jimski2

We have Moose hunters by our cabin on the Yehntna River in Alaska that use thes boats in the rivers and swamps. The noise they make disturbs everyone who does not have one. My brother took one up a creek up the side of a mountain one time and it got them there fine, the problem was going back and trying to miss the rocks, they do not stop easily.

I have been reading this stuff for two years now and there are a lot of differing recomendations. I decided to empty the tanks for the winter, add a little stabilizer in the tank, close the vents to keep the expansion air exchange from the atmosphere from happening. The larger a volume of liquid in a tank will expand more during temperature changes and more humidity laden air, especially around the waterfront, will enter the tank. The shelf life for the E-10 gasoline is about 30 to 60 days and then the alcohol evaporates out of the boats tank and the fuel remaining is not up to specifications. Automobiles today have an activated charcoal vent cannister that will absorb and return the volatiles that evaporate off.

A couple fellows who wanted to go ice fishing near the sandpiles in Buffalo Harbor were run off because they did not have a TWIC card???

http://marinetteboat.com/Metals.htm Here is a lot of Aluminum boat repair information.

My Crestliner developed a gasoline leak in the fuel fill hose connection. The old hose became hard and leaked fuel into the bilge when I filled her up one day. A bad time for a while until I pulled the floorboards and found the leak. I now run 6 gallon portable tanks since I lost faith in the built in tank system. I called Crestliner and the USCG and they did not want to hear or be part of the problem.

The commercial trollers on the West Coast provide the freshest and best quality salmon for the restaurant trade. They immediately cut the gills and remove the entrails of their salmon. The fish are placed on a bed of ice so as to prevent the gurry from touching the flesh. The better boats have a flash freezer where the fish are dipped in a solution of super cooled salt brine solution and then dipped into freshwater where a glaze of ice seals the fish from the air. If you are taking fish to eat the least you can do to maintain food safety is put the fish on a bed of ice. I am always amazed at these so called "Professional Fishermen" who post pictures of people hanging fish from a board that are not cleaned and hanging in the sun.

My old Lund had the windshield mounted on a vinyl and sponge covered plywood deck. It came loose and springy. The wood rotted under the vinyl and the screws would not hold. Pull the plastic rim off the mounting screws and remove the windshield and the board. I used the old board for a pattern and cut out a new board. I coated the new board with 2 coats of West Marine epoxy and screwed the board back to the boat. You could replace the vinyl if you like it to look new. The remounted windshield was firmly reattached the new wood. It should last another ten years.

http://www.aaronssecurityscrews.com

I have the same problem and I am thinking of going with a"Formica" type board. It should look good and be easy to clean. I am not going to glue it to plywood as in a wet environment, the glue lets go. Maybe I can stiffen it up with thin aluminum.

As an aluminum boat guy, I was really impressed by the new Triumph Plastic molded boats. I liked the "sledge hammer strike test" and the dropping it from a crane test. Appearance wise, they seem to be easy to maintain, have good freeboard and good speed. http://www.Triumphboats.com

I won an x107 last year. The dual frequency, especially the 50 HZ display showed me a new world down there. I still have 2 X16 paper graphs but the new color wide angle display really shows suspended fish and the thermocline well. My 4000 watt x135 is good for finding perch on the bottom, but the color low frequency is a different view, I like it. The HD feature is even supposed to be better. The HDS-5x at $549 from a catalog is my next buy.

Go to U Tube, type in "how to clean a perch", click search.

When you are losing the bearings in the coupler joint of you lower unit, the stringers are a good place to start looking as the engine is "flopping around" on its mounts. New stringers can be installed. douglas fir, but the alignment is critical. If they are off, you will be losing bearings. Make sure you find someone with EXPERIENCE.

The mileage in my ford 460CI motorhome went from 7 MPG to 6MPG when using e 10 gasoline. Actually I used 14% more gasoline to go the same distance and had to pay for the alcohol additive. Maybe the pollution #'s are better, but the fuel used is wasted.

I used a Cabela's Transducer Mounting Plate, item wz-02-0106, on my Crestliner. It is through bolted with stainless steel bolts, washers and locking nuts that are well above the water line. Also the board is bedded in silicon bedding compound, available from a marine supply store, to keep the lower underwater section tight against the hull. I have 3 transducers mounted on it. It has worked well for the past two years of use.

I have a 32' Marinette that we need to keep an eye on the electolysis even on freshwater. The zincs in an aluminum boat are more magnesium than zincs in a steel boat. You can have ac or dc problems with your boat or even a neighboring boat.

I prefer an aluminum 18' boat because it travels down the Thruway ay 65 MPH fine. From Lake Ontario to Lake Erie in Ohio it works well. If it is too rough out there for the 18 footer, it is too rough period no matter what size boat you have. The market for used boats today is a buyers market and if I were to buy one I would get a welded aluminum trailer boat. An 18' boat trails well behind a 6 cylinder, 2 wheel drive truck for good fuel mileage. Unless you have too many new friends it is comfortable for 3 guys and easy to handle when you go out alone.

Not to worry, soon NY will be bankrupt and we may become part of New Jersey or even part of Ontario. The checks will start bouncing soon.

Do a search on" outboard motor brackets" and you will find a lot of ideas.

Pennsylvania has a 40 mile strip of Lake Erie, yet the anglers there welcomed a $5 Lake Erie Stamp for their licenses to support the fishery there. What is the matter with you people. NY's house of cards government has collapsed. Even the foreign owned steel company Mittal is leaving the state. You can not get $5,000 for a 24 foot boat. We need this stamp and its money otherwise we will be fishing from the piers again.

I installed the bigger one on my Crestliner using larger bolts up above the waterline. After a couple seasons the bottom of the board pulled away from the transom and at high speed it was spraying water out the sides. I bought some silicon bedding compound and filled in the gap and it seems to be OK. I would recomend using the bedding compound when you first install the board.

Most batterys are located in the stern of the boat. I always used inline fuses close to the positive terminal with the least amount of wire necessary to reach the riggers. Large ring crimp on terminals workfine. A tie wrap will hold the negative and positive ends together so when you change batterys your ends do not get mixed up.

Consider the loss of resale value of your boat and equipment that you have a big investment in if the salmon hatchery is closed down.

http://www.boatus.com/seaworthy/ethanolwinter.asp

There are different switches for batterys. The better one has a "field disconnect" switch in it to save the diodes in your alternator. Look for it when you buy.