Fishing Rhino

I'm planning on being there. A good time to share notes and make new contacts. We've got a lot of territory covered from Cape Cod, southeast MA and a good bit of central MA.

True. But, if fishing out of a Nitro was a handicap, he'd use the "better" boat. Do you suppose that if he was paid to use a Popeil Pocket Fisherman he use it?

Let's talk about the composite layup of the two boats. Both boats use mat and woven roving. Mat by itself is an egg shell whether it's hand laid, or blown into the mold with a chopper gun. What gives the composite strength is the woven roving and in both Ranger and Nitro that material is hand laid. Mat is primarily a filler material, nothing more to fill in the gaps between the layers of roving. which provides the strength. I worked with fiberglass for over twenty years. The problem with a chopper gun is getting the correct ratio of resin to the fabric. Excess resin results in extra weight, which does not equate to extra strength. Roving also is used for building thickness quickly. "Built Tough to Reliably Compete and Win Hand-laid fiberglass hulls are built with engineered, woven fiberglass fabric for strength and chopped fiberglass strand for puncture resistance, and then a custom-molded liner is bonded to the hull to provide longitudinal and transverse supports to the running surface. Extra-thick, molded knee supports reinforce the transom to hold outboards and shallow-water anchors." https://www.nitro.com/quality.html

Weight loads are determined by some complex formula. For example, my 16 foot, square stern Old Town canoe with a 40 inch beam has a load capacity of four persons or 665 pounds. My 20 foot plus Nitro Z-8 with an eight foot beam has a load capacity of four persons or 1000 pounds. My canoe has seating for three. The Nitro can seat four. Go figure.

The number one, and this is a biggie, remember to lift and stow the trolling motor before running the big motor. When I have someone with me, the first thing I tell them is to remind me to get the trolling motor out of the water before starting the big motor. I assure them I will not be offended if they remind me the moment I say we are going to move. A handy way to stow the shear pins is to use electrical tape and wrap two or three shear pins on the power cord where it comes out of the head of the trolling motor.

Don't own a gun. But, if I were a gun afficianado, I'd most likely carry. Having said that, I would not fish in areas where I would be likely to need it. Several years ago there was a similar thread, and some carried because there are unsavory characters that frequent some launches. What I wanted to know then is how do you protect the tow rig when you can be fishing miles from the ramp?

You guys have a nice thread going on here. But these guys might give you a run for your money, or vice versa. You've got some serious catching up to do, but this is what happens with the very popular types of boats. It may be kayaks, or canoes, or this one. Any Pelican Bass Raider Owners Out There? This thread is 109 pages long, but it was started years ago. Sometimes it disappears from the front page, but always makes a come back.

Do not silicone any electric connections. Use dielectric grease. Apply liberally to the male and female connectors. There should be some ooze out when you connect the plugs. Dielectric grease is a non conductor, but it will prevent water intrusion and corrosion. Coat all your lighting connectors, even those above water such as your running lights, and the connectors for your tow vehicle and trailer. Keep a tube of it in your boat. Apply it annually, or more often if needed, and apply it thoroughly when you need to replace any trailer lights. I've used it when I plowed snow. It prevented corrosion and made it easy to change bulbs when they burned out. Plowing salty roads is as bad as submerging a trailer into salt water. Silicone is not foolproof, and it can make it difficult to separate connectors.

They are not correct. Most boat trailers have surge brakes. Backing into soft sand, up a hill, etc., can engage the brakes. I had a Nitro Z7 with surge brakes. To prevent the above from activating the brakes there was a pin that went through the tongue and the hitch mechanism to prevent the surge mechanism from sliding. My current boat, a Z8 has an electrical lockout when the truck is shifted into reverse. It is on the same circuit as the backup lights. It also has surge brakes. Just catching up on this thread. Someone may have already responded to this issue.

I'm from MA, but we were on our way to Daytona. I believe it was a rest area in Virginia. I still don't know how they work. Can you enlighten me as to how the hands free thing works?

What I was most concerned about was getting pinched by the zipper upper.

On our recent trip to Daytona, and our daughter's home in Georgia, we stopped at a rest area to use the facilities. I walked into the men's room, and staring me in the face as I walked up to the urinal was a sign. This was not graffiti as there was a brass plate over each urinal that read, "This is a hands free operation urinal". So, I walked up to it and stood there waiting to see how it would work. Shortly thereafter, a fellow walked up to the urinal next to me, saw the sign and started laughing. I looked at him and said, don't ask me. It must be broken. I've been standing here for a couple of minutes and nothing has happened yet.

Yes. But only one.

High Noon with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly Gary Cooper also had two other classics. Sargent York and Friendly Persuasion. Television Gunsmoke.

It must be the browser. They open in Chrome, but for some reason, they are not compatible with The Edge browser in Windows 10. A security setting, perhaps?

I'm having problems with the pictures on this thread. The first pictures came through fine then something happened, that blocked the photos from that point on. Does anyone have any idea as to why? Thought I'd start this for anyone wanting to follow along. I'm not at all a professional repairman, not even very good at it, but I'm going to attempt to fix up the boat and trailer I recently stumbled across. I only gave $300 for it and all appears to be in pretty good shape, just needs a little TLC and it could be something pretty nice for the little lakes I often fish. This is what I'm starting with. Could be used as is, so I don't think it's in that poor of condition, but I want to make it a bit nicer and have something that will last a long time hopefully. It's a 16' MonArk semi-V johnboat. It has obviously been sitting for quite some time and had a ton of leaves and debris in the bottom, that's all been removed as well as all the old foam and anything not welded to the boat to make things easier and so I don't damage anything that might be salvageable. It's a nice wide boat and pretty deep so I'll be able to take my boys out in it once it's fixed up. Not the 14' it was listed as being. I've removed the boat from the trailer and hosed the interior of it out to get all the debris out and let it dry really well before I start working on it. The trailer clearly has a lot of surface rust and the old paint looks bad so I'm planning on grinding the surface layer to remove it all. Going to be a lot of work, but I plan to break it down into hour or two blocks of grinding to make it more tolerable. I tried to start it yesterday but my grinder lasted about 5 minutes before it quit working. With a new one in hand, I got about an hours worth of work in on it this morning. I decided I wasn't going to deal with switching my hitch every time I wanted to use it, so the 1 7/8" coupler had to go. I got both sides and top of the tongue cleaned off and called it a morning. Probably won't get much of a chance to work on it the next few days at least with Christmas, but hopefully a couple mornings next week.

Your post sounds like something from Talladega Nights.

Make that Nawth. There is definitely a "W" sound in the way we say it. It ain't the dialects. It's the language. English is the strangest language on earth. It has silly rules such as, I before e, except after c unless it sounds like A as in weigh and sleigh. Then we have way pronounced the same as weigh, and slay which is pronounced exactly as sleigh. Then you have siege and seize which have no A in their pronunciation. Did I get the spelling correct? I usually foul them up. We have a member and mod on this form with the screen name of Ghoti. Most pronounce it go tee, when actually he and those who know him pronounce it "fish" Again it's done according to the rules of English which is worse than the tax structure. The Gh is prounced with an F as in enough. The O is pronounced as it is in women, and the last to, ti as in emotion. You end up with "fish". So y'awls can stop it with this insulting us northerners, or is it we northerners, or can it be both? Nah, it's us. You can insult us, but you cannot insult we.

Now you're talking. Just don't name it Hindenburg.

I doubt an electric boat would fare too well. A boat is always going uphill. It takes very little horsepower to maintain 60 mph on a level road in a vehicle. Take your foot off the gas or the transmission out of gear and on a level road you'll coast a long distance. Pull the throttle back on a boat (I don't advise taking the motor out of gear) and the boat will slow rapidly. Not sure the batteries would like that constant load. Then you can add the ton of batteries it would take to get up to comparable speed a gasoline engine provides and you are increasing the existing drag by a considerable factor. Where would you put all those batteries?

Phil doesn't look too impressed either. Gobbler's Knob. How appropriate. The turkeys are out in force.

What hasn't been mentioned is that New Orleans is a great place for taking pictures. You'll see a lot of characters, but if you want to take a picture with them be prepared to give them a few bucks. It's how they make their living. They didn't impose themselves upon the tourists, and when we were there, they'd engage in conversation. But if you pulled out your camera to take a picture with them, they expected a "donation". There was also an elderly woman dressed in black, with a flat black football helmet with tin foil antennas. We were told not to pay the slightest attention to her or she'd flip out. She was always pushing a shopping cart, which was also flat black. The characters and the architecture are great for picture taking. You'd have to make a concerted effort to end up with a bad picture.

Sounds like Mardi Gras was custom made for you.

Waders will work just fine. So will hip boots. If you wear a size 10 shoe, get a size 11 hip boot. It will be much easier to slide them off and on.

When I say "commercial traffic" I don't mean commercial fishing boats. I am referring to freighters, tugs and barges, shipping lines, cruise lines, etc. I would not advise anyone to go into those waters in a kayak, or any other small boat. My response was directed at his question about contacting other boats.