As I posted up earlier, I finally pulled the trigger on a Pro Angler last week. Here are some pictures of the rigging I've finished so far.
Prior to buying the PA, I bought a jet ski trailer and converted it to a kayak trailer. Took forever to find one at a reasonable price, though. Kept looking and looking on Craigslist and every time I would find a good deal, I would call and be 30 minutes too late. Woke up one Saturday morning, though, and looked on Craigslist and found this one about an hour away from me. Gave $100 for it. Galvanized Magic Tilt. Pulled it back home on the interstate and the bearings never even got warmer than ambient air temperature. Had to wire it for lights when I got it, put safety chains on it, and changed the bearing buddies. Got less than $200 in it. Much better than the $1000 for one of the Malone trailers.
As she looked before rigging:
Start of the transducer mounting arm. I took a 20 oz Coke bottle, cut the top and bottom of bottle off above and below the label, snipped that ring in half, and wrapped it around the rear handle before putting the u-bolt through the square aluminum stock I bought from Home Depot. It keeps the u-bolt from marring the handle, and it lets the arm kick up if it hits something. Pleased with how it turned out.
Next problem was where/how to run the transducer cable from rear to front. Didn't really want to drill a hole in the top of the rear deck, so it took some thinking to come up with this. I went to Fairhope Boat Company, and they were kind enough to give me a couple of old spare Hobie drain plugs to use to experiment with. I took one, cut/ground a groove in it length-wise with a Dremel tool, taking a little bit at a time until the wire fit it perfectly. I unscrewed the black sacrificial plastic thingy and ran the wire up into the hull, screwed the drain plug in with its o-ring, and then shot a bead of silicon sealant around the edge of the plug and pushed it in with my finger. Then reattached the sacrificial plastic thingy. Worked well on the shakedown cruise this weekend. No leaks!!
Here is the head unit mount sitting on a Ram mounting arm and the thru-hull fitting for the wires. Still waiting on a grommet and a couple of cover plates to come from Humminbird to make the installation a little neater by covering the holes cut in the hull and the mounting board. For the time being, I just used a piece of foam pool noodle to plug the hole in the inboard side of the deck, shown in the second pic below.
And finally, the anchor trolley set up. Went a little outside the box on this one. Mounted it on top of the deck instead of on the side like normal. Also only ran it half the length of the boat. I don't like anchoring out of the front of the boat, so this made more sense. Also used shock cord to make the trolley line. That way it always stays taught and never sags. Got the idea from a video I saw on YouTube.
And that's it for right now. Gonna put some rod holders for trolling/drifting on it, but haven't decided exactly where I want to mount them yet. Also planning on mounting a hand pump for a baitwell set up similar to the one found in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IfrnMGrARM
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