Nice pictures Dave.

Looks like you guys may have hit a few spine busters on the third day out.

Hey Bob,

How’s the ice looking up there?

Shawn

Ranger29,
If you have a power lift unit for your kicker like a panther or CMC you can mount a strap around the exhaust housing of your kicker and attach the other end to your lift. When the kicker is completely up the strap should be tight which is putting down pressure on the motor. Panther sells this strap kit as an accessary but it has a weak plastic snap connector that will break under to much loading. Save yourself some money and buy everything at your local hardware store.
Hope this helps.

Dave,

I thought maybe you could post a pic of my high speed fly-bye on Erie last year. Oh man was that a blast out there.

Sorry about missing the GTG, I really dropped the ball on that one. I’ll email you will the details.

5900 RPM EVI H.O., 21 pitch 3 blade SS = 60.3 on the GPS

Dave,
I’ve had my 620 for a year now and absolutely love it. A couple of things to keep in mind. One, stay away from the full glass windshield unless you plan on doing the “Sunday drive” thing. My partners 620 is proof of that. I have the tall individual pods which work great for blocking wind, rain and bugs. The low cuts, in my opinion, are NOT the way to go. It’s like a low cut windsheild on a snowmobile, they look cool but serve on purpose.
Second, if you plan on doing a lot of back-trolling, the counsel 620 would not be a very good choice as it does not have much for splash protection to prevent 3’+ waves from coming over the back. I would like to hear what other 620 owners have to say about this. My 620 does have a 6″ jackplate which seems to make the rear end of my boat ride about 1″ lower than normal, but I don’t think 1″ should make that big of deal.
I personal to not backtroll that much so that did not concern me. The 620, however, is a trolling machine, and that is the reason I bought one.
I forgot to mention one bad thing about the tall pod windshields. They will snap in half when 100 gallons of water hits them from spearing a wave. . . . ouch.
Good luck Dave on your Ranger purchase.

The George Foreman grill works great. It drains the grease and prevents splattering.

I have the older style RAM holders with the ball and socket ends. I think they work great for both adjustability and for the height they keep your rods above the side gunnels of your boat when trolling planner boards yet still allowing easy access to storage compartments. Once you get use to them it would be hard to change to anything else.

One knock against the RAM holder is using a roll pin to hold the keeper to the holder. They have a tendency to back there way out. I have replaced them all with Stainless machine screws with nyloc nuts and that cured the issue.

I think the RCL League for Mille Lacs is on the 26th of June this year. (The same weekend as the Hunter’s Point tournament)