gamblerOH

A friend of mine was telling me about a company who makes a replacement skeg. He said that you take the lower unit to an aluminum welding shop where they cut yours off in a zig zag pattern and then match the grooves up to the replacement, from what I understand it makes a very stong repair. I would think its costly so if yours is not too bad I would try what Ben has suggested first. If I can find the name of the company i'll send you a link.

I had a Gambler 19/5 footer completely redone including seats and all carpet for $1200 and it was perfect. I am picky and told the guy I would be hard to please and was willing to pay extra to make it perfect so thats why it was $1200. In my opinion it was well worth the money.In my case the carpet had to be tucked and glued to the inside edges of the lockers, looked pretty hard to do to me but this guy done it perfectly. Gamblers use a really good grade of carpet from the factory and I also told him I wanted something as good or better, so be sure to let them know you dont want cheap carpet. Cheap carpet will be smashed down the first time you fish in the rain.

First boat---14 foot fiberglass bass boat w/40 hp motor. Current boat------2100 Gambler dual console

low_budget, go get yourself some Bayou Bullfrogs made by V&M bait co. They are very thin and have a perfect action. I caught some on them last week while fishing down south, good hooksets but still very durable.

What a beauty!!! Good choice with the yamaha.

our bass club dues are a whopping $20 per year. This gets you a free t-shirt and if you make it to our classic it pays $3000 to the winner and theres no entry fees for people who qualify for our classic. We also have a banquet at the end of the year for members and their wives which is also free. At most of our travel tournaments we will have a cookout the night before which is free. Some of the funds to do all of this come from a portion of tournament entries as well as yearly dues. Our bass club also gets a preferred rate on boat insurance which saves me about $75 per year. I dont see anyone in our bass club getting rich from dues. we have a treasurer and at the end of each year we take any money left over and use it for dock repairs etc. at one of the lakes we fish.Last year we put in a new sidewalk at our local lake. Money spent in a bass club is well spent.

Glenn it almost sounds like you could be a Ranger owner

It would be cheaper to spray it with urethane. Urethanes are made for automobiles, they are made to adhere to basecoats. Paint is made to be used as a system, for example on an automobile you would start with a DTM primer(direct to metal) then use a primer surfacer (2k urethane) and finally a sealer then basecoat and clearcoat. In order to re-clear your boat you will have to skip all of these steps except the actual clear coat. You also have to keep in mind that the boat will scratch very easily with auto clear(as easy as your car or truck)and thats when you will begin having the peeling problems Ben was talking about. I'm with you though, I would take my chances and have it recleared. That is the cheapest way to get the results youre looking for, I just wanted to warn you that theres a chance you could spend a good deal of money and still have problems with your finish,besides shiny boats dont catch more fish ;D

I dont think you should be having problems with a 22 pitch. A friend of mine has a 17 footer with a 115 merc and it will redline at 5500. The rpms drop a little if the boat is loaded heavy so thats why he keeps it on there. Keep me posted, i'm curious to know what you find.

I use their paca craws, they are awesome. I rig them on a jighead and fish them like a tube. I have also used them as a jig trailer but they are a little too big for my liking as jig trailers. I have used some of their other stuff but the paca craws really stand out.

That boat should not have any problem getting on plane. I'm guessing you may have other problems. It sounds like maybe an electrical prob such as a stator or powerpack. What kind of rpm's did you get with the 17 pitch on it? You should have been easily over the redline with a 17 pitch prop, if it wasnt I would look to the stator. Your stator has a high speed and low speed circuit and it sounds like the high speed circuit may be causing you some problems. I once had a merc that acted the same way and it turned out that the floats in the carb. were letting gas seep into them and eventually they got so heavy they could not float anymore which caused a flooding problem. Look at your carbs with the engine running and see if they have any gas coming out of them, this will either be a float bad or a bad needle/seat. I hope you dont have any of these problems but most of them are fairly easy to fix.

I own an auto body repair shop in West Virginia. What you are looking into is a very expensive job. If you can do any of the removal and installation of parts and accessories it will save you a lot of money. If you are even more inclined then you could also go ahead and remove the top half of the boat from the bottom half, this will also save a lot of shop time. In most boats to get the gelcoat right the carpet also has to be removed so be ready to replace it also. Most boats can get by with just recoating the top half. If you take it apart and carry just the top half to the shop you should be able to get it done for less than $1,000 not including things like carpet, fasteners and rubrails. either way you go its expensive and a lot of labor. By the way dont let someone talk you into just having it re-cleared. Clears are made for automobiles and gelcoats are made for boats. An automobile clear will not adhere to gelcoat. Pm me if youneed more info.

I cant tell from the pics but I am hoping that is an aluminum boat. If it is a fiberglass one I would stay away. I had one about that same size several years ago and the bottom had gotten so soft it felt like you were going to fall right through If its aluminum I would have to say go for it. If it runs good it will make you a nice boat. Look at the post from low-budget-hookers and see what he has done with his restoration on his jon-boat, it looks awesome.

I gave away the free baits a couple months ago. I gave them to 3 of the younger kids from the forum. there were lots of plastics, close to 150 unopened bags so they were thrilled.. I have gottem pm's from all of them telling me how well they have been doing with the stuff. We have a bunch of good kids on this forum so its good to see people like grumpy stepping up to help them out.

We will eventually see the FLW as the premier tour events. BASS will eventually be dropped by ESPN and then whats left will be sold to the FLW tour. ESPN is all about money and theres a lot more involved in our sport than money, when they figure this out its going to be too late.

It will give you a lot of extra time, just be sure you are hooking pos to pos and neg to neg. If you hook pos to neg then you will be turning them into a 24 volt setup and this will damage your 12 volt trolling motor.

A tube is my favorite bait of all time. They have always produced for me. You cant fish a tube fast, you have to be patient and WORK the tube not just chunk and wind. I have been having sucess this past week while prefishing with green pumpkin tubes by netbait. They were not producing until I added a tube rattle, this little change seemed to help the fish find it and so far so good. Try to switch it up. I do not believe fish get conditioned to a bait. A week ago while fishing a river I hooked a nice fish on a carolina rig and it broke me off (I hadnt retied in a while :-[ ) then about 3 cast later my partner hooked it and reeled it in. It was a nice 4 pounder and had my tube in its jaw. If they were going to remember a bait they surely would remember one that is hanging out of their mouth. If a fish is hungry its going to eat, and that fish must have been starving

ouch, that would hurt. LOL

flyrod, I think you may have too much time on your hands. when you go fishing how long does it take you to get the depth of a certain area? How does your depthfinder work at 75 mph? ;D

I have 2 lowrance units on my boat,neither are 3d. I have fished from a friends boat that has the 3d finders and I actually like mine better,maybe its what i'm used to but I read it better. Make sure you buy at least one color unit. I like the color units by lowrance. For this time of year it is very easy to pinpoint thermoclines with color. As far as GPS goes if you dont fish any really big water its not needed. I have one on my boat and it is an $800 speedometer ;D , thats about all I use it for.

Remember if you hook 2 batterys together they are only as strong as the weakest one so it still could be a shorted cell in your battery.Have it checked or hook the other battery up by itself,If your battery has gotten low on water it could be shorted out, I would be sure of the battery before going any further. The next thing to check would be connections, make sure they are all clean and tight. If you still have the problem I would have the starter checked out by an automotive electric shop, it could be dragging.

Make sure to take plenty of bug repellant and maybe a sweatshirt. It will cool off a lot in the early morning hours. Most of our club tourneys are at night this time of year, they are tough to learn to fish. The best advice I can give you is to buy the best black light you can afford and be ready for some carolina riggin. I find spinning gear very hard to use at night (I cant keep it out of the trees ;D ) so I dont even bother trying that anymore. If the carolina rigs dont produce try cranking some of the deeper points,dark colors and lots of vibration. Theres nothing better than a big 'ol bass breaking the water at 2 am. It usually takes several nights out before it actually becomes fun

What part of WV did you live in?

I think I would stand a fair chance. 50/50 ;D thats good odds if you ask me! If youll notice most of the pro events are won by whichever angler is most familiar with that region so I think if they came to my area I would stand a chance only if they were not allowed to prefish the lake

I agree totally low_budget! BY the way can anyone tell me how to fish a senko, i've heard you put them on a hook and chunk them out there but wasnt sure :-/ ---------just kidding ;D