The Bouncing Trolling Motor

[Hookset]

Last weekend driving down the road with boat in tow. I drove over a rather large hole in the road and checked the rear view mirror to see how the boat faired. The trolling motor was bouncing around like a pogo stick. I've always looked in the past to make sure the boat and motors rode ok. Now I'm beginning to think I should start ropping the trolling motor down.

What are some of the rest of you doing with your trolling motor while in transport? And have you ever had any bad experiences with a free traveling trolling motor?

I'm going to start restraining the small motor, just had to ask.

hook

[Fishbone]

I used to use a trusty bungee chord to hold down the mini motor(why did I stop?). Works well, easy to stow, easy to replace, etc.

[Salmonator]

I drilled two small holes in the leading edge of the skeg and hooked two heavy black rubber bungee's from that to the back of the trailer. Careful not to drill the holes too high on the skeg and into the lower unit images/icons/shocked.gif.. Joe

[aye fsh]

Loaned out my drift boat that had an 8 hp long shaft on it and my Dad ran through a road construction area doing about 45. The end result was the cast u-shaped motor to transom clamp part got busted real bad. Got some high tensile galvanized fence wire and fixed it. Fixed it real good I did. Figured I couldn't get too mad at Dad considering all the stuff of his I'd destroyed as a kid. Talked to one place about getting it fixed properly but the five or six hundred extra bucks it was going to take never seemed to crop up. It was about 5 or 6 years ago that it broke and it's still perfectly functional and is currently on loan to a buddy.

The 15 horse on my sled seems heavy enough to not want to tilt up and down from bumps, but it was turning side to side so I keep the extension handle on it and run that through one of the rod holders and lock it down. Never thought about running a bungee around it to the trailer, think I'll start doing that.

Every once and awhile I see some one running down the road with their kicker tilted up. That always seemed to me like asking for some damage. I certainley don't need any repair bills on a honda four stroke.

Hook-In case you didn't hear from the other guys, the Rogue was a bust for us. Cool place though. the camp host at Quosatana told us that the Wed. before we got there she knew of 56 fish caught by folks staying there. Story of my salmon fishing career lately.

[Jeffhead]

Hey Hook,
I used to have the same problem with mine. Now I do what has been said and loop a bungie around the cavitation plate to the trailer (thanks Giz) and it has taken care of the problem.
Good luck and tight lines, Jeff images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif

[Pilar]

I store the kicker on a stand in my garage. Usually it goes to the boat ramp in the bed of my pickup on an old piece of carpet. I have left it on the trolling plate and towed the boat. Retracted fully the plate gives me 2' or better to the road. It rides better straight up and down.

[new boat]

I use a tie down around the lower end of my Honda 10 HP, tied to the trailer. Found these neat, pull-ratchet tie downs in Canada. Works great. Motor is on an OMC bracket and this stops all the bounce!

[sinker]

Reminds me of a guy I know. He went and bought a brand new 16' boat, motor, trailer. About 6 months later he said he was waiting for the insurance company so he could go buy a new boat. I get to thinking "he just had a brand new boat I thought"
I ask him what happens. Turns out he was going across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge coming back from Hood Canal and the wind flipped the whole boat, motor,trailer over. I asked him how fast were you going. "Well the second time only about 15mph"
"The second time???" Turns out it did it the first time and some people helped him flip it back over and hook it back up. Wasn't even out of first gear yet and the wind ripped it right off of the hitch ball again.
Needless to say he goes around Olympia the long way when going to the Canal now.

[Propwash]

I now tie my trolling motor down with a motorcycle strap to keep it from bouncing really hard and breaking the casting like it did on my sons motor when you hit an unexpected hole. Saves a lot! Cost almost nothing.

[BUGLEMAN]

Motor cycle tie down works excellent on my D. Boat also. It holds the 9 horse down just fine. No jump'n and jiv'n.

[Hookset]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I always did think the motor was heavy enough to stay put. Now I know better. I'm going to start strapping down the motor to the trailer. You'd think I would have learned this a long time ago. Never had a problem and now I certainly do not want to risk it.

Thanks again,

hook

[boater]

i have my 9.9 honda on a fixed mount bracket, and when i trailer it i leave it in the running position, have had no probs. in the past ive tried brackets like the omc and others and i find it easyer to just tilt the kicker when your running. i would not tie the kicker to the trailer unless you know for sure your boat is tied on good and tight, and even if it is and you hit "the bump" your boat could shift and the strap holding your kicker to the trailer could actualy do some damage, i would use rubber bungys cords intead of a ratchet type strap, but then again, i own a wooldridge so what do i know.

[ 05-25-2001: Message edited by: boater ]