G-Daddy

4 of us greenhorns from SC PA will be making the nearly 400 mi journey to Oak Orchard starting very early Wednesday. This will be our third trip and the lake was not very kind to us on our first two trips. Weather and boat trouble have kept us off the lake. We have chartered over the last 20 years and want to try it on our own. Will be staying at 4Cs Wed - Sun. Our next salmon will be our first. We have been reading and searching these forums for over a year and hope that helps us. Please wish us fair winds and following seas - and freedom from the boat gremlins.

I just hope it keeps for a while. Four of us are traveling from SC PA and will be up from 8/17 and leaving 8/21 and hoping to catch our first-ever salmon or trout. Charters are fun but we want to catch some on our own.

This is a true story. My son-in-law's father was bass fishing on Lake Erie and buried a hook in his hand. Went back to the launch ramp where he was showing his condition to the bait store proprietor. Some guy he did not know told him about the string trick and offered t pull the hook out. Well - the guy didn't know the string trick as well as he thought and drove the hook deeper. The unnamed victim yelled at him - "I thought you knew how to do this." The guy said - "I guess I will have to get my wife to print of the instrucitons so I can do it right." They went to the hospital and the triage nurse looked up his name and said "Welcome Back. We removed a hook from your hand two years ago today. What happened last year? Didn't you go fishing?"

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.