"Back" on the water with the Family!

[Wyobraz]

[font "Tempus Sans ITC"][#808000][size 3]Well I finally made it back on the Gorge today with some tremendous help from my wife. She pretty much did everything boat wise so we could hit the water.

We first tried to go after some Macks. I know I told everyone I was going to go after kokes first thing, but once I hit the water I had Mack on the brain. Unfortunatly we only had the opportunity to hit two piles of Macks until the trolling motor mount that I told you about in a previous post decided that the small crack that it had decided to break all the way (See Photo). I almost watched the Minn Kota go all the way to the bottom with the Macks. Only one bolt was left holding the thing on. It is my own fault though I knew it was cracked but I thought I could get one trip out of it because my back is in no shape to be trying fix the mount, and it has been cracked on my last trip and still held up. It was too bad to because the macks we were on were very active and I even had the wife hooked up for a short time, and she had several other hits. This was not too bad since it was the first time she had ever tried fishing for the macks and we only had about 30 min with them. Oh and she also is addicted now so all my fishing buds will have some competition on who will be in the boat with me.LMAO

We then decided to try everyones advise and go for some kokes. It was a good time but we caught everything but kokes. We managed to catch quite a few nice bows using the RMT pink dodger and pink UV squid combo. We messed around for the kokes until late morning and decided to give up because everthing I was graphing was deeper than I thought I could get. By 11am the water temp was 60 and the Kokes I saw were between 50 and 60 ft. So we decided to go sight seeing down around the Horshoe.

While we were down that direction we decided to long line with some small pop gear and various colors of Rooster Tails and Panther Martins. This produced a rather little Small Mouth, but it is the first one I ever have caught trolling, and we were not even in the type of structure that I would expect smallies to be around so I thought it was cool so you guys get to see a pic.

I also managed to catch what I think is my first Kamloop Rainbow. This pictures don't show it very well, but this thing was brown as can be on the back. I had to look at it twice because at first when I saw it in the water I thought it was a small brown. I am positive this is a Kamloop because it was now where close to the looks of the Eagle Lake strain. I wish the wife would have taken a better pic.LOL

All in all it was good to get back out and we even brought home a few bows that we are grilling up for dinner as I write this. We managed to catch alot of bows we quit counting at around 20. I would attach more pics but we all have seen rainbows and none of them were anythign special except for that Kamloop. Sorry for the novel but it is rather exciting to be feeling well enough to start to do stuff like this again.

Oh ya the road construction between Mtn. View and Manila is getting terible so all you Utah folks might want to consider going through Green River. I even think I might start heading that way.

Later all and good luck this weekend! [/size][/#808000][/font]
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[font "Tempus Sans ITC"][#808000][size 3]Broken Mount[/size][/#808000][/font]
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[font "Tempus Sans ITC"][#808000][size 3]Kamloop!!![/size][/#808000][/font]
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[font "Tempus Sans ITC"][#808000][size 3]Scenery On a Beautiful June day on the Gorge![/size][/#808000][/font]
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[Saberfish]

[black][size 3]Good report, nice pictures.[/size][/black]
[size 3]Glad that you and the family had a good day on the Gorge.[/size]
[size 3]You know, when I look at the picture of the motor mount, (and I can't see it all that well), but I wonder if, because you have had that happen before, if you haven't developed some pressure on the mount when you installed it, and the movement and vibration of the motor has cracked it.[/size]
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[size 3]Have you thought about maybe mounting some rubber under the pads?[/size]
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[size 3]Just a thought. I'm sure that you have considered everything that could cause the problem.[/size]
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[size 3]One other thought, is it possible that the mounting holes in the boat should be enlarged to remove the possibility of putting pressure on the mount when it's being tightened down?[/size]
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[Wyobraz]

[font "Tempus Sans ITC"][#808000][size 3]Saberfish, all of them are good points. But it was mounted with rubber under the pads, and everything was carfully leveled as tightend, and tightend evenly. In my opinion this type of mount is not ment[/size][/#808000][/font][font "Tempus Sans ITC"][#808000][size 3] to be made for my type of boat is all. With the Crestliner the motor has to be so far forward to clear the gunnell that it half of the mount is on the gunnell and half on the the carpeted part of the boat. These two surfaces are not level, which complicates the mounting. I think on a bass type of boat where you could mount it flat without any rubber under it, it would be successfull, just not on my type of boat. I think the rubber is what gave it to much play even when tightend properly that the torque from the electric finally took its toll.[/size][/#808000][/font]
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[font "Tempus Sans ITC"][#808000][size 3]I will be removing the bottom peice, it is just meant to mount to the existing holes when I had the motor hard mounted. I will just use the smaller Puck mount that sits on top it is still all right and everything will work just fine. I will just end up with extra holes in my boat, no big deal.[/size][/#808000][/font]

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[font "Tempus Sans ITC"][#808000][size 3]Wyobraz[/size][/#808000][/font]