G-Daddy

Good to go is good to go regardless of how you get there.

No stripers yet - started down the road with the Sportcraft last Friday and broke a wheel bearing and hub/brake assy. Picking her back up Saturday from the repair shop - no one had parts. Son is turkey hunting in South Dakota this weekend and it looks like two weeks until we will get to try again.

I have a 1992 Johnson 100hp - same powerhead. Now it is used almost exclusively in saltwater, but I got to the point where I change the thermostats every spring as routine maintenance. Because I change them so often I made a couple of mods to the lower cowl to facilitate. I made a couple of holes so I can get a ratchet with an extension on the outer housing bolts and plug the holes when the job is done with a couple of fender washers and big rubber grommets. This kit will have everything you need. http://www.iboats.com/mall/partfinder/?cart_id=986054927&gd_grid_id=1723&gd_poid=111072&gd_row=39&session_id=846254951

I've got a set of pancakes but never run them deeper than about 50'. When going deeper we run the fish shaped weights or torpedoes.

We also use the 500 lb Spectra. We also fish a lot on the Chesapeake. Most of the boats there use .080 weed whacker line.

Someone just got a great boat.

Just got an order from Matthew two weeks ago.

Before I tried any gimmick products I would just use a little polishing compound and elbpw grease. It did wonders on our green Sportcraft.

I, too, will miss "At The Oak". I used it to get my "Oak Fix" before we bring the boat up to the lake in the summer and then in between trips. Just reading about the boats and what they were using I could see them in my mind's eye as we are going out the river in the morning and watching for them on the lake and then seeing them or their empty slips when returning to dock in the afternoons. What a time-passer reading those posts has been.

Anyone considering this size of boat would be doing themselves a dis-service by passing on this boat at this price.

I find something else to do like change the oil, take the grandkids to a park, take my wife out to an early dinner - something, anything other than being beat up by big waves. The boat can take a lot more than I can any more.

Can't say that we even count fish, but certainly our best day of the season was on the second weekend of August when we had 5 kings over 20# one day. Our biggest fish of the season was on the slowest weekend of summer - Labor Day weekend when we had a 29# king which was the only fish we caught on one day. The third weekend of August we had a mid-teens coho, which was a boat record for us on that species, so overall we had a good, if not great, season. Looking forward to July when we will make the trek northward again from the Mason-Dixon Line for a couple of months. Each season it seems we extend our stay at Point Breeze.

Don't forget your umbrella.

I fished on that boat a couple of times out of Wilson and she is a great boat. I'm sure Capt Bill will be sorry to see her go - she is always in immaculate condition.

Not to mention the multitude of tackle required. My corner of the basement is getting full. First there was drift fishing gear for flounder in the coastal creeks and waterways for flounder. Then we decided to go the the Chesapeake for stripers. Now we are chasing salmon on Lake O. I've got spinning gear, conventional stuff, trolling gear for saltwater, lake trolling gear including a different set of downriggers. I just can't imagine what you would need to run a charter business in a place like the Keys.

There ya go Capt - Yankee Troller on Lake O in summer and Southern Yankee Troller in the FL Keys in winter.

If you want to see examples of what not to do go down to the area of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel when the striped bite is hot and see a thousand boats all trying to occupy the same spot on the water. It can be a real zoo. Turn on your radio and learn a whole new vocabulary.