10 ft Bass Buster with built in areated livewell, icechest, 2 new seats, 2 trolling motors, trailer with new lights, oars and an older Hummingbird depth/fish finder. Ordered some rod holders, new 8 guage wire and male/female plugs for the trolling motors and a few other things to get me started. I will be ordering some LED running lights and some LED interior lights. Also researching a good depth/fish finder as well, just not sure which way to go yet. Anyways I am ready to get back on the water. Any suggestions on a few other things I will want or need?
Great looking rig! You'll have a blast with it. Don't overlook good life jackets. Keep a horn or whistle handy. If you are gonna fish larger bodies of water (lakes, rivers etc.) you may consider a small outboard. I found a 2.5hp on Craig's List for $150. It will help save on your trolling motor battery life if you have to do a long run and will get you there twice as fast and it's another option to get you back home if your trolling motor goes out. If you do look into an outboard get one that has a built in gas tank. This will save you valuable floor space. The outboard also works great as a rear rudder so you are not fishtailing everywhere while working the trolling motor, this is only applicable if you mount your trolling motor to the front and have nothing on the back transom. The new technology on the new fish/depth finders are awesome. Even the low end budget ones in HD are a big improvement over the older ones. I went with Lowarnce, I'm sure the others are good also. I mounter mine to the front of the boat and ran the cable down the trolling motor with zip ties and mounted the transducer to the trolling motor lower unit, works great. If you need a trolling motor battery consider sizing down, I use series 35 size (I think thats what its called). It's about half the size of the larger ones on big bass boats and last me hours on the water, saves my back and weight on the boat.
And you do have to register it like a big boat if you have a motor on it even just a trolling motor. I also always carried an anchor and some brush clips on mine.
Re: Picked up this little rig today. I am excited!
[Re: Dan90210 ☮]
#1312646804/17/1907:23 PM
And you do have to register it like a big boat if you have a motor on it even just a trolling motor. I also always carried an anchor and some brush clips on mine.
As soon as you slap any motor on it you have to register it for public waters.
Thanks for the replies. I have had it out 3 times and thats been it. Between work, weather and my kids soccer games I juat haven't had much time but I do really like it so far. I have 2 collapsible oars, grapling hook anchor and added a black cleats on each side (front and rear). Also bought some rod holders to get the rods up and put of the way. I was lucky enough to find a Hummingbird 859ci HD DI from a fellow TFFer for $250 and it's like brand new and is amazing. It's probably overkill for my little rig but man it's bad [censored] TX numbers are on it. I also built my own battery box after spending too much on the Hummingbird one at Academy and after only one use the lug for the positive post broke. I will post a few pics when I have a few extra minutes. I am going to look for a small gas engine though. I like that idea! Oh and a pee jug!
I use the small yellow battery and quick connects just so I dont have any extra wires and the battery lasted over 5 hours and was still going strong. I also rigged a little system up with the cleats and rope so if I am using minnows and have the minnow bucket in the water it can easliy be slid from the front to back with a quick pull of the rope. The cleats have worked great for fishing in standing timber. I can tie off in different ways depending on the wind and which angle I want to fish and I can move in and out up to about 30 feet easily without having to use the TM. More tweaks will come as I get to fish more. Also going to add LED bow/stern lights, running lights and an interior light for those awesome nights in the summer.