fishnkamp

i just went out to their site. I just realized you were speaking of a brand of rod lol Those guides are great, they are not micro guides the are MicroWave guides. Doug Hannon designed them to help capture and eliminate line twist and slap on the rod as it goes out thru the first guide. I have a friend that does custom rod work and loves them. He has used them on about 50 rods already. Good Luck and please let us know what you think of the rod after you get to use it for a while. I am sure I am not the only member on this site that was not familiar with the brand. I would love to try their 6'9" to 7'3"medium spinning rod for Sencos, drop shotting, and shakey heads but i would be leary since I have never heard anyone using them.

way2slow is right I kinda did not pay attention to the compression readings. The fact that they were so even i goofed and was not thinking about the fact they should be higher. You need to find out what the specs are first and if you were getting correct readings

Boy I really like the 14 footer best, but the other one could be made to work. Notice on the 12 footer they have a piece of wood going high up the transom. I am sure that was done to allow the long shaft outboard (seen behind the boat) to fit on a boat requiring a short shaft. If that can easily removed and access to the rear transom can be made available than just drop your dads trolling motor and a battery in and it will be fine. I suspect the box to the left of the rear seat is either battery or a storage compartment. Since it is in town go look and see what i am looking at. If it can be changed a little it would work fine. if not I would jump on the 14 footer. That looks like a rig ready to be use tomorrow. Oh and on the 14 footer that front seat cushion is ruff. Do not sweat it you can get a new seat like that for about $60.

Unless the braid is in bad condition fish it. Go get some P Line CXX moss green in 10 pound test. I use it because it is the diameter of most 12 to 14 pound test. It is a bit on the stiff side but not too stiff and it breaks at over 20 pounds. For some reason the moss green breaks higher than other of their lines. It is much more abrasion resistant than most mono or copoly lines sort alike Trilene Xt is compared to XL. That line has worked really well for me. I got turned on to it by a guide name Craig Powers, he is a winner of some FLW events and we spent two amazing days fishing with him in Tennessee. It was like BASS 101 class. If you do change your line consider Power Pro Spectra, or Suffix 832 braid. I had tried some Spiderwire years ago and ended up throwing it away. Most recently a friend had me fish one of his rods and it changed my mind. I now have Spiderwire Stealth braid on two of my rods. It fishes well and I like the coating on it. I would spool up 30 to 50 test depending on what you want to fish in. Open clear water I go to thrity if heavy lily pads and rough cover than 50 # works. I still would try the line on there first. One other thing, and you may already know this but I have a procedure I always do to fill any reel of mine. I always fill my reel half full of either Stren Original Clear Blue or Bass Pro Shops Excel mono. I always use 14 pound test and spool it tight. The mono allows me to get a real good tight arbor knot so no line slippage on the reel and it lays on nice and even. Now when I spool up the braid it can not dig in and I only need half as much. If god forbid I had one of those incidents that Bill Dance said " you might want to trade that one in" then it cost much less to refill. I but either a 300 yard spool of Stren for around $8.00 or $11.00 for a 1200 yd spool of Excel. That means the first one half of the reel cost less than 3 cents a foot to fill and a 150 yard spool of Power Pro Spectra will fill two reels for $15.00 It works out to be about $10.00 per reel so it is more economical that way. I use the same uni to uni knot here as well. If you do not own a line spooling station I highly recommend spending $20 for a Berkley line station. I have been using one for over 10 years and it makes it easy to fill a reel nice and even since both the line spool and the reel are held still and the line and line spool are kept under tension. Look here but it is available at BPS as well. http://www.cabelas.com/product/fishing/fishing-line/line-winders-strippers-tools|/pc/104793480/c/104719680/sc/103939380/berkley-reg-line-winder/1729189.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Fline-winders-strippers-tools%2F_%2FN-1100388%2FNs-CATEGORY_SEQ_103939380

Personally I like a 7-1 or 8-1 for flipping and pitching but you could get away with it. Try finding a rod that would let you flip and frog.

First I use Power Pro Spectra and Suffix 832 and P Line CXX 10 pound moss green for leaders on rods with micro guides. I tie them together with a double uni knot and have no problem. The knot is small and goes right through if you cut the ends close. Also the FG knot is a pretty nice knot also. Watch these three videos. Now if you still want to go with a fluoro look at using P Line FloroClear in about 12 pound test. It is a copolymer line coated with fluorocarbon. For a true fluoro try P LIne Halo in 12 or 14 pound test. You will need to use some line conditioner with it but it is super strong. My buddies using it love it but only use up to 8 pound on a 3000 size spinning reel, and up to 17 pound test on baitcasters. When they use it on spinning reels they spool it on the reel's spool and drop the spool in hot water for a few minutes. And again use line conditioner, but by doing so they have no worries about fishing docks, rocks, around metal, rebar, and they usually end up catching a few snakeheads while bass fishing on the Potomac river as well. The stuff holds up well, and casts well if maintained. Personally I have not fished it much. I prefer the braid/ leader system.

The Dobyns are really nice but you will need to move up to the Champion series for a full cork grip. The ST Croix is nice as well. G Loomis has a bunch in different graphite. Look at the IMX, and E6X. Another excellent option is to contact a friend of mine. Tom has been building excellent custom rods for very reasonable cost. You can spend some time with him and he will build it exactly the way you want it. Go to http://www.tomscustomrods.com/custom-rods-galley. He is located near Bel Air Md so you can reach him minutes outside of Aberdeen, off route 95.

Uh O I think the bass bug has bitten him!!! Your spinning rod set up sound fine. Since you are new to this game let me suggest some must have lures to begin using. Always have some 4 to 6 inch worms and some good hooks like the Gamakatsu extra wide gaps. Make sure you have some 3 to 5 inch grubs and some Sencos as well.. Baits like Reaction Innovation Skinny Dippers catch fish for me everywhere. I like to fish them on belly weighted swimbait hooks in 1/8 and 2/18 and 1/4. I also use some swim bait jig heads with the skinny dippers in deeper water. All of these will work fine on the spinning gear. For the crankbait rods make sure you have some minnow imitations like Rapala minnows, or other floating diving jerkbaits. Have some jigs and plastic craw trailer A couple of chatterbaits and spinnerbaits would round out a beginners selection. I would add one more important bait. A company called .Z Man makes a mushroom head jig called a shroomz head and a 2.5 inch plastic body called a TRD ( stand for the real deal) . The simplest bait to fish. Throw it out let it hit the bottom and just very slightly lift it up and let it fall oh and you better hang on lots of big fish eat these little baits.

I think it looks great no trailer issues, no engine issues and i like the way it was done. You will have some storage and I can see the person who did it was good at it. The thing I like also with this one the seats are mounted flat with open sections for your legs so you will be comfortable and once again the center of gravity is lowered, you are not sitting up on high pedestals above the deck. Go get er. I can see a lot of fish can be caught on this boat. Dad is going to be smiling. By the way when you go to fix the right rear light replace it with an led light and later do the same with the left hand one. They cost a bit more but are so much more reliable and waterproof. If money's too tight go ahead and get the normal one but plan on the upgrade in the future. A normal submersible right hand tail light goes for $10 and a led submersible is $15. The leds are at least 10 times brighter and do not burn out like regular light bulbs.

Well if necessary you could build a box that would use 2 2x4s to span across the boat giving the boat its rigidity and you could cover them front and back with plywood. then build two hinged doors on top to give you a storage area. If you built it say 12 inches high it would be almost the same obstacle that the bench would have been, but would give you a place to store ropes tackle, anchors, fishing gear etc. I would place it in the middle of the boat in between the middle seat and the front seat.

Those lights would work great. Also if you are talking a boat this small and driving during the day most people will see you vehicle lights okay for just one trip home. How many time, while driving on the highway. have you seen a boat trailer with a defective light I have often and i just pay more attention to the vehicles lights. Repairing them is easy, trailer supply places sell complete wiring and led light kits all of the time. If the guy did what i think he did and only removed the middle bench the I think you can be safe to get the boat and like I said most boats like this can run a max engine around 20 hp. I would not worry if I was only running a pair of trolling motors or a gas engine of less than 8 hp. Also it sounded like you were going to fish lakes and there is not the pressure involved in fishing a lake like a big high current river. I would not worry too much. There are ways to add strength or rigidity if you need to. Ask him how it felt when he fished out of it post doing the mods.

No I never do but if you learn to tie a few simple knot like the palomar knot and the trilene knot they will allow you to tie lures on quickly. Next have one box like a 3600 Plano container (and this is an example only there are lots of boxes that will work) that you keep your worm weights, some different hooks and some swivels you can organize things to be able to change lure types easily. ANother great hook I use is the perfect finesse worm hook sold by Bass Pro. It has both a sharp extra wide gap style hook and a worm weight combined into one. I use several different weights depending on how deep and how fast the current is. I like these because I can rig a plastic worm, a 5 inch grub, a craw fish imitation and other baits on one rig. Here is a picture of it at Bass Pro Shops. http://www.basspro.com/Bass-Pro-Shops-Perfect-Finesse-Worm-Jighead/product/178745/

Thomas15 good thought. I zoomed in as close as possible. I think they left the rear bench and built onto it. The old bench up front may also be there and the new deck built over it. If he only uses say a 6 hp engine he should be fine, I definitely would not be afraid of it if I was using in in lakes and with trolling motors.

I like the boat. I would give the trailer a good look at it most likely is a spring mount that needs to be rewelded or a bracket for the wood bunk boards. Sounds like nothing you or a welder can"t fix up. As for the motor I am not sure parts are going to be easily found, but I would not worry about that. I would remove it for this season, add Dad's trolling motor and another battery and use the boat that way for the rest of the season. Over the next 6 months ( by next fishing season) you could easily save up and purchase another small motor.

Blame it on the bait monkey again, you had no choice!

I am not sure which Mojo you had either SC II or SC III. If you had a SC II then you will be getting a nicer rod, as the SCIII rods are built with a better grade of graphite. St Croix has not had a reputation of breakage and since you only had it a short time most likely it was a manufacturing defect. It is a bummer but I have even had rods as expensive as a G Loomis rod suffer fromm a defect and break. They replaced it and I still fish with its replacement 15 years later.

You can also find a local tackle shop as they often have a guy who does that type of work. Months ago I gave this same advice to a member on here. I made a few calls and found him a shop out in Tennessee ( I live in Baltimore MD. but vacation on lakes near him) The did his repair for less than $10. So it is not a big deal. Glad you found the problem. Make sure to check the rest of the guide inserts while you are at it.

timsford has it right. I also agree my next combo would be a medium xtra fast spinning rod. With this you can throw grubs, tubes, Sencos, and smaller plastic worms with 1/8 to 5/8 worm weights. I think as time goes on you could upgrade a rod or two but you would be in pretty good shape. A good choice might be the Lews Mach 1 speed spool in the 6'9" medium rating.

How far are you willing to go to get a boat? Is 3 1/2 to 4 hours away too much? Check this one out in Montezuma Iowa http://desmoines.craigslist.org/boa/5750052341.html. I will keep looking but for the price you want to pay I keep finding junk.

Do you have a lawn tractor you could add a hitch to?

Did you contact this person. This is one you sent me and I think its condition is terrific. It appears to be ready to go. He might be flexible for say $550-$600.https://racine.craigslist.org/boa/5726923911.html

Give us some info first. What boat is it on? How well has it driven in the past? What rpm did it get when it ran well? Do you have a fuel filter in the system? Have you tried to replace it. Have you replaced spark plug wires, spark plugs? Have you checked your lower end oil? I would dump it and check it for metal and water, sometimes a lower end problem looks like an engine issue. Do you have to run ethanol fuel? If so I would obtain some fuel hose,a small marine gas tank, fill fresh fuel and hook the new fuel line directly to the engine. Just temporarily set it on the floor of the boat and go for a test run. If it work okay chances are you will need to pump out all of the junk fuel and replace it with fresh. Next replace the entire fuel lines from tank to engine. Ethanol is tearing up fuel systems. And even if you do not use ethanol fuel you may have gotten some trash fuel from somewhere. Another thing to consider doing is running a can of Sea Foam in that small tank. You could have dirty carbs because I think that is a carbed motor. I have very little Johnson experience but if they have a diaphragm fuel lift pump it could also need to be replaced. Most of my experience over 40 years has been with Mercs sorry. Give us some answers and we will try and get a little more specific. I would start by replacing the maintenance items I mentioned. Sometimes we forget to do the simple things, I hate wasting money but to replace old spark plugs, wires, fuel filters, lower end oil etc is hardly a waste. It is improvements in the engines running condition and a simple way to check the items off of the troubleshooting tree. Good luck. Let us know how it progresses. It still could be more involved but I would check off the easy stuff first.

You will not need brakes. That boat should be pretty light. Neither of the boats in my pictures have brakes. I tow with a Chevy S-10 and a V 6 motor. The only time I notice it is even back there is when I run from MD to Tennessee and Kentucky through the big mountains near Roanoke VA and the BIG MONSTER mountain around Knoxville. Of coarse the traffic is doing 75 and that takes a little pushing in that area to keep up.

Look here on this EBay store. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Shimano-Jackall-Poison-Adrena-Casting-Rod-PA1610MH-610-Medium-Heavy-1pc-/131696828427?hash=item1ea9be200b:g:tsYAAOSwo0JWNGjw That is the only place that seems to have them now. Good Luck

it looks like you may not be too far from the Gander Mountain in Plattsburg NY. If you can stop in there take a look at their Gander Mountain Tournament Spinning rod. I have had them in my hand and for $80 I think you will like them. Otherwise check Cabelas for this fenwick rod http://www.cabelas.com/product/fishing/fishing-rods/spinning-rods|/pc/104793480/c/104764680/sc/104836680/fenwick-reg-hmx-spinning-rod/1433734.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Fspinning-rods%2Ffenwick%2F_%2FN-1102841%2B1000003390%2FNe-1000003390%2FNs-CATEGORY_SEQ_104836680%3FWTz_st%3DGuidedNav%26WTz_stype%3DGNU