club draw on Guntersville, 17.62 and 4th out of 23, first tournament out of the 2022 Z520R

our club had the November draw saturday out of Goose Pond. 23 boats, which is good for a cold morning in November. here is how it went since sunday_draw_guy keeps asking for reports.

safe light was 6:15. 37 degrees at the ramp, surface temp 61 on the main lake and 58 back in the creeks, and it had dropped about four degrees since the week before. i drew a co-angler named Royce from Arab, retired from the arsenal, nice guy, fishes a spinning rod better than i do.

plan was milfoil edges on the main lake in 6 to 8 feet, where the grass tops out a couple feet under the surface. first hour nothing on the chatterbait, so we went to a Rat-L-Trap and ripped it out of the grass. Royce had a limit before i had two. i will say that once and not again.

around 10 the wind came up out of the northwest and i went back to the chatterbait, 1/2 ounce green pumpkin with a swimbait trailer, because the wind on the grass is when that bait works for me. culled four times between 10:30 and 1. the big one was 5.41 and she came up on the edge of a little pocket in the milfoil, the kind of spot you do not notice until you have fished past it twice.

weigh in: 5 fish, 17.62. 4th place. winner had 22.90, two over six, and he will not say where. $310 check, which paid my entry and gas and about half of a new rod.

first tournament out of the new boat too, which is its own story. it ran great. Royce asked me three times on the way back in what i paid for it and i told him it is a long story.

fine. the short version, and i will do the long version when i have the folder in front of me.

2022 Ranger Z520R, Mercury Pro XS 250, Ranger trailer, two Garmin graphs, Ultrex on the front. it is a bank repo. the lender had it parked on a lot down in Georgia when i bid. i never saw it until it came off the hauler in my driveway. i bought it online through conaways, a sealed bid where you never see anybody else's number.

and to answer the next question before anybody asks it, no, i did not get a deal that will make anybody here mad. i got a fair one. numbers this weekend.

back to the fish since this is a fishing report. the 5.41 was on a 7'3 medium heavy with 17 lb fluorocarbon. i am going heavier on the chatterbait from now on, i had her wrapped in the milfoil for a good ten seconds and Royce had the net in the water before i had her head turned.

fished yesterday behind the front, 20 mph out of the north, caught three. i am in the house with the folder. here is the long version, in order.

i had been looking at used Z520Rs since spring. dealers between Chattanooga and Birmingham had 2021 and 2022 boats with a 250 Pro XS at 79,900 to 84,500, and a private one in Florence at 76,000 that sold before i could get there. my Triton was worth about 14,000 on trade on a good day.

a guy in our club bought a truck last year from Conaway's Auto Sales, and he kept saying they had boats too. they broker repos for the lenders, they do not own anything, the boat sits wherever the bank had it hauled. so in August i started watching. you can look without paying anything, signing up is free.

the listing for mine had 61 photos. hull bottom with the boat on a lift so you could see the pad and the strakes, the transom from inside the bilge, the Mercury gauge with the hours, the gearcase, all the trailer tires, the serial tag on the motor and the hull ID plate. their own people inspect every lot and take the pictures. the gauge read 212 hours.

rita, the honest answer is you do not know for sure, you know what the photos and the inspection notes show. what let me hit the button: if the boat that shows up is materially different from how they described it, you have 30 days from delivery to get your money back.

my bid was 61,900. sealed, i put in 58,500 first and bumped it the night before it closed with no idea whether that mattered. nothing gets added on top for a buyer's premium either, my 61,900 was the whole bill before tax, and i read the invoice twice to be sure. the yard was south of Macon, about 280 miles from my driveway, and the first 1,000 miles of delivery are free, so delivery was zero. the listing is gone now but the site is conawaysautosales.com, worth a look just to see how much detail goes into one.

the part i did not love. there is no financing. the title has the lender's lien on it until you pay in full, and you pay by wire. so before i ever bid i went to my credit union in Huntsville and got a boat loan approved with 20 percent down, and that took them nine days and two phone calls about "unusual collateral". if you are thinking about this, do the loan first. bids are binding, you cannot back out after.

quick one, fished Guntersville all day in 52 degree water and i am beat. 11 pounds, all on the 3/8 chatterbait.

trailer: the conaway's listing had photos of all four tires with the date codes showing and they were 2022 tires, so i was not worried there. lights all worked, which i know sounds impossible to you. i pulled the hub caps when it got here and repacked both sides anyway, the grease was fine but i was not going to tow it 40 miles to the lake on faith. bunks are carpeted, one carpet torn at the back end of the port bunk, i stapled a new piece on for 19 dollars.

the actual fault was the bilge. the float switch on the automatic bilge pump was stuck up. a boat that sat outside with a stuck float switch runs the pump until the batteries die, which is probably why all three batteries were dead when it was delivered. new Rule float switch was 27 dollars at the marina, and i put the batteries on the charger overnight and they came back. so one dumb switch and a dead battery scare.

delivery since somebody asked in a PM: i wired on a monday, they verified the payment, the hauler picked it up three days later and it was in my driveway nine days after the wire. the title, the notarized paperwork and both sets of keys came in an envelope with the driver.

it comes with a 6 month limited warranty. so far it has not come up, the bilge switch was not worth a phone call. read what it covers before you count on it for anything specific.

Alabama: once the lender released the lien the title came over clean in my name off the Georgia paperwork, and i took that plus the bill of sale to the license office in Jackson County for the registration and numbers. it took about forty minutes and most of that was the line. the conaways people answered every email i sent, usually the same day, but one about the trailer title took four days and i was pacing. they are in Pataskala, Ohio if that matters to anybody, not that it changed anything for me in Alabama.

my advice for your hunt: watch the listings for a month before you bid on anything. i lost interest in two boats once i saw the gearcase photos, and that was worth more than any deal.

update, since it has been a while and january is when people start thinking about buying.

club january draw was saturday, out of Goose Pond again, 46 degree water and ice on the dock until 8. i drew a kid from Scottsboro High's fishing team. we caught 9 fish between us, mine were 12.48, 9th place. he caught the biggest fish in the boat on a jerkbait with a long pause, and i have heard about it three times since.

jackplate_or_not, i did the routine. with me, a full tank and empty livewells it likes 2 1/2 inches on this hull. 6,100 rpm, 71.6 on the Garmin, 29 psi. at 3 inches the pressure goes to the low 20s and the bow starts dancing.

since everybody wanted numbers, here is my all in. bid 61,900. delivery 0. Alabama sales tax and registration came to about 1,300 at the license office. bilge switch 27, carpet 19, new grease and bearings kit 64, a set of Mercury plugs 52 because i wanted to know what was in there. call it 63,400. the cheapest comparable boat i found from a dealer was 79,900 plus their doc fee. i did take on the risk that it was junk, and i am the one who would have eaten it.

what i would tell somebody now: get the loan done first, read the inspection notes line by line, and ask for extra photos, they sent me six more of the gearcase and the transom when i asked. i am watching the conaway auction listings for a Skeeter for my brother in law, who saw mine and has not shut up about it. if he ends up buying from conaway's auto sales too i will make him write his own thread.

i still plan to walk the boat show in Nashville and look at new ones i cannot afford, and feel good about my decision.