Wintertime Woes
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:01 am
Left home at 5:00am on 12/3 with the intention of launching at the coast gaurd and getting out for some late season salmon. After a stop for breakfast me and my favorite fishing partner arrived at the launch, this is when the problems started!
Untied the boat, mounted the digitrolls, and put up the enclosure. Backed the boat into the water and this is when I knew something wasnt right, I had to back the Trophy much further into the water than usual to get it off the trailer. So I fired up the motor and started to look into why the boat was sitting much lower in the water than typical. I had known for sometime that my boat cover had been leaking but didnt think much about it so I opened the catch into the hull and found that the drain plug hole had been plugged with some debris and there was about 8" of solid ice in the hull of the boat! Not Good! While I was letting the Honda warm up the temp alarm started going off and I noticed there was no water circulation! Also not good! So we put the boat back on the trailer after not leaving the dock and headed to try and thaw things out. So we headed to a carwash to thaw out the hull and get the boat draining. Managed to get it done and found out that my bilge pump had been damaged in the ice!
Figuring without a working bilge pump it was not a good idea to head out into the icy waters of the lake I headed south to make the 2 hour ride south with my tail tucked between my legs!
I had really hoped for one more good day of fishing on the lake before I called it quits for the year. the weather looked perfect! So the Trophy is now safely tucked away in its 50 degree storage building and I will survey the damage in the spring.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you have a leaky cover it doent hurt to double check your drain hole!!
Key West is looking pretty good right now!!
Untied the boat, mounted the digitrolls, and put up the enclosure. Backed the boat into the water and this is when I knew something wasnt right, I had to back the Trophy much further into the water than usual to get it off the trailer. So I fired up the motor and started to look into why the boat was sitting much lower in the water than typical. I had known for sometime that my boat cover had been leaking but didnt think much about it so I opened the catch into the hull and found that the drain plug hole had been plugged with some debris and there was about 8" of solid ice in the hull of the boat! Not Good! While I was letting the Honda warm up the temp alarm started going off and I noticed there was no water circulation! Also not good! So we put the boat back on the trailer after not leaving the dock and headed to try and thaw things out. So we headed to a carwash to thaw out the hull and get the boat draining. Managed to get it done and found out that my bilge pump had been damaged in the ice!
Figuring without a working bilge pump it was not a good idea to head out into the icy waters of the lake I headed south to make the 2 hour ride south with my tail tucked between my legs!
I had really hoped for one more good day of fishing on the lake before I called it quits for the year. the weather looked perfect! So the Trophy is now safely tucked away in its 50 degree storage building and I will survey the damage in the spring.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you have a leaky cover it doent hurt to double check your drain hole!!
Key West is looking pretty good right now!!