Preytorien

I've used Power Pro, 832, and Spiderwire.... I think I'm getting ready to switch back to Sufix 832. Nothing wrong with the others, I just like 832 just that litttttttle bit more.

Right there with you brother. I have stocked up on Siebert jigs and I've devoted this season to getting better. I've already caught some nice ones on a custom frog-colored jig Mike made me. This summer shall be known as "The Summer of Jig"

Yeah I saw one of these on Amazon.com and wondered if it would be a good one

I know that the first time I took this out I think it was underinflated. Maybe you can give me a good idea of what ideal inflation is. When I sat on the bench seat, it depressed about 3 inches. It made me a bit uncomfortable, but I never felt the boat was in danger of being dangerous in the water, and of course I only took it on a small shallow pond in case I needed to bail overboard. Would you agree that it wasn't inflated enough? I put it all together this week in my garage and used the Coleman inflator, which also had Boston valve adapters. The boat was able to inflate a bit more, only depressing about 2in when I sat on the bench seat. What's your experience with the level of inflation? I know they say you should be able to depress the rubber about 1/2in, but that's actually pretty firm. Right?

Thanks for the info Ron. That's probably little more extensive than I want to use for now. Maybe for Christmas my wife will buy it for me! I have this one from Sea Eagle. It's not part of a package, but the guy I bought it from included it. http://www.seaeagle.com/accessories/pumps/mb-50-electric-pump The Coleman I use is the one they use for their air matresses. It seems to be about the same as the Sea Eagle model, it just seems a little sturdier. None of them get the pressure to what Sea Eagle recommends, and that's checking with the little clear gauges they provide for checking.

Yea I thought about that at first. But man, the material this stuff is made of (33mil PVC) isn't nearly as thin as say a tubing donut. It's pretty thick. When inflated I can't imagine a hook can accidentally penetrate it by say a missed fish hookset flying back at me. I'm also sure they considered that when they created it as a fishing vessel. I know that was my first concern and I can't find it now, but when I was looking at these to buy there was a video of a guy driving a pickup truck over it, and then also attempting to puncture it with the claw end of a hammer, just pounding away at it. They're pretty tough, even rated for Class 3 whitewater. But to answer your question, most hook-holes could pretty easily be repaired with the patch kit they include with it. The kit will repair a hole 1/8in in diameter or less. But the Tackle Tour guys actually TRIED to hook it, and couldn't unless they purposely pushed it in, much like a bulletin board pushpin. Now that I've inflated it, there really aren't any areas the hook could snag and puncture. The hull/surface is really smooth. I don't plan on trying it anytime soon though

If you're like me and don't have a truck/tow hitch, and no roof rack to cartop a boat, I use an inflatable. The entire thing (oars, motor, battery, seats, floorboards, pump, all my fishing gear - 3+ rods/reels and 2 tackle bags), fit perfectly in the trunk of my 2008 Chevy Malibu. This winter I pulled the trigger on a Sea Eagle SE-8 Fishermans Dream package (used but in great cond.) for about $200. It offered a great price for basically everything except motor/battery. Just got my MinnKota and battery all set up. The boat has seats and floorboards to stand up in. I've taken it out once to see how stable it is and I was quite pleasantly surprised. It's very stable. You'd have to be a monkey with a fishing rod to tip it over far enough to fall in. Another plus is that it supports up to 950lbs (3 people), so I'm looking forward to my wife and daughter being able to join me on fishing/picnic trips this summer. Here's a review of it that TackleTour did. http://www.tackletour.com/reviewse8.html

Hey guys-using-inflatables.... I have a Sea Eagle 8 Fishermans Dream package. I've got it all set, registered, motor/battery mounted and ready to go. I'm pretty excited for the weekend since this will likely be the weekend for it's maiden voyage. In the ever-present quest to make something good even better, I'm asking you what you use for an inflator. The boat came with the Sea Eagle pump that you hook to your battery, but it's not the best. Now I use this Coleman QuickPump - but I'm always on the prowl for something that'll inflate it faster (of course), and also not shut off when it reaches a certain PSI (since the Coleman shuts off prior to the recommended PSI level), with the motormount/transom/motor, the boat needs to be inflated nice and tight. What do you guys use? My dream inflator would be something that inflates faster, and hits just a bit above the recommended PSI so I can get the boat nice and "tight"

I agree with this. I have used CX Prem for several years now and it's pretty darn visible above water. I use 10lb on a 2500 size spinning reel and it works great. Just make sure to use KVD since it tends to spin up pretty easy.

Here in Indiana you have to title the boat if it's more than $3,000 new. If not, no title is needed.

Well I think i'll give that a try. It says it's got float charging, which I hear is nice to have that this little one doesn't. Would you suggest I exchange the battery I already bought for one that's not been experimented on with a cheap charger?

Well from the suggestions above from a few folks I'm in the market for a different charger. Would you think this would do? http://www.amazon.com/Schumacher-SC-1200A-CA-SpeedCharge-Maintainer/dp/B000BQSIWK/ref=sr_1_5?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1398766619&sr=1-5&keywords=marine+battery+charger

Here are some photos of what I see. It wasn't the most expensive charger. I got it around Christmas, it was $20 on sale, I think it might've been in the $30 range prior to the sale. Here's a link to the product on Tractor Supply website. http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/travellerreg%3B-2-6a-manual-battery-charger-101588799--1 The first photo is of it on the 12V/2A setting, it will continue charging until it the needle is at "100%" The second photo is of it on the 12V/6A setting, it will stay at that "50-60%" area for hours, never moving The third is simply the sticker of the specs of this battery. The Wal-Mart Everstart seemed to get fine reviews for a budget once-a-week-for-a-few-hours trolling motor battery

I guess I'm not completely sure of what kind they are. I know that in our local Indiana DNR pond guides they refer to grass carp as a vegetation management option as they're apparently sterile.

It's a little 12V all-purpose battery charger that I got from tractor supply. It's got a gauge on the front it tells you the percentage charge all the way from 0 to 100%. When it's on 12V/2A it will go all the way to 100%. But, when it's on 12V/6A it only goes up to 60% and doesn't ever get any higher

Okay, so I've taken it off the 12V/2A switch and am now charging it on the 12V/6A switch. It sits there for hours on about 60% charge. What's up with that? I would figure it'd at least move a tiny bit, but nothing. Does that means it totally charged?

Yea, I've overheard people before talking about carp and how they now wish they never would've put them in. If I ever catch one I'll be putting my survival knife through it's spine, they just destroy things. No matter the arguments people say, I've seen it in several lakes where carp have wiped out everything bass/bluegill call home. Hopefully the aereation will provide enough oxygen for vegetation to once again flourish. In the meantime, how do I catch carp when they're so easily spooked?

I fish a nice lake that has a few houses around it, it's about 20 acres and is by-in-large an excellent place to spend a few hours fishing. To control insane algae blooms in early spring, they released about 20 grass carp in the lake, which now have stripped the lake of all vegetation. Of course you can imagine the fishing success has dwindled here too since the loss of vegetation. I overheard a resident talking about how the lake management is getting ready to install 6 aereation pumps in the lake. My question is what do the aereation pumps do? Will this cause problems for my fishing at this lake?

Ah ok. That's probably the issue. I'll switch over to the 6A and see where it goes from there.

This charger has a switch that will take it from 12v/2a to 12v/6a.....so I should be using the 6amp?

I have a 12V Marine battery that I'm using to power my trolling motor. The battery is 109 milliamps. When I first got the battery, I hooked it up to my trickle charger and it said it had 50% life. I've had this thing hooked up about 4 hours now and it's barely at the point that would virtually be about 60% charged. Is this normal? Does trickle charging take a long time?

Yea, the Crucials at mine are $109

Welcome to the forums. Be sure to introduce yourself on the new member forums, we like to know a little about you, where you're from, etc to better be able to help you. As for your problem, I run into this all the time in the early spring..... I can't really say I have a magic antecdote since that stuff is a PAIN to deal with. Like you I even find jigs, T-rigs, etc getting fouled up. It's also very tough to get off since it's so slimy and nasty. Makes me think of that stuff in Ghostbusters. Aside from just waiting to fish until the local ecosystem knocks it out, I have a bit more success using weightless plastics - senkos, craws, etc. Let them sink but not hit the bottom. That's about the only success I have. Thankfully for me I have a couple of other areas that don't suffer from the algae, so I can hit those areas frequently until the algae clears up. Good luck, tight lines, and welcome to the forums.

I fish a small pond that has been stocked with some decent bass. Most are around 3-4lbs, with a couple that I've seen (not caught yet) that probably push 5lbs. It's a pretty clear pond (2-4ft vis), and has sporadic patches of vegetation around the banks, but none offshore. The pond isn't very deep, and it's got moderatle shallow banks. Most of the time I can see the bass fry and bluegills up on the shoreline. Usually at some point I'll see a "patrol" of bass, crusing these shallows. Then allofasudden these bass will back the smaller fish into a depression of the bank and have at em', which causes a huge commotion, even to the point the fry are nearly jumping out of the water onto the bank. It's tough to catch them when they're cruising, they're pretty much honed in on those baitfish and won't even look at most of the things you throw. I've noticed this behavior for a couple of seasons now, and it happens very consistently. If you happen to be in the right place at the right time and throw a 2-inch floating Rapala Original you will light it up.....sometimes. But unless you do that, the fish are seemingly non-existent. During the hot summer, the bass retreat back into the deeper parts of the pond only coming shallow to ambush these small fish. They are very hard to catch when they're out deep, I've only caught a handful doing this in two summers. The catches were all with a variety of lures, so it's hard to pinpoint what tripped their trigger at any given time. My question is what kind of techniques does this call for? It's inefficent (in my mind) to chase fish all the way around the bank, usually spooking them. Additionally, it's usually a waste of time to sit in one place and hope that the next ambush occurs in proximity to you, hoping their ambush will come within casting distance. I've done that for a whole day with no success, they must know where I'm sitting. I'd like to figure out what they're doing and what will set them off even when they're deep. I've tried almost ever lure in my bag, fished fast, fished slow, fished high, fished deep, it doesn't seem to matter, unless you play the ambush shoreline game, they don't participate. I'm looking for any ideas here......what would you try?

I think with reputable retailers like Amazon, eBay, etc you're probably pretty safe. I know as an eBay fanatic, if I see the rating is high, I like to look at the low ratings to see why, and generally it's something like "my reel didn't get here in 2 days" or stuff like that. In the fast paced review-related world of online marketplace, having several customers knock your online shop for selling fakes is basically self-destructive as far as business is concerned. Most knock offs and fakes are pretty easy to spot, especially when the product location ISN'T in the United States. I generally don't buy Amazon/eBay stuff out of the country (every once in a while Canada). Shipping just takes too darn long, and like you said....you never know. I also buy a lot of cycling parts online, and I have knowingly bought fakes of clothing from overseas that I just didn't feel like paying twice as much for a logo piece of clothing, but it's VERY apparent that it's a fake. The price gives it away. But as for the OP......I've never encountered any, and from those sites, I really wouldn't expect to see it all that much without it being embarassingly obvious.