Lots of fun in the summer of 2016

We still love our Sea Ray!  And we do a bit of everything from it.  These are from July 2016 at our favorite lake!



The kids have grown up but they still enjoy the boat and the lake.

Trolling plate - Happy Troller

So how do you troll with a donwrigger with a boat of this size?  You add a trolling plate.  The big Happy Troller from Cabela's worked with only a little modification.  I had to remove a little material from the antcavitation plate on the outdrive to get it to slide on.  It takes us from a speed of about 2.8 mph, to 1.5 mph.  In the up position, it has no effect on performance.


This is why we troll!  Big mackinaw, or lake trout.






Occasionally we catch these little kokanee as well.  

Rod holders and Downrigger

Have you ever seen a downrigger mounted on a wakeboard tower?  This boat does it all for us, so I added one!  I got a piece of angled aluminum off ebay, and cut and drilled it to hold my little Scotty downrigger.  It really works nice.  The rod holders are a must when you troll four poles.  One of them, for the captain (me) is a through the hull type rod holder.

It really is  the Swiss army knife of boats!  None of the accessories interfere with the mooring cover either.

Fishing chair and MotorGuide Electric Positioning Motor

I had to trim the fiberglass a bit to get the battery in the bow area, but it fits nicely.  You can see the breaker coming off the battery terminal here.  I wanted to tie the batteries together with a switch, but have never done it.  The battery fits fine and still allows the use of the front boarding ladder with no problems.  You can see how I reinforced the underside of the cover with a piece of plywood, painted white.  The motor is quite strong and it does torque the cover a bit if you hit it full on from a stand still.  I power the motor down a bit before i turn it off, to avoid stressing this area too much.








Here you can see the mounting area.  The motor comes off easily and quickly.






It stores nicely under the deck









































I love the wireless foot control.  I sacrificed a cup holder to put the seat in.  I got a seat with a long post, so it would be comfortable for me because of the way it is mounted on the lower part of the deck.  I had to trim the mount a bit to get it to fit - always some adjustment!
















I put the plug in through the fiberglass so it is easy to plug in and get going.  The 12V MotorGuide is a nice strong motor, and it works well in calm to mild breeze.  If the wind kicks up, it is not enough to move this heavy, high free board monster of a boat very well!  You could certainly put a 24V or 36V motor and put batteries under the seat, but I did not want to lose storage space.  Also, with that kind of power, you qwould need a more secure mounting spot, not on the bow cover.

Lowrance Elite-4 GPS Sonar Unit installed

At some point the old Navman fish finder died, so I replaced it with the Lowrance Elite-4.  This one is smaller and has a GPS as well as the GPS speedometer.  It works great.  The GPS saved my bacon returning home from an evening fishing trip in the dark on an unfamiliar lake.

Fall 2011.
I finally took the plunge and installed a wakeboard tower.  I got the Joystick Pro series which for the price was a good deal and it fit my boat and my garage.  Looking back three years later, I wish the tower would fold down or collapse.  when I got the tower in 2011, I had a large RV garage, but now we live in town and do not have that, so I have the boat in storage in a RV size indoor storage.  It would be more flexible if the tower would fold down.  That said, we love the tower!  It is sturdy, and with two racks we can carry all the kneeboards and wakeboards we want out of the way.  And I mounted a rod holder and, believe it or not, a downrigger on the tower.  Maybe the first of its kind!

The tower was actually pretty simple to install, but you do need two men to do it, and it takes some guts to start drilling big holes in your boat.  It took about four hours to do.

These pictures show the rod racks on the back.  I later moved them to the side, and they do not interfere with the function of the tower.  

I also made sure the tower did not interfere with the bimini top.  We use that so frequently to get out of the sun, and I did not want to buy another one, or install and aftermarket one when I had one that works so well.  

There it is - the garage and the boat.  Not a bad set up.

Summer 2007

At some point I put a sonar/fish finder in.  I got a Navman 4431with speedometer function (http://www.navmanmarine.net/fish-4431.html).   It worked well, but had a speed wheel that would disintegrate without any warning.  I replaced the speed wheel sensor three times until I could no longer find replacement parts.  The speedometer on the Searay is pretty useless as are most boat speedos, so I appreciated the Navman speedo.  We had a great summer on the water.

 June at Lake Lowell.  We used to catch lots of bluegill as well as bass and catfish there. 

 Of course a lot of playing and swimming off the swim deck!

 McCall in August - the best week of the year!  The boat stays in the water all week and we fish and play the whole time. 

 Trolling For big Mackinaw.  We catch a few.  Ev with his lucky fishing hat.  I think it really did work

 Then more of this after a little fishing!

 Nice September trip to Lowell again with my fishing boys.