AKRISONER

4 hours ago, JonnyButts said:

We run an Ulterra year around . When away on trips in the fall / winter it gets brought in at night, it does require some forward thought into using it in cold weather as parts can freeze

I wonder if you are onto something here. The guy that runs his ulterra permanently deployed up in PAB is in the area every november during the pickerel run. Obviously we run into some very cold mornings and Im wondering if this was the demise of his motor.

if youre going to sink money into a boat, put it into upgrading the inside and your electronics.

still blows me away how little time you spend on simcoe bill!

48 minutes ago, RickOnt said:

Porkpie   Do you use spot lock much?

How does it perform?

The spotlock is certainly better on the newer trolling motors.

in fact I’d argue the spot lock on the new terrova is the best I have used. It’s better than my Garmin force’s 

I’ve used both models I had a Gen one iPilot on my old boat and have now used the Gen two on my dads boat and it’s certainly way better

theres only a few minkotta's that are bulletproof and the terrova is one of them.

Theres a guy in pointe au baril that fishes the walleye run there, and he drives with his ulterra permanently deployed, he jacks it up to drive around...because he got tired of getting to where he was fishing and it completely failing.

The new terrova's have lift assist anyways, they arent like the terrova's of old that would blow out your back stowing the motor. They all come with a spring lift assist. My dad is 70 and has no issue stowing and deploying the motor.

7 minutes ago, DanD said:

I have a friend that is a marine mechanic and runs his own shop. At the end of boating season and has finished winterizing his customer's boats. He pulls out all the failed items that he has stored over the summer. He checks out what is rebuildable and what is only worth salvaging parts from. After listing his inventory of bits and pieces. He orders what he needs to rebuild what he feels is worth rebuilding. The last time I was in his parts room, there must have been 25 to 30 lower end units hanging on the wall; just waiting to go. He's told me many times that boat repairs are an OnDemand repair. Meaning whether it be a pleasure boat or a fishing boat; the customer wants it fixed NOW so they can get back on the water. My friend doesn't rip anyone off but time and opportunity does delegate the price. Simple question to the customer; you want back on the water tomorrow or in 4-5 weeks? I say good on him for working through the winter getting ready for next season. Well worth the extra few hundred to the customer; when his other option is sitting on the beach watching the other boats go by. LOL 

Dan...  

Dan, do you care to share your friend’s info? I’m not concerned about when I get back on the water, as long as it’s before June 15th 2024

2006 Yamaha vz200tlr

Hey guys, I’m totally oblivious, but I’ve finally determined what’s wrong with my outboard…I’ve completely blown the lower end. So bad there is no oil left in gear casing.

im assuming the damage internally to the housing would be so severe you couldn’t “rebuild”

maybe I’m totally wrong, let me know if you’ve had any experience with this. 
 

I’ll add, it’s a 200hp motor so it’s high power, and when it finally blew I was doing 7mph not that I’m sure that makes that much difference. Let me know what you think.

I find this offensive 🥲

+1 for aikmans

hes super honest, to a point that I brought a motor that was not repairable and he didn’t even charge me for the work.

Man…why you gotta post these now lol

Don’t get it twisted, 90% of my gear is used, it’s the only way to afford being in the game. My boat just blew its motor…I need to sell rods if anything now.

I’ve got some mid range gear I’ve been trying to sell and it won’t move some of it even brand new discounted to 50% off. No one’s buying fishing tackle and boats at the moment. 

I mean of course my evidence is anecdotal, but I’ve never been in a boat with someone or personally broken a loomis rod. 
 

megabass…I think I’ve witnessed or been the unfortunate victim now 6? Times
 

and trust me, I’ve got some absolutely poop kickers in my arsenal. A decade of abuse including trips into the bush and years before I owned a bass boat being thrown around an aluminum tinner. 
 

in fact I’ve beat the rods up so bad over the years that an insert from the eyelet on my gl2 finally popped and the top eyelet on my DSR now rotates and needs to be reglued. Those rods have rust on the hook keepers and chunks of cork missing they’ve been fished hard like a rod is supposed to be and truthfully we’re two of the first higher end rods I ever purchased, and they were bought out of necessity because I was finally realizing that anything that wasn’t at mid range in the 250+ range was failing me. They couldn’t hold up to the hours we were putting in. 
 

I personally don’t own any high end st croix for bass fishing, only a couple of mojo’s ice rods and ultra lights…honestly their high end stuff hasn’t impressed when I’ve had the opportunity to fish them in general hence the lack of my interest.

honestly, I think I’ve narrowed my stuff down that if I’m buying it’s either 

loomis

evergreen

Expride…they and specifically the latter two because those two rods are without a single doubt in my mind the best value on the market right now and it’s not particularly close. The evergreens routinely go on sale for $150 and fish like an orochi and the exprides are $350? And fish like an $800+ conquest.

Not gonna lie gents, after owning both the orochi and destroyer and fishing a levante, I think I’m done with megabass rods. 
 

the only consideration is that I will agree, the 110 special destroyer is almost “too perfect” at throwing the 110, it’s probably the most perfectly assigned technique specific rod I have ever owned…but all of this doesn’t add up when it comes to the actual robustness and ruggedness of the rods. Quite simply, I’ve never had a rod over $200 break so unless it’s branded megabass. Maybe it’s a stroke of bad luck…but 3 times??? I think that’s more of a pattern?

I’ll tell you, there’s nothing more painful then picking up a $500+ rod and it simply snapping in half for no apparent reason. 
 

I know, I know I’m supposed to baby the destroyers because they are “finesse” I use rod socks and reel covers and ride a bass boat, the rods are stored in a carpeted locker, yes they get put up on the deck in tournaments, a man has to fish no?

Expride but I’d go with the medium

my favourite rod, could realistically do absolutely anything. Jerkbait, top water, cranking, could fish a lighter jig on it too. 
 

only thing you couldn’t obviously do is flip heavy cover with it on a punch rig. But aside from that it could do it all

tournaments get me outta bed at 3am, but theres no way im doing a 3am wakeup for pleasure fishing lol. 5am thats as early as ill go. Tournament hours dont start till 7:30 anyways. no point in finding the 5am pattern! at least thats what i tell myself.

How do you thumb the spool when casting with these?

i can certainly understand how it would be better for retrieving, but casting I’m not sure how it would work.

all of them...

Theres plenty of better fishing at an equal distance to the kawarthas from the GTA. Take the 400 instead of the 401.

How to catch the fish? Its an easy time of year right now...Largemouth pull in shallow and the smallise school up on shoals to eat bait. How to catch them, watch a lot of tactical bassin. It will help.

a veritas black max combo is about as canadian tire premium as  you can get...aka enjoy your new found rod.

Funny enough, I also snagged a rod down in virginia this spring and it was the same combo 🤣

Had a moment at the ramp for a tournament this year…motor wouldn’t even make a noise. Ran to the truck grabbed tools, checked all of the connections and even swapped my power over to my electronics battery to eliminate a bad battery…still nothing.

wiggled the throttle control…it wasn’t in neutral apparently…felt like a total moron.

price lowered again, need this thing gone!

4 hours ago, HTHM said:

Any thoughts on Whata Station? I'm heading up to Parry Sound in a week or two, along the 400 and need to fill up the boat. 

That’s where I’ve been getting my diesel and gas for years, they are advertising ethanol free gas right now.

call me crazy but something seems weird about 4-5% ethanol in the fuel. Most blends are 10-15%
 

is it possibly residual from prior to this new ethanol free supplier?

1 hour ago, captpierre said:

Interesting. But is it quality gas otherwise?

I guess I cannot speak for the quality as of yet having only filled up once with it. But it certainly gave me no issues this past weekend fishing all weekend.

I have a very interesting development from this past weekend and my visit to Wolf Energy on Highway 400.

I pulled into my the station as I normally do on the way up and prominently displayed for the first time was a large sign visible from the highway boldly stating "ETHANOL FREE GAS"

I then went inside to inquire and the man at the register confirmed that their premium was "now ethanol free"

Sure enough, as I was there, two tankers arrived to offload fuel and notably the tankers were no longer branded Original Traders Energy.

It seems, exactly as I described above, a new fuel supplier has taken over and is distributing ethanol free premium to native owned gas stations. A huge win for us all, I hope to god this deal holds up! Super stoked to be able to buy ethanol free gas in ontario again.

37 minutes ago, CrowMan said:

The only time I might run fluoro as mainline on a spinning outfit is when fishing spybaits....and it would be 6lb so not so stiff. Even then...with spybaits I just run a very long fluoro leader off the braid on spinning gear..

i personally throw spybaits on a baitcasting outfit. Im kinda lucky though, years ago as I was building my arsenal of fishing rods and i picked up an oldschool loomis CBR783c on the cheap. Its supposed to be a ML cranking rod, but its kinda weird, its almost overly parabolic. I guess it may be great for throwing really small cranks...either way sure enough, its a bloody perfect spybait rod.  Because of its gummyness it has a delayed load which i find actually allows the fish to choke the spybait before they feel the resistance of the rod. When the rod was made I dont even think the spybait was invented yet.