WIGuide

Congrats on your first rig!

I'm not sure how well low cost and auto mix, but BPS has one of their auto inflate vests on sale for $100 right now. Otherwise I've heard good things about the Mustang MIT auto vests although I haven't tried one on to know how comfortable they are. The Onyx vests get pretty good reviews as well.

DVT hit the nail on the head.

No doubt, we'll be doing that one once it warms up!

8 should be fine for something like that.

That really depends. Spring is always good with everything moving up. In the fall they get grouped up a little more and you can get on them good when you run across a school. I'd say as long as it's not the dog days of summer you have potential for it to be at it's best though. Even then, I wouldn't consider it bad fishing. I caught this pair of twin 4's towards the end of August last year there.

He's got one other one that is expired and we probably will do the lake test with that one. Water temps are still in the high 40's to maybe mid 50's here though so we decided to pass on that test...for now haha.

After using inflatable life vests for over a year now, I've always been curious as to what to expect when they inflate. My dad got some in a boat purchase that were expired, so we decided to pull the cord before we put in the new rearming kit. I figured if I were curious, there might be others as well so I shot a short little video of it.

Happy belated birthday! Looks like it was a great day.

Welcome! Glad to see you here.

Not the funniest thing ever, but most recent. Older couple and I'm assuming their son with an old Lund and newer 4 stroke at a boat ramp. They're trying to put the boat on the trailer. It's a roller trailer with long bunk side guides so you should be able to just drive it up and clip it and then take it out. Well the lady is in the boat and looks like she is going to try to do that but starts the motor while the whole thing is completely out of the water. Doesn't even realize it and lets it run for a minute or so before she shuts it down and hops up on the dock and starts trying to pull it on with the rope. She get's it about halfway up but can't pull it any further, so she's yelling for the guy to back up. He does but instead of letting it roll back, he hits the gas comes back down the ramp and smashes the front of the boat with the winch post roller and pushes the boat way off the trailer. She yells at him and tells him to pull it out so he does and when she yells "stop" he keeps going, sending her into a hissy fit. He finally stops and she tells him to back it up and he goes forward. This continues for a few minutes before she gets the idea to go out and clip it. She takes her shoes off and steps way out to step on the tire of their suv, tries to shimmy around to the back bumper and almost falls in the water. The entire time the boat is sitting less than a foot from the dock. She could have easily jumped in and clipped it, but she took the hardest route to get there. I really wish I would have had my gopro rolling for that instead of tucked into the back storage haha.

Most fish they will stay in there. It's easiest to just cut them out. If you do it carefully you really don't lose much meat cutting down the backside of the ribs.

I have one of the older Bass Pro spinnerbait binders. I keep all my spinnerbaits in it as well as chatter baits and swim jigs. Unfortunately they discontinued it, but I believe Browning makes one very similar and would not hesitate to purchase it.

It works with braid to an extent, but not as well. Bank fishing is understandable, but I see a lot of people doing it out of a boat too. I can see if you're on a school of fish and you don't want to mess that up, but I see so many people break off and then just continue on while they retie, just kind of baffles my mind.

I've never understood why people just break baits off. 25% of the time you can bow & arrow it off, 50% of the time you can go past it and pull it backwards, and the rest of the time you can use a lure retriever to free them. I usually only lose about 1-2% of the baits I get hung up.

I'm sure it's to each his own, but I'm not sure what makes people think the LTB spinning reel seat is uncomfortable. I was thinking it was the exact opposite and love how it feels in my hands.

Does anyone make an 18.5' that isn't stable?

I would go with the 175 if the budget allowed. It's got a better layout and is also a bigger boat. The layout alone will make it fish much bigger than the 170 despite the size difference not being that drastic. Get the most HP you can afford since. I'm thinking it might be tough to knee board with a 40 hp.

Just stick with it, you'll get there. As a lot of the guys here stated use a bait towards the max the rod is recommended for. Also, when you cast overhand it's different than casting overhand with a spinning reel. Pick the point you are trying to cast to, and then aim about 10 feet above it. That should help you get a nice smooth cast and also get the correct release point. Hang in there and you'll get it.

Try ebay too.

If I had to guess I'd say it's fill port for the lower unit so you don't have to fill from the bottom and then cap the top and race to get the screw in before the oil starts running out. I could be wrong, maybe someone else answer that question.

I didn't fish very late into the year up there, but it'll be interesting to see what it does to the fish and see just how much the grass was effected. It might make it a little better down the road since the amount of grass got to be a bit ridiculous at times. Birch might be worth a look if you're on Red Cedar. When do you usually come up?

As far as a trolling motor, Motorguide makes the Bulldog series that has the clamp on mount but still has the foot control. You could do that with the hollow spot, but I don't think it'd be the best use of space since that area is designed to hold your batteries. I never had the 120, but I had a Bass Tender 10.2 which is the size smaller than this. It was a sweet little boat.

The motors that need the oil changed every year are 4 stroke engines. They are like a car engine where the oil is not mixed with the gas or burnt, but stays in the engine to lubricate everything. With an oil injected 2 stroke, it's mixing the gas with the oil before it burns the mixture. Your oil tank is basically storing it until it's consumed.

Thank you sir!