finja

I had dryer sheets in the boat but not in the compartments where the damage was done. I have considered moth balls but was worried about the smell. Looking back now, moth ball smell might not have been so bad.

GTA. Do you recommend indoor vs outdoor depending on climate?

Hi folks. Looking for some experience on outdoor storage. I've used indoor storage since I bought my boat new with mostly good experiences. However, last year I tried a new place (that had no concrete floor and no heating) and found that my boat was damaged by mice over the winter. The reason I always used indoor storage was because I thought I would be safe from rodents. Needless to say, I was very upset that I had to replace one of my seats and struggled to rid the boat of the rodent and urine smell. This year I'm considering professional shrink wrap and outdoor storage. I'm looking for your experience. Will professional shrink wrap keep the critters out? Thanks!

I did a trip to Pesca Maya from a resort a few years ago. My experience was exaxtly the same. Lots of small bonefish that fought hard on the light tackle we used. Couldn't hook a permit or a tarpon, although we saw both. Unless things have improved, the"road" to Ascension Bay is a nightmare. I literally felt like i was going to vomit and hit my head on the van roof a couple of times (and I'm not tall). The van ride IIRC was about 2 hours. I had nerves all day thinking about the return trip....

I had 2 group 24 Deka batteries that were installed by the dealer for my trolling motor. They lasted four full seasons but I think they would have lasted longer if I didn't keep them in the freezing cold garage during the third winter since I did see a slight drop in capacity in my fourth season even though they were kept on maintenance chargers all winter. They finally died in the fall due to water boiling while charging. My Deka starting battery is still going strong in year 5. i have tried Costco, Walmart and Canadian Tire batteries in my old boat and I was never really happy with their longevity. They all seemed to perform very similarly. My impression is that the Dekas performed better. I now ensure I charge the batteries back to 100% immediately after I use them and store them indoors over the winter. After my Dekas died i bought Canadian Tire AGM batteries, hopefully i'll have good luck with them. I would have bought Optimas but i got a better deal on the CT AGMs so thought i would give them a try...

I had my Suzuki df140 overheat this year at wot. I was very surprised since the outboard is only 3 years old and runs smooth as a top. Took me a while to figure it out but when I had my skeg repaired this winter, the intake on the lower unit for water pickup was installed backwards. So at high speed the water was being pushed away instead of into the water pickup. Worth a quick check if the lower unit was serviced recently.

I think everyone is missing the biggest risk here... Extending rental car insurance from your car insurance and the insurance from your credit card only cover damage to the vehicle. I would be more worried about personal injury liability. You can only get liability insurance from the car rental company and in my experience you can't just buy liability insurance, the rental companies always bundle it with the physical damage insurance.

I have a PD V2 with iPilot - the spot lock (iPilot) feature is available for both models so that is not the reason to buy a Terrova. With the PD V2 you lose the foot pedal if you install iPilot. There is a home-made device that you can buy to keep the foot pedal if you are so inclined but I've learned to love the handheld remote and tend to use the auto features of the iPilot so I don't miss the pedal at all. If the foot pedal is important to you then the Terrova is the better option. In my opinion the difference between the motor power is not enough to justify one over the other. So what does it boil down to? The stow and deploy system. THAT IS DEFINITELY WORTH THE EXTRA $200! This is coming from a user of the PD V2 for 2 years. Deploying is actually pretty easy but pulling the trolling motor back up is a royal pain in the you know what!

I would like to try fly-in but that's not an option for the folks I'm with this year. I have a couple of options to look at, now going to give some of these lodges a call to see what's available. Thanks for the insight.

Targa, thanks for the feedback. I'll take a look at Mattagami. Chris, what would you recommend for better fishing?

Thanks for the replies. Will probably chose to stay at one of the main lodges. Boat in sounds interesting but we're a pretty big group so there won't be enough room for everyone.

Thinking of staying on Ivanhoe. Any experience on this lake and what we can expect? Looking for a nice drive-to lake with decent fishing and hopefully a chance for a trophy or two. Walleye and pike are the main species we want to target. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I have a 2011 df140 I bought new last year (new boat). So far I'm very happy. Quiet, good on gas, runs smooth. I needed the 20 hour break-in service and had trouble finding a dealer to do the work since the local GTA dealers aren't set up with enough shop space to service the bigger motors. You shouldn't have that problem for the 50hp but I recommend you call your local dealers to check if they will service your motor. I did ultimately get the work done at a dealer 10 minutes from my home (they're mostly set up to service Suzuki cars and motorcycles). Super nice guys who agreed to work on the boat outside and made sure to lock it up in their garage overnight. I don't think that getting parts would be a problem but I would guess that outboard parts are mostly special order.

In response to the earlier post that it costs the vendors a lot of money to set up a booth... They are there to win my business, what is their value proposition? These are a for-profit businesses, I can't say I've ever had anyone spot me a few hundred bucks just because the cost of living has gone up. After all, we are not talking about supporting a charitable organization here.

I went to the show to spend a few hours that would have otherwise been spent at home doing nothing... Having said that, I was interested in looking at some electronics - only one vendor had anything, and some bass baits - show promised to be a bass show and yet there were no deals to be had on something as simple as spinner baits. I have to say I was disappointed with the lack of selection. No real deals to be had for me.