Prof T

Kade, welcome to the forum. I set up my first place 20 years ago, good cottage but not a year round home. Built new and moved here full time 11 years ago. I don't think you can miss. I happened to end up in the Alex Bay/Clayton stretch. Lots going on, good cultural scene. Plenty of year-rounders make it relatively easy to find a "social group". Everything has a downside, and ours is boat traffic during the summer. Lots of cruisers and go-fast boats on weekends. I'm a walleye guy so not a problem for me at 4AM. Also not easy to find a good property at a reasonable price. If you follow the the pro BASS guys, they prefer to round the corner and head to lake, Henderson Harbor area. A good multi-species boat on a trailer opens up EVERYTHING from King Salmon to perch and bullheads.

Years ago the DEC changed all of the openers to a Saturday so that working anglers had an equal chance to get out. Now, with the return to the historical dates, many guys get the shaft. Here's our previous example: annual family camping/fishing trip for northern pike. Anyone available to set up on Friday (mostly retired guys). Working younger guys come after work and can fish the opener, take a day or two off and get four days fishing. This year, if they wanted to come with a Monday opener, it was all time off if they could get it (or if they had enough to still keep family vacation plans intact). We bring kids. Now they might have to skip school to share in the tradition. No wonder participation is falling in outdoor activities. Unintended consequences of poorly thought out or political decisions.

I bought it for the river, but I also want to increase time on the lake for browns. Saturday was dead flat for most of the day on the lake( unlike today ). I kind of chickened out in less than 6 feet, but put the probe down when we slid out towered 15 -20 later in the day. Speed read about 3.0 -3.2 on the FH, 2.4 on the GPS. We did pick up 2 browns in very muddy water. I want to get a good feel out there in the calm before I get to the river. Most places I troll there have pretty stiff current. I know what I've got to do in places I know. But I like to explore ( an get away from crowds ), and have found some deepwater shoals that have to have fish on them. I wouldn't classify the water as slack, but its a lot slower than what I'm used to fishing. Time will tell.

Just installed a Fish Hawk and have watched most of their videos. First outing was on Saturday in mostly flat conditions. GPS speed over ground was 2.4 while the display speed on the F H was usually 3.0 at the surface and a little higher at the probe. Company says ignore the actual value, just be sure to duplicate it once you start catching fish. Do experienced users agree and find a similar discrepancy? I know I can adjust to get similar readings between the two. Wondering where to start. By the way, I have reset the factory settings. Thanks in advance

Yes, it's a lot of hours under less than ideal use, but this generation of Merc 4 strokes has been a real game changer for Brunswick. I've had 2 of them and it's a pretty bulletproof platform. If the price is right it, and compression is good (and even), should be worth a shot.

X2 on Troll Smarter on my 9.9 Merc Pro Kicker. Fantastic customer support, hard wired head with optional key fob type remote. I keep it clipped to my vest along with the Minn Kota remote. speed and steering from wherever I am in the boat.

Updated: Mercury keeps their shop/repair manuals pretty well hidden on the web so I went off and purchased one. I plan to have the motor a long time and spent a career as an Industrial Arts teacher, so I like to do as much of my own repair work as possible. The sender is mounted right by the thermostat and has two wires: tan/black and black/orange. The black/orange leads to a common ground for all of the sensor wires (ECM PIN 42). You can test the sensor by disconnecting its plug and checking with an ohm meter between the two wires. 32 degrees - resistance should be very high (32.6 k ohms) 77 degrees - room temperature (10 k ohms) 122 degrees - area where my last motor liked to run in cold water - (3.6 k ohms) 212 degrees -OVERHEAT - 678 ohms Sensor is very much like an automotive sensor, a wet probe into the water jacket. It appears to me that I can use that probe and wiring to a traditional gauge like I wanted to. Shrink wrap comes off today, I’ll keep the wrench heads out there posted.