1fast68

Get a map of the lake you are going to most and find as many people as you can to mark spots that they have caught fish. I have some good friends that have done this for me cause I was having the same problem. Fish all day with no bites. I think my main problem was I wasn't fishing my worms slow enough. I now put my trolling motor as low as I can and still turn the blades and sometimes that's a little to fast to fish a wacky style worm. Also learned from a friend, they were watching their line. I could never see mine because I used green line. I have switched every thing from green to clear. You'll be suprised how many times your line will go sideways and you don't feel pressure yet. Just some things I have tried and learned. Still learning cause last trip I only got two in the boat. Lost one trying to lip it at the boat....another thing, even if by yourself, use a net to pick your fish out of the water....you won't stop thinking about that 4 punder you got to the boat and not in it.

ThomasL, I think you misunderstood my post...my main point is that when you pull a boat that is too heavy for the truck pulling it, not only are you unhappy with your towing experiance, you can kill people. I just wished people would think of more than themselves when operating a vehicle. Also while I'm at it...I think its selfish to drink and drive.

The 1st problem like others have stated it the stopping. Pulling with a V6 (other than the Toyota) will just prematurly wear it out. Any automatic behind a V6 will not be better than a stick. My suggestion is to get a 1/2 ton truck with a V8. You will be much happier and safer. Back to point 1. You can antisipate stopping sooner and use a small truck.....but what happens when you have an emergancy and can't start stopping 1/4 mile before you need to. What are you going to say to the Dad or Mom when you kill there child because you were pulling a boat with a truck that wasn't designed to stop it? I'm just going to make an assumption that more than 80% of the people that responed to this post don't have kids, or are under 25 years old. A lot of wisdom will come with age.

bassin_man, the truck has plenty of power to pull just about any bass boat you'll put behind it, but my suggestion and if I could have afforded it at the time. I would have bought a F250 with a diesel. Not that I needed more tourqe to pull it but it sure makes it nice to pull a heavy load with a diesel vs gas engine. I'm not biased by the make of the truck and like the Fords as well as GMs. I just like the diesel in the Fords better. If you ever pull a heavy load with a diesel, you'll never want to pull a trailer of any kind with a gas burner again.

I have an 04 ext. cab 4x4 with the 5.3. Towing a 93 184 Champ with single axle trailer I get 11mpg. With out towing I average 18. Stock size wheels and tires.

I was at our local tackle store today and they had two Falcon Cara Trigger Casting rods 6.6 MH for $49 a peice. Picked up both. Best deal I have found yet.

If you could afford just a little more I would get the RevoSC from Cabela's and a Falcon Lowrider 6'6" M. If you can't do any more than 200 then pick up a Citica and they have a $30 rebate. Would be $90 for the reel and $104 for the rod. Sorry, just noticed the BPS gift cards. Go with the Citica reel. Not as smooth as the RevoSC (I have a SC and a Citica 100) but still a good reel. Rod is hard to beat for the money.

In high speed I like the revo sc. Light and very smooth. May not be the lightest, but is 7.4 i think. You wouldn't be disapointed in this reel. And if you willing to spend 300 on a reel you could get 2 of these. I like the high speed for everything. I can slow down my reeling easier than I can speed it up.

If you didn't think it was wrong....why did you post in the first place. Conscience already bothering you are is it just a sad form of bragging.

Shimano Crucial 6'8" MH XF tip drop shot rod. I was afraid to get a MH after hearing ML-M but this thing is Super Sensitive. I've snaged two fish with this rod, one bream through both lips and a LM in the side.

Thanks for all the imput. The two bank charger is not working correctly so I am going to have to replace it. But I believe someone just didn't know what they were doing when wiring this. The red and orange wires from the TM plug are tied to the single red/black wire comming from the TM. So I believe the TM is a 24v only. 74# Maxxum. So I wired it up today 24v to the bottom postion (run 12/24v). The TM still comes on in all switch postions even though it has only power to the bottom 2 prongs on the switch. So the switch may be bad but doesn't matter at this point. So thanks for all your help.

Sorry, This is how I think it should connect (with maybe the orange and red from TM plug switched, depending on which is the 12v or 24v). Does this look right? Also, the charge selector would just be "off".

After looking at it agin, take it that I don't know what the difference between the orange and red TM wires are for. If I swap the Blue and White negatives and connect the blues to one battery at 12V and then connect the whites to the middle pos and neg to make 24V. Would that fix the problem? And then add a jumper between the Negatives?

This is the best I could figure out to do, sorry. Thanks again for taking the time to help me figure this out.

I'll try to draw a diagram and post it tomorrow. I figured it would confuse someone. I'm confused. The same place that wired the TM wired the trailer with no ground. (fixed that). Thanks for the help so far, hopefully a diagram will clear some things up.

OK this is going to be long so please hang with me.....The main panel is connected to the cranking battery, with the key off I can turn that main panel on and the accesaries work. That should be right. My trim switches, 3 of them, work no matter what, on the cranking battery. To the trolling motor: I have a 3 potion switch that has charge, 12v, and 12/24v potions. I have a 3 prong TM connecter, I have a cig. lighter type connecter on the same panel as the 3 way switch and plug in for TM. I have 4 wires comming from the 3 postion switch back to the batteries, I have a blue + and - and a white + and - (I will refer to these as the blue and white wires). The top of the 3 way switch is the charge it is bridged to its + and -. The middle is the 12v setting, it is connected to the red on the TM plug, + on the blue set and the + on the cig. lighter plug. The - side of the 12v setting is connected to the - of the white set only. The bottom is the 12/24v setting, connected to the + on the white set only, and the orange of the TM plug. The - side is connected to the Blue sets neg, black wire on TM plug and - of the cig. lighter plug. If I have the batteries connected in series the TM runs full speed on all 3 postion settings if the Blue + and - are connected. If connected to just one singe 12v batter it only runs at half the speed and if I try to connect the white set of wires to the other 12v battery they spark when touching them to either of the post on the other seperate battery. With the White set connected in series (24v), the TM only works on the charge setting, not at all on the 12v setting and trips the breaker on 12/24. This make no since at all to me. The TM shouldn't work at all on the charge postion, correct? On the TM plug: looking at the plug the top is the black wire, left is the red wire and right is the orange wire. I sure hope someone can help out with this one.

I dont understand boat electronics very well, but as long as the panel has 12v it doesn't matter which battery, it's still only going to power up when the key is turned on, right? Also, should the 12v hook up's spark when connected to one of the single batterys connected in series?

So it will be ok to connect the bow mount depth finder to either batt 1 or 2's + and - ? Also is the connection suppose to spark when you first connect the + of batt 1 to the - on batt 2?

On the trolling batteries, if I have them connected in series for 24v. Do I connect both the connections from the 2 bank charger to each + and - on each battery? Also can I connect the Main panel wiring up to just one set of + and - leads to either batt 1 or 2 or do I need to connect everything else to the cranking battery? Thanks, Shane

Well....I've saved a lot of money asking questions and being "dumb". fishfordollars, I think your selling yourself short....There's nothing....let me repeat, nothing anybody else does that someone else can't learn to do.

Found what I needed.....must not be many Mercury folks on the board, if you have any questions send me an PM I now have a book.

Any ideas on the auto-oiler.....also is there two pumps on this engine?

I need to change a fuel pump on a '93 Merc 175 EFI. I am very mechanicly capable of doing the work but I have never worked on an outboard this big or an EFI. Can someone give some info on changing this. Also is there a place online to download a Service manual for changing the pump...So I know exactly where everything is located. It does have the auto-oiler, can I bypass the oiler by just plugging it? Thanks for any help. :-/

Just to clear anything up... the Citica I had didn't have a problem casting 80-90 feet... it just didn't cast that far with the same amount of effort this Revo SC does.

Earlier this year I bought one of the WalMart $60 Abu Garcia reels and after using it, swore I would never by another Garcia reel. So I went to Academy Sports and purchased a new Citica 200 and it was a night and day difference in casting, never backlashed the Citica but the "cheap" Garcia was backlashing every cast....Then I see all this talk about the Revo's and it gets me curious about them. So I've read all the reviews and posts here and finally ordered one. Tried it out last night and it casts great. I strung it with 8lb fluorocarbon and tied on a 1/4oz weight. With just a normal cast it was casting 80-90 feet. Defiantly more distance than the Citica. It has a profile similar to the Citica 100 which I find a little on the small side. I was casting with the brakes set to max and never backlashed. I liked it so much that I ordered another one today. I'm not a regular baitcaster so I don't have a Bias and the only other baitcaster I have used was an older Curado that also cast very well. I think that the Revo SC is the best for the money right now. JMHO