After catching (and cleaning) lots of perch the last few days, I wanted to take one
more shot at trying to get a walleye.   You can imagine that idea was not met favorably
my my perch king son.    But, utimately, I had the keys, so off we went.....

Unfortunately, the plan was way better than the result

We got one smallmouth, and a small perch and generally trolled a blank screen for
the couple of hours we gave it.   And of course, they nailed the perch again......

So far, its been a pretty good week to be me as far as fishing goes......

First it was the awesome wall fishing at the Oak with Get Hooked Sportfishing (see
September 18th post); and now tonight I had an awesome evening of perch fishing
with my son and Capt. Bud (Alibi).

I don't do that much perch fishing on Lake Erie, so to land 76 beauties in just over
2 hours was awesome!  A couple of them were 14", and were the biggest perch that
I have ever seen!!

65 fow, just east of the harbor with live minnows did it for us!

                             

       

What a beautiful evening to be on the lake.....might not be to many more of these for this season!
Great idea, Bud!

I was down at the marina tonight with my son watching the storm front approach.   Lots of
far off thunder and lightening.   Lake was flat, with no wind ahead.   Very wierd look; almost
looked like smoke blowing in.

                   

                   

First and foremost, on this 10th Anniversary of the September 11 attacks....

THANK YOU to the firemen, police and those in the armed services for all
you do!  Watching some of the shows in the last few days, it still is really
unbelievable to see the towers get hit, and fall, and all of the effort that took
place afterwards.

***
The clunk you may have heard about noon today was the walleye fishing hitting
rock bottom.   What a horrible, horrible 2 days.

We dodged a t-storm to start the day, before setting up in 70 fow.   Pretty
good screen, some fish up higher and the down temp came back 6 degrees
from yesterday.  Unfortunately, that was as good as it was going to get.

The walleye bite was non-existant, a theme that was repeated when speaking
to a couple of others at the dock.

We packed it in at noon and saved it for another day.

***
Done with the charters for this season, but we're planning on keeping "Times
Two" in for a few more weeks yet.   Maybe we'll get one more shot at it....

Well, the great fear going into today was, what impact would 5 straight days
of NE Blow have on the fishing?   Surprisingly, the temperature was not as bad
as we thought.    Down 8 degrees on the surface, but 59 degrees at 60 ft, which
wasn't that far off last week.

However, Mother Nature did not cooperate, AT ALL, and we didn't move a rod today.
Fortunately, (or not), neither did the others we talked to, AND the perch guys didn't
do anything either.

Last trip for 2011 coming up in the morning, hopefully better than today.....!!!!

Great sunrise today on a beautiful lake.  Way different than the forecast had called
for just a few days ago!


                      

Got 1 walleye pretty early today, a nice 7 lber.    Hoped we were on to something
but that wasn't the case.   Did find loads of sheepshead, including one that
had to be pushing the 10lb mark!

Moved west and into 80 fow; took 4 more and a laker.  Dropped a couple
more.

                          

Little bit of everything today.    Got 1 on a 5 color with 3 oz and a Dave's
Kaboom; a couple on a harness off the 175 slide diver; 1 on a DW super
slim purple sunrise on the 40 rigger; and 1 on the 10 color with 3 oz and
a 4" orange/black chatterstick.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been hinting at motor issues, and a new Yamaha.
Well, I've finally got "Times Two" back, so now its my time to share.!

Before that, though....
DO NOT BUY AN EVINRUDE!!!   ESPECIALLY A 2005 225 HP 2 STROKE. JUNK, JUNK, JUNK
and did I mention JUNK!!!!!


THE BAD
On the first day of the Con Club Tournament (Friday, Aug 5) in Dunkirk, I was fishing with my
friend Gerb and my son.   Had a couple of fish in the box east of the harbor, but had another
friend west that was boxing good sized fish, so we decided that since it was a nice day, and it
would be great to get a real good start to the tournament, we pulled lines and head
west.   Our run was about 7 miles on the GPS.

Got the boat up to about 30 mph, and had gone about 5 miles, when I heard a noise.  Best
I can equate it to is if you stuck a piece of foil into a metal fan....kind of a rattling sound.
Slowed down, and said, did you guys hear that?   Gave it more throttle, and it did it again,
so I backed it all the way down and it quit.  Hmmm.    Tried to restart, and just got a clicking.
Checked the battery connections, and the plug wires.  Seemed ok to me, but nothing.
Called our friend Capt Chris, who was finishing up his charter, and he grabbed us for the
tow in.   In the meantime, I called Brobeil Marine in Buffalo, who I had been using for service
and explained the situation.   Eric told me to get her up there and he'd take a look.

Finally get there, and upon hearing the description said, it's either the gearcase or the
powerhead, because "that happens a lot on these".   Checks the lower unit oil, looks good,
so that meant only 1 thing.   Couldn't manually turn the flywheel (bad thing) and then pulled
the plugs.  Number 2 was scorched.   Number 4 had chunks of metal.   Verdict....Motor was
TOAST.


THE UGLY
Decided to call Evinrude on Monday morning to see what they might say or do to help me.  My
motor was a 2005 225 (pre-ETEC), but it was not put in service until 2007.   550 hrs, and all appropriate service and maintenance, including fuel additives, ring free, etc.   Seldom run wide
open.  Basically babied.

Told Customer Service my story, and said that I had searched the net over the weekend
and found LOADS of posts about blown powerheads on the Ficht series.  Further said I had
all the service records, and how I thought this was a bunch of crap that it blew, and especially
since both the marina and the internet said this motor was junk, and I had done all the needed
maintenance.   Guy even agreed that 550 hrs is not particularly overworked.

Got the whole policy about the fact the motor was outside the original warranty period and that
they have hundreds of thousands of engines worldwide, and try as they might, there will be some breakdowns.  Ok, I guess I can buy that to some extent.

So, I said, "Well, knowing this motor has issues, does Evinrude have a program to help me get
into an ETEC?"     No was the reply.  We are sorry for your problems, but we don't have a policy
like that.  Blah, Blah, Blah.

SO I told him that my "policy" was that I was not going to buy another piece of Evinrude junk,
and that I would tell anyone that wanted to listen how bad that engine was, and how disappointed
I was that they would not even offer me a discount to get into a new Evinrude engine or to try
harder to keep me as a customer, knowing I was ready to do something.

Guy said he was sorry, but they "can't control mechanical failure".

Mechanic called later in the day to say that at least 2 bearings gave way, and that the
engine looked like you had tossed a hand grenade inside and closed it before it exploded.
BURNT TOAST.


THE GOOD
Fran and Eric got me setup on a order for a replacement Yamaha 4 stroke that day.   This was
the motor I wanted originally, but the Evinrude was already on the boat when I bought it.   The
4 stroke will be much quieter, alot less fumes, more fuel efficient AND I won't need to change
6 spark plugs out every 50 hrs!   As the marina pointed out, I'm going to save $150 in plugs
per year alone!

I cannot say enough about how well I was treated by Brobeil Marina (Niagara Street, Buffalo).  
They addressed all my concerns, assisted with the warrant claim (thank god Gary reminded me
that I had the extended warranty), and got me back on the water as fast as they could.   I could
not have asked for more than that from them.

I would not hesitate to go back there, or recommend them to someone else.  THANK YOU!

A+++


***
SO, moral of the story....DON"T BUY AN EVINRUDE 2 STROKE!!!!