ATRoberts

I didn't believe the hype until I got a pair a Costa Del Mar. Best sunglasses I have ever had. I love 'em and won't be without them again.

Congrats! That's a nice looking boat. Hope you get plenty of enjoyment from it!

I have the Navionics App on my phone and I liked it. Lately it seems like it works sometimes and sometimes not...not sure if it's my phone or the app. Also, I would say it depends on where you fish. I live in SE Mississippi and fish the river and some smaller lakes and they don't have the contour lines, depth, etc. for those smaller lakes. In fact, I downloaded Backwoods Navigator and use the USGS topo maps (the new style) on it and it works much better for me. I would prefer Navionics if it had the data for the areas I fish but it doesn't. They have a special on it right now. You can get Navionics USA for $1.00. I saw it this morning. For $1.00 you might as well get it and see how you like it. You can't beat that price! Well, let me clarify that...they have it for $1.00 if you have Android. The other versions are not.

James, I agree. I have noticed before even on lakes that it seems underpowered. It actually moves the boat around fine as long as the water is calm and the wind isn't blowing much. Anything more than that though and you can really tell that it needs more power. I tried using the trolling motor recommendation thing online and it recommends a 55# for my size boat....it ain't enough! I also want one that is digital too. I hate switching mine to "5" and hitting the pedal and it nearly slings you off the boat if you aren't paying attention and it's turned to one side or the other! Almost got a bath a couple of times due to that! I am looking at the Minn Kota Maxxis.

My dad has, I believe, an '86 or '89 model Bass Tracker. The fuses on it are under the console mounted to the side of the boat.

Well, I took my boat over to Leaf River today. It's about 8 miles from my house. The water level at the ramp is usually around 5' during the summertime according to the USGS. It's been raining and the level was around 10' today. I launched the boat and just rode around for a little while. My boat will stay on plane at about 20 mph. So at least I figured that out today. Another thing I learned...a 12VDC 55# foot controlled trolling motor is not sufficient to pull a 17' fiberglass bass boat back up river very well. The water was moving pretty swift and I hung up my crankbait. I thought I would whip it around and go get it but that took a little. I did get it back but a bigger trolling motor, say maybe a 24VDC 70-75# would probably do much better. The ramp kind of sucked. It's a pretty new ramp but has fairly steep bluffs on each side and there's really nothing to tie the boat to once you launch. Which wasn't really a problem when launching since I could tie it to the trailer but was more of a problem when getting the boat out of the water. I had to push the boat out away from the ramp, climb the bluff and tie off the rope, back the truck down the ramp....I ended up having to wade out into the river to the end of the trailer to untangle the rope, then ease it up on the trailer. There's a right and a wrong way to do anything and I probably did that wrong! Not sure how else I could have done it.

I wish I had thought this through a little more befo re buying the bass boat! I didn't know any better. I was used to dad's bass tracker.

Thanks for all the replies. I am not going to run the motor once I get in the creek. I was hoping to be able to run a little quicker than idle to get to the creek. Sounds like my best option is to just idle all the way the first time or two just to see if I can make it all the way down there. After a few trips I should pretty well know where the shallow spots are.

The reason I am asking....I want to start fishing the local rivers and creeks off the rivers. I went with a buddy, up the Chickasawhey river and into a creek and did a little bass fishing. I am tired of the over-fished lakes. He had a flat-bottomed aluminum boat with a 40 hp engine. The river gets shallow in places, especially during the summer. It took us about 15 minutes or so to run up river to get to the creek. I want to put my boat in the river and see if I can get up to the creek. I can either idle all the way there or get on plane and chance running up in the sand in a shallow area. How should I approach this situation? I guess I should just ease up the river for the first time just to feel it out and see if I can make it. I don't want to chance getting on plane and damaging the boat if I run into shallow water. But it will take forever to get there just idling along.

I have a 1996 Nitro 170TF with a 115 Mercury. I don't have a lot of experience with boats but I have noticed that it runs along okay at idle or slightly above idle. it runs fine up on plane. Anywhere in between and it feels like it's pushing water. I suppose that's by design and is the norm with any bass boat. Is there anything that can be done to make it flatten out and run better at speeds in between idle and on plane?

I sometimes listen to music while fishing. I would like to put some speakers in the boat. I like to use my phone to listen to Pandora whenbi am out on the water.

Picked one up today. It's the first Optima I have ever owned. Hope it's worth the money!

I don't see anything wrong with giving away a few fish if I don't plan to keep them. I rarely keep any but will often offer them to someone else. I have never had anyone ask me for any. You can normally tell the one's who need a few fish to eat versus those who don't.

That's interesting...I knew it was a narrow beam but I hadn't really thought much about the fact that you need to be moving to produce the image. I am glad that I bought the Bird instead of the Lowrance with down scan only...at least I did realize that I wanted both DI and 2D sonar.

I have not seen the video on their website yet. I have only had the chance to get out and use mine once since I bought it...that was yesterday. Remember too that I am comparing mine to a ten year old Humminbird Wide Eye. The depth readout worked great most of the day. Once I did get into water that was about two feet deep and it went a little crazy. But then I got in a couple of feet of water later in the day and it was fine. My transducer is mounted to the trolling motor and it could have been some interference too, not sure. I never had to cycle power on it to get it to work though.