My new Boat: cont

You just have to have an electric motor to cast lures seriously and I find Minn Kota to be the most reliable and durable of the breed. Until now I have used the cable steered models but with this boat I have bolted on an 80 LB Terova Auto Pilot model. So far I have been impressed with its performance and I have really enjoyed its versatility. This model stows easily, deploys easily and is just a dream to control with the wrist watch type controller. Already I think I would be lost without it.

Thanks to a quick release mount and a hinging bow rail on my boat I can add or remove my electric motor in a couple of minutes. I love these features on my boat and they work brilliantly.

I run two 80 pound absorbed power glass mat batteries to power the electric and they are hooked up to an inboard charger from BLA. There is a caravan style electric socket on my console and charging the batteries is as simple as running a cord out and plugging it in. The charger does its job and automatically goes into top up mode until you pull the plug.

I chose an Evinrude E tec 90HP outboard as the main power plant for my boat and I think after fishing the outfit hard for a couple of months this motor is a perfect match for the hull and for the fishing I do. About three years ago I took a punt and put a big 225 E tec on my big Skeeter competition boat and never looked back. I’m no mechanic but that motor was very quiet, it just would not use fuel, it started first time every time, and there were no smelly fumes. Being a two stroke it also went like a bat out of hell. What’s not to like?  

There was no mucking around this time and the only thing ever going on the back of this boat was another E tec. I haven’t been disappointed. Same story – it goes like hell, it is quiet, it doesn’t smell, and the only person disappointed in it is the guy who owns my local service station. He is really pissed off at my lack of fuel buying. After a few weeks with the new boat, the fuel guys comment was simple but to the point  – “ I hate that boat.”
I don’t know exactly how many litres to the whatchamacallit you actually get out of my rig because I tend to use litres per smoked trout fillet or litres per bag of flathead fillets, but I laugh when I go to the servo and folks with some other motors cry.

My boat isn’t quick compared to my old Skeeter with the 225 but it still gets along at 37 miles an hour on the GPS at five thousand two hundred RPM with a full tank of juice and two anglers plus gear. I can cruise a bit over 4000 RPM at thirty miles an hour. If I really want to piss off my mate at the servo I travel in the sweet spot at 3800 RPM and super cruise at 26 miles an hour.

I just love my little E tec so much I just want to be in the boat driving it. Part of the good performance in my Formula comes from the light weight of the E tec - nothing comes close to these motors in the power to weight stakes. Basically, having a very light powerful motor allows me to bring home a dirty big esky full of  snapper or flatties or both, on plenty of ice - without my little boat dragging its bum! My household consumes fish at every opportunity – it is good healthy tucker and I make no apologies for saving on the food bill. I also love the fact that I don‘t have to book the boat in for an expensive service until the motor has done three hundred hours! Even when you do service an E tec there isn’t much to do so it’s not expensive. If you want to eat cheap seafood – buy an E tec!

I guess what I am trying to say is that my 90 E tec matches my hull to perfection, it just couldn’t be more fun to operate, and after a few years of using the motors I am fully on the band wagon and having a ball blowing on the trumpet. Go the E tec!          

Even if you have the best motor and boat combination on the planet you will still be miserable if your trailer is crap. Trailers can cause trouble launching, retrieving and towing – and they can even break your boat. My bank manager sounded like he was choking on a fish bone when he saw what I intended to pay for a trailer to tow a fifteen foot boat! He isn’t a fisho.

Okay, so it does have four wheels, heavy duty springs, nine hundred rollers under the keel, enough locating side rollers to cradle the Queen Mary and more Teflon than five hundred frying pans. As I explained to the guys at Easy Tow – I already know you make great trailers but this one just has to do the business. I want it to launch the boat easily – cradle the boat like it was the last dodo egg on earth – I want to forget it is behind the car on a ten hour drive – and I want to be able to hit it at any angle, in any wind, any current, at night, and while I am being blinded by a hail storm – and I want that boat to centre itself and hit the front roller dead center every time! And one more thing – I don’t want to have to lie under it and adjust anything for at least twelve months. If that sounds as though I am a trifle picky, well perhaps I am, but over the years trailers have given me more grief that a nest of bull ants in a jock strap. So far the boys at Easy Tow have done a fantastic  job and this just has to be the best trailer of all time. My last Easy Tow trailer did 64,000 Kilometers in two years and survived so I have high hopes this one will too. Top job guys! I guess I’ll have to take the bank manager fishing – surely he’ll love the way the boat just slides on and nuzzles up to the bow roller!

Lastly I want to talk about my electronics because they tie in perfectly with the philosophy behind the whole boat project. Everything on this boat has to be both state of the art, and tough as nails!

I have been using FURUNO gear for many years now and it has never let me down. I am a pretty basic fisherman but I need to see fish under the boat and identify them confidently, and then I need to be able to return exactly to that spot. My GP 32 gets me to the spot and my FCV 620 finds me the fish. I know there is some good product out there but I regard my FURUNO gear as having the clearest screen and being the easiest sounder to read confidently. Reliability is just fantastic and I have never had to return a sounder for any work of any sort over the whole time I have used the product.

My guys at Phillip Island Marine fitted both my units in a perfect position on the console and my transducer shoots straight through the hull and gives me a great picture even when I am traveling on the plane. I have had some monster catches just by looking at the sounder as I am traveling from one location to another. You can certainly make my sounder jump through hoops if you want to play around, but the automatic brain in these units is just the best. This is one sounder you can run on full auto with all the confidence in the world. It it swims and it is under your boat, you will see it with a 620 on auto! If nothing is under the boat, the 620 will just give you a white screen – too easy!   

Setting up this boat project has taken a while and I really had to test everything thoroughly before writing about it, but now I have really tried everything out in tough fishing conditions over a period of time I am just over the moon with the way everything has come together. My family comes first, but after that my reason for living is to go boating and fishing and this new rig is just an absolute joy to use.  There is always the chance that I might have missed a problem somewhere so maybe I had better do a bit more testing…………  Yeah, I know – it’s a tough job but someone does have to do it!

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