Fat Trout

Heres a pic of mine from a couple years ago that i had on my phone. Looks about the same

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.

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.

I got a 9 lb walleye trolling cut bait last year out of mexico. you never know lol

Regarding the head support. For what its worth ive got 8 seasons on mine on two boats and i dont bother. I did at first for long trailering with a simple wood block and bungee. It just doesnt bounce much in a concerning way in the lake or moderate trailering. Ive rebuilt the motor once even and probably have 7 or 800 hours on mine total but head weight and bouncing isnt an issue.

Gen 1 probe picture for reference if it helps.

Yeah so Im going to challenge you on that a little. We all want free speech right? Its a topic these days in the news at a larger level. Hell I agree with the guy you are arguing against......perhaps not his approach. However I also agree the OP has the right to post. You don't like the flack. Don't post. You don't like the posts.....look away. either way deal with it. If you want to shut someone down because they have a (strong) opinion.....well consider how far that can go.

@Low BallerIf you still want info on a 2 battery system I can send you a pic of my wiring diagram. I researched the heck out of it and it was a pain in the ass to fully sort out. I'm 4 seasons into using it and all seems well. I have a 2 battery system with ON/OFF/ALL switch. ACR (Automatic Charging Relay). I run 2 DRs, fishhawk, house power, radio etc. My 9.9 has is a T model Yamaha so it has a good alternator for charging. I have the main going to one battery, the 9.9 going to the other and the ACR balances the charging of the 2. To your question on DRs and other stuff. I have one DR on each battery and no interference that I can identify with DR use. I also have a few pics. When you have this much stuff I found that using a buss bar is better than gang piling too many things on the battery terminals. Even then I still added a lug for the post of the battery so I could use the screwed post and the other one. My interconnect wires are large and sealed at the ends and all connection terminals were sprayed with battery terminal connector spray.

Its like driving on open highway and someone feels the need to hang out in your blind spot. Speed up / slow down and they do the same. On the lake, too few people practice avoidance still others play chicken. Last week I had a full spread out and had a guy on plane drop down sort of along side and on my back corner perhaps 150 yards away no big deal. Bad move by him IMO because it limits where he can go once he sets up. It wasn't crowded no problem. The problem was when he started heading slowly toward me. I'm dealing with wind and some choppy conditions and keeping my heading as I was fishing a given depth and wind had me crabbing out and didn't want to turn out and spin back (yet). He was just setting lines and got to within 25 feet of me when I yelled over "Hey, any chance you can get off my ass". It took a good minute or two and he finally angled away. There were 2 guys setting lines and one on the wheel. I also didn't want to spin a loop behind him (which I often do in scenarios like that) because he was just setting up and dammit I was there first. I did angle out twice but he used that and kept pushing to me. Just unnecessary. I always try to avoid and I'm the first one to pick up a long line if It looks sketchy but some folks just want to turn it into a game of chicken.

I caught 3 of those out of mexico this summer. First time ive caught them. Sent from my SM-G990U using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Mexico Launch this morning a pair of morons bump away from the floating docks into the channel and float there engine running not in gear while they pull out rods. Those of us coming from up river had to go around which was increasingly sketchy as it was right at the inlet with the rocks on both sides. There was sort of room but I had to skirt really close to them dang WTF. I hate to say it but the boat was a POS and the guys in the boat matched up well to the boat. Scary thing is that it wasn't super early and the docks weren't that busy. Stay at the dock in that case or go just out side the inlet and do that crap.

lol. gonna be a big difference which you will enjoy.

wow.....look at you going big. Congrats on the new to you boat. Good luck fishing!

Water had a very green cast to it. It was sunny so you can tell quite a bit more. You can get that with passing sun and clouds but the noticeable difference is when you send a downrigger ball down and you loose it in < 10 feet.

Thats interesting. I was fishing last weekend off of the south dunes (north of the salmon river). Thats right where that plume seems to start to the right. I fished pre-zebra mussels and of course after. Pre zebra was chalky water...after we all know....hyper clear. Last weekend I was in 150 ft of water which east is a good 4 to 5 miles out. Water was chalky as hell. I couldn't place the reason but I recognized it. It changes color patterns etc. I went west 10 miles toward oswego the next day and zebra clear like usual. I'm out of mexico.

I'm guessing a fish swiped at your lure and missed but you did him a favor!

[emoji1787] i dont give a crap about the atlantics and feel free to take your fully vetted new predator idea to the DEC. Im sure they'll get right on that for ya. Oh and laughable is the fact that this time last year you were on here asking for tips, pointers and on the water help for how to run downriggers and the "whole gamut" as you were tired of "fumbling around". Respectable.....but lets ease off a bit on pushing fisheries management so abrasively. Dare I say, thats a bit laughable. I don't need to be right and am wrong plenty of times but I have 35 years in this fishery so you can kiss my bass. Sent from my SM-G990U using Lake Ontario United mobile app

So by viability you mean eat the stocked trout, salmon and smallmouth worse than the cormorants can possibly do? I won't argue on the landlocks being worth it but i have places for stripers and they are not where i purposely look for trout and salmon. If i recall right stripers are considered something of a problem in the Columbia river basin. I might be wrong...not back checking because i dont care but i like my great lakes the way they were/ are and dont need another variable to mess with it. Sent from my SM-G990U using Lake Ontario United mobile app

I mentioned it in another post but if you have it, try spraying reel magic on the line too. The stuff works great for extending casts with light line for spinning applications. It adds a slickness to the line which I think would help. The slickness is why the blood run flea line works (aside from diameter of 30# too) https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/blakemore-real-magic-lubricant?ds_e=MICROSOFT&ds_c=BPS|Shopping|Standard|Fishing|General|NAud|TopPerf|NMT&msclkid=06f4b2e66f2b1aa8a031d02fd98e2bb8&gclid=06f4b2e66f2b1aa8a031d02fd98e2bb8&gclsrc=3p.ds