Tatsu Dave

Always exploring and moving till I hit bass that are active, water I fish is pretty hard for pleasure boats to get in. I ignore other fisherman and keep trying to find good structure places where the fish hold when coming and going from the shallow water food sources.

Well sounds like some savage interest after all, agree with your feeling on outside barrel work but have simply never experienced it in a long time of rifle work. I use Criterion - McGowen - Lothar Walther - Pac Nor - and factory Savage barrels. Most accurate barrel and gun I have is a pretty much bone stock Savage 12BVSS 22-250 that got a skim bed under action ($40)and coil and a half clipped off varmint accutrigger (free ) other than that out of the box. I used to shoot some local 100yd benchrest so I worked up a load and got it to shoot consistant mid ones to mid twos 3 shot groups measured extreme spread and the bore size subtracted. Outshoots the savages I've done stock - trigger - recoil lug - and barrel replacements.....go figure. My 260 and 7mm-08 deer rifles with short 20" lighter contour barrels both shoot threes to fours and are short fast handling guns for climbing into trees and woods hunting with. A tactical heavy barrel shoots fours and a new long range 26" varmint barreled 7mm-08 just hit the threes with a varget load this summer. I can change barrels and headspace in 30min. or less and very much enjoy them. To me beauty is a couple bughole groups at the range.........thats what gets me going. Kinda like when you catch large bass, people don't care about you or your boat.......its the results! Brian and Clayton you both are doing very good, handloads worked up with best powder, powder charge weight, primer, good brass prep, and OAL tuning will make most savages shine. Floating boltheads and floating barrels work, laminate and accu stocks are good but earlier flimsy synthetic stocks leave some to be desired B&C or boyds as well as others make a stiffer more stable replacement. Good Shooting to all....fall will be coming soon, stands are up. Dave Russ I envy where you deer hunt sounds like you got those axis guns shooting good. Good Shooting this fall. Dave

Used flouro (tatsu) for three years now on 5 rods have pulled the boat to hang ups and caught a fair number of fish with it. I have never and that means not one time had a knot slip or fail. Improved clinch knot has never slipped and I cut my tags close to the knot. Plenty of bite- offs with pike and pickerel and a couple of line breaking incidents but never at a knot. I agree...experience trumps opinion for me every time Dave

There it is in a nutshell so they say. Nothing makes you better than time on the water, thats in school so to speak. I have only two things going for me I never want to come off the water.....I think that would be an addiction I have an intense interest in STRUCTURE its what everything else with finding fish is connected too.

Enjoy making your new boat just the way you want it. ENJOY! Dave

That does sound like you got a tough job ahead on the thread matching. Having the reciever and barrel threaded sure makes barrel swaps and headspacing a breeze. Remington actions are strong and accurate with attention to detail, sounds like you will have a nice rig when finished. I just had a thread matching deal myself with buying a large shank match barrel and needing to cut it down and recontour the shank of the barrel to small shank. Lg and small are so close we had to cut the threads deeper in what was left of original thread, then when we fit the barrel and checked throat depth for OAL of cartridges for fitting magazine, had to cut some off barrel and rechamber with a different match reamer. And then pickup threads and go a ways further out barrel for barrel nut. Lot of work to salvage a very nice #3 contour 1-9" stainless 7mm-08 barrel, recrowned and threaded for brake while it was being made right . Glad I didn't have but $50 in the new barrel to start with

Welcome to the forum. I hope you find it as interesting and fun as I have, great bunch of fisherman with a lot to share. Dave

As a new member and probably one of the worst equipped fisherman one would meet on this site.............can I just make an observation? When you climb near the top in any pursuit you equip yourself with quote "state of the art" for the task. New or old doesn't matter simply is it the best in your eyes? I see it in hunting(which I know a bit about) and fishing (which I'm down in the bottom of the class ). The bottom line always is what is the persons ability - experience - and knowledge irregardless of level of equipment and gear. A good fisherman will figure it out find the fish and the best or most high tech equipment will just make it easier and more pleasurable to catch and land them. I studied Buck Perry a lot years ago and he was a good example of this. I'll never have the knowledge (age constraints) so many have on here of whats the best possible equipment to use, I just want to understand structure and fish movement better all the time. I'll look to people like the OP and some of the others on this site to dial me in slowly to the best equipment I can afford. Dave

They never stopped working, a lot of fisherman stopped using them. I use them with 12# flouro and any of a variety of plastic trailers, I have real small frog trailers we used to use years ago. You can't seem to sharpen the hooks enough and I keep the weed guard 1/4" above hook. Pickerel and pike hit them a lot so with no wire leader you loose em a lot, I just can't stand wire leaders so thats life. Always pays to have one handy .....or two

OK spent the day on Webber Pond exploring and fishing, caught some bass but being Saturday the boat traffic was bad and fishing pressure was high. Showed up at daylight and was first on scene but by 10AM all 7 truck/trailer spots were filled with a neighbor getting $5 a pop to park in his yard, also several rigs had parked out on the main road and walked back. 10 rigs with many more lakeside boats also out, some just roaring around and others fishing, little too small for me for all that traffic Finally pulled in and headed out, state had people on site when you came in to inspect boat for aquatic vegatation and looking inside boats for who knows what. I don't encounter this where I fish so it all seemed a bit much.....that's a good term for it I guess. Not on my fish this one a lot list. Gonna try Thompson next, I can't resist a good smallmouth spot. Dave

The last week to 10 days has seen nightime temps falling now (nite before last 48 degrees, last night 57) water temps have come down noticeably as well, we are finding bass are moving and feeding more. Will spend tomorrow on a new lake for us and hope to post some pics and experiences this weekend. River levels and lakes in general are down from the dry summer and algae and plankton is covering a lot of waterways pretty bad this year. I expect the drawdown on Sebasticook lake will happen soon if its not already happening, Sebasticook river is covered side to side in areas with plankton. Pleasant (Stetson) lake is so low rocks are becoming a real hassle in shallow areas and coves. Want to get up to Wassookeag in Dexter and smallmouth fish also, used to commerical smelt fish there and in Schoodic. Any Maine Fisherman in central area give us a report if you can. Dave

Gonna say this post mirrors my experiences pretty much, I've yet to have my tatsu line change color also (it does get dirty and stained from some water however). The fluro holds up a lot longer than mono and till the spool gets too low it continues to work as it should.

VolFan how fast does your go with the 20hp? We have a 9.9 and it will run 19mph with just me but with son and his gear too its only able to run 11mph and never gets fully up on plane. We're thinking about a 15-20 with power tilt and trim but it will cost upwards of $2700 even after selling the 9.9 and using that money. Just curious I guess, and you have the same weight and hull configuration as mine to compare to. Dave

I used 3/4 plywood covered with boat carpeting, that way I could mount seat bases and swivels solidly. The floor is removable vinyl covered marine plywood. I braced the casting deck up to the bow plywood to tie the front together and give a solid trolling motor and anchor mount. Love the boat it will launch in 18" of water and truck pulls it like its not there, we launch it in some rough places with no ramp or anything. We drop it off trailer and chew thru the arrowheads, pad's, and reeds in 1 1/2' of water till we get out to open water at one of our smallmouth lakes. Fishing boat thru and thru Dave

Looks like you're on your way, thats how I did mine.......parts cheap as possible and all labor free. Took a lot of work but it pays off when your out on the water

OK that post above I quoted I agree with 100% When my son was using braid line on everything and I was clear flouro on everything we both noticed the fluro caught more and especially bigger fish with same lures and techniques on same boat. Enough that he changed to same dia. fluro and now its a coin toss who will do better each trip. I agree with anglers thru the years that used light small diameter line with no hardware that the fish could see.....them ol' brown fish are pretty good at spotting line

Love to trail cam, you get some big ones sometimes. Bear in pic destroyed my game camera had a cub with it. We hunted the buck with the deformed horn but never got it. The buck shedding velvet was unique, don't get many of those pics Cammed for years will post some more at some point. Dave

Just curious, always a few that use the 10/110 series of rifles for hunting or target. Just got done dialing my last three guns in at the bench with handload work-ups, won't build anymore now...just enjoy them. I get pretty good accuracy from them and they are simple to modify and accuracy tune, I'll be using a 260 and 7mm-08 for deer this fall. Nosler Accubonds are my favorite bullets, accuracy and performance on game. Dave

Nothing more I can add....already only use flourocarbon

Wow thats a great fish!

Yea we're going out friday morning so maybe that will be the day for china lake. I don't know about other parts of the country but we usually catch 20 fish or more anytime we go out, not boasting.......you gotta have the fish numbers to start with but have had several 50+ fish days this year. Fishing pressure is so much less and fish aren't as lure shy or hammered on as steady. Thank You A-Jay your pics are pretty cool especially fighting fish on boat

Well just coming onboard and only getting to know you from your posts I've read, there is nothing I'm able to say to you from a personal standpoint except so sad to hear. I will pray for you because peace is a gift from above for sure, I will miss your posts because you are one that has a lot to share about bass fishing, and I have a lot to learn. GOD Bless Dave

I have that exact boat I guess with the walk thru feature, turned it into a fishing boat from stock. Closed in the bow and put a raised casting deck from frt seat forward. Used a 45thrust edge MinnKota with 42" shaft, never used it all the way down so its plenty long and it has plenty of power for that size boat. Four years of hard fishing and no problems at all. Leave on 2 and come in 6-7 hours later on 4-5 speed. Will troll at about 3mph if wanted. Bought the motor at Wally World for $389 and never looked back will find a pic for you to see.

Both rivers we fish are dark tannin stained from the evergreens at there best and limit visibility to about 3-4', both also run thru farmland so any runoff turns them to light chocolate milk. We use simple green and dishwashing detergent with a scrub brush to clean the boat ring off each fall, takes about a half hour on each side Used to really bother me but the fish we catch makes it worth while. I think its one of the reasons the smallmouth are so dark in color.

Know a fella that fishes it pretty steady all summer, hes done better than most years and caught and released some 3-4lb bass. Thinks its less pressure this year due to covid, son and I either want to hit webber or china yet this year.