MrGiggles

Mercury was in bed with Yamaha up until 2006 if I'm remembering right, it may very well be a Yamaha powerhead. My first thought, you presumably changed the fuel filter, it started leaking fuel soon after. Start looking at everything you touched. About all there is on that motor is an impulse driven fuel pump (could leak through the diaphragm out of the weep hole), two fuel lines, the carb, and a filter. There's not a lot to rule out. It appears that there are two vent hoses that attach to the carb and tee together, if there is fuel in that hose, there is likely some debris in the needle and seat that's causing it to overflow. It probably runs through and out of the lower cowl so it cannot fill with gas. The primer bulb is an excellent tool for creating pressure in the system without the engine running, and will help you find a leak. If you are squeezing the bulb and it is not holding pressure, that is a sign that there is a leak somewhere. It should firm up and stay that way for quite a while, if the engine is off. This scenario likely would have been an issue from the get go, but I have heard that some of these new sealed fuel tanks can create enough pressure in hot weather to pop off the needle and push gas through the carb overflow. I don't think it's very likely, but if you've checked everything else over and can't find anything, something to consider.

I snuck out on Friday, didn't catch a thing. Saw some guys pulling up white bass here and there, probably could have done well with them if I tried. I have never done well in September. Just a tough month.

If you premix, most mix oils already have stabilizers in them. JMO but no stabilizer on the market is better than fresh gas. Use it up. Half full or full makes little difference, let it sit for years and you will have problems either way.

I bought a couple salvaged 40ah Valence batteries to try out on my Terrova. They're used in medical equipment for power outages and stuff, supposedly low cycles but who knows. Lithium manufacturers say that a lithium is comparable to a lead acid that has twice the capacity, because you can discharge a lithium near 100%, and you should only discharge a lead acid to 50-60%. I was always pretty skeptical, and could never find out if lead acid batteries are rated with that taken into consideration, or if you really only got 50ah out of a 100ah battery. Regardless, I took the plunge anyway and bought four 40ah lithiums, hoping to only need two while keeping the others in reserve if needed. I had Everstart 29DCs previously which are supposed to be a little over 100ah. I have been pleasantly surprised, haven't ran them dead yet. I installed a battery meter at the same time and noted a current draw of 5-8 amps at speeds I typically use, so 8+ hours of run time in those conditions. No voltage drop so the motor is stronger and never drops off. I had already upgraded my charger last year to a Noco, so charging is no extra hassle. Overall I'm very pleased, and should be set for a long time.

Pulling cranks is a lot of fun. You never know what you might hook into. Now through the first couple weeks of October, and early summer is when I always did the best with it. Like Dan says, #7 Flickers are my go-to, blue tiger, purple tiger, pearl white, and firetiger are usually what I start with. I always used the electric motor and tried to run around 2mph. I have used all variations of diving setups and preferred snap weights over anything else, let out 30ft of line, put your weight on, and let more out as needed. 1oz was usually enough for me. More often than not I don't use anything at all anymore, and just let 100-120ft of line out, that'll get you down 12ish feet with a #7 flicker and 12lb braid. I have bottom bounced a lot more this year and last with mixed success. It's still not my favorite method but it's growing on me. There's a good thread in the general angling section with more info than I could give. I think I need to go put my rod racks back in...

You're looking at things in a very narrow perspective. Nobody is arguing that professional fishing is physically demanding. Maybe more so than an office job, but nothing like what you mentioned. Distance from your family, sponsor relations, living in hotels, pressure to always perform, the lack of long term success, those mental demands are going to take a toll on you. Ask yourself this, if it was that easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it?

I always felt like the odd man out, but prefer working in the late morning/early afternoon in the summer. It's always dead still and far more humid in the morning even if the temperature is a little lower, once the sun burns that humidity off a little and the breeze picks up some I find it to be a little bit more bearable.

You know it's bad when you get excited to see that it's only gonna be in the 90s this weekend.

I snuck away to Crabtree yesterday afternoon. Man, the lake was busy. Felt like a holiday weekend. I expected the lake to be higher with all the rain in the Springfield area, but it hasn't risen much, if at all. The fishing was terrible. Ended the afternoon with one short walleye and a drum.

AKA, the lowest hanging fruit. 😁

I haven't been fishing a whole lot this summer. I did go out with a buddy Sunday morning and had 7 walleye (3 keepers), two channel cat and two crappie between us. Great morning until the wind came up. Mostly BB in 20ft or so.

My powerhead will blow again before I every need to worry about spark plugs.

Sounds more like NGK should be footing the bill if they are listing their plugs as compatible. What plugs did you take out of them?

You can use the Minnkota transducer with that graph without a problem, I believe you will need two adapter cables. See the webpage below. If you do decide to run both Garmin transducers, you can use a band mount for the 2d/di/si transducer and a shaft mount on the livescope transducer. An Ultrex is pretty easy in this regard, as it cannot turn more than 360* like the electric steer motors, nor does it slide up and down in the mount. Just make sure the cables are out of the way of the mount so they don't get pinched in there. https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=0NLGtqrmuW3xg2L2gdURi9

It's unbelievable how much our hay fields perked up from the little bit of rain we got. I'd swear the sudan grass put on another foot in the last 10 days. In a normal year we'd have already cut it once if not twice, it's looking like we may get at least one decent cut now. Beans and millet are looking better but the lack of moisture gave the weeds a pretty good head start. We have one field with a bad wet spot right by the truck stop in Collins, cattails and all. I've never been able to get in there with a tractor and mow it, this year it was hard as a rock, slicked it off with a 2wd tractor no problem.

Those storms that rolled through last night dumped about an inch of rain on us, one round just after 9PM and another later. Seems like everything greened up already this morning.

From what I've seen it's cheaper to buy the combo and sell the extra transducer.

I don't think I've ever seen someone that physically matches their online persona quite so well.

Ditto. Verizon will be the best but it will not be perfect. I have TMobile now, which is by far the best where I live, but pretty crappy South of Stockton or towards Pomme.

There's a video out there of that. As I recall it's a 250 or something like that. Was pretty entertaining.

I wouldn't go any larger than the data plate, and I doubt you would find any shop that would install a motor larger than recommended. Tohatsu has a new 60hp triple that is pretty attractive at only 215lbs. The Mercs are over 120lbs heavier. 60-75hp is just fine for that size boat.

Sounds like it may be the same spot, this was in one of the last coves before the split on the little sac, same side as state park marina. Pretty good patch of it there.

I was out on Sunday morning and had a rough time, one 14" walleye and a white bass. The water was real scummy on the main lake. Never seen it like that, clear a few inches down and you could see clouds of muck just below the surface. Back in the coves it was much clearer, 10ft of visibility. Found some weeds for the first time ever on Stockton.

Figured it was about time for the channels to swarm. Drum are next.

215lbs or so. The Merc is around 360. I have considered lithium for a long time, they're getting cheap enough now to be worthwhile. It's got one. I had always been really pleased with them, but it didn't seem to do a whole lot on this motor.