irishfield

Yes Richard I know what well nuts/riv-nuts are but, no, I prefer to do things right the first time... no matter how difficult it gets! ...and I see you haven't found anyone to take that Crestliner off your hands yet... Steve...if I get my butt out to the hangar she'll be ready to hit Georgian Bay tomorrow and I'll be getting at least 18 full weeks out of her before Christmas. If I'm gonna spend that much time in a boat...it's gonna be comfortable and set it up for me and my wife. She's even up for redoing the Princecraft advert (couple sleeping in boat bow) properly as we can sleep side to side in the stern on a queen air mattress. And BUSTER..where the hell ya been lad. Bunk, you can stop in and help me finish the project by slimming the thing up you know! MTP..sad when you have to eat Grill Cheese at BOQ. Which is safer? The 'eyes or the processed cheese?

Yep...was 7 years old..4HP Merc on a wood boat my 14 year old brother built. Wouldn't doubt if they had a battery isolator that got wet and is toast...and batteries aren't charging. Just a shot in the dark...

Goes along with FISH Paul ! And Mike...no thanks. Still working on a name for the boat...Ronnie took "Decissions..Decissions" 'cause he couldn't make up his mind... so maybe I'll have to go with Blood, Sweat and TEARS !

NOT ! Many of you asked for pictures...so here they are.... Spent about 7 hours this afternoon putting my Pursuit tracks on the boat. Arms are cut to hell from working thru a 6 inch, non-debured, speaker hole and trying to get washers and nuts into tight spots between gunnel and reinforcing plates below them. Managed not to drill into any hydraulic steering lines while drilling 40 holes in my new boat. First hole took a LOT of "thinking" about it first...the next 39 went quick. Laying stuff out before hand Making sure the prop wash is accessible... (and if it doesn't work I'll make up a track on a seat pedestal for the back casting deck) Lunds lack of QC pays off this round. They forgot to screw my port rod holder tubes into place...made it easier to access back side of bolts. I also determined while I had it pulled out that all the rod tubes could have been at least 18 inches longer. Right now I can only put a 7' rod in there...but I'll be modifying that so I can put in at least 8' 6". Time for the first hole.. and no turning back now! Great having a big metal shear around to make up alum backing plates quick. Arm starting to get a tad sore.. Think I got most things covered for planer mast and rigging. Mounted the planer mast at the lake last week and I have retreiver lines/pulleys with the tie offs that I mounted onto a removable plate that goes in the pursuit tracks, so we can pull the planer line in to the back of the boat to add lines/clips easily. Bought a couple hand line reel brackets with another purpose in mind Shore lunch without leaving the boat! Just not sure if it will stay lite at 60 MPH ! Probably another 1/2 day to make up some quick pins on the stove/grill, to modify the propane feed line and to clean up a few other things. Then back to work on some income earning things to pay for all this sheeet so I can get out and enjoy it in a few weeks.

Smash the Merc Smart craft gauge a few hours before....or have you in the boat when it rolls over Bud ! Drilling 40 holes in the barstard made me feel a bit better this afternoon.....

Buses leave every day Marty...get on one!

Mayflies flying around in Temagami as well the last week or so. Good to hear from you Shawn...and where are the pictures!?!?

Wednesday night they had reopened the highway from Sudbury to Timmins so hopefully it's still open for you fnf And as for that Tornado...we left Halfway lake that morning for Hearst...good luck on our part..for a change.

Don't know what the latest is fishnfiend....MNR website has a link to fire information somewhere...or call the North Bay MNR office maybe.

Sorry forgot about that last night Emil while I was going thru hundreds of emails. I'll get back to you by PM...but you should know that FANG is the OFC expert on Lake Temagami.

Sounds VERY good Joe. I've got some XD-30 2 stroke oil, and some other things kicking around that may just grace that table. If not I'll buy something for it. I think everyone participating should put something on the table and relieve TJ from needing to add anything.

Beauty report...but I think you tucked her into the wrong sleeping bag bud...isn't that one yours ? LOL Enjoy her now...one day you'll turn around and she'll be 22 already and moving in with her boyfriend.

Have a GREAT day Easton!!

That's what you and Aaron keep tellin yourself anyhow! LOL

Lost both of your jigs to ROCK bass Bernie. I know where they are as well and will retrieve when the water's warmer! Thanks everyone for your sympathy posts...all in all it's not that bad...it just could have went a whole lot better. All will be fixed and made right, that I know or I'll be driving the Limited Edition 2025 Pro-V around the lake for the summer. (that's already been offered for the interm) Now out to the shop to figure out how to get these Pursuit tracks lashed down to the gunnels...

Yep..we caught fish. The boat is good luck in that regard. Hopefully we'll have it all straightened out before Lakair. Could have been worse believe it or not... The Temagami Marine Fishing "Pro" dropped his new 2007 - 1900 Pro-V in the water right behind us on Wednesday. With a total of 0.3 hours on it and it's 225 Optimax he shoaled it doing 61 MPH. Sheared about 75 rivet heads off the bottom and made the lower units bullet look like a peeled banana!

Quite possible Tony..ie drinking. They shot themselves in the foot closing the Manitoba plant. They don't have enough capacity now. You can't order a 2007 boat to your specs...you can only buy what's on the dealer floors/pre-orders now. Speaking of which...if you still want that serial #1- 2025 Limited Edition I've already crawled thru it somewhat. Can complete the PDI for you in a couple weeks! LOL

GREAT report Mike! and what Smokey said. First trailer has to be a 5th wheel. Can't be tongue to tongue.

Happened to Leah last year. Went to town..took the clip out and threw it in her pocket and then tried and tried to start the Honda. Gave up and started rowing the 16 foot STEEL boat the 2 miles to the cottage. 6 different guys stopped by to "help" her...with no success. Along came a blonde female in another boat that immediately said "did you take the little clip off the red button?", to which Leah replied "Aw sheeeet" or something like that. Blonde " I do that all the time". I laughed my arse off when she got back to the cottage and then we went for Chinese food a couple nights later and I did the same darn thing!

If you were on team 7 I'd tell yah where to fish ...... Have a GREAT time Sonny! Sorry we had to come home before you arrived!

As long as they weren't in your chest bud !

Thanks everyone! Yes everything will be fine, when all is said and done. Just not the way you envision things to go after waiting since November to let 'er rip and if you talk to Leah you'll find I wasn't a great companion to be around for the last 10 days! Good thing we'll be spending June 8th 'till fall a mile from the Marina...so they can install the replacement items as they come in from Lund. Think we'll just pre-plan for Tuesday am service visits each week. Marina owner isn't at all happy with Lund either. At his expense he's had to replace the solid pedestals under the captains chairs with Air units as that's what I have on my invoice and Lund didn't install them saying he ordered wrong. He's also out a pair of trim switches for the bow, the time to install them and 50 hours of PDI work that he'd figured 8 should have covered... if Lund had done the pre-package fully like was supposed to happen. The Lund rep already left me a pair of Lund PDF's for the letter I wrote the VP of Lund back in the winter...ie their dealer non-participation in quoting my boat. Maybe after all this Bull....when I get back to the lake I'll find an SS Classic for a tender waiting for me I arrive.

I've had a bunch of time to cool off Brian! The marina knows where they stand and not more than 5% is issue with them. The rest is Lund. Maybe I'm a tad pickier than some, but I wrote the cheque so I have every right to be. None of it is major, just little sheeet that pisses you off... like a sewing mistake, in the the headrest trim bead, of a $1000 captains chair.

...turn around immediately and head back home! About the only thing that went right the last 10 days was meeting Bernie (Nipissing) in Powassan..but that was before the odometor rolled over with 2 x the Had a nice short chat with Bernie, since he was a man short in the shop, coaxed a few custom poured jigs out of him and Leah bought a mitt full of tickets on a Geisler Cedar Strip canoe while we were there. Arrived in Temagami about 1 pm or so and loaded up our steel boat to head to the island. Thought I'd go inside, just to see how things looked for the planned new boat launch in the am and that's when things went to hell. Been looking forward to the day since November and not what I needed to hear... "Ummm..none of your electronics on the network are working because Lowrance has us backordered on a tee and an adapter to go from Blue to red connectors." " Your LCX112 works for GPS/Fishfinder and your Hotmap and Gold + chips are here." "Parts should be here in the am...or so we were told by Bay Distributors" Came close to blowing a gasket, but left before I did thinking tomorrow things would be fine. Rains like a B arstard all Monday afternoon and when I go to pump the water out of the boat before dark...bilge pump toast. Tuesday AM I call over to the Marina to see where we stand..sounds like they need the day and that's fine...I'll just come over and get a new bilge pump. Get out of the boat, tie up the front line and my new Canon digital takes a swan dive into 30 FOW. Now we play around in the marina work shop, look a few things over and boat may be ready soon....then call made and electronic parts aren't coming today. I can live with that...then it's realized in the hussle and bussel of pre-long weekend scrambling my kicker motor hasn't been PDI'd. Tell them I haven't drank in almost 10 years but I'm getting pretty dang close...we leave and go back to the island and I use the time to install some copper pipes/fittings to the laundry room to get rid of the hoses that have been used for many years before we bought the place. Call the local realestate guy..that also Scuba dives and arrange to meet him at the marina 8am Wedneday morning. Took longer to get his dry suit zipped around him, than it took to find the camera...that unfortunately turned itself on when it got wet. Drying it out in the oven failed to revive it.....but the memory card's still good. About an hour later we go launch the new Lund for the first time. I go park the truck and trailer and get out..look back at the trailer and think "something looks wrong in this picture" Lund/Shorelander shipped a trailer with dual ST185/R80-13's with two ST215/R75-14 spares... all ordered as a package. Add that to the WTHell list and we take a run to the hub and back (30 miles) with the boat. Everything runs great and we head back to the cottage to install my bow mount for the Big Jon planner mast. I get in there and find Lunds pre-package work has been done by an 8 year old, and I'm insulting the 8 year old! Holes drilled for my bow mounts mounting plate got drilled tooo tight to the gunnel extrusion and they couldn't put nuts on 2 bolts out of 4...so they used the friction of the bolt rubbing the extrusion and no nut. They added 2 more smaller bolts forward of that to make up for it and then didn't bother tightening anything up. Next find that my LCX112 is flopping back and forth on the helm RAM mount only to find it and it's three bolts loose by about 4 full turns. Pulled the instrument panel out of my brand new boat to fix that and hell...straightened the Tach and trim gauges that they installed crooked while I was in there. Wiring done by someone at Lund with a days electrical training. Couple cheap crimps and a yard of electrical tape...fuse holders in an area that requires pulling the instrument panel vs having access from below in the access hole under the steering wheel. Go to install the Navionics chips and find the Gold + is for a Raymarine unit and not a Lowrance. Fine..don't need it..Hot Map is the right one to cover our lake. Another thing that went right...was we went out Thursday for about 8 hours and put some fish in the boat. Pulling BIG 5 of diamonds spoons I nailed a nice 25 Inch laker and shortly after Leah reeled in a 20 incher. Kicker runs beautiful for trolling, and pushes the boat effortlessly ...anywhere from 0.4 to 5.8 MPH For those that know the lake, we trolled all the way from Axe Narrows..up and around Ketchenany lodge...spawning bay to Ricks' other place and all the way back to the Axe Narrows. The LCX112 is a dream with the hot map chip in. No more scrolling the shoal chart like town crier, while trying to steer and fish. The hydraulic steering is a dream...point and shoot! Friday I started going thru the boat looking for other "snags" and found seat stitching issues and some (3 pages) other stuff that I'll leave until Lund addresses it all. One major issue... the Motorguide bow mount and it's 60 inch shaft is useless. It just makes it under water if I'm standing up there and even then it cavitates on anything by absolute SLOW. Comes out of the water if I leave the bow. Saturday we took our 2nd run down the lake and I wound her out a BIT (55 MPH @ 5800 RPM). Didn't push it, but followed the breakin suggestions..which after 2 hours allow FULL power runs for 5 minutes. We shattered the clear side curtains out of it and found the roll Dufort tops used had sharp creases in it, or someone stomped them after folding them up. New ones on the way and I've already "red greened" the boat with some silver tarp tape on them for now. Still getting closer and closer to pouring a STIFF one at this point! Sunday it froze rain. Monday Leah and I had a little pow wow with the old owner and new owner of Temagami Marine. They, as always, have been great and jumped thru hoops..even pulling some nice gold/silver wheels off a trailer so I had spares to come home. They are totally embarrased with Lunds pre-package work and are arranging a meeting with Lund reps for June when I get back up. Fished off the dock Monday night...jig and a worm. 4 lb OOS Smallie..released and then as my jig flops back in the water the biggest Northern I've seen on the lake yet ambushes from under the dock...SNAP! Tuesday we went out for a quick 2 hour troll before the hockey game. Leah pulling a 5 of diamonds for lakers and I threw on a TD-11 Blue flash for Pickeral...or so I thought. About 8:45 I said to Leah.."well...we got skunked, lets go in and watch the game" and my TD-11 rod bent over. I thought great, a big Pickeral for the pan but much to my surprise it was a nice chunky 24" Laker. Released like the others and in to watch the game...then Detroit waits 40 minutes to start playing hockey! Wednesday night fishing of the dock...no fish... but black flies burrowing and mosquitoes drawing blood. I'm slapping and zing...there goes my eye glasses into 20 FOW. Will look for those when the water gets warmer in June! Thursday...worst part...had to come home. Trailer pulls like a dream behind the F150. Don't even know it's there, other than I need to get over to Ford to get some extending mirrors. Disc brakes on trailer nice and smooth. NO push, what so ever, even at the red light at the bottom of the STEEP grade coming South into North Bay on #11. Tomorrow I figure out how to mount my Pursuit tracks...hope it goes better than the last 10 days and heading over to Backwater Tackle to see if they can get Motorguide to ship them a custom 78" shaft for the bowmount..so it can be used. Be really nice instead of it being a bow decoration. Any pictures I have are on a Kodak disposable that Leah ran to town to buy...she even got the underwater one as a joke/suggestion/hint! Will be a while before I get those developed and onto a CD. Thanks for reading my anguish!

Anything over 3000lbs should/must have brakes http://www.shorelander.com/pages/l_press/brake.html Didn't even know my boat was behind us coming home...not even stopping for the lights at the bottom of the steep grade coming into North Bay on #11 this afternoon.