Further North

UnclePepsi: If you have homeowners insurance they will likely cover the cost of replacing your tackle. If you're renting, not sure if renter's insurance will. Either way, it's worth a call, you're looking at hundreds if not thousands of dollars to replace a tackle box. I had a tackle box full of fly fishing gear stolen from my boat, home owner's covered it at almost $2,000.

All taken with my old Humminbird 997C SI Fish cribs and sunken boat - yeah, you can count the seats. Hole in a weedbed Mid-lake gravel bar

Looks for the breaks between shallows and deep water. Add bonus points for there being spawning areas in the shallows.

Watermelon red flake.

I use that mount on my boat - works much better for me than the "Normal" ball mount.

They had the reels in the Woodbury and Rogers MN stores shortly after the sale started...I looked at them...but the handles are on the wrong side... Both stores had plenty then.

Project boats are fun...if you enjoy working on boats as a hobby. I like to fish, not work on my boats...especially when it's time to fish. Not much is more frustrating than sitting at the dock on a fishing trip you're burning vacation days on and spending good money on fixing something that finally gave up the ghost...while your buddies are catching fish. This is the same thing I learned with my journey down the classic SxS shotgun path...old American classics are wonderful...as are old English guns...but I want to to shoot clays and hunt birds...not work on my guns. About 8 years back I realized this, sold off all the older "inventory", kept two SxS made with modern materials and with makers who are still in business...10s of thousands of rounds later...not a single serious problem.

We may be twin sons of different mothers...when it comes to boats anyways... What you wrote above is exactly why there's not a drift boat parked alongside my motor boat...and it's why I'm so intrigued by some kind of powered drift boat. The lake I was on was at 52° tops...but it's a deep, clear, cold lake, even in the summer. The only things I saw cruising the shallows was one 30-something inch musky ans a mid 20's pike. I was mostly doing my annual "shakedown" cruise with the boat to make sure everything was working right...everything but my trim gauge was 100% and that took about 2 minutes to diagnose and another 5 to fix when I got home.

The lakes that have high definition have one foot interval contour maps. They are almost crazy accurate. I have the one that cover Lake of the Woods in Ontario...the locals and the lodges are confident that's it's good enough to avoid those Canadian nightmares (hunks of rock that come out of 30 ft of water to 4" of water in 4 feet) and say it's fine to use it to navigate. ...I'm not quite that confident...but I've yet to find anything that proves the statement wrong.

Yikes...that's a ton of interest!

Spoken like a long term boat owner who has been there before. Here's my total from my spring maintenance: Somewhere, some time last season, I knocked my alignment out of whack on my trailer. Probably on a boat ramp with a hole in it someplace - $310 to re-align. I had a similar problem a few years ago...I launch on a lot of rugged launches, unpaved, sometime have rocks...had to buy a new axle. That one cost me about $800. One of the side guide bunks on my trailer (it's 11 years old) needs to be replaced...so I gotta do both at the same time...there goes another $60...and that's doing the work myself. ...and this is on an excruciatingly well maintained boat and trailer - I bought the rig three seasons ago, 8 years old, with 3.5 hours on the motor...the whole thing was virtually unused.

Three things that I can think of right off the bat: Increased battery life - both for all day on the water and overall life of the batteries. I'll run my Ulterra all day at 2.5 - 3.5 and never touch half my capacity. When you need the power (heavy current, wind) you've got it. The opposite of above - when I need to sat that bad girl on 10 to buck a nasty current I've got the power to do it. I'm on a river here a few times a year where the current would stop me from getting to a very productive piece of structure if I had less power...and tops of the lower unit wrecking rocks are too shallow to run the big motor... It's always better to run a motor at less than max - it increases its life. One other comment: Once you get used to a Terrova/Ulterra (or even a Powerdrive with iPilot) you don't use them like a cable steer where you're nudging the power all the time - I leave mine on a slower speed pretty much all the time, and stop it when I want to work a hunk of structure.

All of the the above are good - I can add a personal recommendation for Minn Kota.

Starcraft and Merc beat Fisher and Force every time. I had that Merc in a '98 version - great motor. IMO, you need to keep your eyes on potential future costs...and that Force is going to bite you.

I don't believe it's possible to have "too much trolling motor" in a boat. Batteries can be expensive and a pain to work around...and charging them can get kinda spendy too. That said, I think you'd be fine with a 24 volt unit in that boat. If I had to pick between a Terrova and a Powerdrive, it'd be Terrova, hands down, every time. It is a far superior motor. Deploying an stowing a Terrova is much easier than a Powerdrive, the foot pedal is a bunch better and if you decide to upgrade later rather than buy iPilot or Link now, it's easier to do on a Terrova than a powerdrive. I've got a lot of "Gee Whiz!" electronics on my boat - Side and Down Imaging, Humminbird 360°...it's all great, and it all helps...but a Terrova will change how you fish if you don't try to use it like a cable steer motor. Let it work for you and your days of screwing around with boat control are in the past...you can fish wile the motor does the work. I upgraded to an Ulterra recently and it just kicks things up a notch. If everything on my both was stolen and I could only replace one thing right away, it'd be the Ulterra.

Here's a picture from my old 997 (upgraded to an 1198 since then): You need to think of the image as in inverted "T" with the dark part (the water column) as the vertical part and the rest as the flat part. The image above clearly shows a bunch of fish cribs...and if you look in the upper right, straight below the "126" and all the way across from the clouds on the left...you'll see a sunken boat. Yeah, you can count the seats... It's pretty easy, for me... How do I use my electronics... I use side imaging as I am moving around scouting for structure. If I see something I like, I mark it and come back to it later...or if it looks really promising, go back and fish it right away...to mark, you move the cursor over what you want to locate...and that will show up on your mad in the right place. I use down imaging and regular sonar (the old color screen 2D stuff) to see what's right under me while I'm fishing...either while sitting still or moving. I use 360° to see all the way around me as I'm sitting still or moving slowly...but with a bigger hunk of the lake bottom than down imaging can provide...it will give an idea of what is ahead of you and how you might want to approach a piece of structure. After you get used to it for a while...you'll be able to tell what is likely a fish.

Buy 'em both, put the Merc on the Fisher and sell the Force with the Starcraft... Just kidding...if I had to choose between two boats that I felt about the same on...I'd go to the one with the newer motor.

Right in my back yard - any particular lakes? If you don't want to ID them on line, PM me.

I have a Trailstar trailer under my Crestliner CMV 1850...near the end of last season I started showing rapid wear on the passenger side tire (starboard of the boat) on the inside only. I assumed it was a tire problem and was going to replace them anyway. I swapped out to the spare...and am noticing the same uneven wear already on the new tire. I pulled it all over for two seasons prior to seeing this problem. I'm thinking I have a slightly bent axle, but am curious if it can be anything else?

What part of Northern WI? East, central, west...near what towns? One thing I can tell you is that in my part of the state water temps are way ahead of normal. I was seeing 52° Saturday on a deep, cold lake and heard reports of near 60° on a Chippewa River reservoir. I would plan my fishing accordingly.

I have a few...one is set up to launch Doctor Spoons into the stratosphere when I'm up on Lake of the Woods chasing musky and pike...when I'm coming into a bay or some structure and want to get a lure waaaay out there before the fish know we're on the scene...that rod gets the nod. The other two I seldom use. One is a 7'6" light, the other is an 8'4" light. They are both what I'd call "crappie rods" and do a really good job of tossing light jigs a fair distance and are sensitive enough to pick up the slightest taps. They can fill in as light walleye rods as well. but it can be a struggle to land a good fish with them.

The FG knot is another that will work.

This is spot on. Those guys can find things even experienced boat owners can't see. Can you find a boat dealer/marina near where the seller lives? When I bought my last boat, it was for sale in Chicago - about 6 hours away. I worked out a deal where the seller would haul it to a dealer of my choice to do a full inspection on my dime. It cost me about $200, but was worth every penny - I got the same report as CarolinaBoy4Life did: If I didn't want it, they'd take it on the spot. I asked them to change the oil, the impeller and the lower unit lube, add it to my bill and called the seller to tell him we had a deal. It took us 4 weeks to find a spot in our schedules to meet in Madison, WI to do the actual deal...but it was worth the wait. If you can get this done before you drive up, that'd be great...but even if you have to go up there and haul the boat to the dealer yourself, it's worth the time. Have them check out the tires, bearings and wiring on the trailer at the same time - it'd be a PITA to buy the boat only to have something go wrong with the trailer on the way home. Given that you asked these questions, I'd say it's even more important that you have a pro look at the boat before you put your money on the table. That looks like a decent rig, but it could be hiding all kinds of expensive problems that gould cost you another two grand in the next year...then you'll be into the the boat for a lot more than it's worth. Here's a picture of a transom saver:

I'd probably try to sell them on sites with a dedicated fishing focus, or on E-Bay where a lot of fisherman shop. I think you're likely to get your target audience and better selling prices that way. Craigslist is an option as well.

I've been using a lot of Lake Forks hybrids in the last year or so for leader material, especially on my lighter weight gear. I fly fish a lot, so I tend to by "real" fluorocarbon leader material for heavier weight set ups (musky and pike) when I'm not using tieable wire leaders. I'm more interested in bite protection than flexibility in those instances...but we're taking 50 lb. leaders and up here.