I own an 1850, and I love my boat. Fish mostly for muskies and walleyes, have never put anything but walleyes in my live well. Family of four, it holds more fish than you can eat. 25+ years of muskie fishing I have yet to need a live well to revive one, and have yet to kill one (that I know of).

My wife also loved the jump seats, and after a couple seasons I will tell you they are great for maybe small kids. We tried to go without using four seats on pedestals one trip and put my two boys (14 & 19 at the time) on the jump seats to have more floor space, ugh makes it handle like a loaded manure wagon. BUT, the jump seats helped me buy the boat because on the show floor my FW loved the concept.

Having owned a lot of different boats, I have the view that my 1850 is perhaps the smoothest rough water under 19′ boat made. So if you fish Rainy, LOTW, etc. it is hard to go wrong with this hull.

Found the in line fuse, it was blown (5 amp). New fuse pump started running, removed battery float switch stuck “up”. Not sure exactly what caused that, but moving it up and down works perfectly now.

Thank you so much for the help!

You realize when you are trying to get your arm way down there how deep this hull is!

Thank you all, I will reach out to the shop in Rochester. Sounds like it will be not too expensive, probably less than my deductible.

Happy Holidays to all!

Thank you all, I will reach out to the shop in Rochester. Sounds like it will be not too expensive, probably less than my deductible.

Happy Holidays to all!

Dean, any chance you can post the colors on the boat at the top with the removable platform? Looks very cool!

I wonder what the performance difference is between the hot rod 4S 250 SHO bass motor and the 300 Offshore? What an awesome looking boat! Let’s see, if I drop off the WX1850 for winter storage at SBC, and next spring drag one of these home do you think the Mrs. will notice?

Post some results! What did you get?

Agreed that a good antenna is worth every penny. The best radio in the world is worthless if the signal doesn’t get transmitted.

My understanding is that you need the LOTW / Rainy chip. All of LOTW is not included on the North chip.

This is my first console boat after years of tiller boats, so of course trying to set it up like a tiller! I have an 8″ screen H-bird on the console, and that runs off the glassed in transducer. The 5″ screen H-bird in the back is going on a RAM swing mount. Original plan was to install a transducer switch and run it off the existing. Scott in the H-bird booth convinced me that would be frustrating when the bigger screen would no longer have a bottom image (especially for the other people fishing in the cockpit). His suggestion was to install a separate transducer for the transom unit on the starboard side high enough so it reads great when trolling (forward or backward) but high enough up that it is out of the water at high speed as it won’t be needed.

Boat is in storage still, hoping to get all this wrapped up in the next two weeks. Son still at home is a hockey player, and we go right from the regular season to AAA spring hockey so no fishing time for me yet.

Spring upgrades to my 1850 include 9.9 kicker with electric start, power tilt and tiller handle control. Wave Wackers! Hamby’s! Third Humminbird installed in the back for use while back trolling. All from SBC!

Nice work! I agree, no such thing as a “perfect” boat and what would the fun be anyway if you couldn’t tweak and make it “yours.”!

Where did you get the rod tube set up, BTW?

I have always heard the answer to that is “no”, which seems counter intuitive.

Invest the $200 for one hour of attorney time ASAP. Unfortunately the way the world works today you cannot negotiate with your insurance carrier on your own and get the outcome you deserve. The minute they find out you have “representation” the tone will change for the better. Don’t try to do this yourself.

I would guess the same holds true for the WX 1850, 20″? I thought perhaps it would require the XL (25″) length? I have been debating with myself between a Vantage and a gas kicker and determined for what I like to do the Vantage won’t cut it. I will be mostly back trolling with mine.

Raw liver or the belly meat of walleyes / perch.

Depending upon what type of issues you have, I would make sure you have downloaded the latest version of the software for your unit first.

No opinion on LCD or LED, but we did buy the oldest boy a Vizio 42″ with the built in DVD last year before he went to college. Made it through the freshman year just fine. It is really nice to be able to pop the disk in and not have another “unit” along with another remote.

Hand held marine band radios have a maximum power of 5 watts, a regular marine band radio has a maximum power of 25 watts. They also rely on that big antenna to send the signal in areas where you may not have a clear line of sight to the people you are hoping to reach. On big lakes with lots of islands a handheld won’t get the job done.

It is more important to buy a good antenna than to spend money on a lot of bells and whistles on the radio.

As an added benefit you get accurate weather via our friends north of the border, who have somehow figured out how to predict the weather with a high degree of accuracy.

That was it! Slow guy in the dumb room here…

If this isn’t the best resource on the ‘net I don’t know what is….

This spring my very, very old Fenwick suit started to leak in the bibs while on Rainy Memorial Day. Trip to I-falls and Sportsman Service I bought a Frabill suit.

Two weeks later, those bibs leaked! The good news is the store replaced them no questions asked and the second pair are perfect. Any product can have occasional issues, it is how well they stand behind their product that counts!

My Fenwick suit had been worn so much it was like not having raingear on, so the new stuff at first seemed a little bulky. Now that I have everything adjusted, it is the bomb. If you hate wearing the hood (like me) you will love the cool collar adjustment that lets you seal it off around your neck.

Bob

Thank’s for all the comments. This is my first brand spankin’ new boat since 1987! There have been a lot of boats but due to where we lived it & the amount of time we got to use it they were all “new to me” boats.

While it looks like the stripe is black in the pictures, it is actually Twilight (blue) with Steele Bullet pin stripes.

Working on getting all the gear stored, half the fun. I just got another 788C for the stern, the WhiteCaps are on order, and am shopping hard for a Vantage. I have almost always been a tiller guy, so of course have to have my splash guards (even if I never need them!)

All great info, thank you!

Thank you Roger.

Small waterproof stuff sack from Cabelas.

We had a great week on Rainy, only ran to Red Gut 1 day, did the check in at Fort Francis it was a piece of cake. Thanks to all for the advice on how to do that.

Certainly for the future I would have my act together and get the required stuff via the mail as it would save time and of course gas. This was a fun adventure however and we got to go on a nice boat ride on a great day and see some neat parts of the lake.

As noted the hatch was on big time, we still caught some nice fish. We spent some time reef hopping and catching (& releasing) big ‘eye’s that evidently were too dumb to eat bugs. My 13 year old nailed a 27″ the biggest of the trip boy was he fired up!

Thank you all for the help. We all have passports and the magic green cards, need the current license. I am thinking this is two or three days max out of 7 so the on the water daily check in may be the easiest.

The boys and I are going to go chase a few memories up in Red Gut.