fishnkamp

Something else to think about... Most times when someone says their having their worst year they just blew an engine up!! Not had to do some maintenance.

Actually if you can work on your own stuff it is easier to gain confidence in it. Also there can be a good bit of satisfaction in it as well. The thing you did right is to address the repairs in complete system repairs. What I mean too often people try one thing and then later do something else. If you are chasing a suspected fuel system issue then start at the tank and end at the carbs. I recently suspected I had similar issues with my 75 Merc 2 stroke. I started at the tank,, removed the aluminum protective pieces and found Lowe had left the clamp loose (sliding up the fuel line) I replaced all of the fuel lines (this is on a 2010 boat that must run e10 most of the time) from the tank to the deck fitting and from there to a new Johnson brand primer bulb ( I found they make a better primer bulb than others) to the engine. I have already installed a new fuel filter and complete fuel line/fuel pump kit and so the entire system was upgraded. Next I replaced the spark plugs and the ignition wires ( the engine is a 2000 and they were original). Lastly I replaced the original poppet valve, thermostats and water pump.I installed fresh lube in the lower end. I found the engine idled much better and I could actually see when the poppet valve was opening on the water pressure gauge. I fish a lot and not only here at home. Annually we run 14 to Kentucky or Tennessee and I had complete confidence in the engine during vacation. Some of my work could have been do later but by doing it all at once it completely eliminated it. I also had to learn how some of the engine systems had changed over the years, none of my outboards ahd a poppet valve or used high volume water pumps like this one.

That should be a nice light combo.

All of the usual jigs and swim jigs if they are at least 3/8 because by the time you add a trailer you should be fine. Also you can carolina rig any trailer you want. That also means any 3/8 or heavier texas rig.

Maybe I misunderstood what he was fishing. When I look up swinging jig head on Tackle Warehouse I find this http://img.***.com/watermark/rs.php?path=BPDEFLC-BRW-1.jpg&nw=302 He is asking about throwing 5/18 to 7/16 I assumed he was putting some type of plastic like a craw on it. That is not a bait I would need to throw on a flipping stick unless I was working heavy cover and then i would be tossing a 3/4or bigger one. As for the bait being to light for that depth of water, it depends on the situation. This spring my wife and I fished with a guide on Dale Hollow Lake. Almost all of the 5 to 7 pound smallies and some largies came from grass flats in 5 to 15 foot of water.We caught these fish with 1/10 ounce Ned Rigs. That was all they would eat and it was fun. I guess maybe the Diawa might be better.

If you leave the boat on the trailer , back it in till the back of the boat is wet open the rear compartment and you should see the water leaking from a cracked fitting or hose.

Someone has said you start with the engine trimmed all the way down and trim up as your boat lift onto plane. When you are driving at speed like say 30 to 40 mph the trim can be your friend, I will tap it down a little when I am coming up on a turn or maybe bouncing from waves. I am not talking bringing it down much but often in rough water or about to make a tight turn I will bounce the trim switch down so I catch the water better and then hit it back up a touch when i am straightening back out. i will do it also if I need to quickly slow down due to something unexpected happening in front of me. It is a good idea to get a ride on your new boat from the seller or dealer. Do not be afraid to tell them you would like them to show you how they operate the boat and then run it the first time with them. If that is not possible find a local bass club or even a neighbor that owns a bass boat. I know someone that paid for a crab dinner for someone that taught him how to drive his new boat. No one turns down a good seafood or steak dinner!

Well I see a sorta three tiers of reels and there really is a noticeable performance difference between them. The entry level baitcasting reels usually retail for under $80. Now this group has been improved over the last few years but mostly by using a little better bearings and often they will have between 3 and 5 bearings. The next group retail at $100 to $200 and these usually have higher end bearings, better gearing and much smoother drag systems. The braking systems are much better as well. These attributes allow the user to effortlessly get great casting distance and play a fish well. I believe more work and improvements have gone into this group as a whole than the other groups. The third is the really spectacular reels that quite frankly I can not afford to know much about. These reels retail all of the way up to $500 or $600 and these reels are the Cadillacs and here it is much more about superior feel, looks and size. Happily, for those on a tighter budget, the internet and some of the larger stores like Gander Mountain, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabelas and Academy frequently offer some of these mid grade reels for budget prices. Twice this spring i caught A Diawa Exceler that retails for $100 sell for $60,, That is a really well built reel, I found a Diawa Tatula and Tatula Type R models on equally good sales.The Tatula is sold for $149 everywhere and I got it delivered from Amazon for $109. The Tatula Type R sells for $199 and I purchased some for $130 delivered. These are truly competition level equipment for those prices. Similarly for rods there have always been the rods like an Ugly Stick or Berkley Cherrywood, and Zebco that retailed under $50. But there has been an amazing improvement in graphite that give thinner blanks with much more sensitivity. Again there is a difference in price groups again. The market of rods that retail below $125 now includes some really light crisp sensitive rods with good components including guide that no more than 5 years ago would have been found on rods selling upwards of $300. Now the $125 to $225 priced rods include some amazing rods that are equal to some high end rods from just a few years ago. The graphite is really sensitive, have lightweight reel seats that allow contact with the rod blank and have guides that are lighter, and built to last when using modern braided lines. Companies like Powell, Irod, Dobyns, Diawa, St Croix and others have really steppe up the under $200 market. Go put some of them in your hand. It is easy to notice the difference. There are lure categories that never existed before and that has changed things as well. Welcome back in the sport. Tight Lines

I would throw it on the Dobyns 733 rod. Plenty of sensitivity to that rod.

The drag star is your drag adjustment control. The brake adjustment is used to control the speed of the spool during the cast. This along with the spool adjustment help give you the greatest distance without having a backlash.Go over to youtube and watch some videos about using a baitcaster or adjusting a baitcaster. If you see the term dual breaking or dual brakes it does not apply to your reel. If you leave the brake control at zero adjust the spool tension first and then add braking you should learn easily how to maximize your distance without suffering from a backlash. You will need to tweak the settings with different weight lures. It takes a bunch of practice so do not get too upset or frustrated. If you keep things a little on the tighter side then learn to use your thumb to slow the line down as the cast is nearly ended you can loosen up a little on the brakes and then the spool tension. Ultimately you will find that some of the newer reels in the $100 price range can perform better resulting in longer and easier casts. Above all enjoy yourself. A baitcaster can make fishing heavier baits more efficient and more enjoyable.

Here is how I setup all of my reels to make it affordable. The typical baitcaster holds about 150 yards of line. My Diawas hold exactly that much. So if I want to fill it up with braid or fluoro then I have to buy a 300 yard spool. if I am going to use the Tatsu it would cost around $45 for 200 yards. I basically fill one reel for $45. In doing this I still must put on some mono to avoid the braid from slipping. Instead i spool 1/2 of the reel up with either Stren Clear Blue, or Berkley Trilene that costs $8 for a 330 yard spool of 14 pound test. I also like the Bass Pro Excel, it costs $11 for 1200 yards. So the Stren costs about 2.5 cents a foot, it lays nice on the reel and now i only add 75 yards of Tatsu which drops the cost significantly ( by the way Tatsu cost 22.5 cents a yard) which comes to 16.87. Now we spooled a reel for 18.75. If you stretched it a bit by adding a little more mono and only added about 66 yards you could make the spool fill three reels. If not you use 75 yards per reel and have 50 yards left to use as leader material for your reels with braid. Another benefit is say you have a major catastrophe all you need to do is replace 75 yards of fluoro or braid. Use a uni to uni knot to join backing to braid or fluoro and use the same knot to tie on braid or fluoro to the leader. I have gone to this method for all of my reels spinning and baitcasters.

That lake is on our to do list actually. I lived on the Susquehanna River back in the nineties when it was in its heyday, Wow! Then I went up to the town of Northeast on Lake Erie. I saw my second 7 pounder caught there ( the first during a tournament on the Susqy.) IN Tennessee I have been amazed at how many 5 to 7 pound smallies I have caught. I even got a 7 pound Kentucky from a Tennessee lake. I have heard great things about your lake though. I just keep thinking what that 11.15 pound smallie must have felt like on the other end of the rod! Billy Westmoreland must have spent his life and career in heaven on Dale Hollow Lake.

I believe you can get away with 12, 14, or even 17 pound Halo or FluoroClear for everything except the jerkbaits. Actually I like a rod with a softer slower action for jerkbaits anyway, so my jerkbait rod has 10 pound FluoroClear and my rod for all of my jigs and t rigs has 30 pound braid and a 10 pound CXX leader.

For spinning reels of 2500 and 3000 size P Line Halo in 6 and 8 pound test works good. Just after you spool it drop the spool in warm water for a few minutes. After that it plays well. The stuff is tough as nails so much so you can not bite thru it when needed, and it's really abrasion resistant. Here on the Upper Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac we have plenty of rebar, crab traps, old sunken barges, docks with lots of barnacles and other line destroying stuff and I have several friend using the Halo 6 and 8 pound test for all of their finesse worms, Sencos, Ned Rigs wacky rigging etc.

First is this a spinning rod or baitcasting rod. Fluoro can get hairy in larger diameters on spinning reels. Most Fluoros have memory issues when used on spinning reels, especially over 8 pounds. I use P Line FloroClear (a copolymer line with a fluoro coating) and a lot of my friends use P Line CXX but not over 8 pounds. Also they like 6 and 8 pound Halo and again not over that 8 pound test on a 2500 or 3000 sized reel. Now for baitcasters that memory issue is much less a problem. i would consider 10 pound cxx or even 10 pound Halo. I use a lot of 12 pound FluoroClear as well. If you want abrasion resistance and a line you can not cut with your teeth use 6 or 8 pound Halo

If I understand you correctly, you only want the boat to have the 9.9 engine on it so you comply with the local lake restrictions. Here in Maryland I set up a boat just like that for a lake with a 20 hp restriction. No problem, go to this Mercury website. https://www.mercurymarine.com/en/us/engines/outboard/compare/?e[]=313 Notice the 9.9 hp motor shows tiller and remote steering available. You tell the dealer you want a 9.9 hp remote engine. You also want this T&H Marine CMC brand trim/tilt plate called a PT-35. Bass Pro I know sells these plates, that is where I got mine. http://www.basspro.com/CMC-PT35-Tilt-and-Trim/product/16087 You want it electrically hooked up to the wiring that would have fed the trim/ tilt system on a bigger engine. The trim switch in the throttle will now operate the trim on the plate. It can and will be done, it was done on mine. The tilt plate is necessary because you will be under powered and it will allow you to get a little more speed out of it. The engines with less than 30 hp usually need trim but do not come with it . Out here we have a bunch of drinking reservoirs that are electric only lakes. We have guys using Torqeedo and Ray electric outboards and they have boats like the one you want. Yes they have their engines hooked up with remote steering( remote steering means hooked up to your steering wheel on your console). With this engine they will install it centered just like any other engine. In fact it will be easier for them using the plate. My 17.5 foot Lowe Stinger 70 weighed 1000 pounds for just the hull. I played with props and added a stingray jr hydrofoil and that setup did 17 mph using my 25 hp motor (decaled up to say 20). I fished it on that lake and several big Tennessee lakes.

Well I did not figure all of it out a once but I originally would fill less than a third but when braid and especially the better Fluoro came out I figured it out quick. When one fill up can cost $30 bucks it get expensive with 12 to 20 rods in y our arsenal. The nice thing about braid is I have braid on some of my reels that is 5 years old and working fine. Here is a funny story. My wife is ADDICTED to smallmouth. This April we drove 14 hours west to fish Dale Hollow Lake. While fishing we were catching a lot of smallies in the 5 to 7 pound category on Ned Rigs. These are small 1/10 ounce mushroom shaped jigheads that you attach a TRD Ned bodies (picture a 2.5 inch piece of Senco) made by ZMan. We both fished them on G Loomis 6 foot light action rods. They rate 1/16 to 5/1/6. So we are about 15 foot off of a 30 foot rock bluff wall. The smallies are holding tight but suspended down about 15 feet. I notice, on the depth finder, a huge school of big fish directly under the boat and these are hanging tight to the bottom. I was sure they were catfish. The next minute, as my wife was retrieving her lure back to make another cast, she was interrupted by a major jolt on the rod and it was on!! She yelled to get the net that she had a huge smallie on ( this lake is he home of the world's largest smallie ever caught, a 11.15 pound smallie). I reach up and loosen her drag so we do not break a $350 light action rod. All I did was sit down at the console as she fought and landed a 6 1/2 pound catfish. All the time, I was laughing and she was running from the front deck to the back deck and back up front again. That fish pulled drag and three times that uni to uni knot went out thru the guides. Here is a picture of the typical smallie we caught that week and the cat she caught. I love it when my wife smiles from ear to ear. We only dated for 10 years and only been married 28 years. It still gets me when she is smiling like that !!!

Cool! Thanks! I was curious and you know what happened to the curious cat....

Absolutely not I was speaking generally, I have not fished them personally, but friends of mine have and love them. Shimano builds really quality equipment. In the past I have had the opportunity to have a few conversations with the owners of the Dobyns, Irod, and Powell rod companies. In each case, it was questions about selecting or obtaining a rod, not problems, During these conversations, certain questions about why something was done or changes were made have been asked and I got honest and clear answers and the reasons behind decisions were made due to these type of issues. It was funny, during a conversation with the owner of Powell I asked about the discontinuing of my favorite Powell rod, a Powell Max 683CEF. That rod is the most versatile rod I own.. The owner admitted when they updated the line to the Max3D series he thought the rod was too similar to another rod in the line and it was eliminated. He said he has "heard loud and clear" the opinions of his customers and before Icast this month he had brought it back into production. In fact I could order one from him right then. So sometimes those decisions have reasons behind them and not always the right ones. He did however go out of his way to help me assist a member, on this board, to purchase and ship a rod to Canada where he lived, just because he did not have a dealer anywhere close. I give him props for sure. I also love his rods. I am sure you will fall in love with those rods.

Here is the way to do it. Go get a spool of good quality mono line. You can get a 300 yard spool of 14 pound Stren Clear Blue Original for around $8 or a 1200 yard spool of Bass Pro Excel for $11. Now these lines will allow you to tie a good tight arbor knot ( I recommend you watch a video of that knot on youtube), and it will not slip. Now spool 1/2 a spool of the Mono. Next using a uni to uni knot tie the mono to your braid and spool the braid on. There are several good things about doing this. First the cost of mono is pennies compared to braid, so the $11 dollars for 1200 yards makes it cheap to half fill a reel.. Now using this method the typical 300 yard spool of braid will fill several reels, making it economical to use. Some high quality braids run nearly $30 for a 300 yard spool. Secondly if you have a major catastrophe or you use the braid for several years and want to replace it, you only to replace the first half of a spools worth. Now if the circumstances require a leader, use the same uni to uni knot and tie the braid and leader material together. In fact your left over mono can make your leader also. I usually use the Excel for backing and I carry some P Line CXX in 6, 8, and 10 pound test for leader material. The 10 pound test is pretty nice for leader material and it really breaks at about 22 pounds so it is tough. I usually use a leader of about 3 foot. Doing this means I cut and tie my lures onto the leader and not my expensive braid. I do the same thing if the main line on my reel is going to be Fluorocarbon. Fluoro makes good leader material as well, so I have the remains of several spools of Fluoro in my boat also. I hope this makes sense. If I look at my Diawa Tatula reel it holds 150 yards of 12 pound mono line which is the same diameter as SpiderWire Stealth 30 pound braid. If I spooled 150 yards of braid it would cost $13.25. To spool 1/2 of the spool with Stren it would cost $1.9 + 1/2 a spool of braid= $6.60 roughly, giving us a full spool of line for 8.50. The rest of your mono and braid will fill some more reels. So the cheapest way to fill reels is with a 300 or 330 yard spool of mono (or a 1200 yd spool of Excel) and a 300 yard spool of braid.. Similarly it makes fluoro cheaper per fill up as well. Some of the Fluorocarbon makes the braid look like a bargain. I do the same thing on my spinning reels as well. Make sure to stop filling your spool about 1/8 of an inch from the top of the spool and it help to use a tool fill your reels up. I use an old Berkley Line Spooling Station. I can do it by myself, and can control how smooth and tight the line goes on.

Sometimes companies discontinue products due to warranty issues, sometimes cost of material and sometimes the difficulty in getting consistency in the manufacturing process.

It is funny my wife is my main fishing partner, and she ADDICTED to smallmouth!!! Because of this fact I have had the opportunity to fish some great water like Erie, Dale Hollow Lake, Center Hill Lake, Lake Anna VA, Lake Gaston, the Susquehanna River etc. We even fished the Bow River in Calgary Alberta for trout during our honeymoon. She also loves to take fishing guides, I am truly blessed. The funny thing is a couple of years ago I asked her if she would rather have a diamond necklace for Christmas or another G Loomis rod... She chose the rod! So the Bait Monkey got her too! LOL. Over half of the G Loomis rods in this house do not belong to me!

Glad you found it without blowing up anything. The VT17 is a sweet boat. The current boat my wife and I own is the 11th boat in 40 years. We were setting a boat up to fish a specific lake about 30 minutes away from our house. It was a mid sized lake with a 20 hp max so we had to find just the right boat. After looking at all kinds we ended up choosing between a VT17 and a Lowe Stinger 170. We ended up getting the lowe but I still love the VT17 and VT19's which are now Crestliner VT's and Lowe HP's Funny Lowe bought the line when our boat became 1 year old! The dealer was really confused by my laundry list when we came in the first time. We had them install a PT35 trim/tilt plate, my Merc 25 detailed up like a 20, a 5 inch smaller pitch prop and a stingray jr hydrofoil. The boat setup that way came out level and did 17 mph. Since we now live on the Chesapeake Bay I replaced the 25 & trim tilt plate with a 75 HP Merc 2 stroke. It now runs 32 mph on the gps and has a slightly more aggressive hole shot. I am curious my boat is a 2010 so we are very similar, what engine and what speed do you get out of the boat.

And the Bait Monkey smiles again!!!

Oh come on tell us, so we do not do ourselves! We all make dumb mistakes and the suspense is killing us Truly we are glad you figured it out. Around here it is less about "all knowing: and much more about "all helping" each other. That and a little friendly jab int he ribs once in awhile LOL