fishinggeek

This board rules. Between this and my brand poll, I've gotten a lot of good info from experienced boaters. Thanks for everyone's input. I think I'm leaning towards a Honda 4-stroke and maxing it out.

Thanks for the info so far. I'm leaning towards a 14 foot tinny that has a max rating of 30HP. I was wondering if I should go for the 30 or get a 25.

Can't think of why an honest thread about outboard motors could get locked! Sorry I should've clarified. I'm probably getting something around 25-30 HP on a tiller.

Would you recommend getting the max recommended horsepower for better performance? I heard you should not get the max, but the next motor down, so the boat doesn't take too much stress and lasts longer.

Looking for both a boat and motor, and not necessarily in the package. Boat I'm pretty good with, but was wondering what people thought about motors. Plus this will be my first poll.

Thanks for the info everyone. I will definitely turn to all-americanoutdoors.com and cabelas next time I think about a purchase. Justin those sound like pretty good deals and I'm with you about buying from the cheapest supplier. Gerritt, I feel your pain with some retailers. At the sportsman show, I wasn't looking for any big purchase, just lures here and there. And having my trusty LeBaron catalogue with me, I found none of the retailers there, including FW, had better prices at the show than I could have got at LeBaron outside of the show on average. Mind you, I only looked at the lures that I was interested in, but they were the more common ones like Rapalas.

That rules. Thanks for posting. I'll bring my trusty LeBaron's catalogue with me every time I go to CT.

Sweet report. Congratulations.

Call me a wimp, but I can't snack on things if I have slime/blood/worm guts on my hands without the ability to properly wash them. So I tend to bring snacks on the boat that i can eat through a wrapper or bag, like a granola bar. But that's just me... What kind of snacks are on OFC's "must have" list to bring on the water to keep their energy up?

What'd I miss? I don't mind disagreements, but I think this name calling thing should stop. Even if one is right, throwing in personal insults really makes one sound classless and immature.

Thanks for such a great example. You have bolstered my belief about never commuting. I pay much more in terms of housing prices, property taxes, and so forth but I also enjoy above-average salaries living in Toronto. Balancing work-life (not to mention the costs of fuel and fender benders) is a huge factor in making these decisions. Sometimes I hear about house prices outside of Toronto, and they do sound like a bargain. I'll re-read your post everytime I feel a bit jealous of commuters.

Yes I agree this is more of a thing of the past. The VHS I watched was very old, like late 70's. The old In-Fishermen shows looked a lot like that as well in my opinion. The fish were lifeless in many of the cases, and I have seen footage of Al re-taking "releases". The Next Bite, though I admit I enjoy, has shown footage of multiple takes of someone grabbing grabbing the pliers or getting the net. I don't get why it's necessary to do that, and I'll have to say that our Canadian shows (except for the old Canadian Sportsfishing) seem to have much less of this. Rich, funny thing was my parents told me the same thing about Red Fisher. I still remember watching re-runs of his show when I was really young. Good point GCD. There's a great Canadian show called The Fifth Estate. They had a whole hour long documentary on fake nature shows, how companies like Disney staged a lot of the scenes (as well as more modern shows like that British soldier who does crazy things - I think his first name is Bear). I believe the entire episode is available online here: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/cruelcamera/index.html

Congratulations! Sounds like a sweet job to me.

Pet peeve of mine is when people stage a fishing show. For example, if a host grabs the next and runs to the back of the boat, and it's obvious that clip was done after the fish was released, to me that's more acting than fishing. I recently saw a really old VHS bass fishing video which was supposed to be instructional. He was flipping for bass, and brought one in that was as limp as a boot. He said that because he sets the hook so hard, it stuns them and they come in limp. It sounded like baloney to me, and I suspect it was a bass that was re-hooked for multiple takes (similar to what Italo and Henry were convicted of). In fact, I was personally sure that this fish was staged because it looked so lifeless during the "fight", unhooking, and release. Any thoughts? And does anything think these shady practices are occurring in today's fishing shows?

I say that's crazy, unless you like commuting so much you'd do it over other things. That's a lot of hours in the car that you can accumulate towards other things like spending time with the wife, sleeping, or exercising.

I certainly don't think everyone benefits from free trade. Of course some people will lose jobs and be financially in ruins. The same could be said of some players in the absence of free trade. But I think free trade flows makes both trading society's better on average in terms of output and consumption, as well as standard of living and efficiency in the countries' factors of production. I think North Americans should cease trying to stop the bleeding in their dying manufacturing sectors. The bottom line is if someone can do it better and/or cheaper, at a wage price level that we cannot compete at, then why hang on to it? I think manufacturing labourers should be re-training and doing something like learning a trade, which cannot be economically exported. And for our children, I think instead of passing on the family tradition of manufacturing (or agriculture), direct them to something else higher up the value chain.

I'm not sure it's fair to compare cheap labour to slavery. Cheap labour in markets like India and China represent some of the best jobs for their population, whereas slavery is forced labour and some of the worst "jobs". I'm sure a Chinese factory worker making goods destined for America feels far more lucky than the oppressed African slave of the past. But what about other stakeholders beside business owners that offshore? What about us consumers who can buy things at cheaper prices? I was reading Yahoo news one day and they listed the top 10 least expensive cars to own (including purchase price, insurance, maintenance, gas) and most were foreign. So all the foreign car owners have enjoyed years of relatively cheap car ownership. And back to the business owners. Many with the scale required to make offshoring economic are publicly-owned, and much of this ownership is in mutual funds, pension funds, and retail trading accounts that ultimately flow through to retirees and other retail investors. And what about the businesses that don't offshore? Doesn't cheaper imports make them more competitive and efficient on a faster pace than they would've otherwise? I think if a large and diversified country like the US stops offshoring activities, they would be far worse off.

Hey Snag, did you weigh your PB? How much did she weigh? From the 3 pictures, looks like a solid 5 pounder. Amazing report. I wouldn't have the guts to float in an inflatable this shortly after ice-out.

Presonally, I don't have a problem with it at all. The good thing about cheap imports is that they're cheap! People in relatively more affluent countries like our's get to save money when we pay relatively less for the same outboard motor, which means we can buy a bigger motor than we would've otherwise, new lures, more gas, or whatever. Many people seem to view these issues with the perspective of the factor markets (ie. jobs), but what about the goods market? The domestic consumer is getting a great deal, and that is not worthless. And for those of us who have to work here, value-added or non-exportable jobs should be focused on. Instead of building motors, why not get into jobs which we do best and/or which cannot be exported, like real estate, banking, hospitality, or some areas of finance and management? In high school economics, I remember they said that given certain conditions (like low costs and barriers to trade), the world's utility is maximized when nations produce output at their lowest opportunity cost. If these conditions means China is making our Mercury motors but our accountants are doing their audits, then that's great because both nations' utility will be maximized. We will have more outboard motors than we would've without China while earning the most auditing fees from China.

I say to each their own. If Snag wants to blur his fishing spots, that's his business. In the GTA, I would be inclined to do the same (if I can stop getting skunked ). Similarly, if I owned a cottage paradise on a nearby lake that was small and had great fishing, I would only share that info with a few select friends, and definitely not post the lake name on here. I have thoroughly enjoyed all your posts Snag, including the impressive fish pictures with the blurred spots. Because of your posts, I have tried my luck on a number of times in the GTA. With a few follows of varying sizes, I have yet to land a decent pike, which is a testament to your skills and hard time on the water. Keep it up man!

Salt and MSG as the 2nd and 3rd ingredients, respectively? No thanks. I'll pass on that considering I do not have a palate for salty foods, which my blood pressure thanks me for. Thanks for the info. You saved me a needless trip to the store, plus the cost of a box of breading if I wasn't careful enough to read the ingredient list. I'll stick to my egg and buttermilk dip, then the coating of seasoned cornmeal. Last night on WFN, Chronzy was fishing for muskies on LSC. If anyone saw it, you'll remember he was mentioning how good muskie was, and that he preferred it to both walleye and pike. He did bacon-wrapped fish on the BBQ and said it would work with muskie as well. He did mention eating mortally wounded, legal length fish as well.

Sweet fish! Man I wish we had those in Ontario.

Thanks for the recipe Gerritt. I'm going to try it tonight, as I have some frozen musky steaks in the freezer. Might add a bit of cayenne to it too! I remember as a child there were some families around where we fished that loved eating muskies. They absolutely loved it, and preferred it to any other fish. I think they BBQ'd the steaks, but I can't remember. I also don't remember if I tried any of it.

I might have to get me a box. I usually don't like commercial mixes because they're crazy expensive relative to the ingredient list, as well as being way too salty. What's in Chronzy's mix that doesn't make it stick? I'm guessing lecithin but I hope it's not some sort of trans fat.

I'm as cheap as Headhunter with energy. No point in paying for nothing. What I don't understand about Earth Hour is why is it the same hour (give-or-take for time zones) for everyone? I might be wrong, but I thought it was 8pm for everyone, in which case there is probably significant unutilized capacity in power generation which creates opportunity costs. It would make more sense to schedule earth hours for different locations, so that otherwise unutilized capacity could be redirected to areas not in their earth hour, minimizing not only total usage but also unutilized capacity. I guess it was more of an awareness thing maybe.