Ben

Gas pedal mounted on the floor like a car. If you want to see if they are necessary, take a ride in a my boat or any that will truely run in the 70's/80's. Not too bad when no other traffic is on the lake, other than having an 80 mph wind blowing your cheeks back past your ears (single console). Let a few other boats, jet skiis, water ski'ers get things churned up a little. You will be surprised how light that 1,500 lb hull will get, how much you will be getting tossed around, and how many times your off and on the gas. Then you look over at the GPS and find we've done slowed to the 50's and you'd swear we were running 90. I think that's why a lot of guys with the 60 mph boats bragg about how they will run in the 70's

My favorite two methods are the frog or rat twitched over the tops, making a several little quick twitches and then stopping, like a mouse scurring around, of a little slower and longer with the frog. Just remember, don't jerk, make sure you have a fish on first, even though a fair size bass will scare the crap out of you when he bust at it. He may have to make a couple of strikes to connect, if you jerk it very far, he won't try for seconds. If they don't take that, then I bust through with a heavy jig (mostly black with blue but in spring I will use brn orange or grn orange) on at least 20 lb line. I also keep a 1/4 jig rigged to flip it in any hole you see a pad missing. The slower fall triggers more strikes.

Definitly not a toy, a must have safefy device when you're running the kind of speeds many of the bass boats are running now. When you start getting into the 60's (which is slow for many boats today) and faster, you want both hands to drive the boat, and dang sure don't want to be using one hand to mess with a throttle lever. That's also why they put the trim and hydraulic jackplate controls at the steering wheel. Some use the buttons on the wheel, others have the little leavers that look like turn signals below the wheel.

As mentioned: lets you dial in motor height Gets the motor back in clean water, away from pad turbulance It also helps the motor/prop lift the bow. All this boils down to, if you want optimal performance from your boat, a jack plate is a must, doesn't matter what boat. Before running out and buying one, you need to do your homework. Too little offset and you don't gain the full advantage. Too much offset and the you will have problems with porposing and place more strain on transome. Addtional stress cracks are probably gonna show up in you gel coat when you add one. Check with the hull manufactor also about the warrenty and how much offset they will allow. Another offshoot from adding a jackplate, you will probably want to try different props, they are not all created equal. I've seen almost 10 mph increases on stock bass boats just by tweeking the setup with the right jackplate and prop combination.

Ya'll are making it sound like work. I just leave the winch hooked, back the boat in, step on the bumber, walk down the trailer, undo the wench, get in the boat, crank the motor, back it off and tie it to the dock and go park the truck. loading, I dock the boat, back the trailer in, drive the boat on, get out in the front onto trailer, hook wench and cinch it it up tight against the stop, park the truck and get boat ready for the highway. Now, if you're talking about a jon or boat without a drive on trailer and moving water like a river, that's a totally different challange. The first thing you will have to do is put guides (those tall bars or pipes) at the rear of the trailer. Two shorter ones about 2/3's the way up the trailer help also. If you don't have these, the boat will wash around side ways at the back and is almost impossible to load by yourself. It's actually almost impossible load with two people without one getting in the water to hold it.

I don't, because it's seldom I drift fish and I never troll. When stripper fishing is really slow, we will sometimes go get some bluebacks and drift with those, but I just use the TM to control my speed. If the wind gets real hard, I turn the boat into it, flip the TM on constant run at a slow speed and lock the direction so it controls how much the winds moves the boat. The are a must on Pontoons if they are drift fishing, and especially if crappie fishing where lure speed is critical.

I use the plastic orgnizers (bunches of them) in different sizes and thickness. I use the individuals plastic pouches that goes in worm organizer for my plastics (probably 30 pounds of them). My boat has two livewells in the back, I plugged off one and disconnected the pumps and us that for my plastics storage. It has one large storage compartment behind the drivers seat, I use that for most of my organizers. I think it holds about 15. I also have a very large storage box in center of the bow, life jackets, ropes, black lights, rain gear, extra line, wind breakers, sweat shirts and a few organizers are kept in that one. It also has a large storage compartment on the starboard side of the front center box, I keep a camera, TP, food (crackers, potted meat, Vienna Sausage, beanee Weenie's etc) , paper towels fire starters and other junk. Under the drives and passenger seat I keep tools, parts, marker bouyes, flash lights, spot light, air horn, tape, fuses, spare sunglasses and hats. As for the rod locker, I keep too many in the boat for an organizer, there's usually 10 - 15 in it at all times. I take the lures off, tie the line in the bottom rod eye, in about the center I then hold that line out while I spin the rod a couple of time to wrap it around the rod and then hook it over a middle eye. Never have a problem with rods getting tangled. Makes you wonder how the boat even floats much less run as fast as it does. I also have several shelves in the garage for oranizers with seasonal baits so I just swap out different ones in the boat.

Lowrance still makes one, as well as a couple of others, they are pricey however. Unless you're very familiar with them, you will most likely think that's close to $300 you just threw away. Most people that use and like flashers grew up with them, I've been using one since 1966. I wouldn't have nothing but a flasher going while using the big motor a slowly looking for bait fish and structure While moving around with a TM, any good LCD will respond just about as fast as flasher. You can bouce a jigging spoon in 30 ft of water and see it jump up on the LCD at the same time you jerk up on the rod. It's just once you're going more than a very slow trolling speed that the LCD's start loosing a lot of definition. The best thing about an LCD for the beginner, is they log everything so it give a continuous picture of what it's seeing. With the fasher, you have only those instantanious bars you have to figure out what they mean.

A couple of years ago there was a guy bank fishing near a hidden (underwater) stump that I knew of and had caught several nice bass. I asked him if he would mind if I cast close to where he was fishing and caught that three pound bass that was laying there. He said no problem, he didn't mind at all. First cast, I caught a bass just a little over three pounds. The guy on the bank politely responded, "Mr. what kind of fish finder are you running on your boat"???? By the way, that fish was in five feet of stained water so there was no way I could have seen it. That was the best one, but yes, there have been many times I've made a cast to a spot, and said "that'll pull one out of there", or say, "let me go in there and get that one laying right there" and pull a fish out.

Don, I think your boat would perform better if the battery was in the rear battery compartment. If Tracker designed it to be up front, I would leaver it there, they have already made compensations for weight distrabution and balance issues. If you put if up there thinking you helping yourself, probably all you're doing is making the boat ride with more of the bow in the water that it should have. THis increases steering torque and kills a lot off speed. If you were having problems with proposing that a lot of Trackers, it does help that but again the boat would probably run better with it in the back. As for connecting to the battery in the front. Use 10 guage fine stranded wire, crimp and solder terminals on both ends. Bolt on end to the charger cable, don't cut the cable off and try to splice more wire onto it. Tape those joints up good, with plenty of tape, connect the other end to your battery. As long as you use 10 guage wire, it's not going to bother a thing. If your charger is only a 5 - 7 amp per bank, you could use 12 guage wire but, I would use the 10 just for good measures.

"On board" just means the charger is mounted in the boat (as on board the boat). Most of the more common/cheaper models only charge the battery when it's plugged into a 110 VAC source. It just stays connected to the batteries at all time so all you have to do is plug it in when you get home. Most also have the capability to maintain the batteries during storage so it doesn't have to be unplugged. On board chargers can be anything from a single output (bank) to a four bank charger (charges four batteries at one time) There are a couple of makes that do charge the batteries from the outboards charging system, Stealth and some of the ProMariner's (ProMariner also make BPS's so some of them may have it) are two of the more popular that have this capabiltiy. For the ones that have that feature, it only starts charging the TM batteries after the cranking battery has fully charged so if you're running a small or older outboard that only has a 10 - 15 amp charging system, it would be a totaly waste of money to pay the extra bucks for one of those chargers. 10 - 15 amps will not even keep the cranking battery fully charged during a days fishing if you're running pumps and electronics off it also. A 35 - 40 amp system would be the minimun charging system that could provide enough current to charge the cranking battery quick enough for the charger to switch over to charging the TM batteries, and that would still only be on fairly long runs.

Mount the sucker somewhere in the battery area that you can find a hole it will fit in. The mounting vertical is for convection cooling but the only place your probably going to find to mount it like that is the bulkhead inside the battery area thats toward the front of the boat. Usually there's livewells or gas tanks on the other side of that one so don't think you'll find an area to mount verticaly. Depending on the size, it's probably heavy enough if you don't mount it in a substantial way, it will tear itself loose over time. When you charge your batteries, use a stick to prop the compartment cover open so any gases and excess heat can exscape.

If the boat was a guide boat and he has a good business, I think I would stick with the new one. It would have to be one heckava deal for me to want to consider it, at least $12K - $15K off a new one. He has probably put more hours on that motor than you will in five years. Also, most professional's don't take that good of care of their equipment because they know they're only going to keep it a year. With that motor, you will want as much warrenty as you can get, and get rid of it when the warrenty runs out. I'm not bashing it, it's just all the direct injection motors are extremely expensive to repair, and the OPTI's have had more than their share of problems. Any kind of an ECU or injector problem can melt a piston and destroy a powerhead, a major expense. Even just a simple ECU problem can run $1,000 to repair.

When they start hitting the surface, try a small white fluke (not a super fluke). Let it settle several inches and twitch it back to the surface, do this all the way back.

You can find the tip half of one in Clarks Hill and the other half in the floor of my boat. I have a couple I've gotten from BPS. I really like the one I have in one boat that has the flat plastic tip and the sections twist lock inside each other. I was buying another for my other boat and they didn't have that one so I bought a different one. It just has a plastic nut/coupling on the end of each section that wedges down to lock the sections and had a spiral spring on the end. The first time I tried to retrieve a lure, the $30 piece junk pulled the plastic lock off the end of the middle section. Lost half the retriever and a dang good plug. So, needless to say, if it's dark brown, has those plastic nuts on each section and the spiral on the end, don't waste your money. don't waste your money on this one, not worth the time to take it home http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog.TextId?hvarTextId=37104&hvarDept=100&hvarEvent=&hvarClassCode=11&hvarSubCode=5&hvarTarget=browse

Best job is what ever pays enough to afford to fish and gives the time off to fish. There are two things in life, it takes to be able to do what you want, time and money. Normaly if you have the time, you don't have the money. If you have the money, you don't have the time. I tourny fished unitil I got too old and lazy to want to work that hard and decided I just wanted to enjoy my fishing. I tried the guide bit for a while but that was even more work than tourny fishing. Like acstech commented, you have a bad tourny, you just say oh well, we'll get them at the next one. Have a bad day as a guide and you just lost client, and a negative referal to several other potential clients.

Just dump a whole 16 oz can in for 6 gallons. If you buy it buy the gallon, go to Wally World and in the boat section where they keep the 2 cycle oil, they sell a premarked bottle. All you have to do is turn it to the ratio you want and fill it to ever how many gallons of gas your'e gonna dump it in.

Let's see, I've caugt a bat, birds, snakes, tiny fish on huge lures, a couple of aligators, couple of logger heads and few other type turtles, but I think the best has still been when my dad and I caught the same bass. Back when plastic worm fishing was just catching on, the theory was you let the fish run with the bait for about 10 seconds or waited until he stopped, before setting the hook. (needless to say, this was a long time ago). We were both fishing a plastic worm, I got a bite and gave it some line, shortly afterwards he got a bite. After the fish took several yards line and stopped, I set the hook. Soon after that my dad set the hook on his fish. I was in the front of the boat, my dad in the back and during the fight managed to get the fish under the boat with me pulling from the right front and him pulling from the left rear, we both thought we had a monster bass on. I was fishing much heavier line and bigger reel so I managed to out wrestle him for the fish. Thinking this thing was gonna be huge, when I finally got the fish to the surface was when I saw both our worms in his mouth. The bass was about three pounds and we had dang near ripped his jaws apart. Needless to say, both our dreams of having hung the next world record bass went down the tubes, but have gotten a kick out of telling this story many times over the years.

I have always had issues with trying to direct mount swivels or short pedistals on a jons aluminum bench. The metal guage is usually to light for the mounts to hold and usually rip out after a short time. Leaving a nasty, jagged hole to deal with then. If you're looking for something easy to get on/off and won't dump you in the lake if you lean wrong, you can get the slide rails and seat system. I have one of these on my 14' jon I use in the rivers. I use a tiller steering motors on that one and it lets you sit in the center to fish and slides to one side to run the motor. All you have to do is flip the seat forward and it comes right out. The only mounting required is the two rails that mount to the boats bench seat. The drawback to this is the $40 price tag if your on a budget.

I have two I've used them for many years in different jons. They work great and I prefer the plastic high back seat that fold down and have padding in the seats. The only complaint I've ever had with them, when you lean over to one side, sometimes they will kick up and tilt to that side, dang near throwing you in the water if you're not careful. Once you learn this little quirk, and don't do that, they are great back savers. What I did on my 12 ft jon that stays at my pond, I had two pieces of 16 guage metal about 12" wide bent so it goes across the top and down the front and back of the seats about eight inches and bolted the swivels in the center of them. I then drilled a 1/2" hole in the front of them near the bottom, had a 3/8" nut welded centered over the hole, on the outer side. I welded a short bar across the head of a 3/8" bolt to make something I can screw by hand. I slide these on and screw my 3/8 bolt in so it goes into the 1/2" hole I drilled. This eleminate the chance of the things tilting to one side and dumping you and they can easily be removed and put in dry storage when not in use.

If you run in the AUTO mode, it's common for depth finders to read deep in shallow water, or to take a few minutes to adjust to the proper depth after moving to a new location. This is caused by the gain being too high and the unit reading harmonics (additional echoes) of it's orignal first pulse. Making the unit think it's in much deeper water than it really is. Thinking it's in deep water, it cranks the gain up even more, picking up even greater harmonics. The harmonics are multiples of the actual depth, so if the depth is 5 ft, a 10th harmonic would make the unit think it's 50 ft. The best way to solve this is to run the unit in the manual mode. Most of the time, I run my gain between 95 and 100%. I can see 1/4 oz jigging spoon and tube worms in 30 ft of water with no problem. I have seen fish as small as three fingerd bream when they hit the spoon or tube. With everything else properly adjusted, it shows very little trash but wealth of other info. Thermoclines show up almost as well as the bottom contour. When I go shallow I adjust the gain so the first bottom shows up and none of the other. However, it I'm going to be fishing that shallow less than five ft, I turn the unit off, it's not needed and the pings can spook fish.

Ya'll are missing the boat on schooling fish if you "never fish top water". While they are busting, throw a popping cork with a Mepp's Pop N Spot on about a two - four ft leader and work it back in quick jerks. Also try a popping cork with a 3 - 4 ft leader and a white Fluke (not a super fluke) worked much slower. One jerk pops the fluke to the surface, let it settle a few seconds and then another jerk to pop it back up again. When they stop breaking and hitting the top water, then throw a Middle N or Deep Little N and your traps. Large mouth normally only stay up a few seconds at the time so you have to be positioned in an area the are subject to break in and be ready and able to make long cast. My weapon of choice is a 7 1/2' MH trigger rod with a wide spool (Ambassador) baitcastor spooled with 17# line and use the 5" popping corks. Last weekend, me, my granddaughter and my dad probably caught 30 - 40, some in the 3 - 4 pound size. 95% of those were on topwater with the popping cork rigs. The bigger bass seem to go for the Fluke better, but the numbers are on the Pop N Spot. The Pop N Spot also works better for Hybreds but still the bigger Hybreds hit the fluke better. Forgot to mention, take a couple of bags of fluke and several Pop N Spots. I order the Mepp's two - three dozen at the time and a dozen 4" and 5" popping corks at the time.

A chunk missing shouldn't bother a thing Actually, it sounds like it's too deep in the water and you need to raise the motor a couple of inches. The anti-cav plate should be running at same level as the water. I can actually run higher but you have to be careful that you don't get it too high or the motor will suck air in the upper water inlet hole, causing it to drop water pressure. On your high performance bass boat, it never touches the water once the boat gets up to speed, that's why they can run those big hydrofoils and not affect top speed. Try it with it set approx even with the bottom of the boat. One thing, if you get it high enough for the trim tab to be out of the water, you may notice and increase in steering pressure on the tiller handle.

Shot, I dive in a lot of times just to cool off in the hot summer. I have no problems just getting back in over the side of my Stratos 285. If you're in a Jon or a pointed hull, climb back in the front. If you're physically impaired, it's no trouble to use the motor to climb in the back.

In south Texas it's neither, it's a tank.