Looking fwd to a great learning experence

Hello all

Im new and this is my 1st post. I have fiished from the shore my whole life ever since i was a little kid and have always loved it. But i have always looked out and saw that the guys in boats were doing alot better than me and seemed to be having more fun. So of course i have dreamed of having my own boat since i was a little kid. I never had enough money to buy a decent one but had a lucky break at the end of last season and found one for only nineteen hundred dollars. Its a 1976 fiberform cuddy 22.5 ft but to look at it you would think it was bran new. It only had one owner and has been kept inside and well maintained for over thirty years. It had absolutly no fishing assesoreys at all but with the money i saved on it and a little money i won in wendover NV i have bought and installed a hummingbird 788ci combo fishfinder/gps unit, 2 scotty downriggers, 1 electric and 1 manual with swivel and 60 inch boom as well as stero and speakers.
So needless to say i have a big learning curve ahead of me. I watch whatever fishing shows i catch on tv and i am reading a good book called trolling truths to educate myself, As well as checking out forums like this one i found . Im looking foward to hearing opinions and getting advice from all that want to give it. Im lucky enough to live a little more than 20 min. from buckboard marina on flaming gorge and cant wait to get started. As i look out the window right now its snowing in green river with an inch on the ground tooexcited.

Welcome aboard MAd Jack, Glad you found us here. If you spend man y hours going back through posts on here, you will help bridge that learning curb by many hours also, There is a lot of great info here. Pose your questions and many will jump in and help to get you squared away. Good luck to you.

Welcome aboard madjack,glad to see another local here........... Like Kokaholic said ,go back read some of the archives,,,,,,,,,,,and don't hesitate to ask questions.......looking forward to your post and pics,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Hello Madjack, sounds like you've got a good start to the right kind of equipment for many happy hours on the water. The one major piece of equipment that I didn't see you mention but I do hope you have is a reliable kicker motor. It's hard to troll down slow enough without one. Are you going to primarily target kokanee or are you gearing up to catch any and every thing? There are far too many successful fishermen on here for you to have too long of a struggle learning to catch fish. Best of luck to you and I hope you're into fish in no time at all.

I forgot to mention that i installed a trolling plate. Its an easy troller trolling plate that i researched well and had good reveiws. I would like to have a trolling motor asap but can not afford one now as i would need at least a 100 pounds of thrust on an electric and they are very pricey. I was thinking on getting a 5 to 10 hp outboard if possible.tooexcited

Welcome MadJack 101welcomw A good reliable kicker in the 10hp or better range for your size boat, will be good for the gorge. Also add a marine radio so that you can hail to your new found friends while on the gorge. Looking fwd to meeting you out there some time.

Welcome! Come to the boat, motor & trailer forum and we'll fix you up.

thumbsup Thanks everyone
I plan on getting a vhf radio soon its just that for now i have exhausted all of my boat fund that momma makes me spend from rolleyes. But you got ta luv her she let me buy my downriggers out of our tax return worthy12. Im heading to the gorge tomorrow for the 1st time but the first couple of trips i will be learning how to operate the sonar and downriggers as well as getting my speed right with my trolling plate. 101bananna101

Even if you have a trolling plate you may not be slow enough. I use one or two drift socks to get my boat slowed down to 1.5 or 1.8. With just the plate my boat will still go 2.2. I have an I/O. The list of stuff you need for fishing from a boat never ends !! You will do great, this is great source of info and plus you live 20 minutes from thr Gorge !! Dude, I'm jealous !!

Welcome aboard and good luck with all the new toys. A lot of us will be camped at the buckboard campground for the Villa Derby 15 and 16 May. If you get a chance, stop by and say high. Not hard to find us. We kind of gather together like coyotes around a dead rabbit.

halojm said:

Not hard to find us. We kind of gather together like coyotes around a dead rabbit.

Click to expand...

Thats funny Rob,,,,,,,,,,laugh hyst but i guess we kinda do gather that way don't we?

I wish i could could give you guys a better report than i have to give buttttt.... My son and i took the boat up to the gorge yesterday and got started around 9:30 am. We just buzzed around awhile and checked out all the functions on my hummingbird combo unit. Its really sweet and is going to take all season to figure out. It was showing fish at all depths so we started to familurize ourself with the downriggers and figured we would adjust as needed. I hooked flashers up to the downrigger weights and lowered mine 5 feet so i could attatch my release clip and i was having trouble getting it to stay in place. Any way my son said we were getting into shallow water and turned us back out away from shore and when he did he turned to sharp and my flashers got torn off by the prop. Well i cussed a bit and mentioned how much they cost and that i only bought 1 set for each downrigger. He is not young he is 25 but is as ignorant as i am to the things we are tring to learn. I never could get my scotty power grip to stay in place on the cable so we hooked them up to the weight its self. We trolled for hours enjoying how cool it was to see our lines in the water on the sonar screen and watching fish come up to our setup. I was useing a pink whirly thing i thought would do good and my son had on a silver & black minnow. We didnt catch anything and was able to keep our speed at 1.5 to 2 mph with my trolling plate. While going so slow we didnt notice a problem but when bringing everything up and starting to speed up the prop started whinning and we found out my flashers that were ripped off befor we started were wrapped around the prop.101shock1101 It took my son 30 to 40 mins while getting wet and frezzing his ass off to free the flashers. I think he was tring to get them off in 1 peice to make me happy but they were missing a few spoons. I know this is a long post but as i cant afford a therapist i hope you dont mind.violin I will shorten it up as best i can by saying that after getting back close to the ramp we decided to drift and jig for awhile. When tring to start the boat up it wouldnt turn over and we ended up drifting into the bank.I switched to the battery i use for the downrigger wich is a dual perpose starting and deep cycle. The amp meter was showing charge but it wouldnt turn over so i did what i used to do with an old jeep i had and had my son thump the starter with the wood oar while i worked the igniton. It turned over so i dropped my son off to go get the truck and on the way to the ramp it died again. It would turn over now but wouldnt start so i tried and tried till i heard sparks and smelled electrical smoke. It was sparking where the starter attatched to the regulator so i left it alone for awhile and i drifted past the boays and out to sea. My son had gotten someone to come out and save me and just as they were getting in the boat mine started and i got it on the trailer. So now i have this boat with all the xtras that cost more than the boat its self and im to scared to put it on the water till i figure it out. Did i possably mess something up while running it with the flashers wrapped around the prop. Did i maybe hook up my stero and sonar the wrong way. Was running my boat motor so slow for so long bad. I hope you guys dont think your taking on a pain in the ass with me but my dream is starting off shakky. Thanks for listening.101sweatinit101

First off, I dont think anyone here,thinks your being a PITA,. Most of us have been at there at one time or another. Welcome to the joys of being a boat owner.laugh hyst.
I'am not a boat mechanic by any means,but I have rigged a boat or two. It's sound like your electrical system is being overload,,and affecting the starter on the i/o. Sparks and the smell of something burning are never a good thing on a boat. how many batteries do you have ? How is your stereo hooked up,is it directly to the battery,or did you tie into the fuse block?Same with the downriggers ,and your fishfinder

Ideally you should be splitting the electrical load ,between two batteries. Your main or house battery for all of the boat's electrical systems(starting,nave lights gauges etc) The other battery is for your D/r 's fishfinder etc. I don't know if there is any connection between having the flasher wrapped around your prop,and your electrical problems or not. Hopefully some one with better knowledge of a boat with a i/o with chime in.. Your being smart about not wanting to take the boat back out til you get it fixed. I hope you get it fixed soon,and it doesn't cost you a arm and leg.

I have the stereo and sonar hooked into the fuse panal. There is only 2 places (2 fuses) going to the battery on the panel. I just tied into wires off them and my downrigger is the only thing hooked to the other battery. Come to think of it the amp meter on the consel was showing a high reading of 16.

MadJack, what you have experienced is exactly why I love having a 15hp kicker motor on the back of the boat. Two motors means half the chance of being stranded. Also, I have sometimes found that when trying to run a larger motor at too low of a speed for very long will often foul the plugs, (load them up), and will make the motor not want to run right or even at all. This is why I suggested a kicker for a boat like yours, and no, I didn't mean an electric motor. You might begin your trouble search by pulling your spark plugs and looking at them to make sure they are clean and properly gapped. This may be all the trouble that you have.

If it were me, I would add a new fuse block that had more output terminals so I could run each electronic item on its own protection. You don't want to risk your radio somehow taking out your fishfinder. Starving electronics for power is not good for them in any way. I don't think this has anything to do with your motor troubles but I do think it would be a good idea to do to prevent other problems that could develop.

You mentioned two things that I would consider when trying to find what may have gone wrong with your motor, besides the fact that the plugs were probably fouled. First, you have said that your amp meter was reading about 16a. It is possible that you have something wrong with your regulator since it should be putting out about 14.5a. But this minima. overcharge should not be a problem and should be easily identified by excessive corrosion on your battery terminals. The next thing does concern me because you mentioned sparks at the connection between the starter and the regulator. I'm no boat mechanic but I've never seen a regulator connected to a starter. Could you have meant the solenoid instead? The solenoid is the little unit that gives the boost of power to engage your starter gears with the flywheel. Sparks usually mean one thing, a poor connection. This can simply happen because terminals aren't tight enough, or it can also happen when electrical components have been "burned up" and thus cause the electricity to have to jump from one place to another. I would start by checking my terminal connections in all locations, making sure everything is tight. If indeed your regulator was sparking, you may need to replace it. Sparks are never a good thing and need immediate attention, they are a probable future fire.

I would not think that the dodgers being tied in would have caused you these problems but I don't know for sure what the problems are so I wouldn't rule it out. I once took a couple of friends out fishing and they knocked a rope I had out of the boat and it went back and got caught in my prop. My motor, which had always ran flawlessly in spite of its age, suddenly stalled. I didn't know why it had stalled and never thought about something being wrapped in the prop so I tried to start it back up. Well, it started and then it died again, but this time with a loud boom that knocked the cowling off. After getting myself a tow back to shore so my friends would quit whining and panicking, I looked the motor over and sure enough, there was the rope that had caused the problem all wrapped up in my prop. Unfortunately, my trying to restart the motor had caused further damage by blowing one of the spark plugs right out of the cylinder. I was not happy about any of this but a simple helicoil kit solved all my problems and the motor was as good as new. Obviously, putting such a load on a motor can cause problems, but your problems don't sound like they were caused by the prop being loaded. That doesn't mean they weren't, it just means it wouldn't be my first suspicion.

I would strongly recommend that after checking out your motor and making sure it is back in good running order, that you at least consider acquiring a gas kicker motor that is at least 6 or 8 horsepower.

I have added a separate fuse block and battery to run my accessories. skookum9 is correct about loose or corrosion on terminal ends. Another thing to add is make sure that your ground wires are sufficiently heavy enough with a clean secure fit. Dielectric silicone grease is an excellent corrosion preventive that can be added to terminal ends. Something is drawing too much electrical power somewhere and this maybe whats causing the engine not run or start correctly. Do a good thorough inspection of your electrical system. Electricity always follows the least path of resistance. Suggestion would be to get the boat back into running condition before adding the accessories. Sometimes by adding one at a time can give you an idea what kind of load you are putting your electrical system under. I doubt that the flashers would cause the problem. I'm thinking it could be a simple fix that can turn into be a mind boggler. Being creatures of habits, we like our toys. Good Luck.

Have you recently hooked up your stereo? Did you connect the clock wire? Stereos on a boat will draw power 24/7 during the weeks that the boat isn't in use. Your batteries might have just barely been strong enough to turn the motor over when you started and the use of the downriggers drew it down below strength to restart.

Before i installed my stereo and sonar i wanted to put in an extra fuse panel but was not sure on how to go about it. The reason i want it hooked up to the main battery is that i want to leave my boat at the lake for the season to avoid so much hauling. I dont want to have to bring batterys home to recharge after every trip wich i would have to do if it was not hooked to the altenator. Although the way i have it hooked up is to the main and i dont know why the alt is not keeping it charged. I even chaged it before leaving and kept the connections off when not in use because i know the stereo will work without the ignition being on.

SuperD has an excellent point about the radio being a constant draw on your batteries. I would be inclined to wire my radio through a switch that I could easily shut off when I power down the boat. I also agree completely with Bduck's suggestion of removing your electronic components and adding them one at a time to see if any one of them is putting a draw on your system. One thing you might consider if you are looking to moor your boat for extended periods of time is a solar charger. It would be a good way to keep a maintenance/trickle charge on your batteries so you wouldn't find yourself with dead batteries when you went to use your boat. Good luck and let us know how things work out for you.

I'll start out saying your one lucky son of a gun for finding a sweet deal on that boat. second when it comes to owning a boat, when you can go to your toilet at home and flush 300.00 dollars down it a month and feel good about it, you are ready to own a boat.101shock1101. when it comes to maintenance on your boat, you need to purchase a flushing suction mount for your garden hose. this mounts to your lower unit to push water into your engine. this way you don't have to have your boat in the water to check systems out. second how are your batteries hooked up. are they together or seperate? You just can't hook up to batteries, this turns it into 24 volts(i believe) I just know you can't directly hook them together. you need to install a perko switch or electronic harness. I bought the last one mentioned, cost me 90.00. this way you don't have to mount the perko switch. I know, more money. As far as the drift socks, I use to use 5 gal buckets(cheaper). also I run dual fuses on everything, one at the box and one inline before each unit. One added safty measure, make sure your fire extingusiher is fully charged. oh and one thing I used to do on my older boats, either unhook your battery everytime or install a total kill switch in the main line, this is done with the perko also.