G-Daddy

We have a 25' sportcraft with a 350 MAG Mercruiser. In two days trolling this sspring we ran a total of about 60 miles and trolled about 8 hours and burned 45 gal fuel.

Mercruiser service manuals will tell you to backflush your system to make sure you get all the impeller pieces out. Raw water or closed loop cooling for the engine?

Ours is a straight inboard single screw with a Mercruiser 350 Mag engine. I have read about some issues with stringers, so a survey would be in order. She is heavy and burns a lot of fuel, but trolls nicely but might need some help to slow down. Our trolling GPS speed runs 2.7 - 3.1 depending on current and wind.

I'll be there!

Hey Capt Bill: I want to see the boat - how about Saturday? Larry

This was our big fish of the weekend on Chesapeake Bay. Next weekend we are bound for Wilson.

Lakeview Motel in Youngstown has a three bedroom cottage they rent - right on the lakefront.

Here's what I made. A lot of Chesapeake Bay guys use these for trolling big spreads of unbrella rigs. These things really pull. I have to take the boat out of gear to pull them in. http://www.downtimecharters.com/Ideas/P ... ns2010.pdf

I've got an in-hull for the old Lowrance on a '98 Sportcraft 252. Sensitivity is not great. Shows depth but little else. When I upgrade I expect to go with a thru-hull.

You can do a lot with the thruster. If it is a stern thruster a lot of the problems of a single screw inboard are gone. For instance, you turn the wheel over hard to starboard and she still backs to port. With a thruster you can get directional flow where and when you want it.

I was there Sunday as well with my wife and two of the grandkids. Really informative - now if only I can put some of that knowledge to work and catch a fish.

One Canon Easy Troll with two mounting bases. Both bases have mounting hardware. This rigger was on the boat when I bought it and I already had UniTrolls. Price is $90 shipped to a US address.

My 17' center console is insured with State Farm and the 25' Sportcraft is insured with BoatUS. For some reason State Farm was double the price for the Sportcraft and BoatUS was double the price for the little fellow.

Capt Bill, I am NOT counting days, which happen to be only 95 right now.

If you still have them in 99 days we will talk.

I saw them first hand yesterday and Kenny is right.

We have fished on Billy V a couple of times and it is a great boat in excellent condition. When we were looking for a boat, though, finding something trailerable was important as we are 250 miles from our place on the VA shore and 400 miles from Lake O. We did buy a 25' Sportcraft and went about 250 miles just to look. When you want to buy "a boat" you sometimes have to expand the search until you find "the boat".

We use Somers Cove Marina. This was the first year we had this boat and our first trip for fall stripers. We were too early for the big migratory fish but catching 41 schoolies in three days was a blast. While working around the birds we had one time where we had six rods in the water and seven fish on - that was insane. I fish for flounder a few times a year in the sound in my 17' center console. Had some striper for dinner on Saturday - yum!

I've fished on this boat - man what a Christmas present!

My son and I caught a bunch of school sized stripers on Chesapeake Bay in Tangier Sound over the Veterans Day weekend.

Ray, We sometimes do the swim back to Assateague, but the swim over to Chincoteague is a zoo.

I have a couple of reels that have 30# single strand and I can put about 600' on them. The same reels hold almost 1000' of seven strand Torpedo wire.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Li'l Bit ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): Time on Water: not much Weather/Temp: windy/cool Wind Speed/Direction: blowing Waves: big Surface Temp: Location: Mexico LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 1 Total Boated: 0 Species Breakdown: Hot Lure: Trolling Speed: Down Speed: Boat Depth: Lure Depth: ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== We are five guys from southcentral PA, just above the Mason Dixon Line. We all have fished on Lake Ontario – my son Kenny and I did our first charter about 20 years ago out of Port Ontario. More recently, we fished the last couple of years with Billy V and Crazy Yankee. Kenny and I just bought a Sportcraft 252 and wanted to give a try at fishing for ourselves. Kenny was an observer at the Point Breeze Pro Am earlier this summer and has also fished with a couple of guys out of Oak Orchard several times. My brother-in-law Bob as well as son-in-law Kevin and grandson Kody were all up for the trip as well. We got to Feeder Creek Lodge on Friday evening about 7:30 pm. Air temp was 89°. Checked in, went for supper – then went to Fat Nancy’s. Picked up a couple of Hammer Flies and a couple of spoons that we wanted. What a difference an overnight made with morning temps about 30° cooler. Got to Mexico Point State Launch on Saturday morning at daybreak. The attendant warned us that there was a small craft advisory that would become a warning later in the day. We thought that perhaps we could get in an hour or two before the waves got too bad. Backed the trailer in and Kenny told me the boat wouldn’t start. Pulled her out – looked for loose wires, etc because she ran flawlessly the previous Saturday on Raystown. I told the guys – This is great, we drive 400 miles to go fishing and the boat won’t run. I found that the hot leads on both batteries had vibrated loose. Tightened them up and nothing. Then I started tracing wires and trying to find something else loose. I told the guys that it had to be something simple and stupid. While fooling around in the parking lot a guy from Massachusetts came over and recommended taking the boat out to Mike’s. We did that, but Mike didn’t open until 8:30. I crawled back into the boat and jumped the solenoid and got a spark but no starter engagement, so I knew electricity was getting that far. Then I started fooling around with the shift/throttle controls. I couldn’t find any loose wires there, so I tried moving the run/stop switch with the key turned over – still nothing. Then I pushed the control lever forward, back to neutral, into reverse and back to neutral. Turned the key and the starter engaged. I closed up the engine box and said “Let’s go fishingâ€. This time we were on the water at 8 am. It was pretty calm near shore with a swell of 2’ with a pretty good interval so we ran out. By the time we got to 50 fow we found 5’ waves. Since it was going to get worse over time, we turned around and came in. Practice with boat retrieval after a nice boat ride. We visited the Salmon River Fish Hatchery – saw a few fish in the fish ladder. Then we decided to drive down to Lake Oneida to scout it out for a possible walleye fishing trip for Sunday. It rained all Saturday night and was still raining Sunday morning. We looked at the weather radar and it was clear to the south so we headed to Oneida. We put in at 6:30 am at Oneida Shores County Park and ran down lake far enough to find 20 fow. Set out some plugs and trolled for an hour. Loose grass in the water kept fouling our lures, so Kevin got ahold of a guy that guides on the lake. He recommended that we get to mid lake and troll from markers 119 – 125 in 30-35 fow, being sure to keep our lures just above the bottom. We made the run to find another set of 5’ waves. Kenny turned the boat to set up a troll. The wave interval was so short that he would ride up a wave and then stuff the bow in the next wave. Then we would ride up the third wave and stuff the bow in the fourth, and so on. All the while water is running over the hardtop onto the fishing deck. We just packed things up and headed back to the boat ramp and were off the water around 11 am. Monday morning was much calmer and we were at Mexico Point Launch at 5:45. We launched and ran out to 80 fow to set up a 4 rod spread with two divers pulling spin doctors and flies with the riggers pulling spoons with a free-sliding cheater on each at 60 and 70. Kenny turned the boat west at 110 fow and we trolled towards the power plant. We were in mostly 2’ waves with a few 3 footers thrown in – not too bad. Then my grandson got seasick. We had a long drive ahead of us so we made the one troll, getting a hit on a wire line out 270 on a 2 setting pulling a white spinny with a hammer fly – no hookup and we had a nearly blank screen the entire time. We were back at the launch around 9 am and Kody was fine as soon as his feet hit solid ground. This was a real learning experience for a bunch of greenhorns. Kenny learned a lot about rough water boat handling, we had a four rod spread out without any tangles in some really strong currents. I got to manage a spread of lures. As we were trolling, our wire lines and downriggers showed there had to be a really strong north to south downcurrent due to the way the lines were angled. We shall return!! We will be concentrating on striper fishing in Raystown and Chesapeake Bay the rest of the season, and will put the boat away in late November.

I bought 2 - service was great. So far I have only run them in Raystown Lake at 30 feet deep, but they tracked straight with practically no blowback at 2.0 - 2.4 mph.

Mobile Home tires are typically 14-1/2". They come in two widths 7" and 8" and the 8s are quite a bit larger in the outer diameter.