rolmops

Started late, 9.30 and with just a little bit of free time to spend, I decided to fish inshore. I dropped just 2 lines in 75 feet of water right in the middle of huge bait balls . One magnum northern king ,black with a silver herring bone pattern at 65 feet down and one rednosed wobbler at fifty. The wobbler took 2 medium kings while the northern king got a skippy and a 20+pounder all within 2 and a half hours. Mostly I'm still learning to use the auto pilot and the influence even small things like a new bimini has on direction control. All fish were set back and it was done so fast that there were no floaters. By 12.30 the boat was cleaned up and tied up again in its slip.

Battery life is limited as we all know. This doesn’t seem to matter to stores that sell them. This June, in a Napa store, a sales associate told me that Napa has one year old batteries sitting on the shelves despite the fact that a three year lifespan of a battery is normally acceptable. They still have to sell them at full price even though it has lost 35% of its life expectancy. make sure to check the production date before purchasing.

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I had one on mine. A 9.9 not because it needs the power to troll, a six horse would be enough, but because a kicker also doubles as the emergency engine to get you home. You will need a kicker bracket and there are some things that are important on that end. Because you have to bend over the stern to pull it up or down you should go with a bracket for a 35 horse not a 9.9 horse. Even so it will be hard to pull up. Second is the angle of the stern. It is important to be able to pull the kicker up to the engine being above the transom ,or it may bump up against the back of the stern, while you also must be able to have it in the water deep enough . Because of above mentioned angle you cannot use a tiller , unless you have have one that can hold both remote and tiller controls and you just fold the tiller handle back. The 191V has an I/O so you may be able to use EZ-steer although at least in my opinion they are a pain in the neck. An alternative would be a Garmin Auto pilot which is fantastic. Some people however set the kicker straight backward and steer with the main unit doubling as a rudder. The good length for your tiller would be an extra long shaft with the 25 inch shaft or the Evinrude/Johnson which is 28 inches long. On another note. If you are not on a huge lake, you can sidestep all of these problems by getting an electric trolling motor with a real long shaft. You can just screw it to the top of the stern board and steer by hand. I have even seen one that was jerry rigged to the main engine (somehow screwed on to it) without the shaft. That is certainly a lot cheaper. I hope this helps. Good Luck.

Why not use a more modern version? After all, the control box just sends a message to the outboard and as long as you can send the same message with a different box preferably a new one, you should be fine. You can contact Kiekhafer (Mercury Marine) for more precise advice, but I replaced a 3000 about 5 years ago with a $250 new one , which I suspect came from China, like almost everything else we buy. I just checked what t he 3000 needed to do and with that info I bought a new one. As for special cable ends, you can buy those and attach them to the cable ends. There are a few companies that sell them.

As for the adjustments, you can always put a shim to fine tune, but remember, the deeper your weights, the bigger your blow back.

You should put the boat in quiet water and then look at the angle of the transom and the water surface. The transducer should be parallel with the water surface or maybe with the rear end a bit higher. This angle is different for every boat and changes with how the boat is loaded. If you can , measure the angle of the transom and the water surface and take it from there. The 600 hertz transducer has a bigger angle potential than the one kilo hertz. So with the 600 your cone is larger and will enable you to see more.

Just a heads up. B&Js has these coolers on sale now for $79.99

We got out of port around seven and headed for 60 feet where we set up. The thermocline was around 55 and we parked one rigger just above it with a seasick wobbler and one about 10 feet under with a magnum icefrog. One dipsy went to 70 foot down with a black superslim while the other one went to 60 with a magnum chicken wing. The boards had a 200 feet weighted steel with an orange black coho spindoctor and a black peanut and a 10 color on the other side with a bloody nose. The wobbler took a nice 12 pounder in 85 over 140, and next came a 22 pounder on the icefrog. This one took about 200 feet and made 4 runs. It is exiting ,but I could not set it back because it was finished. While fighting the king, a 10 pound coho took the peanut and made sure we had a mess of tangled lines. Then while bringing in the lines to go home ,the ice frog got hit again by another 10 pounder. Most of the action took place over 200 feet where we found a scum line that had a temperature break all the way to the bottom. It is nice to know that there are 20 pounders again after several years of smallish fish

When I left Sandy they just came in. They just waved. I guess Gambler filled their quota