Way2slow

Dream sheet physci. If you want the south, pick all northern states. If you want southeast, make picks in north west, that seems to always be how it works. The only time the dream sheet comes into play is if they happen to need your AFSC at a base that happens to be in one of your selected states. What AFSC, when you finish Lackland, and go to your tech school. At Lackland, you will not have a life, you will belong to the AF and your TI, so don't plan on anything there. Your not going to have much of a life at Tech school either, especially if single and living in the dorms, so don't expect much there either. If your going into a communications field, you might get a state side assigment but it's a good chance it will be with one of the mobile units, so you get to spend every other 179 days overseas in the sand box, but don't even get your hopes up about getting a stateside assignment. Georgie, Oklahoma, and Florida are bad states to pick if your AFSC happens to be one used by the mobile units. Texas don't have base's that are close to the great fishing lakes. Robins AFB in GA is near some pretty good lakes but is home of one of the largest mobile units and only has very few slots for non mobile slots, not a great place to be. Needless to say, you might want to check out what base's are available in the states you pick and what their mission is, and what units are assigned to that base. Don't depent on that recruiter to give you these facts, he has a quota he has to me for good performance reports so he's going to tell you what he thinks you want to hear. I spent 22 years playing those Air Force games as a comm winnee, so I know a little about how they play. Oh, and hope like the devil you don't get into security, those guys really get the short end of the stick.

Actually, the problem will still be there, he just won't feel it until he trys to steer left. True, you won't feel the steering while not trying to steer the boat, but it will still turn right very easy and hard to turn left. This realy creates problems when trying to drive a chine walking boat. Steering needs to be neutral.

Not sure what type of additive your considering, I've never seen or used the one your talking about but most additives have no affect on gas/oil ratio. It should say on the container if necessary to adjust mixture ratio.

I've seen numbers of Wal-Marts that sell jon boats. The one in Thomson GA has so many different sizes strung across the front they look like a marina. May be based on how near a lake is to them and what their market is.

What kind of prop, three or four blade, aluminum or stainless? Is motor on jackplate, how far below the pad is the centerline of the prop? At WOT and trimed out, where is the spray, in front of you, beside you or well behind you? What kind of condition is the prop in? All these things have a direct affect on streering torque.

go to Wal-Mart and buy one of their jons. Brand new and under $800 (before taxes)

Is this when at WOT and trimmed up, or when not trimmed all the way up and at slower speeds? The two rood causes are too much hull drag and natural torque of the prop by the direction it's turning. You said you moved the trim tab and it got worse, which way did you move it? I should be turned so the back of it is moved to the right (starboard side). If you're running a jackplate and have the motor raised, it's possible that thing is not even in the water. A lot of times you have to run a skeeg mounted torque tab. You may be running the motor too deep and you may not be getting enough bow lift.

You're not going to find one on the boat. For the motor, you're not going to beat the factory OMC manuals but they have to be ordered for your year model.. If it's not real new, sometimes you can find them on ebay for $15. The newer models the dealers can get for you but they run $30 - $45. Clymor (or something like that) makes a generic manual that covers a wide range models and years but a lot of times they will give you just enough info the get you in trouble.

I do much more pitching and flipping at night than casting. During the day, I do very little flipping but at night, it's totally effective. I do a lot of casting also but I pick cover (tree tops etc) apart with a flipping stick at night.

I use a 7.5' MH rod, 17# line, 5" weighted popping cork, approx 3' leader and a Bett's Pop N Spot, ripped in fast jerks across the top of the water. Keep one rigged and in the boat at all times. For schooling bass, Stripers and Hybreds chasing shad, it's deadly when they are breaking the surface or worked across points. Don't catch many real big fish, approx 4# bass, 8# hybred and 12# stripper is about the largest I've caught on it but the numbers of fish are beyound counting.

My first question would be, are we talking the same time of the year. If you were running those speeds and rpms back when the water and temps were cold, and are using warm water and temps as a reference now, you can't do that. The motor looses about 300 rpm during the hot summer water and temps from what it will run in cold water and air temps.

The way I fish current is to take the boat past the spot (up stream) you want to fish, then use the trolling motor to control the drift as youi drift backwards down stream so you can fish the area you want. It does take a pretty good size bow mount TM if you have a very fast current but once you get the hang of controlling the boat, it works. I've have a couple of rivers I fish that have extremely fast currents and this is the only way I"ve found to fish them. My 42# bow mount TM will just barely hold my 14' jon boat and will not pull forward in some of the spots I fish.

Well, I can't resist this. I've always said I carry everything but the kitchen sink in mine. I think that's my kitchen sink. Just do me one favor, don't stand up in it, you look like a pretty healthy guy and you do make that boat look small. Kidding aside, if it floats, if you can fish out of it, and it fits your needs, it can be the folding chair on the floating boxes. There's a whole lot of people on this site fishing from the bank and would love to have what you have. When by yourself, and hauling in the back of a truck, those little boats make a lot more since than a big, heavy 14' jon.

Either one of the three he listed will out perform the X-52. The units he listed are very good units and will work just fine for someone just getting started. They are above the entry level X-52. Probably in the lower mid level range. He should be more than happy with which ever he gets. I should mention, the X-52 is a popular unit to do an in console mount because it smaller and can be switch to a real time flasher, but the performance and resolution will not match the other units.

I've skied bunches of miles behind bass boats and pulled bunches of skiers. As cart7 mentioned, they make tow strap that goes across the back of the boat and hooks into each of the tie-down eyes. It has a hook/eye to hook your ski rope and a float on it to help keep it from getting down into the prop. Works great. Getting in and out of the boat, just stand on the anticav plate or back of the mid section where it goes out to the lower unit, trim the motor up and step over into the boat or get one of those ladders you can flip over into the water.

First, if the hull is still under warrenty, check and see what the manufactor will allow. Most have limits as to what they will warrent. The more setback from the pad the jackplate gives the more bow lift it gives. Too much setback and you will have a problem controlling the porposing. As for what size you need for your boat, it depends on the amount of built-in setback the boat has and the length and weight of the boat. Some boats, like your newer Rangers, have a whole lot of setback already built in so you don't need to add bunches more to get more lift. Others, like a Bullet have very little so they add up to 14" of jackplate to get the lift they want and be able to run neutral trim. For a starting point on bass boats, I usually figure 1.25 - 1.5 inches per foot of boat length from the trailing edge of the pad to the leading edge of the motor. This is with the pad leveled by holding a level on the bottom edge of it and cranking the tounge jack and the motor trimed level with a level sitting on the anticav plate and measuring between the two. If it's a heavy hull, I figure 1.5", lighter hulls I figure, I go with 1.25" per foot. On my 18.5' Stratos I'm running a 8" Jackplate with a total offset of 27.5". On my 20" Javelin I'm running a 10" jackplate and thinking about adding a little more if the prop work I'm having done doesn't give the lift I need. Setback and prop work hand in hand. You need to do your homework on your hull and find what most people run for optimal performance and what prop they are running. Also, if they are running a factory prop or one they've have had tunned for their hull. Most of your best running boats are not running stock, factory props. They send them off to Rich Boger (one of the best) or one of the other prop tunners and have them custom tunned for their boat. Forgot to mention why run a jackplate. I gets the prop back away from the hull turbulance and in clean water. This gives the prop better bite and is much more efficient. It's all part of finding what's known as the sweet spot. That's getting the right amount of setback and the right prop height for your hull. When it's right, it will lift the bow, fly the hull with no problem, and drive great.

Run the biggest 27, 30 or 31 dual purpose and you should have no problem running everything off the cranking battery. When I say biggest, I mean the highest reserve minutes or amphour battery you can get. CCA or MCA don't mean a whole lot, that's just the short term power it has to crank the motor. The Ah capacity or reserve minutes it what tells the story of how much plate area a battery has. With the right battery, the depth finders, pull very little, the pumps pull about 3 amps so if you never started your motor, and ran depth finders and two pumps 10 hours without them shutting off, you should still have approx 50% battery, Normally 20% will still start the motor. Now, for the radio, if your talking marine radio, no problem, if you have your radio/stereo booming like some of these cars running around, then you might run into a problem because you're pulling bunches of amps off the battery then. To answer your question, everything should connect to the cranking battery but the TM and nothing should be connected to the TM batteries but the TM. Now, this is strickly the recommended way, I always say, it's not my equipment so you can connect everything the way it makes you feel comfortable.

I would think the light should come on but to see if it's charging, if you have a digital voltmeter, connect it across one of the batteries before plugging in the charger. It should read something less than 12.8 volts DC. Leaving the meter connected, plug in your charger, the voltage should increase to over 13.8 and should go to over 14 or 15. If it does not increase, the charger is not working. Check each battery the charger is connected to and make sure they are all charging. The above post is pretty much right but I don't think the Quest charger goes into the float (trickle) mode. I too am not real familiar with them since I only run ProMariner chargers but I think the Quest cuts the charger off and then back on when the battery voltage drops to a preset level.

I never connect anything to my TM batteries but the TM. Even when I use my jon boat in ponds with TM only, if I'm using a depth finder, it's running off a small 12 volt battery. I used to use those $20 lawn mower batteries but finally broke down and bought a 20 Ah gel battery. It can get knocked over, layed on it side, and poked just about any place you want out of the way and not have to worry about the battery. You just have to be sure you have a gel charger. The trolling motor can cause interference and even damage your depth finder or any other electronic devices you might have connected to the TM batteries. Your variable speed TMs put out a high frequency that can feed back into your electronics. You TM's that have the numbered speed positions cause a voltage spike every time you start and stop them. This spike can be enough to damage your electronics if it gets into them. Your battery acts as a capacitor and absorbs most of it but if you have a slightly loose or back connection, it's posible to zap your electronics with a few hundred volts, and they usually don't like that. They also have filters to aborb spikes but as the old saying goes s*** happens. Sometimes, running your LCD depth finder of the TM battery, you will notice everytime you start/stop the TM you will see a black line on the LCD, this was the spke I was talking about. Let me change my "never". I used to go night fishing for white bass. We usually tied up under a bridge and droped minows, I would use my TM batteries to run lights we used in the water.

Deep cycle trolling motor batteries work on small and most midsize four cylinder motors but not on the larger motors and V-6s, You can run into starting problems. Deep cycle batteries are not designed to deliver the higher cranking amps required for bigger motors. The voltage drop caused by the lack of cranking amps to properly spin the motor, can cause a drop in ignition output voltage. Dual purpose batteries deliver the necessary cranking amperage for a short time while still being able to withstand the long, slow current drain and discharge that cranking batteries can't handle. Almost no outboard charging system (even the larger 35 - 40 amp system and no way will a 10 - 15 amp system) will maintain a full charge on bass boats cranking batteries, even if you make long runs. It would take a couple of hours to fully charge a battery that been used to run all the junk bass boats have powered up. Several studies have been done on tournament boats and the cranking batteries in almost all of them were only about 80% or less when they came back to weigh-in. You should always charge your cranking batteries at the end of your fishing day. As for what type battery for your boat, that's just depends on how much you want to pay. There are many differences in batteries, they are not all created equal. Cheap batteries are cheap for a reason. At the same time, unless you really nead a sealed, maintenance free battery, the batteries the you add water to can be bought with a higher amphour capacity than those sealed batteries.

Don't have to be the Great Lakes. I've been on inland bodies of water that looked like that. Get down toward the dam on Clarks hill and have one of those afternoon thunderstorms come up and it can put a 20' boat looking for calmer water. Been there, done that. 4' - 6' white caps in a 40 mph wind ain't no fun at all.

Me and a friend caught 28 largemouth, just before and into daybreak. The smallest was 6 pounds 9 oz's. the largest was 9 pounds 3 oz's. The bulk of them were in the mid 7 pound size. This was a long, long time ago though, when Clarks Hill lake was in it's prime. I'm talking back in the 60's The best recent trip was January two years ago, me, my son and my dad caught 63 strippers in three days and the major portion of them were 12 to 16 pounds and a couple of 20+ pounders. All caught casting swim baits on 14# line, Curado reels and 7'MH rods, none were caught on live bait or trolling. Could have caught many more with bigger tackle but it takes so dang long to get one of those things in on that light of tackle because the just pull so dang hard for so long. Many times all three of us would have fish on. We still on accasion get into schools of bass where we catch 20 - 30 in a short while but usually nothing larger than three pounds and most around 1 1/2 - 2.

You can actually lay AGM's on their sides and use them without doing any harm to the battery. It does reduce the capacity by 10% while laying on it's side but it makes them very convienent when wanting to slide them under a seat out of the way.

I would get the one I could get the best deal on. The 480 will give you a little better seperation but if you can get one of the 320's for a lot less money, You really won't see that much difference. Iether of the three will make you a good sonar. As for the 320's, it's kinda a no brainer, get the Lowrance over the Eagle it they are both about the same price. They will have newer, better models out by the time you get one of these figured out anyway. Best way to learn, take it and the book to the lake and spend severa hours playing with different settings. Learn to set it up in the manual mode so you control depth, sensitivity/gain, gray line and so you can control the clutter at the top of the screen. The very first thing is to Turn that fish ID crap off. Learn to use the settings in the manual mode and it will give you a much better/clearer screen and still show you what you need to see down there. Set right and you can see a 1/4 oz jig being hopped off the bottom in 30' of water without all that other clutter in there.

How old and what kind of shape is battery in, has it been stiing a long time without being charged? Might want to take it and have it checked. My first guess is the battery is no good. Try the charger on your car battery and see how it does. It should gradually come down unitl it makes the full charge lamp come on and then stay there. If it does the same thing on another good battery, take the charger back.