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Fat Trout

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  1. terrible scenario. you don't need to name names but it wouldn't be inappropriate to name the derby / contest this happened in. Im sure said derby is aware of it, they don't want issues anymore than the rest of us. They want to promote the inclusivity of having he whole boat be registered....they have a vested interest in reasonable consideration. Speaking in reality of concern helps all parties (us / them) to consider how best to run these things.
  2. very true but at a minimum if its not sorted before the catch or not trustworthy with friends it better damn well be discussed on the way to the weigh station. Catch doesn't mean **** without an agreeable witness.
  3. this is true and here's something to consider for all....especially knowlegeable private boat captains. I had 3 guys on my boat for the last 2 days. Normally I'm solo /+1 knowledgeable. If you have more guys, you run more stuff and try to be the good guy and teach and "try" to reliquish some control to not be a dick. more explanations, more rigging while you or someone is driving. Tough conditions the last few days in Mexico and I was pushing to get fish. I had zero problems...BUT i approached a few and that was with minimal traffic so my guard was down. **** was deep so "I knew" how long people were running lines.....but my guys didn't understand it despite how much I explained. I have a good sized but smaller boat, my fuel burn is low which i appreciate. This years weather perhaps I don't appreciate so much lol. I know a lot of private boat guys with bigger boats who have a greater (soooo understandable) need for folks to come and help and help with fuel etc. I totally get that and its hard to keep the "good" guys always coming with you. I had no problems, fixed it all and a few times I had to jump in and correct abruptly (a few times) after stating the need clearly (I thought) but your head is on a swivel. In heavy traffic I would have dropped my rod count and type accordingly. Not all think that way and need to do so ....burden especially on knowledgeable captains. Safety is #1 for me and I hope for all but its easy to get distracted. my guys all are good with my super curt and abrupt commands and I warn them in advance but it can be hard to give your buddys both some level of control some level of learning and not be a total dick. Autopilot only makes that more challenging (easy to think all is well). keep teaching...keep correcting....and keep learning as the responsible captains we want us all to be. Oh and its still OK to be pissed at BS when it happens...even if its you....no excuses here. Told my guys a couple times....can't go where we want...have to spin and circle back if we want to go there now.
  4. I ran west to the radio tower but didn't love the seas with my wife. Had 2 quick hits and 1 fish on (dropped) in 230 and trolled with it back given the conditions. Lost a big one that strung me out and missed another late in the range you spoke of....guess I should have focused inside but you never know and by that time (and perhaps earlier) I wouldn't have liked having to cycle back into it enough in my boat with my wife but oh well....thats the game.
  5. for salmon I've been running 20 for spoons and 30 for flashers for quite a while for salmon with no issues.
  6. I've been doing this a while but that never means you can't learn. I tend to run things back a ways. I saw comments that made sense on flasher flies on fish I couldn't get to hit but some were. It was to run the flasher fly really close....like 3 to 5 feet from the ball. reasoning was that it makes it turn faster....how much I don't know and I have not tried it....but it was "different" than others were doing. The comment was on staging fish and coho's more specifically. I'm not saying to believe it but its just something I picked up that I thought was different than my usual approach. Just more data to make you nuts lol.
  7. True, but anything you hear helps. That and if you know nothing start at lets say 125 in your guessed area (north or west) and troll out to 200+ looking for marks of interest and circle that a time or 2 and keep going. If you have a spoon line down on a rigger drop a free slider with 6 ft of lead. I get steelhead and salmon on that free slider a lot. One day I got a nice steelhead on a meat rig deep and a really nice salmon on the free slider with a spoon with color intended for a steelhead so you never know. If winds seem to bring in / up temperature don't be afraid to stop at 100. I've stopped short, observed high cold temp and picked up kings this way the last few years in early july.
  8. Typically west as in off of the plant or west of the plant (ie radio tower). Seems to be what Im hearing (currently) although its always variable and in summer (generally) scattered when out of mexico....sometimes good sometimes not. Sometimes more north off of the south/north pond can be good....but when its not its a wasteland when not good (for salmon). Regardless out of mexico can be a crap shoot in june/july just depending on unknowns and winds. Sorry to be vauge, I'm a long time Mexico guy and it just is what it is. Generally guys out of oswego do better in this time fishing a little east of there or having ability to go a bit west.
  9. I have an 80 terrova on mine. I agree with everyone said so far. I'll only ad that when trolling... if its calm you can fine adjust speed with the the terrova. Since i run solo a lot its my most important item other than the boat itself
  10. I ended up getting the Smartroll II. I ran it this weekend with great sucess. Its an entirely different experience than with the first version. It just works right away without issue so far. The transducer is mounted right near my other transducers.
  11. Heres a pic of mine from a couple years ago that i had on my phone. Looks about the same
  12. A few things for you as I have a 196 with 150 main and 9.9 on the port side, both yamaha and have been running it for 4 years. Its still a small light boat and will be sensitive to weight distribution. driver and passenger, batteries on both sides, kicker on one side....she leans. Clockwise rotation of the prop provides torque that I think doesn't help but I've never gotten into that. Regarding ease of turning right or left, if you mean at speed, thats prop torque, I'd suggest not to sweat it. If she wants to steer and not go straight when you let go of the wheel, thats what that annode tab you have pictured above is for (vs solving lean) Great boat, great platform, No doubt Starcraft mailed in in on some things which I felt were entirely stupid or under done. I made changes that make me happy. I don't know how much they could do to prevent leaning but they definitely didn't do anything other than hope the overall width was enough (I think). They have users who don't use kickers too so short of them putting tabs on not sure what they could do that would be universal. I definitely could see why folks would put tabs on. Here's what I see running my boat. As I am now, when I run the boat by myself (solo). No leaning. When my buddy is with me....im 175, he's 220....it leans a bit and yeah I don't love that but as it is now its tolerable. When I have a 3rd person I have them behind me driving....no lean. For record I have (2) Size 27 batteries up front. a size 29 on the port rear and a 27 on the starboard rear. I run by myself a lot, when my wife is with me I have her lift the arm rest and sit more toward centerline. Things I have done 1) I put a tube sand under the driver dash in that forward storage compartment and shoved it as far Starboard as it will go. I feel that helped. 2) I store my spare downrigger sharks on top of the above tube tube sand 3) I trim up (as mentioned earlier) as that helps. Things I am thinking of doing 1) when the size 29 port side battery needs to be replaced I may go Lithium on that one battery. In retrospect I wish I had shifted the battery box toward centerline originally but I did so much wiring work before season 1 that I really didn't want to mess with it again for a while. 2) I may pull the washdown pump and shift that battery as far toward centerline as possible. I don't use the washdown and never will. I have not gone down the road of tabs because I hate any more holes in boats than necessary. That and I'll be pissed forever if I ever cut a fish off on the edge of a tab. Also, theres this stupid frigging emergency fold down foot hold to climb back aboard that they put on the port size right about where I'd want to put a tab. They put that in an area that can't be accessed from the bilge / back side (separate compartment) so I'm hesitant to mess with that. BTW, I pulled the backwall plate in the back of the splashwall floor storage and cut in in half and put it back in there like that so I can away get into my bilge in some way at any time via the storage opening. I like having that option vs only via the black screw lids in the actual splash well.
  13. I saw right away with mine that tilting the 9.9 up all the way created stresses on cables etc so i just dont do it. I have a similar if not same setup. Although the linksge doestlnt hit the splashwell tilted full up. I tilt it just enough to keep it out of the water running and thats it. When ttrailering i have it nearly all the way down since clearance is fine and thats the least stress on the transom regardless of the linkage.
  14. I got a 9 lb walleye trolling cut bait last year out of mexico. you never know lol
  15. ive used lemon pledge....works really good. I feel like the older stuff was better. it kept the "brown" away. I have plexus now. it cleans the windows really well. and lemon pledge old or new is good as well. using either seems to keep the "brown" away. I cant speak to removing the brown but either is a good thing to try and im sure it will improve what you have.
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