Mike Folkestad in the familiar “stork” position caused by the many years trolling motor controls were up on the deck.
BOATS AND EQUIPMENT
No one can do justice to all that took place in the bass boat and related equipment sec- tor in those early decades. Most who became serious bass fishermen started with some kind of aluminum vee hull that they con- verted. But even as fiberglass became the
professional standard, which of us that lived through it could forget the wild ride of the tri-hull on big water? My first tournament was on Lake Havasu in 1977. It was so nasty, they cancelled the first day of competition, and then we made a go of it on Sunday in my 15-foot, Tidecraft Snap- per with a 65-horse Mercury and no power trim. How I envied the guys in those 16-foot MonArk SuperSports with the big 85 or crazy 115-horse Mercs! Klein, at age 16, fished his first tournament in a 15-foot Hydrasport, and even the arrival of Terry, Skeeter, Ranger, Stratos and eventually the smoother riding Champion all took their time before a hull for big water was finally realized. Trolling motor woes were almost constant in the early years as well. In the beginning it was pretty much a MotorGuide dominated game, but it didn’t take long before many of those foot control models were dangling off their bow mounts. Then came the Johnson (and Evinrude) which was smoother, quieter and beloved by many of the guys. But who the heck guessed wrong with one brand that created a cable system where putting your heel down on the pedal turned the boat to the right—instead of the indus-
try standard, turning left? Was that Johnson or somebody else? In any event, those brands, as well as the later arriving, lower amp, slower turning Mercury Thruster (king of the Colorado River for a time) all shared the same problem—broken cables. One element, even with the arrival of the Minn-Kota line to the West, was sur- prisingly slow to debut. In fact, we may nev- er know if the idea existed and was nixed by boat makers, or that nobody ever looked at the problem of standing on one foot cast- ing like a stork. So for decades, the foot ped- als were always mounted on top of the deck, instead of recessed. I guess we just had better balance when we were younger. But there was another related issue of the day that I hadn’t given as much thought un- til Klein reminded me. “The worst thing was the batteries,” he said. “There were no batteries that were built for what we were using them for,” adding, “It wasn’t a matter that they might go out. It was a matter of when they were going out.” Sonar units progressed as much as any- thing, and Western reservoir fishermen have benefited as much as anyone in the coun- try. But even when the Lowrance or Ray
38 SILVER EAGLES _ July 2011