alwayslearning

I hope you don't mind me tagging a question in on your thread. I have a Tracker 1648 with a 9.9, 4 stroke Mercury. Is the 9.9 enough engine that I should be able to get on plane with just me and gear in the boat? I never really even considered it until I started reading all these prop threads. By gear I mean two batteries, 3 gallons of gas, a small tackle box and 3 rod/reel combos.

Not sure how I had missed that tacklebox before but thanks. I can use that log to write down the info but I want to be able to keep a running log and I have never been able to keep up with paper! ;D that is why I am trying to make it real easy to load the info into the computer for filing away.

I am making a fish log using Excel and was wondering if any of you would look at it and tell me what I have missed. I put drop down menus on each entry to make it quick and easy to fill out. I am completely open to any suggestions thanks in advance. http://members.cox.net/jjrushing/master%20log.xls

There is actually an article in In-Fisherman magazine this month about this very subject.

That is a great idea. I will have to start doing that myself. I have been having a hard time finding boat ramps here in Virginia Beach. Not to mention maps of the local lakes. This way I can make my own. Thanks for the idea!

Just last Friday the wife and I were fishing Lake Cohoon in Virginia in our new boat (16ft tracker with a 9.9). While we were looking for another spot to fish we went into one of the fingers of the lake and were just going slow looking at the depth finder looking for some cover to fish, my wife says in a very calm voice man there sure are a lot of stumps here. I looked up and saw a couple in front of us but wasn't too worried since I was going pretty slow I turned to the right to miss a couple of stumps and that is when it happened. I drove the boat right on top of a tree. High centered the boat dead center! We both moved to the back thinking we that we could get the boat to kind of slide back off the tree but no luck all we did was go in circles around the top of this tree. I tried to back off of it using the motor NO GO! We moved to the front NO luck WE WERE STUCK it had to of been dead center of the boat. I was at a loss and was begining to think we were going to be sitting for a while until some one came by and of course the wife was saying I TOLD YOU! We spent 15 minutes trying to get off this tree before I saw that one of the trees I was trying to miss was right in front of us so I tried pushing us off with one foot but we were just too well centered. I had to strap on my life vest and stand on top of the stump completely out of the boat while my wife sat on the very back of the boat in order to push us off the stump. If the wife hadn't been so mad it would have made a great picture! Me standing in front of the boat in the middle of the lake!

Well this Newbie went fishing yesterday and I got NOTHING! Only one bite that scared me so bad by the time I got it that I missed it. Then today my wife and I went back. I did finally catch my first largemouth bass. I was SO happy! Here is my picture of me and my very first largemouth bass! LOL I sure hope things get better when the weather cools off a little bit. My wife caught one that was about 3/4 pound.

loose needle maybe?

Well I guess that means I will be making a trip soon. > Kinda sucks since I have only had it on the water 3 times and I already have to take it back for work! Oh well maybe it will get fixed and I won't have any more problems. Anyone else running that engine here that has or had the same problem and got it fixed? Anyone that hasn't had any problems that can make me feel better about my choice?

I just got a new Grizzly 1648 with a Mercury 9.9 4-stroke. I love the boat and man is that engine quite! However I have a problem the engine is SO quite that when I pull it back to idle I can't tell if it is still running without looking back for the little water stream coming out of it. If I could pull it back to idle and KNOW it was still running that wouldn't be a problem but it seems like the idle is set SO low that it tends to die 50% of the time. So here is my question. Is it common to have the idle set so low that the engine dies? It doesn't matter if the engine is warm or cold (of course it is worse when it is cold) And the second question is how hard is it to adjust the idle? Is it something I could do or should I take it back and let the boat dealer do it? Dealer is about an hour and a half away so I would rather do it myself. Thanks for the help everyone.

I did the same thing Monday and it got it's first test last night. No water in the boat but it did still make 3 little puddles on one side of the boat because the poles are about 2 inches below the side rail. MUCH better than it would have been without the supports. I didn't connect all the arches together but did put a T on each end with about 6 inches of pipe on either side in order to keep them up-right and it makes it a little easier to put in one brace at a time. now I just need to figure out how to stop the small puddeling. I might try just pulling the cover tighter with the straps. By the way this is my first post to the site and I just wanted to say that I love it and have found tons of usefull information here.