Back from Barkley..

[elnutsmalljaws]

Elnut..hate to hear your trip was spoiled by an idiot. I don't bass fish anymore (as you know), LOL...(stripers now). Don't go replacing your boat. It's paid for, you catch plenty of fish out of it as well. I sold my bullet several years ago and guess what I bought last August? 17ft alumium Triton (cash) and I catch more fish now than I ever did. I do catch a lot of accidental brown fish. I don't worry about scratching it either! I know a guy with a red Ranger here in Somerset that has paid on it for about 3 or 4 years. He thought he could fish for a living...his wife was paying all of the bills. They got divorced and now the bank is trying to find the boat to repo it. LOL. I'll continue to putt around in my 40mph boat and catch plenty of fish and hope you do as well. Did I mention the $$$$ we save in fuel??? Hope you catch plenty every trip.

Fuel savings is great. I went down with a full tank and put exactly 6.5 gallons back in her before I put her back in the garage. Grant it the trolling motor did not burn much gas around Carmach Bay and the running between Carmach and Denumbers is not far plus putting in at Poplar Creek helped. As far as scratching her, I had it 3 months and took my first night trip to Cumberland night fishing for those "Trashfish" Stripers and scratched the heck out of it paralleling Pig Pen wall but landed my first Striper and a few more that night as well. Pretty weird scraping the wall on occasion and looking at the depth finder to see I was in 60-100 feet of water. Hearing all those bust on the surface made the scraping noise non-existent, even if it was a new boat. She is broke in pretty good and I don't even care anymore for it is a FISHING boat and it is paid for.

[cumberlandguy1]

LOL....there it is!! Also we save money towing them as they are not as heavy...therefore the trucks use less gas. It rained very hard here for 3 straight hours, so I guess I'll go to work and try to fish tomorrow.

[phoenix]

Glad to see ya stand your ground Elwood, I guess we all have experienced this in some form or another over the years. The old addige that all fisherman are "good guys" , ain't true any more. I am retired now and have found that i like fishing mon thru fri a lot better, just because of what you have described here. I know most guys don't have that luxury to fish mon thru fri, but i'm leaning more that way all the time. Some of these guys get so wrapped up in tournament fishing, they forget about everyone else. Sorry you had to experience this while on your vacation. Heck ! it's leaving a bad taste in my mouth just reading about it !!

[Moose1am]

It's not the boat speed that catches fish. It's knowing where the fish are and how to present the bait to the fish that catches fish. I have yet to see a boat going 60 mph catch any fish!

And the lightweight aluminum boats are much better on gas mileage.

I wonder what the big bass boats guys are going to be doing when Gasoline prices jump up to $4.00/ gallon? These guys have to have big trucks to haul their big boats around all over the country. I sure won't be paying the money out for gas that they will.

I have a small truck... 4 cylinder... that gets me where I want to go and that's hauling my <1500 lb aluminum boat. My little 35 HP Johnson is paid for. Hell I paided cash for it when it was brand new. I have been fishing with this boat since 1978 and loving every minute of it. It's got everything I need to fish. Sure I could use a little bigger boat but I am not going to go out and go into debt or sell my home to buy a big boat. Why would anyone want to do that with the way gas prices are skyrocketing. And it's not going to get better guys. Oil is getting more scares and world demand for OIL is INCREASING every day. As long as China and India continue to modernize the price of oil will not go back down. The Chinese are using more and more oil every day. And if you look at the Populations in China and India you soon realize that all those people are tied of walking and are going out and buying cars. The picture is clear!.

The only thing that may slow down the increase in gasoline consumption is a world war that decreased the population of the Earth by 3/4 or more.

That may happen someday in the future .. I just hope it's after I am gone.

LOL....there it is!! Also we save money towing them as they are not as heavy...therefore the trucks use less gas. It rained very hard here for 3 straight hours, so I guess I'll go to work and try to fish tomorrow.