New Outkast Product

Outkast Tackle's Texas Rig Worm Hook

Outkast Tackle has a new item this year for fisherman that like to texas rig their soft plastics. It's called the Texas Rig Worm Hook. It comes in three sizes 1/8 oz., 3/16 oz. and 1/4 oz. It has a 2/0 Gamakastu super line hook with the lead molded right to the hook. Meaning you will not have to peg the sinker to keep it tight to the bait. That will mean more fishing time as you will not have to keep sliding the sinker back down after a few casts. It should work great for skipping docks and over hanging trees. It will also shine for flipping heavy cover as it will keep the bait and sinker as one going thru the cover. I show it above rigged with a few different plastic choices. The first is a Outkast Spider Grub. There is plenty of hook gap there for good hook ups with the bigger plastic. I also show it with a Outkast Naughty bug for a compact flipping application and the with a 7 1/2" Plastic worm. I can't wait to get on the water to try these out. I am a worm fisherman and have always hated the pegging part. I will post results later this spring after I get on the water to try them out. Here is the link to the Outkast site so you can check them out. http://www.outkasttackle.com/product_pages/texas.html

Winter Project

Sunday afternoon I finished a project I had started last Saturday. I was getting sick of my fishing rods just piled in a corner for the winter. I found this rod rack pattern on line and decided to make a few. http://minwax.com/projects/pdfs/2005_Fishing_Pole_Rack.pdf. I made this one with some oak I already had. It took me about 5 hours to cut out and assemble the first one. I need to stain and finish it now and that will add a few more hours. I am going to make a few more out of pine. I also am going to revise the pattern a bit so they will hold a few more rods. The one as shown will hold 7. I will post some pictures of the finished product in a few weeks.

My truck thermometer read -35 this morning on my way to work. That is about as cold as I can remember seeing. It is supposed to be above 0 today for the first time all week.

Jack Plate Installation

The off season is a good time to perform boat maintenance and boat up grades. I bought my Triton TR186 in May of 2007. I have known since I bought it it would need a Jack Plate to perform at its best. My numbers before were just ok. I could turn at best 5100 rpms with my 23 Tempest Plus. My top speed was about 52-55 MPH depending on load. I purchased a T-H Marine Pro High Jacker 6" jackplate this fall. Late this fall with the help of my friend Guy we found a Saturday to install it. Guy has a hoist set up in his garage so that was a bonus. We were able to unbolt the motor from the transom install the plate and drop the motor back down. The steering cables were long enough as were the throttle cables. We then set the motor height based on Guy's set up. The dim we set was 2 3/4" center of prop shaft to pad. Overall it was a fairly easy job to do with the right equipment. After we had checked and re checked the fittings. I took the boat to the lake to see how much improvement there was. It was a totally different boat handling and speed wise. I was able to turn 5800 rpms no problem and my top speed was 58.8 before I ran out of lake. This spring it will be fun to try and improve those numbers and dial it in for the best performance. Thanks to Guy for the use of his garage and help getting the install done.

Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a happy 2009