MooseKnuckle VI

I never fished sandy but I've caught tons of pike on inline spinners. Rooster tails weren't that great but Mepps #5's work great, especially red/white. Copper and gold would be the next best colors. Bluefox's are good too. You'll get more hits with a flouro leader over wire. But after each fish cut off a few inches of leader and retie or you'll break off the next fish.

Ended up at Butterfield today. 1 pike 1 LM and one bluegill. Still really windy over there today, cold and wet. Didn't stay long at all but was cool to try a new lake. Might try above the dam in Dexter tomorrow

Gotcha thanks, I'll head to butterfield maybe

Wasn't sure where to put this, please move it if you need to. Anyone know if perch river wma is accessible to boats? I got a little tin boat with a 15hp. Gonna be up at camp this weekend into next week, but looks pretty windy for lake O. Have a buddy coming up that really wants to fish, so I figured we'd take my tinny out somewhere that's not terribly effected by the wind. I looked online but didn't find anything. If that's a no go we'll try Butterfield or black lake. Really wanna try to fish in lake view pond but I think that's a 10hp limit. I'm open to suggestions. Don't care what we catch, just want some decent action.

Well the more I read about the mercs the less I want to trust them. Seems those optimax motors have too much crap to break on them. Air compressors that crap out, studs snap off when replacing it, plugs strip out easily, injectors and fuel rails that need a lot of attention and cleaned often, sensitive to poor fuel quality and voltage fluctuations, etc. too expensive of a gamble. Really want to stick with Yamaha 4 stroke if possible. I'll find something eventually.

Looking at a boat early next week possibly. Has a 2007 Optimax 150. ~225 hours I think he said. I read some good things and a lot of bad things with the Mercs. The more I read about them, the more complex these motors seem to be. Appear to be very sensitive to voltage. I read a lot of complaints with blown air compressors and injectors, etc. Seems most of the catastrophic failures happened in the late 90's-early 2000's. The good thing is the performance and efficiency people claim to get from these engines. Can anybody share any info, good or bad, about their Merc Optimax? I'll be going from a 2008 Yamaha F150 which has spoiled me. I've had perfect luck with 3 Yamahas and I'm hesitant to switch. Also, what kind of life expectancy could I expect to get? I'd be doing a complete maintenance job if I purchase it. Everything and anything that can possibly be done I'll do to establish a baseline for scheduled maintenance. I'm religious about that, I can't speak for the current owner though. He has no records available. The boat has a merc kicker on it so that would certainly help extend the overall years of service. But I'd hope to get at least 2000 hours on a modern motor. Is that reasonable?

Not that it matters now anyway cause the deal fell through on the boat. Probably will be down this road again shortly

I called Hewitt yesterday and whoever I talked to was no help. Today I talked to a different guy and told him my weights. He said the difference between the 3000 and 4200 lifts are just bigger gussets and pulleys. He said if I do the upgrade kit to get me to 3600, it'll handle it all day long in bad lake conditions. He wouldn't say if it's safe to overload it at the weight I was talking about but did say "we test the crap outta them" and then said he couldnt tell me I could safely overload it.....sort of implying I'd be ok without actually saying so (liability issues of course). I think I'll be ok as long as I'm mindful about what I'm doing and keep the boat light as possible.

I bought a new cantilever lift last year when I got my camp. It's only a 3000lb lift. They sell an "upgrade" kit for pretty cheap that includes double pulleys and a new cable. This will boost the capacity to 3600lbs. I'm considering a new to me boat in the near future. I'd like to not have to get a new lift. Does anyone use one of these and overload it? I'm looking at a Grady 208 adventure or something similar and it'll be around 4200lbs I'm thinking with full fuel and gear. It's in a protected area as well, we don't get a ton of wind and almost no waves. I'm ok with replacing a cable every couple years if need be. The lift itself is pretty beefy. It's 3" (I think, might be 4") 1/8" wall thickness square tube with gussets everywhere. I can't imagine 600 measly pounds over weight would crush the thing but I'd sure hate to come up to camp and have a mess. What say you?

Did you buy the Yamaha main new? How many hours are on the main and kicker? Do you have Maintenance records? You the original owner?

I think I was there around that same time. Weather was perfect. We did a cruise and at the one stop in icy straight point, there was a kid renting zebco's with a small-ish spoon. Kids were slamming the silvers right off the beach non-stop. I had fun watching them fish and helping them out with unhooking. So the fishing is definitely good.

Awesome

I have a couple hundred cp swings, mainly used them for trout fishing in PA. Won them off a buddy at his camp playing poker. Worked awesome for little trout, they worth trying for ice fishing you think?

Can you put them on YouTube as well?

Ling cod I mean

Go for a combined species charter out of homer for halibut, snapper (red eyes), sea bass (rockfish) and silvers. Depending on the timing long cod might be open too. I fished out of resurrection bay at Seward but the fishing in homier is supposedly even better for big halibut. Just book a day with a charter out there. Best fishing trip of my life hands down.

FWIW my camp neighbor filled a bucket with bullheads and white perch this saturday using night crawlers. He was fishing from his dock. He also got two really nice channel cats 20+ lbs. I didn't see the channels caught but he showed me photos. He let those go and kept the panfish. I was going to take his spot on sunday but the wind was howling so I went home instead.

I'll let you know after this weekend hopefully.