PECo

That's the first link I clicked, but the post was deleted, so I think that ship has sailed. I'd choose a newer four-stroke over an older two-stroke and Yamaha makes good ones. My 2012 Yamaha 115 four-stroke was smoother than my 2017 Mercury 115 Pro XS four-stroke. When I traded it in, the dealer told me that it passed the compression test like a brand-new motor.

Regarding the choice between SINKs and SOTs, either would work. SINKs tend to be lighter and you definitely sit lower in the water. When the wind is blowing, that's both a good and a bad thing. You get blown around much less, but you can also take waves over the bow and even the coaming around the cockpit. SOTs are heavier, but they're more robust. Unlike SINKs, they shed water without bailing. However, you sit higher on the water and are more susceptible to getting blown around by the wind. They also tend to have more features, but also be more expensive. ANY boat that can get you out onto the water is a good boat. The biggest problem with inexpensive kayaks is the seat. They're typically very uncomfortable for long periods of sitting. They're especially unkind to your back. Nicer, generally more expensive kayaks have raised seats that are much, much, MUCH more comfortable than most molded-in seats. I'd look for the kayak with the most supportive seat that you can afford. After seat comfort, the next most important criteria is weight. A lighter kayak is easier to store, load, transport and paddle. Easy gets used; hard does not. A kayak that I'm considering as my next fishing kayak is the Pelican Catch 120 NXT. It offers a fantastic combination of features, comfort, weight and price. I'm not looking to replace my current kayak, but I've worn through and repaired the hull once, already, so it's definitely wearing out.

I use spinning setups and my favorite for wacky-rigging five-inch Senkos is a Shimano Crucial paired with a Shimano Stradic FK 2500 spooled with 10 pound test Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon. I prefer seven-foot rods, but rod length is up to you. I like this setup because it's light. The Crucial has a split grip, which I prefer, with the rod blank exposed on the reel seat. Even on slack line, I can feel the tick of every nibble on the Senko. I fish from both a bass boat and a kayak, and the weather-sealing on the Stradic is terrific when you're sitting really close to the water. As much as I like braid, straight fluoro sinks a little better and you don't have to use a leader. That said, if your preference is for baitcasting reels, I don't see reason why you wouldn't stick with a baitcasting setup for wacky rigging. It'd work just fine.

What kind of frog do you throw?

A buddy who just moved down to central Virginia told me that a guy fishing from the fishing dock next to the ramp at Briery Creek Lake landed a 12-1/4 pound largemouth bass last Saturday. Supposedly, the guy took photos and released it. I'm still waiting for a photo of it to show up online somewhere. I guess that Virginia isn't just for lovers.

Trim down as you throttle down. That'll lower the bow as you slow.

I had a Maxxum cable steer, went to a Terrova electric steer, and now have an Ultrex. The Ultrex is the best of both worlds. It operates like a cable steer, but it's really an electric steer, so you have the option to use a remote. Plus, the Ultrex mount is light years more robust than the Terrova mount. Get an Ultrex.

That's what I do. Just find out what the long load law is in your state. In Connecticut, you must put a red flag of not less than 12 square inches at the end of the load if it projects more than four feet beyond the back of the vehicle. And at night, you need a red light. My kayak actually doesn't project more than four feet beyond the back of my Jeep, but I put a red flag on it, anyway, because I figure that most cops probably don't know the law. No offense to my cop, buddies intended.

I sometimes target chain pickerel in Hamburg Cove, which is off of the Connecticut River near its mouth. The average pickerel in the cove seems to be 23 inches long and the biggest one I've caught there was 28 inches long. When I target them, I use spinnerbaits. No leader is required. At certain times of year in certain lakes, it's tough to get past the pickerel to hook a largemouth bass. I fished in a kayak tourney 2-1/2 weeks ago and one poor guy caught 15 pickerel and no bass. I boated about six pickerel and shook off several more, but managed to boat 18 bass by fishing very, very slowly. Up in Lake Champlain, the northern pike are big and a lot of fun to catch, but my favorite ones to catch are the pike-pickerel hybrids. They're almost the size of northern pike, but fight like chain pickerel; they never give up.

I'm really happy with my 2017 Triton 179 TrX. Don't be fooled by the model number; it's 18' 6" long. I was shopping for a smaller bass boat at the same time as a couple of my buddies. They both got Nitro Z17s with Mercury 150 four-strokes. I have less of a need for speed and the Mercury 115 Pro XS four-stroke on my Triton easily drives the boat at 45 to 50 miles per hour. The Nitros will do 55 to 60 miles per hour. The fit and finish, and the quality of the components used, are better on the Triton. While the Nitros drive slightly better, their more radical hulls are more susceptible to hull slap when stopped. In the end though, one of my primary concerns was the width of the boat on the trailer, because I garage my boat and my garage door opening is only 104 inches wide. On the trailer, the Triton is 98 inches wide and the Nitro is 102 inches wide. I really like being able to easily back my boat right into the garage.

Last Sunday, I finally caught a two pound, 11 ounce, largemouth bass during a tourney to put into my livewell. When I opened the hatch, I was surprised to see water in it, already. The flimsy plastic drain plug had popped out. After I dunked my arm into the water to put in the plug, I turned the Livewell switch to Manual and filled it 3/4 of the way up, before switching it to Timed. The water temperature in the lake hung between 57 and 58 degrees all day, so I figured that I didn't need to fill it all the way up. Then, I turned the other livewell switch to Recirc. The livewell worked fine all day, even after I added a three pound, one ounce, smallmouth bass and a couple of Englebert Keeperdink smallies to it. I never did get a fifth keeper, though, so it was a "best of times, worst of times" kind of day.

Thanks for the post. I've been dying to give this a shot.

I accept what you've said, but my experience has been that your table greatly overstates the weight of the typical largemouth bass that I see in Connecticut. I understand that there's going to be variation from the mean, but the vast majority of the fish that I've measured fall on the left side of your bell curve. Maybe I only catch skinny fish. I guess that I'll have to keep the batteries in my digital scales fresh.

Yeap, the water's still cold in Connecticut, too. Of course, smaller ponds are warmer and rivers are colder. Over the last three weeks, I've been seeing water temperatures from 55.5 to 64 degrees. I haven't seen any bedding activity. None at all. So, I'd call this pre-spawn. So far, faster moving lures haven't worked. No topwater, no crankbaits, no spinnerbaits and no chatterbaits. The lures that have worked are suspending jerkbaits up in the water column, and jigs, Texas-rigged soft plastics and wacky-rigged Senkos on the bottom. I'd bet that a Carolina rig would work, too. I'm not much of a jerkbaiter, so I've been sticking mostly with wacky-rigged Senkos on the bottom around cover. Yesterday, I caught a five pound, 11 ounce largemouth bass in four feet of murky, 57 degree water with the Senko: I also caught my first ever jig fish with a jig with craw trailer hopped along the bottom. It was so much fun that I also caught my second. Black with blue flake seems to be the right color for jigs and Senkos. Don't give up. Just fish the bottom really slowly.

That's may be true of Florida largemouth bass, but not up here in Connecticut. I WISH it were true up here. though! Yesterday, I caught my first five-plus pound largemouth bass for the year. It weighed five pounds, 11 ounces on my buddy's Rapala-branded digital scale and five pounds, 12 ounces on my Berkley-branded digital scale, so I'm calling it five pounds, 11 ounces. I didn't measure its length. Maybe I should start a thread for people to guess its length.

You throw spinners for white perch?!?!

I only get impatient when a boater blocks the ramp unnecessarily. Loading gear into or unloading gear from the boat should be done somewhere other than on the ramp. I usually tell boaters who are having problems and rushing to get out of the way to slow down and take their time. In the end, it's quicker when they do.

By "more serious anglers", did you really mean "dicks"? Like riverbasser said, take your time and don't worry about everybody else. Especially the dicks.

Yes, I DO need to catch a fish to play around with the livewell!

The thing I've learned after owning eight or nine kayaks is that EASY is best. A kayak that's easy to store, easy to transport, easy to paddle and easy to sit in for long periods gets used. The same thing is true with paddles. You should spend the $125 or so needed to get a super light paddle with a carbon fiber shaft and nylon blades. The two kayaks that I still own are easy. My Hurricane Santee 116 Sport weighs weighs only 36 pounds. It's not really a "fishing kayak", but I never think twice about throwing it into the back of my Jeep and going fishing in it. My second kayak is an inflatable Hobie i9s with a Mirage pedal drive. If your brother had gotten one of these, you could have gotten one, too. Both of them would have fit in the trunk. However, neither of these kayaks is inexpensive. A new fairly inexpensive kayak that just came on the market and looks like it would be easy is the Pelican Catch 120 NXT. While Pelican isn't one of the more prestigious brands, this kayak looks like it's well thought out. The only really significant omission I see is the lack of a molded-in transducer scupper, but you could easily install a through-hull transducer in it. I'd also put keel guards on the lower portions of the double keel. Unlike polyethylene, it's hard to put a good patch on laminated Ram-X. However, I think that the weight-savings of the Ram-X are worth the extra precautions needed. http://www.pelicansport.com/en/products/kayaks-2017/sit-top-kayak/catch-120nxt-new

I'm not a bass tourney guy, but joined a buddy's club this season, because it lost several members. I'd been fishing with my buddy for years as a sub for his son, who would tap out every time the weather was bad or Tom Brady was on TV. The club is small; only six boats, now.The first tourney didn't go so well for me and my partner. We were the only team out of six who had to do The Walk of Shame to the weigh-in. So, no, I haven't figured out how my livewell works, because I didn't need it. I just knew that I should have thrown the couple of trout we caught in there, just to see how it works. In case you were wondering, we also caught a small chain pickerel and three short largemouth bass.Hopefully, I'll have some fish to throw in there during the tourney next weekend. And, hopefully, they'll be bass, not trout. On the plus side, I fished a kayak tourney last Sunday and caught 18 largemouth bass, of which eight were keepers. I'm pretty sure that I caught at least twice as many as anyone else. Unfortunately, my best five weren't all that big and I came in fifth out of 28 anglers.

Yeap, you've been bitten by the fishing bug. You should drag a lure along the bottom. In your area, largemouth bass are probably bedding or preparing to bed. From your location on the shore, you should be able to reach them. Try a Texas-rigged Senko, ribbontail worm or Brush Hog. Good luck!

I broke in my 2017 Mercury 115 Pro XS four-stroke earlier this year. Like everyone else said, do what the manual says. I have a suggestion, though. Get Mercury's VesselView Mobile for your motor. It's super easy to install and lets you view the most critical engine parameters on your cellphone with an app, including the number of engine hours and RPM, which helps you to stick to the break-in schedule. My motor has the standard gearcase (i.e., not the Command Thrust gearcase), and came equipped with a 20-pitch Lazer II three-blade prop. My 2017 Triton 179 TrX didn't come out of the hole very smoothly with this setup, so I swapped the prop for a 19-pitch Spitfire X7 four-blade prop. With the new prop, holeshot is much better and acceleration is much more linear. My last two boats had Yamaha four-strokes, so I was a little worried about going with a Mercury, but I really love the motor. It's very quiet and easily drives the boat over 45 miles per hour, which is plenty fast for me.

My rule of thumb for largemouth bass in Connecticut is that a bass hits one pound at 14 inches and gains an additional pound for each two inches beyond that. Of course, there are exceptions to that rule. Your bass looks like it had an average girth for its length, so I estimate that it weighed between 5-1/4 and 5-1/2 pounds. In any case, congratulations on catching a nice fish! I'm still looking for my first nice one for this year, so I'm a little bit jealous.

I'm guessing that you're more of a bass fisherman than a trout or walleye fisherman. So am I. I recently went from a 17-1/2 foot trailered deep-vee to an 18-1/2 foot trailered bass boat. The bass boat is much easier to operate and is much more comfortable both in terms of ride and fishing. I'm pretty sure that you won't regret passing on this boat. Good choice!