AKRISONER

leafs ever win the cup...southern ontario will most certainly be closed the day of the final game and the following. It might actually get downright weird for a bit.

as mentioned by bite me...batteries take a friggin beating in boats. just ask me about how I literally flipped an entire battery tray and unbolted three others in one single trip across the sound in parry sound lol. I just installed an Automatic Charge Relay in my boat. I call it the poor man's powerpole charge. Actually very very happy with it. Im pretty harsh on my electronics battery (10 hour days livescoping with 3 10 inch screens) and last year on some 12+ hour pre-fish days I actually ended up hitting the low voltage alarm which then sketched me the heck out because I needed to navigate back home in a new area of georgian bay with the possibility of not having charts. The ACR is most certainly the answer to the problem. Boat turns over, a couple minutes of the main motor running tops my starting battery back up, and the switch engages and my units that were just reading 10.9 volts are now reading 12.3 as they are being fed by the boats alternator.

A trolling motor is enough to get you to safety. ive been stranded multiple times, most recently on Georgian bay…in the fall, during a wind storm. made it home but it took a while

I personally think you run it until it explodes and then re power with a used motor with the max horsepower for your hull. You might get a year out of the motor for free.

Top gun marine in innisfil, but not sure he works on lower horsepower engines? maximum marine in port Perry does it for sure, my buddy got his motor rebuilt there

I agree with this…you truthfully are gambling when your motors compression is starting to go that bad. Sometimes the piston ring cracks and you “mildly” blow it. A re bore and some new rings and you’re back in action but sometimes she blows bad, your piston essentially super heats and gets stuck while firing and destroys the crank case, or literally blows through the top of the motor. I’ve seen videos of high powered motors shoot a piston literally through the engine cowling like a rocket. Needless to say, there’s no rebuild when it blows that bad

There’s some third party products that essentially connect with your phone that you install onto the trolling motor to effectively make them have iPilot. not sure if they are available for the first gen power drives. https://pronavmarine.com/alternative-to-the-minn-kota-i-pilot-link-add-on-gps-autopilot-for-bow-mount-trolling-motors/

Usually a couple thousand bucks will be enough for an engine rebuild. basically turns your motor new again. id get a transom saver, aluminum wood transoms are soft to begin with, I personally don’t like the idea of flexing them constantly. low compression equates to low power. Luckily on an old carbed two stroke it’s not going to be a major major issue until it totally blows.

just FYI, the whaletail is a sure sign that you wont be getting anywhere fast in the boat. Especially with friends coming along. The old addage that you want a boat thats maxed out the HP rating is true. Anything less and driving your boat with company will be a slow process. Its not the end of the world obviously...Not everyone needs a fast boat. Getting from A to B and out on the water and off of the bank is enough. Just think ahead of where and how you like to boat. A boat that wont get on plane is not a boat made for 20km rips up the lake to that prime honey hole. Dead honest question for you siwash...Is your intention to fish with your kids etc? If you just want the ability to get out on the water for yourself, have you looked into fishing kayaks? I have multiple buddies that fish from Yaks and straight up, love them...catch a load of fish and have everything you need to catch those fish with essentially 0 maintenance.

So crazy to see someone still driving quads out to go ice fishing. It’s 20 degrees here and perfect boating weather today!

This… right off the bat, the best boat you’ve posted is that super clean one. If the guys can’t even clean up the boat for their for sale photos they most certainly didn’t do any maintenance either. I’ve owned a couple of “old” boats now and here’s the deal. 1. compression test is mandatory, full stop. No one cares that it runs in the driveway or even on the water etc. a boat with no motor is literally scrap aluminum. 2. if you’re going aluminum, that thing needs to be leak checked. A single bad rivet and guess what, you’ve got yourself an anchor. if it floats and the compression is good, then it’s time to decide how much time and money you have left to actually make the thing run. ”but I thought If the motor is running, it is good to go!” nope…haven’t owned a boat yet that didn’t immediately need fixing. In my instance, a full re-wire for the trolling motors and electronics was required right off the jump. Even though the guys that owned my boats were well intentioned, they most certainly didn’t know how to properly wire boats, they clearly just were not the most handy guys, and truthfully that’s why they were moving on from the boat that they sold me. No one sells a perfectly functioning boat…that’s just how it is. finally, I see that you are operating on somewhat of a limited budget, so ask yourself, are you financially prepared to fix the stupid things that will constantly break on your boat? The adage BOAT BREAK OUT ANOTHER THOUSAND is real. Let me promise you, it is ohhhh so real on a boat that’s older than 15 years old. i seemingly can’t manage to go more than a week without something breaking on me. Thank god I own a Yamaha (knock on wood) so my motor doesn’t give me problems. But for some perspective here’s a list off of the top of my head of the work that I have had to do myself on my 2006 stratos since I have owned it. i have owned this boat going on my fourth year I’m not trying to scare you, I’m just trying to give you perspective. also I’ll add I’m not doing these things just to do them, im literally just fixing things as they wear out or break on me. -boat electronics rewire -trolling motor rewire - windshield screw in repair - new pole light - new trailer tires - trailer brakes service (needs more work as I speak) - new trailer plug - new winch strap - total reweld of the winch pole on the trailer - new trailer corner lights - new trailer tail lights - vst and fuel filter - water and fuel separator - new rollers for nose and tail of trailer - new trailer bunks - new middle seat - new batteries - total reinstall of my battery trays after they literally ejected in the back of my boat during a rough tournament day…in which I of course proceeded to misalign my work set up and you guessed it, drilled a friggin hole right through the bottom of my fibreglass boat…so guess who now has to re-finish a section of fibreglass on my hull - same tournament, I hit a wave so hard my livescope perspective mount snapped in half - new livewell pump - new transom saver and now…last but not least, I blew the lower end on my boat during that tournament that knocked all of my battery trays flying. $2500 later I’ve got a rebuilt lower end from top gun marine that I had to install, which I also ran into issues with my trim tab being seized/stripped. -new trim tab and two new bolts from japaN - and just as of Sunday, the boat buckle tie down for the front of my boat just stripped and now I need $90 to buy another one…it’s almost comical at this point! as You see from the list above, it sure as hell does not afford me a ton of time and money leftover to buy fishing goodies. I joke with my friends that I can’t afford to be a tackle junky because I own a fishing boat. it’s a labour of love. But man does it hurt…luckily I don’t have kids, and luckily I have the time and passion for working on this stuff. BE PREPARED

Simple answer, yes the 2d universal sonar transducer is only useful if you intend to use it with your other humminbird electronics. they are most certainly replaceable, and if you have newer modern electronics, you’d most likely be installing your own transducer anyways.

fortrex needs a front fishing platform. The OP's boat is a bow rider from what I understand. i.e. no ability to easily keep the pedal right close to the fortrex.

i personally killed 3 of them...that was enough for me.

those 70’s are some of their crappier line of motors like the traxxis and edge, and power drive. Also speaking from experience, do you want a motor that won’t ever die like the terrova or do you want problems lol

Speaking from experience, You could definitely survive on a 55lb thrust in a pinch but I’d personally recommend an 80 as well. On a windy day that 12volt 55 is going to be an issue. You will need two 12 volt batteries wired in series to create 24v which will allow you to push the 80lb thrust motor. a 55lb thrust will only require one twelve volt battery. There is some consideration there for the fact that the two batteries set up is heavier, and more expensive and the 80lb thrust motor will also be more expensive. All for you to figure out. as far as brands go, stick with minkotta for sure. I’d never go motorguide unless it’s an old motorguide tour cable steer motor. Which for your application is almost most certainly not what you are looking for. a used minkotta terrova will be the perfect motor for you. then you have some decisions to make about whether you want spot lock or not.

Thank you so much for this write up. I have started reading a lot, because when this set of batteries goes (im on year 3) its going to be time to finally make the swap. At the time, I was on the fence simply due to pricing, but everything I am reading now is certainly pointing me back to lithium for my next battery purchase. The collapse in pricing is astonishing, but not surprising as the tech became readily available. To date I have not heard of one person speak negatively about switching the lithium, and holy cow a 100lbs weight savings is astronomical when it comes to boats, if your running anything under 20 feet long, it almost seems like a total no brainer. Jesus, anyone running a 14 foot tinner would have to be high to not go lithium. The gas alone would probably pay the difference in a year. I am by far the most intrigued by getting one of those giant 36v's to run my trolling motor. I started my boat out with 3 trolling motor batteries and one starting electronics battery, but with the 3 10 inch screens and livescope, a few low voltage warnings after long days pre-fishing had me sketched right out about running out of juice on my starter. Ive now swapped one of my TM's AGM's to an electronics only battery, and downgraded the trolling motor to 24volts. I do not notice too huge of a difference between 36 and 24, however I will say the 36 notably has more tourque when you need it and I do miss it the odd time. After fishing with a club member this summer that has a tinner rigged for walleye fishing up north, he put me on to a neat little invention called an Automatic Charge Relay. I personally call it the poor man's powerpole charge. It allows your boats alternator/rectifyer to send juice to another battery once it determines that your starting battery is back up fully charged after starting. This is ideal, now when im making my runs around the lake, some of that juice can be fired back to my electronics batteries to help me get through some of those 12+ hour days at the lake. Anyways, enough about me and hijacking your thread, I actually have a question that I have not been able to decipher through my reading thus far about lithium batteries. You allude to it in your post, but perhaps you read into this further, It is my understanding that Lithium batteries do not like being charged when cold, but also many batteries available in the market are temperature protected or maybe even heated? Now for the good ol boys down south, none of this is applicable at all, but for us folks in the great white north that fish in the fall, how does one get around these "low temp cut offs" Correct me if I am wrong, but I have heard that some will shut down as soon as they reach 5 degrees C? (i may be making that number up? but from memory?) So honest question to you Bassman, what are do we need to look for in our Lithium batteries up here in canada? Im sure there is some way to pay for some feature that will have us canadians not worried about going fishing during the months of September through June lol. I couldnt imagine parking the boat at the dock at night on a clear september night only to find that my batteries arent charged when I wake up in the morning to go fishing.

sounds like you may have been staying in the same hotel that my brother stayed at during a science fair trip in the early 90's 😆 He specifically remembers there being literal chain link fence over the windows and being woken up in the mdidle of the night to someone firing a lot of rounds out of a gun

Speaking from experience, cleaned treated goretex will most certainly keep you dry when sitting on a wet surface. my boat seats are soaked with overnight rain often and my goretex bib most certainly keeps me dry.

one of my favourite things is watching laketrout ice fishing on livescope...I never knew that they move similar to a cat...slowly approach and then burst onto the scene when they get within striking distance. Sometimes they miss or circle the bait, and seeing the tail and fins is so frigging cool. Unfortunately even big smallmouth still look like blobs, Im starting to get pretty good at distinguishing size. It was a major deal last tournament season, how blessed am I to now avoid the wrong bites!

Like Bill, I wash and treat my coats and bibs once a year. Many outdoor apparel companies are now moving away from "forever chemicals" https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/forever-chemicals-pfas/ From what I have read, is that this will simply mean you should wash your goretex after every 3rd heavy use. Realistically how many intensely rainy wet days does one go through in a year...Sure a big week long trip will require a wash after, but this sounds like a couple of extra washes a season. Not a big deal. My father (an engineer and chemist) expressed his concerns to me about these types of chemicals years ago, so much so that they were stopping using similar chemical compounds in some of the processes that he works on to avoid long term exposure for people working with them every day. Interesting that a lot of outdoor companies are now in agreement that they gotta go. Hell makes you think about that poor guy in china thats applying that DWR to your coat every day 6 days a week...yeesh.

Without a doubt, the NGTA club smallmouth derbs have been impacted. The weights certainly improve with livescope. But what’s understated massively? Spotlock imo had an even bigger impact. You can’t tell me that guys could effectively fish in 3 footers and 60kmh on a foretrex. No one wants to talk about that though.

Im a pretty firm believer that it’s goretex or nothing. and you have to treat it well, dry it after use, clean it and apply dwr at minimum. the challenger series are most certainly not worth their money. They aren’t goretex. Full stop. i was running a simms goretex pro shell for the past 5 years and it was used by Dave Chong prior. It kept me perfectly dry. The only downfall on that suit was that the bib had a front zipper that wasn’t waterproof so driving my boat in huge waves taking on water, I’d end up getting water in my pants. oh also, I won a striker rain suit through the fishing club this year, it seems super high quality, but I haven’t tried it in the rain yet. Will have to report back. I’ve been told it’s solid though by a friend with the same suit. the suit itself is super well thought out and has all of the features you want in a rain suit.

Thanks for clarifying bill, appears I’m out of date! Man keeping up with the tech across all brands is a pile of Information that I’m not even sure why I try to keep up with. My boat is 100% Garmin now but I still wanna know what hummingbird and minkotta are up to.

we now regularly fish in the tent with just the one screen. Its more practical, the 10 inch screen is plenty easy to see and the only trick is adjusting the cone so that you can pick up both jigs. What you describe about the fine tuning to see your bait is so true...and I think thats lost on a lot of people when they complain about FFS. They think its just this easy thing to be able to see your bait and watch the fish eat it. Have I watched fish eat by bait on livescope? ya for sure...is this the norm? Absolutely not. I find it very difficult to pick up by bait through an entire cast and I have a Garmin Force that gives me complete control with my foot to adjust where I am looking in the water, but wind and waves completely throw that out of the question. If you are able to shallow water anchor down, then it makes the scoping much easier, but I personally dont have talons or raptors so if theres waves, good luck following my bait. My personal technique that I really started dialing in last season was simply marking fish and getting good enough to understand the size of the fish I was looking at. From there I positioned my boat to actually stay the hell away from the things. Dial in with the beam where exactly I thought that fish was in relation to the boat and then making good casts into where I was translating the strike zone to be. Yes when it was calm or things lined up right I did watch some fish eat my baits...notably a 4lber I caught on tri lakes during an NGTA clubby that I won last summer, I watched that big fish storm off a piece of cover to eat a drop shot. But for the most part ive simply learned to use it to make really accurate casts and keep my boat the hell away from the fish. The other often not talked about thing I use the scope for, is dialing in crank baits..same NGTA on tri lakes, was on a weed bed that had nice deep weeds with a solid 4-5 feet of clean water above them. Put on the right crankbait and watched it on the scope to make sure I was really getting into the weeds but not fouling every cast...sure enough we ended up catching 2 keepers throwing those cranks. No livescoping the actual fish, just adjusting to the structure I was seeing appropriately. Livescope was eye opening to me regarding the effect a boat and electronics pinging has on fish. Especially in our gin clear lakes. Lake couchiching in October last year, another NGTA clubby, I couldnt believe I was spooking smallmouth that were 30 feet down 60 feet off of my boat. I swear id see them on the livescope and as soon as that beam hit them they took the hell off.