Great_Laker

That's the one! I wasn't saying you were responsible for the rotted transom in the previous post, i'm sure its been owned by a handful of people since 1987. I just like finding out the history of the boat through LOU. I originally bought it in 2017 from the fella you sold it to and discovered that when i was searching LOU for ideas on how to restore a sea nymph and saw your 'for sale' post from 2016. Its funny how GL boats never seem to leave, just passed to the next guy. I love the boat, thanks for passing it along! Good luck out there this year

Thanks Todd, i believe it use to be your Sea Nymph before i owned it

On the water at 4:45am and ran out to 140’. Picked up a small king right out of the gate on a 10 color with rod father mag Warrior. Fished north to 200’ and nothing. Ran back to 70-90’ for browns and landed a brown down 70 on a rigger and mag green alewife and another small king down 65’ with salmon candy warrior. Temp break was around 120’. 60 degrees and up everywhere else. Speeds from 2.2-2.7 at ball. Couldn’t move a rod after 9:30am. Looks like we should have ran out deep but the waves kept us close. Water fleas are back and noticeable after 10-20 minutes of the rod being down.

I had an itroll on my Yamaha kicker and it was awesome, I loved it. No complaints at all. I also had hunt mode and for me it wasn’t worth it. You have to reprogram it every time conditions change like wind and current speeds pushing the boat. I could never remember how to do it quickly and when I finally did, it never caught me anymore fish than just turning the boat.

The best chance of survival for a released lake trout seems to be a hookset in non-vitals (which you cant really control when trolling), reeling in slowly to account for barotrauma, and larger sizes seem to survive better. Other than that, mortality has been measured between ~14-40% post-release and it doesn't seem like surface or deep-water releases matter. Lake trout can burp their swim bladder so as long as they are reeled in slowly they will be able to compensate their buoyancy and swim down when released. You can also burp the fish (gently squeeze the center of the fish) to release air from the swim bladder if you pulled the fish up too quickly and that will let the lake trout swim down faster and get back to colder water and avoid getting pecked at by birds. Anecdotally, we catch adult lake trout with gill nets and rod and reel, put acoustic tags in the fish, and release them and have 100% survival years later. Some of our tagged fish are going 8 years now of providing data and are still alive after being caught and surgery performed to insert tags. I attached PDFs from two studies on post-release mortality. One is for angling and one is for gillnets set for research purposes. Here is a section on depth from the Loftus and Taylor paper (25' to 160' depths) Loftus and Taylor, 1988.pdf Ng et al., 2015.pdf

Check the seam between the inside of your transom and the transom splashwell. Before i repowered and replaced my transom and resealed that seam on my Sea Nymph it leaked like a sieve anytime i used the boat and waves or rain washed into the splashwell. Even when your boat is tied up any movement of the transom in wind or waves can cause the transom to dip low enough for the splashwell drain holes to take on water and if the seam between the transom and splashwell is not water tight, water will leak into the boat. Seal it with 3M 5200 and you should be good to go, if thats not the issue, back to square one. The transom rotting and pulling away from the splashwell was the cause of my issues by the way, may want to take a look at yours if thats what it turns out to be. Good luck! Here is a link to a post from my Sea Nymph repower and transom repair which may help explain what i'm talking about.

Switch to braided downrigger line and you will never hear the line sing again. Scotty brand 250 lb is thick enough to keep flees off and it’s easy to re tie if you ever need to switch out terminal ends.

Picked up the boat today with the new Honda mounted and gave it a couple hours of riding for the 10 hour break in period. Man is this thing quiet! 40 mph winds on Cayuga didn’t play fair but in a short burst the engine pushed the boat faster than my 90 hp two stroke around 38 mph. Can’t wait to start fishing

Sold

Trumansburg. I’ll be around Friday and Saturday if you want to swing by

I’m not sure, the labels that identify the exact model are long gone.

Two reels with lead core are sold. Two with 20 lb mono are still available.

Congrats on the new rig! When you replaced your floor, what did you use? I replaced mine in 2017 with 1/2" ply coated in epoxy but looking back should have used something closer to 3/4" to get a more stable platform, bit of a sag near the edges of the gunnel in two places.

Warm weather this weekend allowed me to prep, seal, and paint the transom and get it ready to mount the motor. Also installed splash well drains and put together a transom backer plate for the engine out of 1/4” aluminum to help distribute the load. Nothing left to do but repower. Getting close to brown trout season!

Sent you a PM

2 Daiwa Sealine size 47 for sale, older model. $30 each. Two with leadcore are SOLD, the other two have 20 lb big game. Pick up near Ithaca.

Finished off the pre-motor wiring today and the NMEA backbone. Lots of zip ties and crawling on my back

I bet that turned out great! I considered it but like others mentioned, the transom is not sealed so the poured material would run through the aluminum frame on the inside of the boat. I also considered composite but that was 10x the cost of plywood and the reality is I won’t be keeping this boat forever.

Good advice! I bought new drain holes since I had to cut the other brass ones out to get the transom wood out. I sold my Yamaha kicker so no need to plan on that but I did cut a 1/4” piece of aluminum that I used as a backer plate previously to displace weight and I’ll be using that for the new outboard mounting holes. The splash well drain holes bottom out on the splash well aluminum so drilling the new hole will need to be very precise so water drains correctly

That’s exactly right, getting access to the other bolts requires you to take the splash well apart. Taking it apart was easy but putting it back together with 1/4 close-end rivets was not. I had to buy a pneumatic rivet gun to save my forearms. Never thought about stainless to aluminum galvanization, thanks for pointing that out! The surfaces are painted on all sides and all bolts/washers are covered in 5200 sealant but rubber or plastic washers seem easy enough to add. Hopefully I won’t need to worry about network failures with two lowrances both connected to the NMEA network and 2022 modern engines have warning lights on the key switch and governors which don’t allow you to easily damage the engine, but I agree it’s something to consider. I have a stand alone volt meter as well as both lowrances give you voltage so that should be covered. Putting the splash well drains in this weekend which seems easy to screw up if they are not drilled out correctly. Any tips on that process would be appreciated.

Single Honda 75 hp with troll controller

Getting the center console ready for controls with the new outboard on the way. Had to cover all the old gauge, key, and control holes. Used 1/4” black Starboard which was a really easy material to work with. Decided not to get new gauges and just use the Lowrance units for engine gauges as they connect with NMEA 2000 and display all the information you could need (e.g., rpm, mpg, trim, gas level). Saves quite a bit of money in rigging if you already have a Lowrance. Waterproof Blue Seas switch board was also added to replace original switches. Cleaning up the wiring harness and bus bars coming next.

Its been a great boat so far. Tall gunnels make it feel pretty safe in rollers and only weighing 1,100 lbs makes trailering and solo launching and retrieving easy. The center console is also perfect for trolling solo, can drive into chop and reel in at the same time. Wish the floors were aluminum though, already replaced them once.