Well I just got back from an ABA on onieda lake (I won and got Phoenix money) and the Bassmaster northern open on the st Lawrence river (came in 13th) and finally had a minute to post about my new boat. I had a pretty pimped out 2016 721 that I’ve loved for the past 5 years and in March 2021 I ordered this one from wiedas marine. My main reason was motor warranty as my 2016 was up in may 2021. The new boat arrived late may at wiedas but I didn’t pick it up until July 7th due to tournaments and not really having time. Plus we were waiting on many items to ship in. I really wanted to wait on posting this boat until I really got it dialed in. So far I have over 100 hours on the new pro xs. My old pro xs had over 1600 hours so I have a lot of time behind the wheel. This new pro xs is insane. The performance is out of control. The only thing that compares to my old 2 stroke is speed at top end and gas consumption. Everything else this motor is head and shoulders better.
The colors, I went with an extremely similar color to my last boat as I really still love the combo. But this time I went with a gel rig except the pins. I went with carbon, dark charcoal, dark gray, white and steel pins and bow wings. I think this rig looks even better than my last. Once again I went with white poles and a black bobs jack plate. Seats I went with charcoal. White and thunder.
Options on the boat and trailer all provided by wiedas or Phoenix. First in the boat from the back. I put 5 degree bobs machine wedges between the motor and plate for extra bow lift. I went with a 12” bobs action black jack plate, my last one was a 10” setback but went with 12 on this boat. dual 10ft blades. I have 5 lithiums I provided from my last boat. I added the power pole charge. The wiedas marine power harness made up with 8 sets of 10 gauge wire for dedicated power to all 5 units, The livescope, the 360, and 1 spare for a Lowrance power cable at the console. I added the Phoenix upgraded wire harness. I added a Mercury smartcraft and the dual dash shroud with a bobs gauge. I added the sonic hub. Structure scan 3D. Padded cooler lid and front deck. Heated seats. Center tackle storage system slider. Lowrance ghost. Hydro wave. Slam latch center console. Humminbird 360. Trol lok for the ghost. I provided all the electronics and mounts for the boat as I swapped my graphs from my old boat to this one. The trailer has the rampage wheel package. Shocks on the trailer. Paint over gatorhyde. I added a big Fulton winch and I just added gator backs as well. I have to still install rigid deck lights and blue water strip lights in the compartments as well as vt2 livewell vents. Which I will do this winter more than likely.
Performance on the new boat I’m looking at 5900-6,000 rpm running a 24 fury stock at 73 mph. Best I’ve seen is my worked 25 fury 5900 rpm 76.5 mph but I just threw the blade on that prop so I’m back to the 24 fury with a 26 fury as a spare. I still need to try the 26 fury on this motor just to see what it does.
Issues I’ve had with the boat since I got it. This boat IMO is built better than my 2016. Everything from Phoenix was top notch down to every detail. I had the pleasure to spend 2 days at wiedas marine rigging the boat exactly the way I wanted it. I appreciate Sean and the rigging team allowing me to assist with everything as I’m knowledgeable with about everything on the boat and how I like it. I spent a lot of time working on my 2016 so I knew exactly how I needed everything so I would have 0 issues. Everything in this boat was thought out and corrected from my 2016 boat and it worked out perfectly. I have had 0 issues with Phoenix installed items and 0 issues with wiedas installed items. I did have a power pole charge fail in early august after 4 weeks of use. Power pole sent me a new charge within a few days and I swapped it out. The new one has worked fine for the past 3 weeks since i put it in. This charger is a finicky deal and I was aware of many issues that have been coming up. I have 5 spare banks of dual pro chargers that I used for the time during my charge fail. So if you own one I would suggest having a back up as this is happening a lot. Next I just had my fly wheel on the pro xs fail and it ate the belt during the fail. I’m being told this is a very common issue and believe it or not heard of 3 guys in the past week having the same issue. It happened during the bassmaster open practice and within 2 hours I was fixed at the Mercury trailer and back at it. So those are the problems so far with the boat. I believe I have spent about 10 days on Lake Ontario with this boat since I got it and 3 of those days were very rough plus my normal use on lake Champlain so it’s been through some crap to say the least already.
my thoughts on the boat and options are as follows. The ghost is a fantastic machine. This trolling motor is better than the ultrex in every way. I am a huge fan so far. The way wiedas and I installed my graph mounts is perfection for this boat. Everything is through bolted and I have absolutely 0 worry about stuff coming loose. The center tackle storage slider is awesome. I use it as a day box and I absolutely love it. The rampage wheels with shocks on the trailer tow 10x better than a 14” tire without shocks. It’s absolutely night and day towing compared to my old boat. Gator backs I just added them. The boat loads on the trailer so much smoother and easier than carpet bunks. It’s a must have on the trailer. It took me 6 hours to remove the carpet and staples and install the gator backs. Lithium batteries and the power harness we installed has been flawless. I have 0 power issues with 225 ah of lithium on full days daylight to dark.
Finally my week on the st Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. I went from the ABA on onieda to Ontario. I had spent 1 day on the lake on Wednesday as I knew the wind was going to be brutal for the practice period later that week after onieda. So Thursday and Friday I went to onieda for practice and then tournament Saturday. Back to Ontario Saturday night and didn’t even go out Sunday it was so bad. Monday I spent the day in the river as we had 6ft waves on the lake and I mean real 6ft waves with 25 mph wind. Tuesday I had broke down so I got on the water at 10am and spent 3 hours in the River. I then ran out to the lake for 6 hours to eliminate water about 25 miles from the river. I didn’t check anything I planned on running during the event. I spend about 2-4 days a month ontario so I know it pretty well especially the deep fishing so practice time on the lake wasn’t as big of a deal to me as I knew what I needed to run and the areas I needed to be in. Wednesday we had a massive wind again and kept me in the far upper end of the river just checking some things mainly trying to learn more about the upper River. Both day 1 and day 2 of the event we had decent wind that allowed us to get on the lake. Each day we did have 3-4ft waves at times of the day but it was fishable. Running 14-25mph most of the time during the event. I ended up in 11th after day 1 with 23-12lbs and finished the event in 13th with a 21-3lb bag that 2nd day anchored by a 5-12. First bite I had of the event was a 5-10 so that really got the ball rolling. I had some great shots on day 1 from the photographer with bassmaster as well. I caught 2 over 5lbs while he was on me. It was a good event but I had the bites to fish the final day but that’s how it goes. I stay at the bridge view motel when I go to Ontario which is where a lot of the pros stay as well. I was able to hang with Cory and Chris Johnston all week as well as their friend cal climpson. Cal actually lives next door to Cory and they finished 1st and 2nd. After the final day they brought Cooper gallant over as he is tight with the guys and lives just 20 minutes down the road from them. Cooper ended up finishing 4th and Chris came in 7th all out of 184 boats. I can say those boys are extremely fun to hang out with and are absolute savages when it comes to catching smallmouth. I had fished against them in the past on Champlain and made some top 10s with them so they knew of me but we haven’t spent much time talking until this week. I’m somewhat Canadian since I live just 20 miles from the boarder and played hockey so I fit right in with them. I have seen the bait Cory and Chris are working on and it is real and it’s going to be the next big thing in smallmouth fishing no doubt.