I'm here to give a hoot...and to try and catch walleye

The_owl · Oct 9, 2017

Hey guys,

First time lurker, first time poster. I happened along this website by chance tonight and now, here I am!

My name is Marco and I'm from Watford City. Born and raised in WC, I grew up on Lake Sakakawea with my parents owning a place at New Town Marina. We've since sold it (huge mistake LOL) in 2006 and now I've gotten back into fishing with friends of mine over the last couple, three years and am looking to get more into it with my own rig.

I currently own a runabout boat that'll soon be gone, and I'm actively looking for a fishing boat. I've got my eye on a new Crestliner, but I am also looking hard at Lunds and will openly consider any brand. I fish down by Skunk Bay the majority of my time, but also hit New Town and Tobacco Gardens at times.

I used to fish live-bait exclusively, but have gotten into crankbaits just this year. I'm hoping to find good info on the website on running cranks, along with boat reviews, learning about new spots on Van Hook and the open waters to the east of Indian Hills, and graphs - with my new boat purchase coming up, I'm pretty sure I'm most confused about what direction to go with fish finders more than anything else!!

Not sure what else I can tell you, so if there's anything please ask. I'm also looking forward to seeing who's on here that I might already know.

As for my name, it comes from waaay back when I was an Ag Ed teacher. I retired after one year (I even had a retirement party) and got into equipment sales. Haven't worked a day since!

Account Deleted · Oct 9, 2017

Welcome.

Velva_zv21 · Oct 9, 2017

Welcome

Skeeter · Oct 9, 2017

Welcome to the shit show where Trump is king and libtards cry when there safety pin gets broke. Any boat that you can afford and feel comfortable in will do. I'm a tiller guy myself and usually fish alone. Because I hate people. As far as graphs go I've always ran lowrance for many years. The last boat I bought had birds on it and I like them. Easy to use. I think the helix 9 is about the best graph for the money. Good luck in your search.

gr8outdoors · Oct 9, 2017

I'll ask the first most important question. Is ur dogs tail docked?

Brian Renville · Oct 9, 2017

Well howdy Marco.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe once he gets settled in the_owl will be kind enough to tell you fellas about the time he single handedly turned the ndpreps website on its head. ;:;rofl;:;bowdown

cooter00 · Oct 10, 2017

Howdy Marco Great to see you here man

Lapper · Oct 10, 2017

Welcome aboard!

I run lowrance on a 2000 Lund and like them a lot. Never used birds but know lots of folks that like them. Pretty sure all the new technology is quite nice!

Vollmer · Oct 10, 2017

Welcome!

wildeyes · Oct 10, 2017

Welcome Marco have fun here and don't take stuff you see here to seriously.

SDMF · Oct 10, 2017

Welcome,

Here's a Crestliner review for you:

I owned a 2006 1850 Crestliner Fishhawk with a factory pre-rigged 150HP Suzuki 4-stroke from brand new in May of '06 until last Saturday 6/20/15. Late last summer (Mid-August) I noticed a couple of cracks in the welds along the transom. That was the last time I had it in the water. Late Nov comes along, time to put the boat in storage, but, let's get those cracks fixed 1st. I knew a guy @ the local dealership and he gave me the phone number for Crestliner customer service. I called them up and they wanted NOTHING to do with me direct, they only wanted to deal with a dealer. The local dealer (Ray's, Moorhead MN) are good folks, but, I bought from a dealer that's no longer in business and I don't think Ray's should have to deal with this, they didn't make any $$ on it and I'm sure have better things to do than worry about a boat they didn't sell. Ray's removed my motor and hauled it down to New York Mills for me at no charge. So far so good. Boat sits in NYM from Dec until mid-March, which is fine, I wasn't using it and they weren't charging for storage. This is the only winter my boat's ever been outside. I've stored it indoors since I bought it. Anyway, the cracked welds get fixed under warrantee no questions asked and on the approximate timeline. I'm only ~85mi from the factory so when it was finished I picked it up and pulled it to the dealer to have the motor re-hung, and that's when the real trouble started.

Local dealer goes to hang the motor on a week later and calls me, "We can't hang the motor or, your transom wood is rotten and we're crushing the hull when we tighten the mounting bolts." Well, that's inconvenient, but, I figure it's just 1 more phone call and surely Crestliner would be interested in having my boat fixed properly the 2nd time, and hopefully more quickly than 3mo. Nope, Crestliner doesn't warrantee wood. Now, as I said, the boat is stored indoors all the time except for the days I fish. I take the tarp off when in the garage and often run a fan to get things dried out. Surely someone at Crestliner will see that there are no soft spots in my entire boat floor and realize that I either got a bad piece of wood, or some other unforeseen issue caused the rot. NOPE!!

Without seeing my boat again they told me, "Your motor wasn't pre-rigged and your dealer didn't seal up the holes well enough." Was the 1st story I got. But that was incorrect, as my boat is a Pre-Brunswick model and it indeed was factory pre-rigged, I know because I filled out the order form myself. So I pointed that out and if they believed the un-sealed holes was the problem, it was their doing. Next story was, "Well, I can see that your motor's been moved, whomever moved it didn't seal it back up and that's what caused the leak that in turn caused the rot." That was also incorrect. I had my boat back to Crestliner in '07 or '08 (don't recall which) to have the hull rockered due to too much "hook" in the hull. So again, if the mounting bolt holes weren't sealed, that should be Crestliner's responsibility. Then communication stopped for 2wks. So, I started calling, and calling, and calling, and callling................During the 1st 6 weeks of trying to figure out what caused the rot and should it be warrantee or not, there were only 2 times that my calls were returned and information conveyed when Crestliner said they would. Once was the 1st time the interim manager of customer service called me to say he was looking into things, and the 2nd was a conference call with the President of Crestliner. Other than those 2 calls, I had to HOUND them for information.

So, they schedule to have my boat returned to NYM to have the engineers and the President look at it to determine the cause of the rot. I shuffle my schedule so that I can be there on that day. But, Crestliner, again failed to communicate and the dealer didn't have my boat ready to travel. So another week goes by (it's up to 7 weeks now) until my boat gets down to NYM and the next week I cannot be down there when they "inspect it". I finally got a call back from the interim manager of Customer Service and he tells me that due to the age of my boat they don't see any reason to warantee my boat but due to my persistence they'd "only" charge me $2,000. That's the decision that's come down from the President and that's my only option.

So to re-cap, a boat that's been used for 8 seasons, stored indoors all but the 30-40 days/summer I fish with it, has no soft spots in the floor and no other damage or modifications somehow had a transom rot problem and Crestliner wouldn't stand behind it.

I paid it and promptly sold it. The buyer knows the whole story and has a copy of the receipt.

I am done with all Brunswick products.

The_owl · Oct 10, 2017

Brian Renville said:
Well howdy Marco.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe once he gets settled in the_owl will be kind enough to tell you fellas about the time he single handedly turned the ndpreps website on its head. ;:;rofl;:;bowdown

Its been 15 years ago already since I made some simple suggestions to help draw bigger crowds to HS sporting events. My internet trolling peaked long before we even knew what it was called - LOL.

I'm matured now to the point that I get my jollies out of resetting my trip odometer before driving and hand calculating MPG's.

My, how the mighty have fallen.

ndfinfan · Oct 10, 2017

Welcome Marco...enjoy researching for your new boat...half the fun!

Mort · Oct 10, 2017

So now we got an Owl...interesting.....welcome...

LBrandt · Oct 10, 2017

An Owl and a lot of Pussy Cats. There a child story in there somewhere? By the way WELCOME.

BrokenBackJack · Oct 10, 2017

Howdy Marco :;:howdy and welcome.

guywhofishes · Oct 10, 2017

Captain Ahab · Oct 10, 2017

Chas'n Tail · Oct 10, 2017

What's your stance on pickled Musky?

Davey Crockett · Oct 10, 2017

Wise old owl, Choose carefully. This is the havoc a few small floating branches can create.

http://nodakangler.com/forums/showt...om-Vallely-Marine/page7&highlight=riverfisher

I'm here to give a hoot...and to try and catch walleye

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