PECo

My favorite spinning rod is a seven foot Shimano Crucial. It has a split grip and the rod blank is exposed under your hand through the reel seat. Shimano's Express Warranty Service would replace it for fifty percent of MSRP if it were to break.

Any of the boats you've mentioned would work. They'd all last forever with regular maintenance. One of the first things that shows the age on a boat, especially a fishing boat, is the carpet on the deck. Although it's comfy underfoot, it holds dirt and moisture. You might consider getting one without carpet.

Compression.

That was a great buy. I have a couple of buddies with that boat. It gets the job done.

I fish 10 pound test Tatsu and change it often, unfortunately. I tend to helicopter my lures and twist the crap out of it. Yes, I know how to drag my unrigged line in the water to untwist it. Sometimes, though, you just have to change it. Look at what a 20+ pound foul-hooked carp did to my line after a 35 minute fight, yesterday:

Landing nets almost always get in the way or aren't readily available when you need them. I was jealous of the landing net storage that some Phoenix bass boats have in their cockpits, so I added a 1/4 inch starboard shelf under my port console that holds my folding telescopic net. Yes, the irony of using starboard on the port side of my boat didn't escape me. It's a Cabela's-brand net. I had to add a bungee to keep the net securely on the shelf: It's out of the way when I don't need it and readily accessible when I do. I joined a bass fishing club, and have a rule that my partner and I must net every keeper-sized bass. So far, so good.

First initial, middle initial, last name. It was my LAN ID at my last job.

Oooo, better yet, no carts allowed!

Yesterday, Connecticut Kayak Anglers (CKA) asked on Facebook whether anyone wanted to fish Breakneck Pond early in the morning today. I had no plans, so I said, "Sure." We agreed to meet at the trailhead to Breakneck Pond at 6:30 am. For those who don't know, CKA is run by Alan and Anthony to organize kayak fishing tourneys. Unlike other groups that organize kayak fishing tourneys, CKA is not-for-profit. CKA pays out all entry fees, less only some incidental expenses. This post isn't a pitch for CKA, so we now return to our regularly scheduled program. . . . When I left my house at 5:35am, Google Maps notified me that Bigelow Hollow State Park opens at 8:00 am. Breakneck Pond is in Bigelow Hollow State Park. I worried that we might not be able to get into the park when we arrived at 6:30 am, so I sent Anthony a message. He responded, "I have to work today. It's Alan who's going to Breakneck." The gate to the park was open and I met Alan at the trailhead to Breakneck Pond at 6:30 am. We loaded our kayaks onto our carts and headed up the roughly one mile trail. Luckily, the heat of the past couple of days broke and the air was wonderfully cool. It ended up peaking at only 80 degrees in the afternoon. It didn't take long for us to make it to the pond: I launched first. Although there was a slight breeze from the north, the water was like glass at the southernmost end of the pond: While I waited for Alan to launch, I tossed a wacky-rigged five-inch Senko to the edge of a small bed of lilies along the shore and got a bite: Greaaat. . . . Alan finally launched and we headed up the pond. I told him that I wanted to paddle all the way up to the north end of the pond in Massachusetts before fishing our way back. We made it only a quarter of the way up the pond before Alan declared that he was marking fish on his finder. I told him that finders don't catch fish, so, of course, he had to stop and prove me wrong. I have to admit that it took him only one cast: We ended up fishing our way up the east shore of the pond, before fishing our way back down the west shore. During our counterclockwise circuit, I caught fish mostly with the wacky-rigged Senko, although I also caught a couple with a Z-Man chatterbait with a big Keitech paddletail swimbait trailer and one with a topwater Zoom Horny Toad: To me, that was a very strange thing. Although the surface temperature of the clear but stained water ranged from 75 to 79 degrees, the largemouth bass were strangely unwilling to hit a fast moving lure. Most of our bites came on slowly fished Senkos. I think that I hit one of my two chatterbait fish in the mouth while it was yawning. I threw the Horny Toad for at least an hour and got only the one bite. Alan threw a spinnerbait and caught only pickerel after pickerel after pickerel. Weird. In the end, we fished from 7:30 am to 2:30 pm. I think that we each caught one black crappie. Alan caught way more chain pickerel than my 1-1/2 dozen. And my 31 largemouth bass might have been more than he caught. We never did see any larger fish. I think that our lunker probably weighed only 2-1/4 pounds. Again, weird. I think that the next CKA kayak fishing tourney should be at Breakneck Pond and it should be LeMans-style; everyone has to load their kayak onto a cart, haul it up to the pond, fish, load their kayak back onto the cart and make it back to the parking area, all within eight hours. Whaddaya think?

Today, a buddy and I hauled our kayaks just over a mile up a trail to Breakneck Pond in Connecticut's Bigelow Hollow State Park. His yak weighs more than twice as much as mine, so I had a much easier hike:

I try to let pickerel tire themselves out before boating them. It's a lot easier that way. That particular pickerel bit my first Horny Toad clean off. I went to set the hook and whiffed. My 50 pound test braid drifted back down to me in the slight breeze. At that point, I thought it must be a northern pike. I tied on another Horny Toad and casted back over the same bed of lily pads. It swiped at the Horny Toad every time for five casts, before I was finally able to set the hook on it properly. I was a little bit disappointed to see that it wasn't a pike, but pike really can't handle the stress of being caught when it's really hot, and both the air and the water were REALLY HOT, so getting a pickerel, instead, was a good thing.

If you were to buy or borrow a Mercury VesselView Mobile, you could see the actual RPM as reported by the motor. Since your RPM might be a little high at full throttle, your motor could probably handle a little bit more prop, such as a higher pitch three-blade or a four-blade. I agree with WRB; I'd get a four-blade prop. However, since you said that your goal is the highest possible top-end speed, a higher pitch three-blade prop would be your best bet. I'm in central Connecticut. I know that it'd be a bit of a haul down here from the Boston area, but I have a 20-pitch three-blade Laser II and a VesselView Mobile, if you'd like to try them out.

I agree with this. Get a charger that has enough banks to also charge your cranking battery. If you use your electronics AND your pumps (i.e., livewell or bilge), it puts a lot of demand on the cranking battery.

I have a 2017 Triton 179 TrX. Here's a photo from when I got it in January, but the boat now has dual consoles:

Well, I fished the Connecticut River, today. Or, at least, Keeney Cove, which is a large cove off of the river in Glastonbury, Connecticut, across the river from the south end of Hartford. Here's my report:

A four-blade prop will improve your hole shot and get you on plane more quickly, provided your motor has enough torque to handle the increased "bite" of the prop over a three-blade prop. Many of the Mercury props have removable vent-hole plugs that allow motors to use props that would normally have a little too much bite for the motor. When you vent the prop, it lets exhaust gases escape at low rpm, which allows the prop to cavitate and spin more freely. At higher rpm, increased pressure keeps the exhaust gases from escaping through the holes. Changing the prop on my 2017 Mercury 115 Pro XS four-stroke from a three-blade to a four-blade prop was a night and day experience. I use a Spitfire X7 four-blade prop that didn't compromise my top end speed, but now my boat gets on plane faster and with much more linear acceleration. With a coangler, full tourney load and full livewell, I can still run at over 45 miles per hour, which is the speed limit on Connecticut's larger lakes.

I use Gamakatsu No. 4 Octopus Circle hooks with an O-ring when wacky-rigging. I almost always end up setting the hook into the lip of the fish.

I have two buddies who bought almost identical Nitro Z18s, but one got the single axle trailer and one got the double axle trailer. Guess which one is happier with his boat?

Running wires for electronics isn't THAT hard, even on an aluminum boat. You just have to locate the existing wiring chase so that you can get through all of the foam. Do it yourself. You'll be happier with the installation, in the end. Oh, and that's a nice boat.

There are a lot of smallies in that stretch of the river and you could run into a striped bass at this time of year. The anadromous stripers are swimming up the rivers to spawn. Both smallies and stripers will hit a topwater walking lure, like a Strike King KVD Sexy Dawg or a Zara Spook. That's my favorite way to catch them.

I've been fishing a lot, lately, but also traveling and not fishing a lot, too. I post a lot of reports on a local Connecticut fishing forum. Today, I'm stuck in Newark, New Jersey, but here's my report from Monday:

The colors and pattern on that first smallie are crazy! Beautiful fish!

At 64 degrees, I'd bet that most of the largemouth bass are still pre-spawn. Down in Connecticut, although I've seen bass on beds, most of the beds have been occupied by sunnies. And most of the bigger bass I've seen have been roaming around the deeper outside weedlines and edges of lily pad beds. The crazy weather has definitely confused the spawn.

Mercury's VesselView Mobile module should work with the Mercury motor. It's supposed to be compatible with "2003 and newer, 40 HP and above Mercury outboard and MerCruiser sterndrive / inboard engines." It would provide speed, tach, voltage, engine hours, and fuel level, too, but you enter the starting fuel level and it estimates the remaining fuel level based on usage. I'd choose four-stroke over two, newer motor over older and newer hull over older.

I think that older aluminum hulls hold up better than older fiberglass hulls, but I'd choose the better motor between the two. Ask the sellers whether they've had the motor serviced and the compression tested. You don't want the aggravation of dealing with a balky motor.