tstraub

I've heard that the reason they specify a lower people weigh than p/m/g is because people are movable weight. If you're above person weight and everybody moves to the same side of the boat at the same time things could get dangerous real quick. If your motor and gear are moving around your probably already in trouble. i really don't think you will capsize the boat but it could lean far enough that you lose your ballence and fall overboard.

Today I was given an old lowrance LMS-332C sonar with GPS. It was me father-in-law's and he said it quit working. It powers on and the screen looks to be working fine but it always reads 0ft depth and 32 degrees temp. No real image on the graph just noise. My best guess is that it has a faulty transducer. The transducer has some epoxy or something on it. It looks like he hit something and broke it off. Then glued it back together a long time ago. My guess is that water leaked in and damaged it. Do you guys think it would be with buying a new transducer to try? Or would you think it's smarter to put that money towards a more up to date model. In all honesty this unit is probably way more high end than I need but since I have it already I sorta want to see it work. Also it does not have a lake maps card with it so that may affect it's value as well.

This morning I caught this fish that I'm not sure if it's a channel or a blue. It's color was a lot lighter and more blue than any of the other cats I've caught here. Sorry the color in the picture is not real good because I had him on a stringer for a few hours before I took the pic and he lost a lot of color. Anyway since he was a legal fish either way we had him for dinner. Just wondering what you guys think. I'm leaning towards channel but not sure. I know both species are in the river here but to my knowledge I've never caught a blue unless this is one.

I guess I screwed up. I had a pair of bait shears in the boat and turned it loose. Then I ran out of chicken liver lol.i considered using it for bait but the golden shiners I had weren't working as well as the liver so I just kept feeding them and missing most of the hook sets.

I looked up goldeye and mooneye I will say it's one or the other. Pretty interesting fish they would probably be a lot of fun on lighter tackle this one jumped out of the water a few times on the way to the boat. My catfish setup was a bit too heavy to really enjoy the fight.

Thanks for the reply but I think a skipjack's dorsal fin is closer to the center of it's back. This guy's dorsal is set way back closer to the tail

That sounds like a good name for it. It certainly does have big gold colored eyes.

Caught in Indiana, the Wabash river near the Wabash/Miami county line. It bit on chicken liver while I was targeting catfish. You can't see it in the picture but it has a mouth full of tiny teeth. Any idea what it is?

I have an energy PT on a KVD signature series rod and I've never had and nuts, bolts, or springs fall off and it has certainly never burst into flames. But, I don't catch fish as big as A-Jay does, so maybe I haven't stressed it hard enough. No complaints here. I'm not running out to get another one but if I found a deal on one I wouldn't be afraid of owning another.

I would go with Berkley because I throw power worms more than anything else and it would be awfully hard to give them up. Second choice would be Bass Pro Shop brand. I don't really have one favorite bait from them, well maybe there stik-o baits, but I feel that they make a decent copy of just about everything I would need.

Thanks, I think I had the trim somewhere near the middle I'll raise it up next time. And probably wait until the river is higher. I went when it was pretty low because I wasn't sure how it would handle the current. It's still new to me and I'm learning as I go. Yes it's an old pull start air, cooled, single cylinder 2 stroke. I don't remember the model number but I did look it up and found out it was made in either 1954 or 1955. Starts on the first pull as long as I get the coke settings right. I'm still learning when to coke it an when not to if I stop and anchor for a bit.

Thanks, that's what I figured. I might try to bring it up for clearance. I had it in the river a couple weeks ago and I did bounce the skeg off rocks a few times then caught one really hard and broke a shear pin. Lucky I had a spare and the water was warm enough to step out and change it real quick.

So I was reading another thread on this forum about motor shaft length be transom heights and it got me to thinking I just put a motor on my 14 foot semi V and I never have a thought to the shaft length. I just bought based on price. It's an old 2 hp Elgin I got real cheap because it didn't run. Any way a can of carb cleaner, some gasket material and a whole lot of elbow grease later it runs like new. I measured my depth and I'm almost 2 inches low. It this a concern on such a low hp motor? Would moving it have any effect on performance? The boat works as well as I expected it would I can go about 5 or 6 mph at wide open throttle with just me and my gear. I haven't ran a GPS speed with passengers but with 2 of my son's on board it didn't feel like it was a whole lot different.

My boat is a 13'8" aluminum semi V made in the 60's and it's a tank compared to some of these newer thin gauge boats. It's really not a big deal at all to take on and off the trailer by hand if I want to launch at a spot where I can't back the trailer in the water. First you need to have the motor off so it doesn't drag the ground. Just loosen the clamps and lift it off. The fuel tank is built in so it all comes off in one piece and only weighs 30ish pounds I would guess. Try to keep it upright if you can or fuel will run out the carb and it might flood the engine and start hard. To get the boat on the trailer situate the boat and trailer so the bow of the boat is just to one side or the other of the rear of the trailer and the stern is in line with the trailer. Then lift the front of the boat and swing it over on the rear roller of the trailer. You're only lifting maybe 50 pounds or so, probably less of you set the anchor on the ground. Then go to the back of the boat and lift it up and walk forward the boat will slide on the rollers real easy. Your probably lifting close to 100 pounds or more if the boat is loaded. If it's too much for you hook the winch to the front eyelet and have your son crank it up while you walk it on. He could probably handle it I had my 10 year old do it for me once when we got caught in the rain and the boat had several gallons of water weighing it down. Then strap it down and your done.

I fished off a 24 foot pontoon for a few years and loved it. Mine was not marketed as fishing platform just an old used pontoon that was the right price for us. I bolted on a 55 pound thrust foot controlled trolling motor and ran a diy live well that was made out of a cooler, a bilge pump and some PVC pipe. Lots of room and very stable for the kids. My only complaint would be boat control in the wind. A more powerful trolling motor probably would have helped with that. But, it never bothered me bad enough to spend the money on an upgrade.

I live about 15 minutes form there but don't fish it often because i just have a 14 foot semi v and I get pushed around from all the wake of the faster boats. The first week of July my father in law brought his big boat over and we fished it for about half a day. it was real hot air temp in the 90s I caught 1 small mouth real quick near the Miami ramp then nothing for a long time. We tried deep we tried shallow, we drove around watching the sonar but we could not get a bite. Eventually we did find a school of white bass real shadow in 2-3 feet of water next to an island out from the beach area. That's the most recent info I have for you. I hope you have better luck than we did.

I took two of my boys on a little river float this morning. We dropped in the Tippecanoe North of Rochester and motored up steam a mile or so and fished back. My oldest caught 2 smallies and a large mouth. My youngest and I blanked out. All in all it was a good trip and my youngest is now hooked on floating the river. It was his first float because I never had a river boat until recently. I was very happy with the way that little 2hp motor handles river current. It's not fast but it was plenty strong enough to to the job.

I'm not sure if this comment was for the OP out me, but if it was meant for me I was in 3-7 feet of water and more than ones I was at the end of my 30 for anchor lines before they took a bite. Longer line might have helped a little but it's a small boat and I don't really want to have any more anchor line under my feet. What I have is in the way as much as it's in the water. The river we were in is mostly sand and gravel bottom not a whole lot to get a hold of.

Personally I like to have 2 anchors on a boat to keep it from swinging around on you every time the wind changes. If it were me I would probably add a heavier anchor and keep using the one you have as well. How heavy? it's hard to say, it really depends on the water and the weather. I have an aluminum semi v just under 14 feet with 2 12 pound river anchors. They look like mushrooms but with deep flutes in them. I have 2 small lakes nearby with 10mph speed limits one anchor is usual plenty on those lakes. If I go to the resivour I tend to need both anchors or the wake from the pressure boaters will bounce my boat around enough that anchor pulls lose. Today I dropped in the river and we got by but I sure could have used heaver anchors in the current. By the time the anchors got a good bite we had floated past a few of our target areas. I hope this information helps you but in the end your just going to have to use it and see how well it works for you.

I know fish often go by different names in different parts of the country. The OP's fish is missing the tell tale long ear of the fish I know as a green sunfish. Based on what I can see I'm leaning towards rock bass but the coloration is not typical of the rock bass I see around here so I'm not certain.

Does anybody live near Tippecanoe? A few years ago my son, father-in-law, and I floated the Tippecanoe in a Jon boat and had real good fishing and terrible boating. The river was real shallow and we had to portage several times to get around but when we found deeper water we caught loads of rock bass, several small mouth, a few large mouth and one real nice walleye. Anyway after a few months of paperwork my boat is registered. I was warned not to buy a boat without a HIN but I didn't listen lol. I'm off work the next 3 days and I'm looking to make a trip. Looks like rain today and tomorrow but dry on Monday so I thinking that river might be more navigable. Just wondering if anyone drives past that river on a regular basis and could give me a report of the conditions before I drive 45 miles to look for myself. Thanks Tyler

This is my"I can't afford a bass boat" boat I gave $150 for the boat and trailer. Installed new transom boards, wrestled a couple new tires on the rims by hand for about $40. The engine is a 1954 Ellen 2hp that I got non running for $40 and reworked the carb, cleaned the gas tank, and set the points. Now it starts on the first pull and pushes the boat across the water at speeds nearly 6mph or can idle down to a nice slow troll. The sonar is a Frankenstein I put together using a broken eagle portable unit and a working hummingbird console mount unit I had laying around. I suck a couple rechargeable batteries in it and it does the job well enough for my needs. Removing the terrible camo paint job done by the previous owner is still an ongoing process.

You're probably right, I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and and move out of the way to the right and give a friendly nod on my way past.

I assume it's universal but I've never used a boat outside this state so I haven't looked it up. It just seems odd to me that everyone is worried about the polite way to pass when the law says exactly what to do.

I live in Indiana and at least here the law states that if two boats approach head on both boaters bear right. In the rare event that bearing right would put me closer to the bank I tend to hold course and let the other guy bear right. But that doesn't happen often because I like to have my rod in my right hand and control the boat with my left hand on the tiller. So I usually circle the lake clockwise and swing out to the right and give the other guy room.