Mickey Finn

I don't know about the welding. I was told not to weld with a couple inches of the seam or the sealant would boil out and there would be a bigger problem. Maybe it's ok, but I'd check into it real good first.

PM sent...actually 2 PM's

Jr Thundersticks if tuned properly will run pretty fast. We run them at or above 3.0MPH a lot, succesfully I might add. Actually when fishing for browns in the summer with NK's, I'm more apt to be trolling 2.5 or so. Properly tuned Jr's will have no problem with this speed.

Another vote for Tim. I also remove the split ring if there is one.

I believe there was something that came with my Depth Raider that said you can't run the black box and the Depth Raider on the same rigger. I'd imagine the cannon speed and temp would be the same.

I like the JR thundersticks better. The lip holds up better if you hit bottom. I think they are easier to tune and can run faster than the Rapalas. I'd love to get my hands on some "Brown Trout" jr thundersticks if anyone has any they want to part with.

Some places like Cabelas sell the lowrance units either with or without a transducer. Without is usually $50 to $100 cheaper, so you could put that towards the Airmar.

OK, got to give you that one. As long as it's all about whats best for the fishing!

I believe it is 112" if this site it accurate. http://www.swordfishingcentral.com/penn ... essor.html

That's awesome!

As stated above I had troubles with a couple lowrance units and their customer service a while back, but in their defence, my last dealing with them was positive and from what I hear, they have stepped up their customer service. My troubles have been transducer related. Out of frustration over the transducers, I purchased the Humminbird 788C last summer and loved it until I lost the transducer on that unit as well. As you can imagine, I pulled out what little hair I had left. Billy V did some investigating and found out for us that there had been a bad batch of transducers with those units and a few of us got them. They assured us that they would replace them and the bad ones are supposed to be out of circulation now. Cabelas has a 60 day return policy on electronics, so I returned it on day 60. I just didn't want to wait for the replacemant transducer just to find out that wasn't the problem or to have another one fail and then be stuck with another unit that didn't work and couldn't be returned. I've been told that if you put an airmar transducer on those units instead of the stock ones, the tranducer failures will be over and the performance will be much better. I still have my Lowrance LMS520 on the boat which I use mostly for the GPS, but when the transducer fails again, I'm going to replace it with the airmar. I have a new Furuno 620 sitting in my basement waiting to be installed as soon as I'm done with my transom replacement. That will be my primary sonar unit. I hope its as good as the reviews say it is.

Go West young man, go West - Silas Greeley I was going to say that most of the guys on here are wanting to get boats in the water soon. A guy could get hung for asking for snow now.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Depth-Ra ... l+Products or http://www.cabelas.com/product/Sub-Trol ... l+Products These are the two cheapest ones that I know of. Not sure if this is the cheapest place to get them or not. I have the Depth Raider but they are both used by many of the guys on here.

Still have these if anyone is interested.

Still have these if anyone's interested. $60 which includes shipping. Shipping for anywhere in the US is just over $10 which means they are about $4 each.

Depends some on what you have for a boat. IO's and Outboards are less affected because the prop is behind the transducer. The rotation of the prop "spins" air bubbles up towards the transducer if it is mounted on the port side. If you have an inboard boat, with the prop ahead of the transducer, those bubbles could affect the performance of your sonar.

I had a lot of trouble with the dual freq transducers on my Lowrance LCX15MT and with the 200 hz transducers on my Lowrance LMS520C but I don't recall hearing of problems with the HD units. Maybe some of the guys on here with them could confirm that? Lowrance had some problems with customer service for a few years there but they seem to have stepped it up lately. Another option is the Furuno 620. It's basically the exact same unit as the 585 but has a smaller screen. I've heard nothing but good things about them.

So how is my wife and I running 6 rods going to exploit the fishery more than a boat with 3 or 4 guys who run 6? We can only catch two limits and they can catch 3 or 4.

I just want to know if you run one line or two when you fish. If there are more than one person on your boat, do you still just run one line for all of you? Based on everything you've said, I'm assuming you only run 1 line per boat. Anything more than that would be exploiting the fishery. Just a simple answer will be fine. I don't need a long explanation or T-ball comparison or anything. How many lines?

Oh, I'm sure there will be another T-ball comeback for this one. Hey, everyone has to be good at something.

When I was guiding, I used Charter Lakes. They had a good plan that fit what I needed. I never had a claim, so I can't tell you how they were to deal with in that respect. They are worth checking out: http://www.charterlakes.com

PM sent

Love it when they plug up the nossle of the fire extinguisher. I keep a piece of electrical tape over that to keep them out.

So you only run 1 rod per person on your boat? Running 2 isn't exploiting the fishery?

My new Nissan says warranty is void if using over 10%. Maybe the government will implement a program to cover our losses.