sherman51

you might also think about new line. i just bought some new sufix 832 braid for all my lite bite slide divers. i,ve been using the old cabelas ripcord in 65 lb test. and from tangles on a few of the reels i needed new line. so i used power pro. but you could tell from where the line was hitting the water they wasnt diving like the old rip cord. the middle rod had power pro on it. and it rode higher in the water than either of the other 2 lines. so i decided i wanted the same line on all my divers. cabelas had the 600 yrd spools of sufix 832 on sale for i think 44.99 per spool. then i had a 53.00 credit on my credit card account with them. so i bought 2 new spools of line. i use the daiwa size 17 line counter reels. 200 ft of 17 lb mono backing and 150 yrds of braid fills my reels full. i keep 8 reels spooled up. i usely run 6 and have 2 spares. but i have been known to run 8 but i dont like doing that. but i can spool 4 reels from each 600 yrd spool. i got free shipping but had to pay sales tax. so i still got enough new line to spool all my diver reels for less than 50.00. so as long as you spend it on something your going to need anyway, then you,ve made a good purchase. right now if i had another 100.00 to just spend. i would go to fishusa.com and buy up some 3d worm harnesses. or go to galeforcetackle.com and buy up some new worm harnesses. its hard to make the choice without having the money. i already have alot of the gale force tackles worm harnesses but you can never have to many. but fishusa.com has some 3d worm harnesses in uv i would like to try. so do i go with a proven winner or should i try something new?? you tell me. sherman

i am really glad you posted this. it has changed my thinking alot. this last spring i was just thinking about life jackets. and someone posted on another forum, do you wear your life jackets and why not. i didnt really have a good answer but they are alittle uncomfortable and very hot in the middle of summer. well we make the kids wear there jackets and they are uncomfortable and hot. but they are young and dont have to do any of the rigging, so they should be ok. well my wife use to boat and fish with me all the time. then somewhere along the way she has just about stopped, and she got to where she wouldnt go out without her life jacket on. so i was at bps down in cincy and they had a sale on one of the auto open jackets. so i bought her one, and this made her very happy. now she is better about going out, but she still doesnt go out on the big water. so i have one auto inflatable jacket. this spring i get an email add from cabelas. they have this big sale on the auto jackets. so im thinking thats still 500.00 to add 5 more of the adult jackets. and i dont know if we will even wear them if we had them. so i tell my crew im going to buy these and we all have to wear them. well i do buy 5 more adult jackets, we took them to erie with us back in july. we even broke down for awhile and had to anchor down to let our motor cool where the water line from the outdrive got to leaking so bad the boat overheated. well we still didnt use the life jackets. it just didnt seem like we were in any danger. after reading this thread i have full intentions of digging them out next year atleast when we are on erie and making sure everybody wears a jacket. i have enough of the standard ski jackets on my boat for everyone onboard. i also have 6 of the auto inflate jackets on my boat now. i just dont know how hard it would be to live with it if someone on my boat drowned because they wasnt wearing a jacket, after me buying the auto inflatables for them. my crew is usely my son and his wife and one or two of his kids. and sometimes my other son, and sometimes his girlfriend and myself. there is just really no reason now for us all to not wear a life jackets. i know it could happen but i have a 21 ft boat with an i/o. so it would really take some rough water to sink my boat. but it would be very easy for someone to fall in. my oldest son was in the process of putting out our back diver rod, his feet slipped out from under him and he almost fell in. he did pitch the rod and reel in the lake. that was aug of last year, and another reason i was already thinking about getting the auto inflate jackets this spring. but there just no good if nobody has them on. after reading this i also want to teach everybody, even the kids how to load and shoot the flair gun and how to call for help on the radio. so again thank you for taking the time to post this. im sure it will give others cause to think about what almost happened. and just how little it would have took to have made this trip to have went either way. sherman

he pretty much said it all. some people like using the new braid line for there riggers. but i think i,ll just stick with the 150# cable. im not sure what brand clincher i use on the end of my cable. its not magna dyne but it is made the same way. they are much better than any others i have tried. i have big jon riggers with the auto stops. i tried the cannon ball retrievers first and they just wouldnt work with the auto stop bead. so i went to the scotty ball retrievers. they do work but i just didnt like them. i just found the trax tech retrievers, and just bought a set. i havent actualy used them yet but they look like they are going to be the answer to my auto stop beads hanging up in the retrievers. right now i would recommend the trax tech,s over anything i,ve seen yet to retrieve your weights. these are just my opinions and may differ from others. sherman

i wasnt going to get in this one as i only fished walleye on lake eries central basin, but i know theres alot of walleye fisherman here also. SPOON hands down gale force tackle reverse muffin, both silver and copper. WORM HARNESS again it goes to gale force tackle, custom tandem blade dr death with silver back there was other good colors but these are the ones that really stood out for us. so how about some other walleye fisherman getting in on this?? i would like to know what everybody was using. salmon and walleye fisherman.

you shouldnt have any problems with your riggers. they only draw juice when in use, the motor charges all the time and will recharge batteries in between uses of your riggers. and it is a good idea to have 2 batteries on your boat anytime your running on the big water. just a safety thing. sherman

you shouldnt have any problems with the boom bending from the weight of your balls. if your motor will lift the weights i wouldnt worry about the booms bending. it would be impossable to even guess how the boom got bent on your rigger. i have big jon riggers and the booms are alot smaller than yours. i run 13 lb pancake weights and have no problem bending the booms. just my opinion. sherman

can anyone tell me where i can order the traxtech ball retrievers?? i cant seem to find anything. sherman

if you have auto stop beads on your riggers your going to need a ball retriever that the bead will pass through. i have a set of big jon pro tournaments with auto stop. i tried the cannon first and they just didnt work. so i went to the scotty, and they do seem to work, but the traxtrek looks like they would be much better. i will probably switch to them myself. if i had walker riggers i would try to find a good set of the old auto ball retrievers they use to make. i dont have a clue why they stopped making them. i have seen them work and they work good. sherman

i pretty much agree with what you say. i have the lcx 38c hd and it has took a pounding. but still it only has a 8" screen, and i paid almost 2000.00 for it new. i think that is alittle high when the same technology has been there for a few years now. that doesnt mean it hasnt been worth what i paid for it. if i couldnt replace it with something as good as it is i wouldnt sell it for the same price i paid for it about 10 yrs ago. but i still think they overcharged for it. just my opinion. they could drop the price and still make alot of money. but alot more people would buy something like mine if they only costed a few hundred, then there would be no market for the smaller cheaper units. they have to have some way to keep people buying the smaller cheaper units. and the only way to do that is keep the prices higher on the larger units. and it works pretty good, we all just buy the best and biggest we can afford. it took me a few yrs to justify spending the money for my unit. i worked 70 to 80 hrs a week for along time before i bought mine. i paid every dime of it with overtime money. so i hope it never brakes down. i would be lost with one of those 4" or 5" screens,LOL. sherman

im sorry but i believe anything to do with having fun coats way to much. buy anything for a boat and the price is jacked way up. if you can find the same part for a car or truck it will be 1/3 the price for the part for the boat. same thing for an rv, you get something for an rv it will be 1/3 the price if you can find it at an auto parts store for a truck. marine electronics are able to charge just whatever they think the market can bear. my depthfinder/gps has a 8" screen. i paid almost 2 grand for it. i could have got about the same thing with a 4" screen for around 700.00. so yes they set the price where they can get the most money. now i admit there is alot of money spent on research and development. but it never seems like they make alot of changes in one year. they just add alittle something each year so they can jack the price up alittle and get us to upgrade our units. my depthfinder/gps was a major investment for me. so even tho it has been upgraded a few times now, i am stuck with my old unit untill it just craps. but as i spent about 4 times what i could really afford when i bought mine it still does what i need it to do. it shows the fish it shows the thermocline it shows me the borders and it shows me where i caught fish in the past. and when and if this one quits before im ready to quit, i will probably have to buy something cheaper the next time as i dont work anymore and have to live on a small fixed income. go get a good 5000 to 7000 watt generator for home back up. a good one is going to cost around 800.00 to 1200.00 go get one for an rv or boat, your looking at 4000.00 to 5000.00. so everything is set up where if you want to play you pay. the marina where i just had my boat worked on charges 75.00 per hour. the rv shop where i had to have my generator fixed charges 80.00 per hour. the shop where i get my auto repairs done charges 45.00 per hour. when they were working on my generator after the 1st couple of things they said would fix it, they started giving me the part numbers for the parts i needed. i went on ebay and bought the same parts for hundreds less than there parts. they wanted like 480.00 for a voltage regulator, i got one off ebay for 260.00. that didnt fix it either, they then said it was the stator. it was going to cost around 1100.00 with them. i got the same part number from ebay for 750.00. i just had alot of parts put on my boat. the water hose from the outdrive was like 23.00. all it was is about 1' of heater hose. they changed the shift cable and bellows and gimbel bearing and u joints. then when they pulled the outdrive the drive coupling was bad. so i had to replace that. they gave me the bill, it costed me 2018.00 for parts and labor. i looked on ebay and could have saved around 500.00 for all the parts. and this is for the same part numbers. but im just not able to do the work anymore. so i had to pay there prices. so its not just our electronics, its anything to do with having fun. they know they have most of us over a barrel and they know we are going to buy something. the people that can afford the big screens are going to pay for them, and everybody elce is going to spend as much or alittle more than they can really afford. sherman

you can always turn the corner rigger out just past your kicker motor, and still have enough space between it and your out down rigger. just dont make any sharp turns. but you could just go with the 3 rigger set up. just buy 1 long boom rigger for the other side. sherman

i was using vanish fishing line for my leaders and switched to seaguar leader and i did notice i was getting more hits. im fishing for walleye in lake eries central basin. and i plan to stick with the seaguar. just my opinion. sherman

it is tied the same way nomatter where your using it. tho i think some guys do use a small barrel swivel to do the repair. but you should be able to use google and find more on it than anyplace i,ve tried to find knots. the haywire twist is really simple to learn. i was doing some fishing in florida with my brother n law who lived down there and he didnt know how. i had just seen a couple of videos that i had bought about florida fishing and knots. so i was tieing them in no time. so give google a try. sherman i just went to google.com and did a search for haywire twist. i got a bunch of good info. the first one i looked at had great info.

i live in east central indiana. and do most of my fishing in geneva ohio for walleye. i use to spend about every weekend somewhere in mich salmon fishing. but now i just do a few trips to erie. but i still have alot of good memeries about salmon fishing. sherman

yea thats kinda where im coming from. if i had knew at the start what i was going to have to spend on this boat i would have just invested in alittle bigger boat. but like you say, its a thousand here and 2 thousand there untill i,ve got more money tied up in it than its worth. but i plan on keeping this boat for awhile now, so maby i,ll get my moneies worth out of it yet,LOL. sherman

i dont know how they do things in michigan but here in indiana we have to title the boat and trailer. we have to have a bill of sale for each one, and if they were titled in the other state we have to have the old title signed over to us. but if there is no title then the bill of sale is all we need. then we have to get the vin numbers checked by the police so they can do a stolen search on it. then we just take all this to our license brance and pay a regular title fee and boat registration fee and trailer plate fees and pay sales tax. if the boat or trailer doesnt have a vin number we have to apply to the state for new vin numbers. they issue us a new vin number, we have to put the new numbers on the boat or trailer that didnt have numbers, then we have to get another police check to make sure we put the numbers on and they can read them. then we go to the license branch. its a bit of a hassle for us but it doesnt cost alot unless we paid alot for the boat and trailer. then we pay 7% sales tax. so good luck, it sounds like yours may be easier than what we have to do here. sherman

i knew alot of you guys would understand where i was coming from. and it does get frustrating sometimes, but i do love my lake erie fishing. im not ready to give up yet but it seem i got a whole darn family of them gremlins at one time,LOL. every time i get something fixed they find something elce wrong. but maby once they get the carb fixed i,ll be good to go next year. i plan to do alittle more fishing on erie next year anyway. and yes i did lose my brother and best friend, i think he passed on the 10th of may. then i went to tenn for our family reunion on the 24th and the next morning i get a phone call that my next best friend down there had died. so i,ve had alot rougher things to deal with this year than my boat. the old boat can be fixed or replaced. but there is nothing we can do about losing our friends except pray that time will help heal the pain alittle. i can see the housing addition where my brother lived from my livingroom. so every time i look out my front window i think about him and miss him. and i,ll say to my wife you know it just dont seem like he should be gone. he was only 52 yrs old. sherman

im not really crying on your shoulders. i just wanted to see if after reading this you think you had troubles this year. we went up to erie back in july for 2 weeks. when we got there my boat would die every time i put it in reverse or neutral. but it did just fine going into forward, so we went fishing, and the fishing was great. then my son had to go home for a few days and work. so this was a good time to see about getting the boat fixed. i put it in the shop, and they just adjusted the shift cable. and told me the water line from the outdrive was leaking. but it had been doing ok. he said i should get it fixed after our vacation was over. well our next trip out we started back in, i looked down and she was running alittle hot. about then the motor started to rattle. i slowed down and stopped and shut her down. anchored down and waited for it to cool down. then started back up and headed on in. i could run about 12 mph, anything over that and the heat would start going up. we made it back in ok. the boat was still running good at this time. we only had about 4 days left of our vacation. and nobody had time to get to the boat right away. so we just camped the next few days. we got home and i thought it out. we had started having trouble with the motor dieing again when i shifted into neutral and reverse, so i decided to go ahead and have the shift cable replaced while they was replacing the water line. i also decided i might as well get the bellows replaced they were getting pretty old. so i decided to go ahead and get a new gimbel bearing and u joints while i was at it. this is an older boat but i had a new vortec 350 put in it back in 07, so i planed on keeping it for awhile. i put it in the shop and told them to replace all this stuff. they call me up after they remove the outdrive. said the drive coupling was wore completely out, and they want me to come out and look at it. so i tell them to go ahead and replace the coupling. everything costed 2018.00 for labor and parts. i get the boat back and go down to brookville lake. we go out tubing and everything was great. i pull up in this cove and we go swimming for awhile. then we head back out on the lake. my son and his son get on our tube, and i try to take off, the boat doesnt want to go and is making this wierd noise. i put it back in the shop thinking something they had done was screwed up. they give me a call and say both head gaskets are blown. i go out and look at the motor. he says he has checked the heads and they are still good. i am at a loss as to why the head gaskets blew. i knew i had got it hot up at erie, but had run the boat for a couple of hours getting on in, and had tubed down on brookville for about 1 1/2 hours with no problem. i thought about just buying another boat. but i,ve just invested 2018.00 in this thing. they said it would cost alittle over 1500.00 to fix it and put new risers on it, that it needed. so i gave in and said to go ahead and fix it. yesterday i get a call from them, i was told that everything with the head gasket job seemed ok, but at wot it didnt want to run, so he tore the carb down and the plating inside the carb was coming off and had stopped up one of the jets. but he didnt want to put it back together with the plating coming off. and he was stuck he didnt really know what to do at this point. lucky for me i just happened to have another carb with new blocks in it and that was what was peeling on the old carb. hopefully this will fix this problem. so up to this point im up to alittle over 3500.00 in this 86 21 ft boat plus whatever he charges for all the work on the carb at 70.00 per hour. and i might be able to get 3000.00 to 3500.00 for the boat if i decide i wanted to sell it. and i still dont know for sure if everything is fixed. this all started with a 13.00 water hose that the marina that adjusted the shift cable didnt have time to replace. and i guess alittle stupidity on my part for going ahead and using the boat knowing it wasnt at 100%. so now that you,ve read about my problems this year. do you think you had problems,LOL. i sure feel your pain if you do. sherman

we seem to have alot more trouble out of the white perch than we do the white bass. most of the white bass we catch are big enough to let you know when they get on, but the white perch are all kinda smallish. the best way to tell a white perch from a white bass is the lower jaw has a light purplish color to it, otherwise they look alot like a white bass. sherman

before i started using the easy troller i used the happy troller. i tried to take off with the plate down and bent mine pretty bad. i got it straught but it still had a tendency to want to bend. i went to a metal scrap yard and got a 4" strip of 1/4" aluminum plate about 6 or 8 inches long. i placed it over the weak spot on the plate and bolted it on with about 8 1/4" stainless screws. it didnt bend anymore. but i was afraid of what it might do to my cavitation plate if i forgot to raise it again. so when i seen the easy troll i bought one. they have them at boatersoutlet.com for 99.00 plus shipping. or you can get the ones with the hydro fins for alittle more. i bought the one with the hydro fins but i had went to a 5 blade prop and never needed the fins. i have used the bags and they did do the job. i just didnt like getting up on the bow to put them out and bring them back in. i think they would work better if you did like somebody said and leave them tied off and just bring them in over the side of the boat and store then there. but i will probably just stick with my easy troll. sherman

with my rods cranked way down i havent had any problems with hookups. and this last july on erie we were reeling in white perch one after the other that was triping the release. and maby a couple of false releases. i also use the lite bite slide divers, and i think they work just as good as the chamberlain release if not better. its good and bad, its good to just see your diver has tripped, its bad to start reeling it in and it be another white perch. one day we was marking alot of eyes but was catching mostly white perch. the divers tripped on just about every fish. it was so bad we started moving around untill we found some eyes that wasnt covered up with white perch. slidediver.com sherman

i went to the chamberlain release last year and couldnt be more pleased. i use them on lake erie for eyes, but we get alot of small trash fish including white perch which can be very hard to detect with any other releases. it has 2 adjustments, 1 for the rod tension and 1 for the lure tension. i keep mine set tight on the rod tension so i can really crank it down, the i set the lure tension loose enough that in most cases even the white perch will trip the release. i still use them with a rubberband instead of twisting my line. now that i have used the chamderlain release for 2 seasons i dont see me ever going to any other release. they still arent perfect but they are as close as i,ve found. i would recommend these to anybody that has a problem with small fish and uses downriggers. you can check them out at downriggerrelease.com they are alittle on the pricey side but they are worth every penny. sherman

these sell for 75.00 to 102.00 on ebay and 95.00 at cabelas so 50.00 is a very good price. and they are a good antenna. sherman

i guess im the odd ball on here, because i,ve always likeed the trolling plate better. i dont understand why your plate is bending. i used a happy troll plate untill i switched to the easy troller. the only time mine bent was when i took off with the plate still down. then i had a hard time getting it bent back in place. i had to lay it under my old motorhome and set a 10 ton bottle jack on it and jack the motorhome up. but that worked. now if you really want to stay with a trolling plate, throw that happy troller away and get you an easy troller. they look and work alot like the happy troll. but the bottom half is hinged and spring loaded, if you give it alittle to much gas the bottom half will swing up and nothing bends. its the caddy of trolling plates. boatersoutlet.com has them for 99.00, or you can sometimes get them alittle cheaper used on ebay. but its hard to beat 99.00 for a brand new easy troller. give them a look and let me know what you think. i have forgot about mine and took off with it down, i think it might have bent it just alittle but not enough that it hurts anything. im not even sure its bent. but the easy troller is so much better than the happy troller. sherman

i havent went out with anyone yet. but i think the guys that offer up open seats needs a great big thank you from all the guys on here. i know alot of the time its to help offset the cost. but they,ve helped alot of guys learn how to go out and fish on there own. and some guys might never get to go if not for the open seats. THANKS GUYS. just my opinion. sherman