surfer

My dad's pontoon has a 150 E-TEC. He charged me with maintenance if he bought it. In turn I get to use it anytime without notice provided he is not using it. It is a very quiet motor. Most boater I know who know about the new 4 strokes automatically assume its a 4 stroke because of how quiet it is. Now on to the bad stuff. I don't know if this was dealer related or E-TEC related. We had to have the brains reprogrammed. It would go into a safety mode and only idle. This suck when you are miles away from your destination. At its worst point it would not run unless the motor was tilted up out of the water. This makes no mechanical sense to me, but somehow a brain reprogram took care of it. This took 5 trips to the authorized mechanic to get it right. The dealer, E-TEC rep and authorized mechanic did not update one another and that responsibility landed on me if it were to get done. I did not think that was appropriate on their part. I am very happy to have the motor now. It does what you would expect and is pretty good on gas compared to my dad's old boat. The pontoon boat has three pontoons and holds 15 people. It jumps on plane and dose about 35 with a full load of 15 adults. Shocks most people because they think of a pontoon boat as a cruiser only. Sorry I can't comment on price.

I have the Cuda 168 non portable. I think it is the exact same with different brackets for $20 cheaper. Mine can still run off of batteries and claims portability. I haven't tried it though, mine is permanently mounted. For the money I am happy with it. The graph goes out about 5% of the time. The depth and temperature gauge never go out and are always displayed. It gets confused in thick weeds and in water less than 2 ft. It can show dozens of fish at 30 ft deep in these two situations. It also doesn't handle the vibrations of my boat once I get above 15 mph. This could be bad mounting on my part. For all its flaws it dose correctly tell me depth and water temp. 95% of the time it shows me bottom contour and fish hiding in the low weeds and suspended fish. And just as important it shows when the bottom is flat, hard and void of cover and fish. This is my first fish finder so I am sure once I buy a $200 one I would never go back. But until then I think the details of depth, bottom contour and weeds is worth every penny.

Congrats. Thats the cheapest fix it could have been. ;D

uhmm... maybe they weren't bass feeding then. What I am talking about looks much more exciting with some bass jumping clear out of the water. Sometimes it can be indicated by birds diving into the water at one spot, or waves of minnows jumping trying to escape, or bass coming clear out of the water. But the random slow roller by himself doesn't sound right. I have seen a gar/ pickerel (I can't tell them apart) do that. But I can't say one way or the other what you saw.

I am with RW and T-rig. It sounds like schools of bait fish being balled up and then hit. I have thrown rapala minnows, shad raps, spoons, and flukes in to the spot and had hookups. If I can cast right on top of the action then allot of times I get bit immediately when the lure hits the water. I have heard in this situation that the bigger bass can be caught deeper in the school. I do not have personal experience with that yet, but will be trying to cast beyond and swim a bait under the action in the near future.

95% uni - any line 4% uni to uni - any line to any line 1% palomar - any line I would probably use the Palomar more if I had learned it first.

If the speaker you are talking about is your horn then i would suspect no problems. It could have shorted out from corroding wires and started making the buzzing sound. Dose the horn work now that you have disconnected it? if so then you disconected something else. If you had a picture it would make this easier.

A lesson in tongue weight. It's not boat trailer related, but dump trailer related. I was 19 towing a trailer with concrete debris that I was in charge of loading. From the job site to the dump was 3 miles of private road w/ no traffic. Made about 5 runs a night. After building confidence I started loading heavier and heavier. Using a 1988 Jeep Cherokee. I loaded tongue heavy once and found that just by touching the brakes my front tires would lock up but I wouldn't slow. Steering was not responsive either the truck just wanted to go straight. I had to keep it below 20 mph. Next I loaded tongue light. The trailer was actually lifting up on my hitch. My back tires were higher wile my front tires were squatty. At 15 mph my back tire started to walk around on me and I was headed towards a jack knife quickly. I was able to counter steer to straighten it back out and then slow down. I had to keep it under 10mph. When I got to the dup I weighed n at 7 tons. I had 5.5 tons on 1.5 tons of vehicle. I will never do that again.

I have been caught by the kill switch problem at least twice. One time it took me a week to figure it out. Now I make a more conscious effort to always start with the simplest solution first. Check the kill switch if you have one. Check that you have gas making it to the engine next. If your back home and have the tools I would check for spark third. While checking for spark you should notice weather the battery is low or not. Charge or replace battery if needed. About this time is when I start praying for the battery to have a problem. Once you make it past this point just to diagnose the problem can be more expensive than a new battery. After the battery is charged or new, if the starter is turning your motor over at the same pace it normally dose then the starter and solenoid are fine. You should be able to hear this if it sounds different. The starters I have had always went from normal to nothing when they went bad. Good Luck

Have you tried cutting the hook as far down as you can reach and releasing the bass with a partial hook? There is less damage and he will bleed less. I would rather have half an Indian arrow stuck in my leg than a big hole were the Indian took his arrow back.

Thank you guys for spelling it out for me / us. The hook, sinker, apendages, twitch, tips are apreciated.

I use braid with a 10 ft 10# InvizX leader. If I dont have a finger on it all 10 ft will jump off when i open the bail. Not a broblem when you get used to it.

Considering the boat only weighs 200 lbs you can launch by hand no mater what ramp you pull up to. So save your money on 4 wheel drive unless you plan on going off road to find a secluded lake. As for the engine size, the boat weighs the same as your buddy in the passenger seat of your car. You don't need a V6 for him either. You dont need V6 or 4WD

Again, I don't know what the whole conversation is. Their response is out-of-context.

No, I can't see that. Post what your initial contact to them was. It is material. I will not judge them by a comment that may bee taken out of context.

So how do you avid getting hung up in the thick weeds? My Texas rigs can't do it. Would more weight help? What other rigs / baits will come back out after you throw them in?

tie on 4 lb test leader, about as much as you can cast, tie on a really small hook and put a live dragon fly on it. Cast it out and hope it floats or sinks really slow. Dont forget to set your drag to about 1 lb or so. Disclaimer: I have never tried this, but if the bass like dragonfies.... go with it.

If every one has to pay a licensing fee and pass a safety knowledge test it can only mean safer waters for me. I will gladly spend $30 and two hours of my time for my safety.

Some Central Florida Lakes do have speed limits. I have never heard of them being enforced. I dont doubt that under the right circumstances they would be enforced. Lake Conway Chain of Lakes 35 MPH Lake Maitland Chain of Lakes 32 MPH Inexperienced boaters are the biggest problem. To an extent we can all be inexperienced. Be safe on new water.

"Charged it Friday night as usual There's your problem. Always charge ASAP after use. A battery sitting uncharged gets sulfate on the plates and reduces its capacity. Test the battery, but if you regularly run it down on a weekend and don't charge till Friday it will kill the battery. In case I misinterpreted and your starting battery is dead, if it is two years old I would simply replace it and hope that that is the problem because that is your cheapest fix. Deep Cycle Battery Maintenance 1. Use an automatic charger with trickle charge maintenance. 2. Charge ASAP after use. 3. Don't run down to dead. Stay above 30% or higher if possible 4. Refill with distilled water only.

I do not believe BPS has it. They have Yo-Zuri Hybred, but not Ultra Soft

10 minutes for the decent gas motor lake is close by most people's standards. The electric only lakes must be really close. 2 hours is long by my standards. That burns more fuel than the day on the lake. I am 10 minutes from my home lake and 15 to 20 from many other lakes. But I usually stick with my over crowded over fished lake that is 10 minutes away cause it still produces and there are still 10 pounders coming out of it. Not by me though. You are right sitting out in the weather is not ideal for boats and motors. If it is spending cash and not savings though it's yours to spend and enjoy. If you can launch the bigger boat on the electric only lakes that would be a bonus.

I caught a bass and let him swim for a minute while I got my gut hook tools ready. When I turned around there were 12 bass in sight of the boat. As long as I left the one hooked up the others stayed close. Is it possible to catch any of these others with one still out?

Have you guys encountered the wake surfer yet? These guys take an Air Nautique or similar wake board boat designed specifically to produce large wakes. They then add 1500# of ballast and drive at about 12 mph, the most inefficient plowing speed possible. This creates a wake that is 2ft high and surfable. Yes, surfable without a rope. They drive around in large circles to aid in the pitch of the wake. There is no hiding from this large wake it will travel a half mile and still be 1 ft high. I fish a popular lake where just yesterday afternoon two boats were doing this at the same time. I had to run about 3/4 mile away and around a corner. This might just be a Florida thing.

From Shimanos web site on the Stradic page conserning S-Concept... S-Concept represents Shimanos initial philosophy on which many of our spinning reels have been designed. The three basic ideas that are inherent in the S-Concept are Smooth, Silent and Strong. So yes. Quiet. If you can hear the wind whipping through the bail wire as the loudest noise than i think they accomplished Silent. If you hear something louder you may want to check it out. The two drops of oil sound like a simple place to start.