So I gave this a 3 not so much for the amount of fish caught but for the quality~ and the fact I actually got out on the water today with running motors!!

So took my trolling motor up to All seasons outboard to find out what was wrong and prognosis was not a good one- after 2 days he was still having issues with the carb and fuel pump. His cousin called me over to show me a motor he just took off his boat and asked if I would be interested in it. 8hp Yamaha LONG SHAFT electic start and tilt so I said heck yes! He made me a sweet deal on a trade in so strapped that baby on the back of my truck and took it home put back on the Tin Cup.

So after a busy week of work finally saw an opportunity today to get it out for it's maiden voyage to see how it ran and pushed my boat around. Now I am lucky I have built-in wireless on my laptop so decided I would work from my office (boat ) today and handle things from the water!! Launched at Gene Coulon about 1pm and took off for the south tip of Mercer.

Lowered the new motor with the electric tilt and pushed the button to start it and WHIRRRR! she hummed to life!! Soon I was gliding West along the southern tip of Mercer with my new Brad's cut plug set up with a herring fillet wrapped around it with stretchy string and scent. Also wanted to play around with my new Lowrance JHD7 Gen 2 as well to learn how to fine tune it some more. Now I was long lining with an ounce and half of lead but saw a lot of marks between 40 an 60 feet, so switched over to the down rigger and dropped it to 55 feet.

Not long after while heading north now along the west side of the island, saw my rod dancing so pulled it out of the holder but had already popped the clip and this fish made a run from a 100 feet back! Fish on! After a game of tug of war finally got it closer to the boat but then it went airborne a few times before gliding it into the rubber net! What a fatty and since it was my first of 2015 kept it plus wanted to have a little baked trout for dinner tonight when I home.

Trolled some more north and had another hit but didn't stick so switched out the plug for some hootchie combo's and worked my way over to Seward park. No mojo there so back to troll south along the island and work my way back to the launch~ put on another pink brad's plug this time and set the rigger at 40 feet and this time pulled down like I had a snag but when I popped the clip gave a tug so it was fish on! This one was a bit smaller but still put up a great fight so wanted to get back in time to put things away and make dinner so headed to the launch with 2 in the box and a big smile on my face. Having traded out a short shaft to a long shaft trolling motor was like night and day out there for me!!

See you on the water!

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