chowder

Hey W.W.IV. if you came all the way down & went home without getting the boat wet you deserve a chance to get out on the water. Shoot me a PM w/ #, etc & we'll figure it out!

Couldn't get out of here this past weekend.I'm shooting for Wens now, day after tomorrow. Looks like a nice calm day. If anybody is free PM me. -Andy

Shade, thanks for mentioning these ITO flies. I checked them out & I like the glow green with the white in it and I ordered a few. Variety is the spice of life! -Andy

Greg, get a Perko battery switch and then get 2 new batteries from whoever you want to install the switch, those batteries you got are "picked". I feel like I can say a couple words about batteries in general b/c I've got like 10 tractors and a bunch of other trucks and equipment w/ batteries, so here I go; 1st -a lot of these batteries are made by the same company and they switch things around all the time. 2cd -every starter/alt package is going to charge/use a battery differently so the same battery will have a very different life from one setup to another. 3. Battery quality control in general is poor and highly variable, it's best to just replace them when they perform questionably after they are much over 4 years old and then again you will have one that seems to go forever. There, I'm done!

I just finished up my emergency/backup bilge pump and after reading a post made today I thought I'd give this baby a plug! Glen (Spoonfed) cued me in on a good deal on the Rule 1500gpm pump, I connected it to a sealed 2 wire power lead w/ shrink connectors, added a waterproof fuse up near the lead ends and a pair of clips to hook it to the battery. I got a 8' section of smooth pliable radiator hose for a pump out line. This rascal is staying high/dry and going into the house at the end of the day w/ my fowl weather gear - it will be easy to test and it should not get filled w/ frozen bilge water or any other misc junk. Total cost was less than $85.

I'm w/ Billy, spill the beans on this "leader secret"

I might steer clear of those Okuma 45 Convectors. I myself and several other guys I know have had problems w/ them.

I'm aiming for hitting Seneca Sun or Mon in my 16.5' & looking for a copilot, pm me.

You can get 4 colors on a Daiwa 27LC w/ backing& 100'FC leader. I've got one w/ 5 colors on it but that's pushing it. The 27LCs were on sale @ http://www.glensoutdoors.com/ProductDet ... de=ADPx7LC + another couple bucks off if you use "The Find " coupon #. These are great reels for short cores and flat lines!

Bob, good to see that you understand it's not usually a good idea to have the wife and the girlfriend in the same place! Might see you up there-Andy

Hey Jeff, thanks for directing my attention to the blog, I did catch the browns piece back earlier but the spring kings stuff was new and great reading! -Andy

Stinger, the bill won't move along quickly enough for that black hearted bunch of brigands on Cayuga who run 6 rods/ man.

So, does a regular camera flash fail to charge these strontium aluminate particles? Do I really need a black light- I'm confused. Isn't there UV in the flash spectrum?

A couple years ago I got a small flash unit & started using it to charge glow baits. I've found this to be time consuming and I'm not real sure how effectively I'm charging stuff up. Could anybody w/ some serious experience w/ this issue tell me what they do? Thanks, -Andy

I think that a long or x long lined up w/ the cavitation plate is going to keep the prop in the water and the head out when you get into rougher water?

Great fish, great story, and a great picture that will stay with you for a life time!

From everything I've heard, and I spent some time looking into this, you want a long or X-long shaft on a kicker that is going on a full transom I/O boat.

Short & intermediate term money is costing me less than that right now but that was a low as the little amortization table I was looking at went (it's a little dated!). But the bottom line is that paying back any borrowed $( business,auto,recreational,etc) needs to be looked at as the same as investing new money unless there is a tax consequence or an early payment penalty to take into account. -Andy

I think I figured out the payback as follows; If the Kicker,bracket,etc cost $3000 then: Total cost + interest(any time you use $ for something it incurs an "opportunity cost", b/c the $ ,even if it's not borrowed, could have been "invested elsewhere with an alternate rate of return) =$69/month for 4 years (@5% annual rate) So that $69 x 12 months = $828/ year $828 / 30 trips(conservative) = $27.60/ trip (this would be the break even point) I can't see how the kicker's gonna save me $27.60/trip since that's more than it cost to run the I/O for the whole trip!. Hard to figure in savings on maint/repair on the I/O.Anyway, the point is that "on average" a kicker is not going to pay for itself in fuel savings until it's paid for, which of course, is a contradiction in terms.

Really nice work Vic!

Ok. Now, 1.What depth are you working & how much wire do you have out? 2. What setting are you using on the diver? 3. What color/type flasher & what color/type fly?

Brand name/source and a rough description of the process?

Tell us how you tried to use the flasher/fly rigs and we'll go from there. I'm sure we can get you headed in the right direction pretty quickly.

I just went thru all this w/ my Islander. I'm a business man and I really wanted to find a way to make a reasonably short term payback on a kicker installation. What I finally came to see was that a kicker doesn't have a short term payback unless you buy a used one really cheap and spend next to nothing putting it in and then you are just going to be trading unforseen costs for ones you can predict ( and you will pay these unforseen costs when you should be fishing instead) I decided to go ahead and get a good new 4 stroke Yamaha T8 tiller model w/ power trim and put it on a heavy duty kicker mount designed for power trim kickers. I rationalized the kicker addition to my boat for the following reasons 1. The kicker will use less gas and save wear and tear on the Mercruiser I/O(but not enough to pay for itself on this basis alone) 2. The kicker will get me back to shore if I have an issue w/ my I/O 3. The kicker should enable me to control my speed much easier than using the bags. 4. The kicker should enable me to vary and then return to a former speed much much easier than the bags. (example; big fish on-reach over to kicker tiller handle and slow boat down without attempting to explain to some one else how to very carefully use the main throttle control to slow the boat down. 6. I'm not going to live forever, I don't drink (much any way!), I don't smoke and I've worked my ass off for long enough to blow a couple grand on something I really enjoy and will eventually pay for at least part of it's intial cost. 7. The kicker and the fishing boat it's on cost a lot less than a Corvette and the affair/divorce that would probably come with it! I'd be glad to go into detail on my project w/ you if it would help. Go back thru this forum and a lot of the discussion is right on here.After talking with a lot of different people it became clear that putting a kicker on a fishing boat is not a clear cut issue, only you can decide whether it's worthwhile. Any questions-ask away here or pm me. -Andy

The alewives have largely displaced the smelt in many environments. The alewive forage base has produced a faster growing/ larger game fish population but the smelting action has been diminished and is a much smaller and shorter event. Constant change is here to stay...