kjackson

Sounds good. Thanks for the advice.

I've been wedded to CL for what seems like ever...there are boats that will work, but most of them require a compromise on what I really should get. I can live with most hulls, but too often the outboard is wrong. However...there are possibilities. I'm jammed with work the next 10 days or so; after that I'll be kicking tires with the intent on getting on the fall walleye bite.

I've been looking for the "perfect" boat for over a year now. During that time, I've come to realize that what I want isn't the best boat for my current situation. As a result, I've only changed my mind about 47 times...worse than my wife on shoes. Since I'm better off avoiding a bass-boat-style setup, I've come to realize that a smaller vee hull will work better, and by "small", I mean 16 feet minimum and probably 18 feet max. If you look at the prototypical Lund walleye hull, you'll see what I'm after. Finding that with a non-Merc outboard isn't easy, but it can be done. Now that I've realized the best option for me, I'll be looking at picking up a hull in the next few weeks. Thanks for the help, guys. And I'll be talking to you in a couple of weeks, Wrench.

Thanks, Wrench. I'm leery of old Mercs/Mariners/Trackers based on some of your NLA comments. How do you feel about older Evinrudes that have had their skegs sandblasted to about half of the original depth? The problem I find is picking up the hull I want with the motor that's acceptable.

I've finally decided on what I need and want from a boat-- a compromise, unfortunately-- and I'm looking for used boats. Since I have pretty specific requirements, I know what to look for with the hull, but I don't know enough about outboards, except that I will not buy a boat with a four-cylinder, 50 hp (or the detuned 45 hp) Mercury. What other dogs are out there? I'm looking for a used boat, and there are so a lot of different motors... I probably will pick a boat with a mid-range motor-- most likely under 100 hp and certainly over 40 hp. I know zero about Hondas, but I've run all the other brands. What lemons are definite no-go? Thanks.

I bit. I've not bothered to search for this fish until now, but if you go to page 116 of https://www.afsc.noaa.gov/Publications/AFSC-TM/NOAA-TM-AFSC-293.pdf you'll find images of a Searcher, Bathymaster signatus. There also are some juveniles in the cod family that come close and have blue eyes early in life, but I believe the above is it. Rifling through the pages of that document brought back a lot of memories of fish caught...

Sorry, no image of that one. It was only about 10 inches long and looked like the second cousin of a iingcod. The eyes were deeply weird... We did catch a number of strange sculpins (not cabezon). We were fishing on the back side of Kodiak Island as it was too rough to go outside. Saw an orgy of sea otters or whatever that is called when 100 or so get together. We also fished close to a pod of gray whales that were feeding on krill or shrimp or whatever and caught a bunch of Pacific cod but no salmon there.

Fishing in the saltchuck does lead to strange catches. Fishing off the West Coast, I've caught ratfish, an octopus, sea cucumbers, had an oyster clamp down on a fly I dragged across it when it was open, and several different birds including a pelican (that one in Florida). But on a trip to Kodiak Island I ran into some fish I had no clue about. The rock greenling--the red thing in my avatar-- was a strange sight as it came up from the depths. It was extremely colorful--even had blue lips--that it was like a neon sign. On that trip I caught a fish I won't even guess at that had really strange blue eyes. I've never hooked a seal or sea lion, but I've had them take hooked fish off my line. A friend had a seal grab a large floating Rapala when he was using it for black rockfish.

Wrench-- is that your version of the British fly, the Booby?

I just realized that I should clarify this bit-- the guy was fishing in the ocean, and he wasn't chucking out a chunk of dog and waiting for a coho to come over and bite. Because these salmon are highly active when feeding, the general approach is to troll something--often enough a herring that is either cut in a "plug" style or whole. The baits are rigged on two-hook leaders to spin, usually fairly fast. And that's what the guy did with the hotdog-- he cut the face of it so that it would spin when trolled and then played with hooking it.

Thanks. That was a hoot. Love his subtle sense of humor. Reminds me of a guy who wanted to see how ridiculous he could be catching coho salmon in Washington State. He ended up using a hotdog--and was successful.

Yakima (yakimabait.com) still makes the standard FlatFish up to the M60 size in more colors than a sane person would want. The MagLip is the hot new series, and it does work, but so does the standard. I'm planning on running the FlatFish I have on a three-way to see what I can catch. I did well with that rig in New York on lake trout and rainbows, so I'm thinking white bass, green and brown fish and maybe crappie might be amenable.

The Grand arm seems to be a bit clearer than it is by the long bridge--where you could plow it. Just passed both on the way back from Warsaw.

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