WIGuide

If you live up by me unfortunately it does. The water gets a really dense matt up on top of it and try as I might I can't get a monster 2oz punch weight to get through that matt First bait tied on this year was a jerkbait. First fish came on said jerkbait within about 10 minutes.

My favorite is the Booyah Pad Crasher. It's super soft, has good hooks, walks easily, and won't break the bank. That's especially great if you fish in waters inhibited with toothy critters like I do. I'd put Spro and Live Target 2nd behind the Pad Crasher.

Never had a 14, but I my 86 Ranger 320V was 15' 10". I loved it, sure it wasn't the biggest boat out there, but it was a nice little rig. My only problem with it was the console was a little low and fitting my go go gadget legs under the wheel wasn't always the most comfortable. Then again I'm 6'6" and have issues with that in a lot of older smaller boats. Ride wise, it handled water extremely well for a boat that size.

It was great weather, temps were in the mid to upper 70's both days!

Dual Pro chargers are great. If you can find a used one, you might be able to get one in your price range. If not they have their recreational series that would work that'd run you around 230 brand new.

So you're drawn to a boat brand that has had a known issues with leaks, with a motor brand known to have tons of issues....and you're looking to buy it without a test drive. Feasible or not, can you not see how bad of an idea this is? If it were me, that one would be off the table even if it "looked" to be in showroom condition. The Starcraft looks to need some work, but it does have a newer motor. You can take the downriggers off and sell them to offset the cost a bit. Just remember a 15 footer is pretty small overall.

I finally got a chance to get on the water this past weekend, which is just in time to since the first tourney of the year is next weekend. My dad and I headed down to the Mississippi River since it's the only place around with open season right now. Saturday was spent probing a lot of backwater areas with water temps in the upper 50's and I believe even 60* in one area. Fishing wasn't fast and furious by any means, but we caught quite a few northerns most of which were on the small side. Towards the end of the day we ventured closer to the main river and caught a few better fish, but only hooked into one smallie that was probably 16". Sunday proved to be a better day for us. We stayed a lot closer to the main river and cool water which was roughly 47* to 51*. Again, we managed to catch a bunch of northerns along the way, with a few better sized ones decent for eating. My dad pulled in a 23" walleye and I had a bonus crappie that t-boned my jerkbait We didn't fish as long, but manage a limit of bass as we bounced from spot to spot.The two best were 4lbs a piece one being brown and the other being green. In total we probably had 14 1/2 lbs with one squeeker. The best producing baits this weekend were by far and away jerkbaits with all but a few fish falling for them. Surprisingly, we did better fishing the colder water even in some places with current. Hopefully we can get on them next weekend and start the tourney season out with a win! A few highlights from the weekend:

Just get two new batteries and run it as intended. 70#'s is not all that much for a 17 foot boat. I run an 82 on my 17 footer and its only a little heavier than the Tracker. If I had the room for an extra battery I'd be running a 36V system.

I had a Bass Tender 10.2 which is now the Sun Dolphin. I've got nothing but good things to say about them and would be the one I pick.

Welcome to BR! Congrats on killin' it in the tourney as well!

Nice work A-Jay! Glad to see you got out there and whacked them!!

Awesome job man! Congrats on the win and all the good fish!

They have a very well proven poor track record. They were very underpowered for their ratings. Legally they have to be within 10% +/- of their advertised hp and most manufactures run close to the line on the high side. Force on the other hand ran close and even over the line on the low side. You couldn't pay me to take one off your hands. There's a reason they don't make them anymore. If you were luck enough to get a good and it's still running, it might be ok, but it won't be worth what any other comparable motor would be.

You'll be fine without it. You should be able to add limited slip with an aftermarket kit if you want. If you plan on driving it in the winter, you might as well just plan on doing that. You could get by without it, but whichever tire has the least amount of traction is the one that will end up spinning. The locking differential will either transfer power to the wheel that has traction, or will lock both together to transfer power to both usually letting you keep moving.

Mine is starting to get that way too. I've been directed to try the pro-tec kit that they have. From the videos they have it looks like some pretty amazing stuff. I can't actually vouch for it yet since I haven't used it yet. Hopefully what you're doing will work!

There's a few ways to do it and it depends on how you want it to look when it's done. There are several acid based cleaners out there to remove the oxidation as well as stains (sharkhide is popular). Many of these are marked for pontoon owners as many sit in the water all summer and look like crap when they get pulled out. Search pontoon cleaner or aluminum cleaner. These are easy to apply as you spray on and rinse off. Kevin's way will work as well if you wish to go that route. This could be a cheaper option as well. Once you get it clean you can take it a step further and polish aluminum to many different levels if you so desire. You can make it look like chrome even if you want to put that much effort in. Whatever you choose you should be able to find some aluminum sealer to help keep it clean in the future.

Much of the advise here is spot on. If you're fishing nothing but smaller lakes I'd start out with a jon boat or something similar. Not much that can go wrong with them. A lot of what you're looking at has been overpriced in my opinion. I'm not totally against buying an older used boat as long as it's the right one. One that's been taken care of is going to have far less issues than those that have not. Up until two years ago I owned an 86 Ranger, I had that for roughly 5 years or so and aside from small things like trailer lighting and aerator pumps the only money I put into it was on upgrades. I've got a 97 now and again haven't had to do much. I know that doesn't guarantee that I won't sometime down the line. The one thing that needs to be stressed here is TAKE YOUR TIME! I know how bad you want a boat, but you need to wait for the right deal to come along. When you do, that's when to act fast because it won't last long. Also, now is the worst time to buy when it comes to prices. The beginning of the year everything goes up because of the upcoming season. The best time to buy is mid-summer into the fall/winter. Just a little motivation to keep you going. Both of these specimens were purchased within your price range. Granted these are not the standard going rates for these, but just to show that you can still find a deal out there if you're patient.

He actually said both. At the end he said distance in feet, but earlier on he stated it in meters. "1/16oz hair jigs. Even a little higher the casting distance was poor. Maybe 15-20 meters."

I'm more than happy to do either. I'm just happy to be on the water!

My perfect jerkbait stick is my 6'6" M/F Legend Xtreme. Loads up to cast them great, fast enough action to let me impart the action I want, and soft enough action to keep them pinned. It's also short enough I'm hot slapping the water or anything else when I'm doing my thing. Sometimes I'll also use a 6'8" M/XF as well.

An educated thumb is a thumb that can feather the spool to prevent your reel from backlashing. My process involves my thumb hovering above, or ever so gently touching the line on the spool during the cast. It's such a light pressure it doesn't create much in the way of friction at all. If you do want to add distance to your cast, you need to remove anything causing friction on the cast. Brakes and tension knob are the two biggest points of that so reducing them should help increase distance.

I'm in the same boat as New...it sounds like you bought the wrong rod for what you're trying to throw. If you look at rod specs at all, they all have a recommended lure weight range. The rods sweet spot will usually land in the middle of this range. The rod you purchased has a recommended weight range of 1/8 oz to 1/2 oz. Your little 1/16th oz hair jig is smaller than recommended weight giving expected poor performance. Even if you dropped down to a light power Premier, 1/16th is at the very bottom of it's range. Your best bet for those hair jigs would be and ultra light power.The ML rod would make for a good dropshot rod though. Also, for what it's worth, 15-20 meters (roughly 50 to 65 feet) is not that short of a distance.

It's all about personal preference. I use an LTB M/M for my squarebills regardless of cover. If you feel you need more and you like the action of the rod you have, then consider stepping up to a MH/M.

I only peg in really heavy cover, and if I know I'm going to be fishing that way for an extended period of time.

With the age boat you've been looking at, it won't be uncommon at all for the carpet to be worn. Years of being walked on and out in the elements will wear even the best carpets out. Other things that can wear it out are hooks getting caught in it, or some sort of sharp object slicing it. Glue can also release and create a loose spot which is more likely to get damaged. If you're willing to pay the price to replace it, or have it done, it's not a deal breaker, but look things over well to make sure there aren't other issues.