Seth

I run an old Humminbird 728 monochrome on the trolling motor and a Humminbird 998 hdsi side imaging unit at the console. I use the console unit a lot when I am on a lake and especially in the spring when I'm after crappie and paddlefish, but rarely ever when I'm on the rivers chasing bass. I'll run the graph on the river sometimes just to keep track of how far I run or if I go exploring new waters so I can mark waypoints and running routes, but that is about it. My transducer stays flipped up and out of the way most of the summer since I am mainly just fishing the rivers so I don't have to worry about breaking a $250 transducer.

I promise to laugh with you and not at you.

What was the date of that one? I want to see it.

You mean you like winter fishing more than summertime thunderstorm fishing? And here I thought you were hardcore!

What do you like for length and beam? 17-18' long with a 52-60" bottom What size of motor and brand (2 stroke or 4)? I'm an Etec fan, but I always hear good things about Mercury 4 strokes. The Mercury 250 ProXS is very popular, but I know of too many guys that have had issues with theirs. My buddy has a 2014 with 171 hours that just blew up on him this past Saturday and will be going back to the shop for the umpteenth time. He said this will put his total warranty work over $15k. They all love them though even with the issues because they will out run a similiar Etec. Myself and my buddy with the problematic ProXS have ran a lot of Etecs over the past 6-7 years and they have been great engines. Steering wheel or not? If you go with a smaller 60/40 setup, it's totally up to you. If you went with something bigger with a v6 engine, get the steering wheel. I've got a no feedback steering system on my current 2014 Legend SS and I love it! No more having to bungee the wheel when hauling to keep the motor from swinging and I can let go of the wheel on the water while running and it will keep going straight. Size of trolling motor If you're going to be chasing smallmouth in the heavy current on the Gasconade, go with a 24v or even a 36v if you don't mind the weight and have the room for batteries. I'm running a 24v 70# Minn kota Maxxum on my 1860 and it does a decent job. I'd like to upgrade to a 36v 112# Minn Kota Fortrex one of these days though. Anything I should avoid? Put the biggest engine your hull will handle if you can swing it. Under powering a jet boat is the worst thing you can do. It's always better to have some extra power in the tank if needed versus being overloaded and struggling to plane out. This is more of an issue with the smaller rigs. Once you get above 115hp, this isn't as big of an issue. What else should I consider? It took me a couple of boats as well as fishing out of several others to figure out exactly what I wanted in a boat. Try to fish out of several different rigs if you can to try and figure out exactly what you want before you buy.

It was in the washer. Sorry to disappoint.

That's a very healthy looking fish! Congrats! I caught that was 18.5" this past Saturday and it only weighed 2.84. It was skinny as heck! I'm confident that yours would easily crack the 3# mark.

We met up around 7 and fished the Gasconade this morning. Things started off a bit slow, but we figured out what they wanted soon enough and things picked up. Mitch is a master with a crankbait and I enjoyed watching him go to work with them. I definitely learned a few things watching him today. We had several nice largemouth as well even though we weren't really targeting them. Not long in to fishing, I drifted in to a stump and busted one of the blades off my trolling motor prop, so we basically went on a glorified float trip instead of covering 20 miles of water like I had originally planned on, but we still caught plenty of fish. The best fish of the day was a 17" smallmouth that Mitch caught and we also had a couple largemouth about 2.5 pounds. I did have a big momma largemouth actually fly out of the water trying to eat my spinnerbait. It looked about like one of those great whites breaching for a seal! To top it off, we fished about 5 minutes too long and got caught in the crazy thunderstorm right as we arrived back at the ramp. There was another boat waiting to take out so I had to hang out in the river as I got blasted by big waves and torrential rain. The pucker factor was around an 8/10 for a little bit! Here's a few pics from the day. Mitch had another 2# largemouth that we didn't get a pic of and I had another 2-2.5# towards the end, but my GoPro had filled up the storage card and cut the video short. I had a blast and look forward to doing it again.

I want that Tourney pro, but I won't he near Springfield anytime soon. Would it he too much of a hassle for you to ship it to me? Do you do Paypal?

Great fish and I know the feeling of losing a big one all too well after this past weekend. I managed to lose one of the biggest river largemouth I've hooked by letting it get caught up in the trolling motor shaft. I'm not sure I have ever lost a fish like that. That one hurt.

I don't know why they bother with incandescent lights on boat trailers anymore. One of the first things I did on my boat when I got it new two years ago was replace the rear lights with LED's and extend the ground from back so that it attached to the solid part of the frame and not the swing away tongue. I've had zero problems with them since doing that. Soldering is best, but I've had good luck using silicone filled wire nuts too. My connections were soldered on my current boat, but I used the wire nuts on my last boat for years and never had any issues. It beats those little blue press on clips that they use from the factory. This is what I replaced the original tail lights with. http://optronicsinc.com/PRODUCTS/LEDLighting/LEDStopTurnTail/Products.aspx?SeriesID=570

Well at least you got it figured out and it was a powerhead issue. I run a jet so I don't have to worry about the lower unit on my Etec.

Yep, it's expensive..... Ultrex MSRP: $2199.99-$2799.99.

Minnkota is coming out with the Ultrex, which gives you the best of both worlds apparently. I'll be very interested in this one. I'm sure it will cost an arm and a leg though. http://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2016/07/08/minn-kota-ultrex-best-worlds/

Ok, I admit, I chuckled at that one.....

Here is a PDF that explains how to shim your impeller and make sure the tolerances between the edge of the impeller and the wear ring are good. http://outboardjets.com/download/Impeller Shimming.pdf I know guys that polish the pump, sharpen grates and do a bunch of things to try and get a tiny bit of extra performance out of there OBJ. I'm prone to sucking gravel so I never bother with doing anything outside of keeping my grates straight. My boat would run 42-43mph down streams with brand new grates and it still runs that now that they aren't perfectly straight due to eating some rocks and bumping some logs. It's not worth it to me to do all of that extra work when it will be ruined the first time you eat a rock.

This picture is from my previous boat, which was an 1852 like yours. I removed that stupid white pitot valve that is hooked to the speedo and installed the transducer there. It was between the bottom rib next to the trim tab and the spray plate. It had to be slightly lower than the trim tab or else I would get blockage on my right side image beam. It always worked well for me installed like that. When the water got low, I would just flip the transducer up so I didn't have to worry about knocking it off. I recently stumbled across a product called the transducer lift mount that I am thinking of installing on my boat so I can raise and lower the transducer and still have function 2D while on the river. To raise it up, you just loosen the lock nut, pull the handle up and lock it back down.

It seems like a stainless will run you $400, but I might be wrong. Just ask Cowtown about it and they will get you setup correctly. I don't remember if the stainless netted you much for top end, but it was supposed to help with getting on plane faster. They are definitely harder to sharpen, but they do hold up fairly well to eating gravel.

My 115 came with the stainless impeller, but I'm not sure what the 90's came with. My buddies dad has a pretty bare 1752 Legend SS with a 90 and it would run mid 30's. Your boat will be heavier than his so I'd say 32 is probably about right. The diminishing returns on a jet are pretty bad. If I went from a 150 to a 225ho on my rig, I'd gain 8-10mph on the top end. I think it would have ran me an extra $7k to make the jump as well so not quite $1000 per mph, but not far off.

The water will most likely be up and dirty after this rain. I went out for a little bit last night and it was coming up and looked like chocolate milk. Chartreuse or red craw crankbaits, black or chartreuse single colorado blade spinnerbait and black jigs and soft plastics are what I'd be throwing. Then again, I haven't been doing worth a darn in the dirty water so maybe you shouldn't use anything I mentioned.

I saw the Gasconade was on the rise so I went and tried my luck at winning my pack of craws. It was CHOCOLATE MILK when I got there. Needless to say it sucked. In four hours of pitching a 1/2oz black and blue jig, I caught one 15" kentucky. I'm over this muddy water fishing!

Dang! I have heard of several guys losing fish due to the wire frame breaking with War Eagle spinnerbaits, but never at the hook like that. I haven't had any actually break, but the wire is very loose where it enters the head on a couple of my well worn War Eagle spinnerbaits like what you have pictured I'll probably just throw them in the trash and use the new ones since they are prone to breaking. It sucks that the good baits are rarely the ones that hold up the best.

Pflueger President for less than $60. I've been using a 6930 for a finesse bass setup the past few years and it has been a good reel.

I base my retrieve speed on the clarity of the water to start out with. The dirtier it is, the slower I fish and I speed things up as it gets clear. My three biggest river bass have all come on a trick worm fished relatively fast and high in the water column. Two came from really clear water and the other was in fairly stained water and I just happened to throw my bait right in it's face while it was tucked up next to a log. Very rarely do I do well fishing really fast in dirty water or really slow in clear water. I figure the fish need more time to locate a bait in dirty water, but I don't want them to get a real good look at my baits in clear water. As for big fish, they just seem to randomly happen for me and usually in areas I don't catch many fish from. I tend to do best in clear water while others I know struggle. They will usually outfish me in stained or dirty water though.

That's the reason why I rarely get down there before noon these days. The crowds are light and there are still plenty of fish to catch in the afternoon.