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You did not indicate if this boat is primarily going to be a big water or inland lake boat. If you're looking for a big water boat I would recommend you look at closely a Starcraft Superfisherman. A highly underrated big water riveted aluminum boat that is not nearly as overpriced as some. If you are looking at primarily an inland lake boat I'd look at an Alumacraft Trophy or something in the Lund family of boats. Put my buddies Alumacraft Trophy Sport beside my Pro-V and they are almost identical. The Alumacrafts offer great fit and finish, quality seats (better than mine), and lots of storage (same as mine and mine's a 19). My only advantage is my ride is superior in rougher water. With your family you need at least an 18' boat, especially if you go with a full windshield.

Your friend is not respecting the Canadian law nor is he respecting you. Obviously this bothers you or you wouldn't have made the post. Do the right thing and you won't have to worry ever again. Turn your head and you'll be worrying every time he's on your boat.

Just wondering if you have a boat cover could you build a little a frame over your covered boat and tarp the A frame? I would think this would eliminate condensation concerns as you'd have some air flowing underneath the tarp. Definitely a good idea in your case to pull your batteries, store the motor vertical, treat your gas, and block your trailer. Have you changed the lower unit lube?

I've been running a Verado since 2006, and I've never had a problem. My current 200HP Verado costs me $125.00/year to maintain. This includes engine oil/filter/gear lube/grease, etc. I buy a kit on the Verado club website and I do the work myself. It takes me about 4 hours to do annual engine maintenance, I'm sure others can do it much more quickly, I prefer to take my time. There are a number of useful u-tube videos to help the 1st timer. All that said, if I were to buy another welded hull like the Raptor (I once owned a Fishhawk), weight would be a serious consideration in my decision. I'm not a big Liner fan. If you buy one make absolutely sure you test drive your boat before you purchase as they are known to have problems with excessive boathook which can be a nightmare to solve and seriously affects the boats performance.

This kind of thing is happening all over the place. It's a sign of the times and the "me first" attitude of so many people.

Just curious but it sounds to me like an interference problem at the reel or on the rod. Could the line be slapping the bottom eye on the rod as it comes off the reel? I've never experienced your issue with braid on any reel. I've used Fireline, Power Pro, and the new Suffix braid.

Lew, maybe you should take up building some gliders. You have all the wood you'll need!!!

No question, an Alumacraft would be a better built boat but I'd check the deadrise for sure because many of them are pretty shallow and it sounds like you want to fish the big water. Between your choices I would lean to the Fishmaster. That boat is designed for big water. Now I don't know about the Canadian market but a 150 Verado in the US is very competitively priced to a 2 stroke, especially when you consider the additional benefit of the digital throttle which is really sweet. That said, I wouldn't plan to troll extensively with any big 4 stroke any more than I would a 2 stroke. Pick up a kicker motor. I know, more bucks but if you fish the big water enough you'll be glad for the back-up motor plus lots of other reasons to avoid using your big motor. Fuel economy between the 2 and 4 stroke is essentially a wash. I'm running a 200HP Verado now, my first was a 135HP, both are great motors, and I would highly recommend them if you have a trained Verado mechanic nearby. Not that you will need one, but every motor experiences some proble sooner or later.

There really isn't much to this. You might want to purchase a bracket though. The MinnKota bracket will allow you to remove the motor when traveling or in the off season. The way most folks mount them is with the shaft running down the port side when the motor is in the stow position. This leaves your bow open when stowed. Just make sure you allow enough clearance to deploy the motor. Depending on your bow design you ideally want to use bolts with lock nuts and washers for mounting. I like to use SS. The other thing is that the motor base needs to be fairly parallel to the water, so if your boat sits bow high you may want to put some spacers under the rear side. Typically the motor comes with rubber mounting washers to minimize vibration. Not a bad idea given excess vibration may damage electronics. One last thought, I add a Ram mount that holds the shaft stable when towing; not necessary just additional protection. I imagine all this is detailed on MinnKota's website.

As a kid I remember Dad pulling an 18' boat to Canada up the QEW with a Dodge Dart. Remeber those death traps? I would sit in the back seat praying to God we wouldn't crash as the boat pulled the back end of the car back and forth at highway speed. Point being, yes you can use your mini-van but you will have substantially reduced your margin of safety. I would urge you to consider a tow vehicle or a much smaller boat. Personally I wouldn't pull more than 1500 lbs with a front wheel drive mini-van.

This time of year the deep water is likely still very cold. Try a 1/2 oz bb on a floating jig head and go only fast enough to keep the line tight. This technique works very well in early season cold fronts and calm conditions, especially on breaks.

Something you may want to try until you feel that you're satisfied with the 2 stroke as your kicker. Put your main motor down running straight ahead, angle your kicker and tighten it down so that when your kicker is running the boat is running straight ahead. You can then set the speed of the kicker as you'd like and deploy your bow mount to keep you on course (works great in the wind) both to maintain ideal speed and to steer, and you can also use your main motor to steer your boat. This set-up will work well if you're trolling bays and so on. If you're following a contour it's not so great, but in that case it's probably easiest to use your kicker as a backtroller. You'll just need a handle extention.

Seems to me this gentleman acted very appropriately. I would like to think I would handle something like this equally well but who knows in the panic of the moment. My question for the authorities is, "How else could this man have saved his home and pets?"

Funny, I've been going through the same internal debate about the Patriarch. Last nite on Cabelas I even put it in my basket before deciding to hold off. About 10 years back, after expermenting with many brands i said enough is enough and made Shimano my standard. Between Stradics,Symetres, abd Sahara's I have close to a dozen, but I really haven't been overwelmed with Shimano spinning reel quality the last couple of years. The thing that has attracted my interest in the Patriarch is the max drag on the 35 model of 16 lbs, yet the weight is still excellent, plus their reels have an excellent reputation. Trust me when you have a joint disease, I have psoriatic arthritis, a couple oz's makes a difference, especially in your wrists. I did notice a mail-in rebate from Pfleuger, something like $15, on the Cabelas site, but being somewhat cheap I thought I'd hold off until the next sale or coupon offer.

Compare an 18 vs a 20. Space wise there is no comparison regardless of wheel or tiller options. The 20 is an enormous boat. You can set a blind up in the bow of that thing.

BTW, that Alaskan quote came from Rapid Sport Marine in Minnesota. It was not an in stock boat, they were going to factory order. Given the current exchange rates this will hopefully give you some idea of fair pricing. I know my quotes for this boat were all over the map, but this was the best one by quite a bit. I ended up driving out there and buying a leftover 1900 prov from them. Good people.

I owned an 18' Alaskan wheel boat and 50hp Honda. They were of 1998 model year. Great boat and nice ride, top end with a bow mount and two batteries stored up front was 30mph. I kept that boat for 8 years. 30 mph may sound okay but from a handling perspective it could have used the extra hp. If you go tiller in 18' that won't be a problem as your nose will be riding higher. Before buying my pro-v last year I gave serious consideration to a 20' Alaskan with full windsheild. The only thing I didn't like about the boat is the 20" transom, but it is huge compared to the 18'r,and has a slightly raised bow platform which the 18' doesn't. Personally, I believe dollar for dollar you can't find a better purely utilitarian get the job done boat than the 20' Alaskan. Given the 20" transom I would stick to one of the lighter 2 strokes (even though I'm a 4 stroke guy)and get close to max hull rating which I believe was 135HP. That would be one sweet rig. My best quote last year for a 20' was $25,995 with a 115 4 stroke Merc with dash gauge pkg, trailer with brakes,24V bow mount, 3 batteries,and small sonar for the bow. These boats are hard to find used for a reason, but it was my experience that it held it's value well.

I think I paid $9.99 when I downloaded it off the Navionics website. Once you have the app you have every lake Navionics has charted in the US and Canada. Trying mine on the ice for the 1st time Friday. It's pretty cool, hope it's accurate.

Lou, I'm looking at Marvin in a whole new light....

A couple years ago while planning a trip to Lakair my buddy and decided to tell our wives we were ordering harnesses for baby ducks and asked them if they also wanted harnesses. Of course they were outraged and we had them hooked big time when we got Kevin in on the act by having him send an e-mail to us indicating he would arrange for the ducklings to be available upon our arrival. This went on for a couple weeks, and I knew my wife was very disturbed by this because she would bring it up at the oddest times. "Is it legal?" "Don't you feel badly?" "How do the harnesses work"?, and on and on. My buddy and I work together and every day we'd get together and share our wive's questions and indignation over coffee. At some point I went down to the pet shop and bought the smallest pet harness I could find, brought it home, tied on a couple monster hooks, and laid it on the kitchen table. My wife came home,looked at it and announced she wasn't going if I was going to kill a baby duck just to catch a fish. So I told her the ducks don't always die, especially if you don't cast them. Just set them in the water and let them swim around. At some point I knew she was really getting upset so I came clean. Then there is a period of a couple hours where I don't remember much. We still joke about that one.

Best radio I know of is made by Grundig. They make two sizes, a smaller size which I have and a bigger size that would be nice around a camp. I've had mine a few years and at the time I bought mine Radio Shack carried them. Nothing like listening to a game on the radio when you're working around the house. As far as TV's are concerned I have had a 46" Samsung 1080P LCD 120hz in the family room for 4 years. It's been a a great set so I just put a 50" Samsung plasma 1080P 600hz in my game room. We love it but I can't really see much difference between the two in picture quality. The plasma was on sale at Best Buy for around $900, I paid a heck of a lot more 4 years ago for the LCD.

Here in western PA we have close to 30" of snow on the ground and it's still snowing. Schools have been closed 2 straight days.

I could spend a week recounting my bow mount woes of the past but it would be too painful (for me). Anyhow, I have two now, just in case. That said, I've had two Terrovas that have been flawless. The deploy/stow mechanism is improved over the Powerdrive series and neither have had issues getting lost.

Isn't that what I said???

My first thought is the tree was hit by lightning, and it may have been at one time causing the insect investation and porky attack.