum all tricked out that would probably save you a big chunk of that cold hard cash.

When you guys start your motors and let them warm up on idle, do you trim your motor as far down as it will go, or do you trim it to level? I've always just trimmed it to where I thought it was level. Thing sometimes has a hard time starting (2008 Mercury 50HP 2-Stroke), but runs great after it gets warmed up. Yesterday, I trimmed it as far down as it will go (slightly past level) and the thing started on the first turn and idled great and warmed up much quicker. Have I been depriving it of gas by not tilting it all the way down? Also, I've always ran mid-grade gas in it (89 octane) I believe and added the green colored marine 360 sta-bil to it. I have a quarter of a tank of gas left. I think I'm gonna add a full can of seafoam, run it on idle for a while to clean it out, and then syphon the remaining gas in and put ethanol free gas in it from now.

Keep us posted man. That thing looks rough on TV. Wishing you all the best over the next day or two.

I've caught one fish on mine all year. A little 1/2 lb dink. I've caught more bass with bigger size on the Boyd Duckett walking popper.

I have a 2008 Triton VT-17 Aluminum Tournament Sport with 50HP Mercury. Thing runs great, seems to be build like a tank and my father and I can fish out of it comfortably. It barely drinks any gas and the thing is easy to pull and lauch/load with my Tacoma 4x4. I'm VERY pleased with my boat and plan on keeping it for a long time.

I get a lot of good fish on the Pitt-bull SB from Berkley in Red Crawl pattern....

Ok my boat has that button, lord did that ever make a difference! Put it to about half and it fired right up with a good strong idle..now i feel dumb that ive been trying to rack my brain as to why it was idling so weak

Just make sure that the brake and magnet is set right. If the spool is set to turn too freely at a faster rate than the bait is moving through the air it will backlash a lot more frequently. Ideally you want the spool to spin at a slower rate than lure is traveling so that the lure actually turns the spool during the cast. This should help cut down on the frequency of the backlashes.

I use the midnight special spinnerbait at night in the black/red skirt.

I have never noticed a button before, but I will check. What does this 1/2 to 2/3 throttle mean when starting? I have never touched my shifter during a start until kicking it into forward or reverse.

I'm afraid I've been doing it wrong. I saw an article and it says to do the following steps in order... 1 Tilt motor all the way fully down 2 Prime up the bulb to firm 3 Hold in choke for 8-10 seconds 4 Move throttle to Neutral 2/3 5 Push in choke and turn ignition Immediately kick throttle back to N after starting to let warm up for 3 minutes before kicking into gear Anyone that has a Mercury 2-stroke, how do you start it? Mine is a 2008. I tilt the motor to level. Pump the bulb. Choke the key in for about 5 seconds and start cranking. It usually takes 4 or 5 turns of the key to fire, and sometimes stalls out a few seconds after starting. Once I get it started and kick it into forward it runs good. Carbs are clean. Fuel lines and bulb is clean. Does it need an idle adjustment or am I going about the starting process wrong? Once I run it, it starts up fine the rest of the day. It's just the initial start.

I finally had my first two frog blowups on Friday evening right before dark. Fished a bullfrog pattern (green on top and chartruese belly) with the skirt legs over large patches of lillies. I was throwing it right onto the bank and very, very slowly working it out to about 10 ft or so past the bank. I was finding me a nice little opening in the lillies and giving it a soft pop just to make it dance in place without really moving. They were murdering it after the second or third pop when it was sitting still.

Can't catch anything on Jigs to save my life. I've tried flipping around cover, casting deep, and swimming over grass beds... I've tried hopping them, dragging them, and slow rolling them. I've used trailers, no trailers, HELP

Thanks. I just feel overwhelmed with it. I need to just take a day and run the boat and stay directly with the screen locating structure and learning how to interpret it. I know that everything on screen moves from left to right. Is that displaying what's under the boat from the front to the back if my transducer is mounted on my transom?