surfer

Finger nail clippers. Compact and cheap ($1.99). After the initial pinch, pull along the blades instead of away. They are cheap enough I have one in each of my 3700 boxes.

Thanks a bunch.

It sounds like you have already consulted some wise people, namely your uncle. I like your uncle's approach. It follows the #1 rule of fixing broke motors. Always start with the cheapest fix. Do the test and let us know.

I have fished Braid on my spinning gear for about a year now. Twist and loose line can cause the loop jump off. If it happens once in a while I ignore it and spend the 30 seconds to pull the mild backlash out. If it happens a few times in 20 casts I will make a long cast and real back in fast to reset some of the twist and looseness. That usually takes care of it for another couple hundred casts.

UF Lake Watch uses a Scosi (or something like that) disk. It's basically a white diner plate with a 1 inch wide black cross hare and 1 ft marking on a rope. Lower it in the water until you can't see it anymore. That depth is the depth of water clarity. It's not highly scientific but is accurately repeatable for comparisons between any bodies of water.

Thanks George, Just to clarify and make sure I am not screwing up the terminology, the Fisherman's Shack/ Pump House line represents the major East - West canal. With the current high water, is safe to run on plane north of that canal? To go south of that canal line I should proceed with caution at idle due to submerged trees?

George, Could you point me in the direction of a good map for Stick Marsh / Farm 13? I am going down there this Saturday and would like to do some homework before getting on the water.

So the boat in your avatar is only going 10 mph with two people in it. Your right, that's not fast enough for a 55 hp. I believe something is wrong even when you take into account the 10% difference between early and late 80's. For comparison my waterlogged 14 ft fiberglass boat has a 1982 60 hp Johnson and does 31 mph on GPS with just me and about 25 mph with 3 guys in it. 2 cylinder with 160 psi compression each.

We already know tungsten is smaller size for the same weight than brass or lead. We already know it's more environmentally friendly than lead and tied with brass. I think the other things we need to know would come from the bass's perspective and preference. The things we need to know are specific to each rig. Texas & Florida rig - dose the bigger weight make a more interesting disturbance to the bass? When the bigger weight gets hung in the weeds more often dose the commotion of snapping out of the weed help attract bass. Carolina - Sounds created by the different metals and glass clacking together. Witch sound dose the bass want and dose he always want the same sound? Maybe brass on tungsten?

This seams like the place to post any quirks / bugs. A small one I noticed is the all button only brings up the first page of a topic instead of all the pages like it used to. I am not experiencing the page width scroll issue though. Thanks for all the hard work Glenn.

That and Florida being voted top 3 by this pole, I guess I am on vacation every weekend. ;D In honest though, there are well over 100 fishable lakes within a 1.5 hour drive of Orlando where I live.

Oops. Sorry. I was referring to price. These are current used for sale prices on craigslist.com for my area. As HP goes up price per HP goes down. You get more bang for your buck with more HP. Aside from that pesky 9.9 for $1200 throwing off the scale. 3hp for $275 =$90/hp 3.5 for $350 =$100/hp 8hp for $600 =$75/hp 9.9 for $500 =$50/hp 9.9 for $1200 =$121/hp 20hp for $500 =$25/hp

Anything will be faster than the trolling motor, but you will want to get on plane at minimum. A 5 might be a little small for that. A 10 or better would be a better choice. Edit: A used 10 hp it's that much more than a used 5. And like wise a used 15 isn't much more than a used 10.

12 ft is a short canoe. The tunnel hull makes it more stable by virtue of its square sides more so than the tunnel itself. But 12 is still short for two people. For a solo canoe or the occasional passenger it should be ok. I prefer aluminum canoes because they are lighter. You can still put a trolling motor on a non flat back and it works fine, but you will want the battery at the other end. If you plan on rowing the non flat back is faster and more efficient. Don't forget to check http://geo.craigslist.org/iso/us/nc boats for your area.

Cool deal. So to start with the glue you should try a few different solvents and hope one of them works. Without knowing exactly what glue was used you will have to try a few. These three below come to mind with Xylene being the most harmful. I would stay away from acids as I think they will eat the aluminum. You will need to scrape also. Again depending on the toughness of the glue will depend on what style of scraper to use. For the really tough stuff try a 3/4 inch wood chisel. Hopefully though it will come of with some soaking of low odder mineral spirits and a 4 inch drywall knife used as a scraper. Goof Off (or other citrus based solvent) Mineral Spirits Xylene I have not tried the heating methods that Fat and Tin mentioned, but the wire brush for the finishing touch will be helpful. If you don't have a drill or grinder to spin the brush though you will need to spend some money. I am not sure how to do that by hand without taking 20 times as long. Unfortunately there is not usually a best way. You will just have to keep trying different things until you find what works best for that situation. Try different things.

Zel is a smart man on this one. True you will be learning certain skills during the rebuild, but do you plan on using these skills in the future? The ability to strip Liquid nails from aluminum won't take you far in life. You could take a job and apply the same number of hours there and use the money to purchase the other boat. Then the skills you learned during the job can be applied to future jobs to make your time more valuable to your employers. I am guessing 6 to 10 hours will only get the glue out of the hull. another 6 or 10 to get the paint off. Dont forget to include trips to the hardwhare store in your time estimates. Darn economics class. Now I think of everything in these time=money terms. > Good luck and I hope you enjoy it wichever path you chose.

Yes you can use the sears charger. I wasn't considering that you already had one. To protect the battery and prolong its life the fully auto chargers are much easier. With a manual charger you should follow certain guidelines while charging that require checking on the battery a few times during each time you charge it. Mostly be sure not to over chare it to the point the acid is evaporating off of the lead. Google "deep cycle battery maintenance" if you want to know more.

Any small 12V trolling motor will be fine as long as it still works. We have been using 36# thrusts on our jon boats and were not sttign any speed records but were are covering more ground... er.. water than can be fished in a day. Don't forget your battery needs to be deep cycle and your charger needs to be an automatic shut of and trickle charge. Charge immediately after each use.

I just tried it for the first time this weekend with 20 lb leader on 20 lb braid. Full drag. I could break the line when hung up, but not during a fight. I guess with the excitement I was never in the right position to exert the necessary pressure to break the line. This is partly due to being in a 10ft Jon with one hand on the trolling motor and just enough breeze to spin me. This is what I learned after about 3 losses and 4 wins. Keep your rod pointed in the direction of the lure. You will need as much sweep as available. At hook set continue through with sweep to get them up and moving. Start reeling ASAP. One your rod goes to beyond straight up by about 25* you are out of sweep and must real fast enough to keep that bass skiing across the surface. If he slows enough to break surface and get back in the water there is a much greater chance he will tangle. Variables I was using spinning gear, 7ft MH/F I only pulled 1 and 2 lbers. I was in a jon and couldn't get out of my seat during the fight.

I have the 575 Quad Beam. I can choose which beam I want to use. 200 khz narrow 80khz wide 200/80 combined 200/80 combined and the two 255hz side beams in three separate windows. Lots of info at once. Effectively left, right and center. I would guess any of the 500 series would let you chose between 200 khz and 80 khz.

x2

go kick the tires or dont do it. have you looked at craigslist.com ?

OMG... the Bait Monkey is real

Boca, Glad to hear you caught it good. I did too. The waves were as good as i could ask for. Just like you said, long lines. I surfed NSI in the morning and Bethune (South New Smyrna) by myself around noon. Had noodle arms and called it a day. Caught it the next day at Patrick's Air Force Base in the morning before the wind switched. The wind switched about 11 am up here. I imagine you had an extra couple hours of offshore being that you're south of me? My range is New Smyrna Inlet to Sebastian Inlet unless there is a special occasion. I generally hit the lesser known spots imbetween. Tried typhoon lagoon once. I think Costa Rica is a better bang for th buck. Man that was a good weekend. I Surfed 2 days and fished 3. Caught 30+ waves and 11 bass.

and dont rinse the soap of in the lake.