greenhornet73

I’ve seen those Kokanee rods, pretty pricey but the type of rod I’m looking for. Those Eagle Claws look spot on and the right price for buying a pair for the riggers. Awesome suggestion guys, thanks for posting.

What length and action on the Ticas? I’ve looked at their surf rods but never the inshore rods

I only run mooselooks and the smallest Michigan Stinger Scorpion spoons on this particular lake.  I like to be able to feel every bit of the fight and headshakes while I’m playing out the fish.  Let me know when you find a dowrigger rod that you’re happy with, it would save me some trial and error as well.

Good to know, thanks. I recently bought a Daiwa wilderness ML for a leadcore rod. It will work well for that but with just running mono for smaller trout it is overkill.  I was catching 5# laker trout on my Starfires last weekend and each time thought I hooked a  double digit walleye.  

Thank you, that’s awesome. I was hoping to use as much of it as possible without just using the breasts and discarding the rest.   Now I just have to shoot one and not shoot over it’s head like last year.

11 minutes ago, greenboatluke said:

We used to skin our birds whole, a bit faster than plucking, then wrap them in bacon to re-create skin so to speak, placed it in a baking bag and put it in the oven. Moist and delicious. 

That’s sounds good. Did you do anything else to it?

Before we get there, now is a good time to plan what to do with one before we bag it.  Still haven’t shot one yet but the flock showing up in my field every day is getting my hopes up.  They always seem to disappear on opening day but just in case, what are your favorite ways to prepare wild turkey?

Same here! Thanks for all the responses and troubleshooting help.

You got that right!

Nice job getting to them early. I did the opposite and put in at 10:30 and couldn’t maintain enough boat control to give myself even a decent chance to connect with a fish.  It was just enough of a NE blow to spin me around if I took my hand off the wheel.  Glad to hear you’re still on them.

Just got home from a 3 hour troll and the oil level is still perfect.  Easy fix with a replaced thermostat.

Nice one! The wind really put on a show yesterday afternoon.  

So fun, I hope I can find some again on Monday

My uploads have been doing that too lately.  For some reason if I screenshot the same picture and send it again it will upload fine.

Maybe his thumb likes to photo bomb like mine. 

I hope the wind cooperates for you guys.  I’m heading back out Monday, let us know how you do!

I can’t stress enough to occasionally jerk the rod or give it a steady pull then drop back motion during mid-troll.  You’ll grab those followers that otherwise may not strike a steadily moving lure.  I learned this trolling spinnerbaits and bucktails for pike and muskies in Ottawa.

I ran a third quart of oil through the crankcase today to make sure all of the gas/oil mixture was out and filled it with good oil. Fired it up and ran it for 10 minutes on almost half throttle with muffs on.  Checked the oil after and was perfectly clean and level didn’t change.  I’ll run it on the lake this weekend but for now it seems replacing the thermostat did the trick.  Thanks everyone for all the input. If anything changes over the weekend I will post it to help anyone in the future with the same problem.

I replaced the thermostat and changed the oil twice.  Will fill again tonight and run it and post what I find.

Seriously, makes my transom look like a car top boat!

I’ve been experimenting with different setups each time out and have caught fish each time.  So far it is one rod that takes the most hits on each trip. One day it was a planer board flat line with crank bait, next time was a 1 color with a spoon, and last time out was the downrigger but over deeper water which makes sense.  The one constant is that I have been running every line on one side of the boat instead of spreading them over a larger area.

I really hope not

It is not an EFI model

I’m going to talk to the marina where I bought it used last spring and see what they say.  I trailered it all last season and didn’t have a problem so something has happened this spring.  If the thermostat doesn’t do it then I’ll bring it in for service.

2 hours ago, Sean Youngblood said:

https://www.walleyecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96806#:~:text=The valves on the motor have'nt seated themselves,it at speed and they should seat themselves.

Interesting conversation in there that is very pertinent to my situation. I trailer long distances with the motor down and also only troll with it at fairly low speeds.  It doesn’t have a lot of hours on it and I can’t imagine it could have a cracked head gasket or anything serious like that so soon.  I’m going to change the oil and thermostat this week and disconnect the fuel line when I trailer it on my next trip out and keep an eye on the oil while I’m out there.  Thanks guys for all the possible factors that might be causing this.