Jig Man

I doubt that you can fix it and if it is out of warranty you usually can't get them worked on.

The main thing about lead pouring to consider health wise is do not smoke while you are pouring and be sure to wash your hands well before you eat or drink anything.

I use a Curado G5 with a Daiwa 6.5' medium rod and 10# mono for those baits.

[What temperature does the soft plastic turn liquid? What is the upper reasonable temperature to cast? At the typical casting temperature, how long dies it take to solidify? Is the mold heated? Is a mold release used in casting soft plastic?] The material starts out as liquid and as it heats it gels a bit then turns liquid again. I have never checked the temp when it goes back to liquid. That is when I add colorant and glitter and don't have a lot of time to mess around. As soon as I get the color and glitter mixed in I continue heating. I use an infrared themometer and like to pour at 350°F. It solidifies in a matter of seconds on the first cast. I warm my molds in the winter to 75°-85°F before I begin. I don't use a release agent as such but on some of my baits with inserts like tubes and slab busters I have found that a bit of cooking oil on the mandrels makes the job a whole lot easier.

I've caught bass with mono and hooks hanging out their behinds but never seen them trying to pass any plastic. I have, however, caught a few that threw up plastic in the boat while I was unhooking them. Some of it seemed to be particially decomposed but most of the time it was still in good shape.

Rooster you are correct in keeping the batteries seperate. I run my trolling motor on what ever speed it takes to do the job. Sometimes in current or wind I'll have it cranked up for hours and hours at a time. It has been my experience that you can't harm a good trolling motor by run time. Like stated, the battery will give out before the trolling motor even starts to be over worked.

That is usually a sign of a seal failure. Have you looked to see it from the inside and checked for grease there?

I like the poison tail best. I had arke and football molds. I sold them after I started using poison tail jig heads.

One of my buds insists on a second hook set. I have watched him lots of times. He drops his rod tip a bit before setting. He looses over half of his fish and he can't understand why. I know that a human has a reaction of 3/4 of a second from the time you decide to do something send the message from the brain to muscles and start the job. I read that bass have 1/25 of a second reaction time, so letting them have just an itty bit of slack has to be a no no. I set the hook once and keep pressure on them all the way to the boat.

If you have a repair shop they should be able to fix it way cheaper than a new one. It may just need new brushes.

I run the low hds units. As for finding fish during an outing they aren't much different from other units except on down scan I can tell a lot more than 2d sonar. The real value is finding and marking stuff that I never new existed of saw on 2d and didn't understand. I have located hundreds of spots by scanning, recording, then looking at the recording, and marking wpts. I then can go back and fish the places that I have marked. I would buy them again in a heartbeat.

2 for me

I'd be very cautious buying a boat with out a title. Maybe you should call the mfg and see what they have to offer in the way of info.

Do you know if he is a factory pro staffer or a dealership pro staffer. Does he title the boat or just run it till he sells it so you get a new warranty on everything?

I also fish both. IMO Gloomis is the better rod.

I prefer to fish at night when the moon is bright. I fished M, T, W, and TH nights. The bite was very good but Th is was too windy to hold on any of my good spots so I didn't do so well. We had lots of wind and rain F and S so I stayed home.

I use Kosher salt from the grocery store. I use my wife's coffee grinder and make it into powder. A couple of bucks worth of salt lasts me years.

I use the slide clamps from Harbor Frieght.

I own a 2001 Champion 206. I have had it since it was new. I use it 80-100 days each year. It still looks like it did when I bought it. The ride and handling are incredible. You won't go wrong with a 196 if it has been taken care of.

I have used a lot of batteries over the years. I am on my second year of AGMs and they are working great. I even put one on the cranking motor. If you got wet cell then reserve amps or reserve capacity it the thing to go for 180 or more.

Shimano E7 on a Gloomis 6'6" MHF rod with 30# Power Pro braid

I rig up grubs with jig heads with and without weedguard depending on the situation. For tubes I rig them with a jig head and no weedguard if open water, add a weedguard if needed. More rocky I fish Trigged. The most snag free is with a bell sinker inside the tube. If you don't have weedguard and want the jighead, you can rig weedless like this.

You need some plastisol up to $40/gal), glitter $3-5 per bottle), colorant ($3-5 per bottle), what ever molds you want to use ($50-100 each), some good gloves that are heat resistant ($5-20 per pair), some measuring cups ($2-10 each), a microwave oven ($30-75), an infared themometer ($30-100) and a place outside the house to do the work. You can spend anywhere from a few bucks to hundreds getting setup. Look at places like Bear's baits, Jacob's, Lurecraft, Jann's Net Craft, Barlow's, etc. Some of them have starter kits with most of what you will need to begin. What ever you do don't use the microwave in the kitchen.

In MO we have a 3 bait reg also. I use 3 swimbaits or grubs and 2 small willow leaf blades. It worked quite well this spring but died this summer. I'm looking forward to it getting hot this fall. Here is a homemade one that I have rigged for white bass and crappie.