A bit of a delayed report since I havent really had too much time to twist the kitty out. This past weekend we had a two day event on Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario and the winds were howling… 25 to 35 mph sustained winds on Saturday and 20-30 mph on Sunday. Our spot was the better part of 65 to 70 miles away and we had several straightaways to get through and then 15 miles on the big lake… the Puma performed awesome in the rough stuff and really noticed it in the 2.5 to 3.5 footers where I could comfortably run 45 to 52 mph tucked in a bit both into and with them. The Yamaha 250 SHO was great for punching the throttle and being able to float right over the bigger sets which typically came in groups of 3 every 30 seconds or so.The big numbers came on Long Reach where we ran 78.6 mph with a 26 Fury, Detwiler Jack set at 1/2 and the trim 4 bumps down from the top. I played with the jack while driving and found an increase of 1.5 mph from 1/3 up to 1/2 up but started to lose after that. We were with 50 Gallons of fuel, two guys weighing in at 500 lbs combined, 20 combos on board and every compartment filled with the bulk of the heavier stuff in the two rear storage compartments.Regarding the fishing… we found them pretty good in practice but that was during the front and they completely changed come game day. Took us 4 hours to figure out what they did and once we found them on the transition breaks from sand to rock we put a pretty good hurt on them… we just needed more time on day one. We weighed 14.75 lbs for our 5 and were sitting in 8th out of 80 teams… tough fishing for sure with the wind. On day 2 we decided to run the transition pattern all day and it payed off with 17.75 lbs all on flipping jigs and 65 lb braid… so we finished 4th but missed second by .30 lbs… that cost us an extra 3 grand!Im really looking forward to running the Cat solo again to see how much better than 80 its going to do… all I know is when it gets a bit rough there isnt many that can keep up… at least not from what Ive seen so far… On the way back from the big lake on day 1 we had to negotiate 5 footers and made it back with an average speed of 30 mph and only once skimmed the tip off one… never once came close to eating any which is a really nice change! Thanks BassCat for building such a sweet ride!JP
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