XcoM274

Here's a similar boat I found. Similar to the one you described. 5,700, so my initial estimate was a bit high. http://www.boattrader.com/listing/2000-BASS-TRACKER--TRACKER-MARINE-Pro-Team-175-92422256

Man, quite a bit. A pic would be nice. I'd go from 5,000-8,000. Thats a big range but again, we need a pic and info on engine compression etc.

Aww man that is terrible. How hard is it to snag a couple dinks just to say you got something?

Oh man thats a bummer. We had a similar situation one year. Lost 7 boats on the same dock.

I'd go with a Rat-L-Trap myself. Anytime I hear "stained" or (to a greater extent) "murky" water, rattles jump in my mind. If its lightly stained, plastics will work great. But the more opaque the water is the harder it is for the fish to find the lure to begin with. Rattling lures have the added advantage of sound and they work in cold water too because they are annoying to the fish rather than tempting. A tube rigged with a rattling jig head is also a good choice if you want the best of both worlds. I have seen rattles put in Senkos and I suppose its a good tactic if you feel experamentative.

Andrew where you from? I'm from 27 and Romeo Plank. Where you got open water??? Im pulling my hair out! Anyway, you aren't going to catch too much right now, its still too cold. After today and tomorrow it should warm up to a workable level.

Hey WRB, FYI, the formula in the tacklebox is (I believe) Length x Girth x Girth / 800. I've always heard that as the accepted formula but I'd like to try yours out on a real fish sometime.

Look for banks that the wind blew against or where rain is running into the lake. The key is muddy water. This hides the baitfish and they concentrate in it sometimes because of the wind and others because of increased oxygen or cover. Throw rattling lures or lures that displace a lot of water if you find these conditions. Typically with high pressure the bite will slow and high pressure usually follows fronts. Check your pressure and see where it is. If there's more rain forwcasted you might want to get ready for an excellent day of fishing. Overcast and holding or falling low pressure can bring high action fishing. Look for the fish to be higher in the water column in general, as the rain is both oxygenating and nitrogenizing the water. Nitrogen sounds useless to fish, and it is, but algaes feed on it, baitfish on the algaes and therefore they will be topwater foraging and the bass won't be able to resist. A more detailed description of location etc would be a little more helpful but hopefully that gets you somewhere.

Yea like I said I won't have an opertunity to try it here for the next couple weeks. I put the mounts on my rods. I use 3 rods all the time and it came with 3 mounts so that worked out. I'm dying to get on the water. I can see why you wouldn't want to use your foot pedal at all. I might end up doing the same thing. That pedal is terrible. I tested the Copilot today though just in my barn and love it.

Bought a copilot system for my MK today. Can't wait to get her out on the lakes. Of course we're still staring down ice here for the next couple weeks... ugh... gotta love the north.

Umm, why are we criticzising pro angler fashion? Who cares?

Oh man. Thats a tough question. That stuff came from ALL over the place. We got alot of it through one of my dad's buddies who's an electrician. Even more of it we ordered online and we were able to find some things in electrical supply shops and boat shops. I see your problem. That stuff was tough to get at.

According to MinnKota, the motor draws one amp per pound of thrust in use per hour. If you didn't follow that don't worry, lots of people can't. If you have a 42lb motor, and you run it on full power for 1 hour, you will draw roughly 42 amps. A good battery has 500-800 amps so it will take awhile to drain all that. As far as wire goes, if you go smaller you'll loose more amps in heat generation (bigger wire is better).

The data I've read shows that the run of the mill Florida Largemouth lives between 8 or 9 years. Optimum conditions like Chris suggested would definitely take it up higher. Northern Largemouth will run 13-15 years, but keep in mind that their growth is stunted big time under the ice. If you just subtract the average ice time for a northern bass from its life it comes out to around the same time as a southern bass lives. I just think of it as the time spent under the ice is like time they don't live. And there is some merit there. They eat very little, they breathe a few times a minute, they can hardly move, and they for sure aren't packing on pounds. As far as how they die, I think they die for a great variety of reasons. Blessed is the bass who lives to the age where it can't catch prey, and blessed further is the angler who catches such a fish, but I think more blame can be put on diseases, stresses like spawning and just getting old in general.

Chubs and suckers? Are they serious? Perhaps they could write the Michigan DNR and secure some of the truckloads of those garbage fish they scrape out of St. Clair and Huron every year. Ridiculous. I like your story about them stocking the wrong trout too, made me laugh.

For anyone interested, I found a site on which Uncle Sam is mapping this stuff on a daily basis for us. Here's the link for those of us who live in the frozen tundra: http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/index.htm

Man that's quite a question. Look shallow this time of year and depending on where you are you should look for beds. You can't go wrong fishing soft plastics slow and steady. Send a jig or dropshot and you will eventually catch fish. The trick would be locating likely areas with a map and starting there when you actually go fishing.

Minn Kota has a wonderful service policy. They have guys running out of their houses or small dealers that know them inside out and will diagnose your issue in 2 minutes. Look one up and run it over there. My lateral shaft motor went out last spring and I took it up to a guy by me. Real nice and fixed it for free.

Man I'm not too sure on that one. If you come up with something between 48 and 54 inches you're probably good. You can always run a long shaft on a short boat. That's what I'm doing anyway, got a deal on a 54" and went with it even though I could probably get away with 40"

Hehe, finally moved out of the canoe era eh pop? Congrats and good luck.

Use the current one and screw some aluminum or stainless steel L brackets to it. That would prevent your twist for sure. As far as something manufactured, everyone here usually builds their own.

10v at zero draw is well done. Buy a replacement if she won't come back up on a wall charger after a couple days. I'm sure your TM will run fine when it has proper power. I'm surprised you got it to 1/2 power on 24v.

YES Disconnect the TM before you charge the battery. The TM constantly draws on the batt whenever it is plugged in. It won't "damage" it to leave it plugged in, but you won't get the most out of the charge, and you will generate unnecessary heat on the terminals. I disconnect mine whenever it isn't in the water. As far as the boats electrical system, you need to find out what gauge wire is running on those plugs. Newer boats would be like 4/0 or possibly 2/0 to handle the 36v TMs. I would say you need 4/0 for 24v. I have 2/0 running my 12v motor (55lb PowerDrive) and all the lighting on my boat on the same line. It's PLEANTY of cable for that draw, but I know it won't be heating up any time soon.

1 1/2 inch anything is going to be a tough find. I'd stick with whatever the boat was made with. As far as deck height, Mine runs between 10-12" so I wouldn't think you'd be too bad off at 8.

I'm estimating this based on calculating the volume of my well and converting it, but I come up with 14.961 gallons. My boat is a 14 foot aluminum V, so its smaller than yours but I can easily get a limit plus some in my well.