immortl

I'm 'stuck', somewhat literally and am down to my last idea. Curious if I'm missing something, thought I'd check with the collective knowledge here for inspiration. I currently have a 40ft goose neck cargo/car trailer hooked up to my truck, and I cannot get it unhitched. The truck and trailer are parked on an incline, which I know does not help, however, it's the same parking spot, same incline where I had no problems unhooking the trailer 3 times previously. Not sure why this time is a problem. This is a downhill incline that the truck/trailer is backed down, so truck is higher than the trailer. I have used boards under the truck tires to get the truck within 1" or so of being perfectly in line with the trailer front to back and side to side. I have rocked the setup back and forth both with and without wheel chocks in place. I have done the rocking above both gently and somewhat vigorously, hoping to jostle whatever is bound loose. I have 'tapped' the coupler with a 10lb persuader. I have verified the retaining bar in the coupler is in fact sliding back (can feel up there with my fingers, very carefully) when the release is held back. I have jumped up and down in the bed of the truck when it's lifted by the trailer. I have left the truck in neutral when raising the trailer so the truck could roll back/forward as necessary. I have tried removing the pin for the ball from the receiver so the whole ball could be lifted out. Throughout all of this, I can easily move the latch release/bar open and closed and feel it moving, there doesn't appear to be any excess tension on it. In other words, I don't feel the bottom of the ball hitting the bottom of the coupler. Every time I lower the jacks on the trailer, it just lifts the rear of the truck. It seems like it's hung up, but I cannot figure out how. I looked at the goose box coupler on my RV and it's just a concave bowl up in there where the goosneck ball goes. I was thinking the cargo trailer coupler would be similar. I don't understand what it's hanging up on since there appears to be no tension on the coupler lock bar when the truck bed is being held up by the trailer. My final attempt it going to be pulling it over to a level parking lot and trying to disconnect there. I'm not yet skilled at backing up these trailers and it's a tight spot, so it takes me a bit to get them back in when I pull them out. If it still doesn't, off to the trailer shop. If I does, then I don't know, guess I'll try at home again, maybe something got unstuck on the drive over. This seems simple, but I'm obviously missing something and it's driving me (and my brother) crazy. Someone please show me how much of an idiot I am and tell me what I'm missing, please... attached pic show the truck and trailer when I made things 'inline' with assorted levels of boards under 3 of the trucks tires.

Alrighty folks, I'm back from AL as of last night. Good trip overall, extended by a day for a visit to the ER for the wife. Always something coming up. Since I was traveling all day, didn't get to work on the kayak yesterday. I appreciate all the good ideas and call outs above. I bought the white motor as it is rated for saltwater. While I have no immediate plans for saltwater use (and man, that clip making the rounds of the shark 'tasting' that kayak/paddle makes me think there really won't be any in the near future) I wanted to keep the option open. So no returning it for a black one. I really do want to get this kayak 'put together' and get out fishing on it. The planning process has gone on way to long, even by my standards. I think I may just leave it as is for now and focus on getting things mounted so I can test it all out and make adjustments to the layout as necessary.

Not much. Whenever I think I'll have time to work on it, something/someone else comes up. It's a little rough with free time, mom requires a lot more hands on care until she gets her knee replaced. Outside of the daily caretaking I have to do for parents and wife, I've told folks that there are no more favors/other projects for the next several weekends until I get my kayak rigged up. May bring it into the house so I can work on it in evenings or despite weather. I did unpack the motor on Friday and stared at it for 5 minutes and started thinking about how to best mask portions off. Undecided about the branding stickers, will probably remove them carefully and see if they stick back on, otherwise will forego them. I have to run down to Alabama the latter half of this week and when I get back I am hoping to carve out time to work on the kayak. I have a massive pile of parts and stuff built up around here. At a minimum, I want to take it out as is and get a feel for it.

Eh, with that $30 you can actually buy a bluetooth capable shunt to add to your batteries, traditional or LiFePO4 Ought to give you most of the same info as the built in deals I think, minus maybe the cycles, not sure.

Can you elaborate a tick more for me? How shallow? Are we saying moving around of the boat and turbulence from the motor is spooking the fish? I ask because I hadn't thought of this and am working on setting up my new kayak.

I often wondered about that. I was curious what would happen if say the kayak rolled and the batteries were under the water. Good to know, thanks for pointing that out.

Strictly pre-built or open to DIY? Conceptually, you can acquire a waterproof/resistant box, put in the battery of your choice, maybe a little foam to hold it in place in the box and attach fused leads over to the quick connect of your choice and maybe even a usb port or two. The box, fused leads, quick connect, and usb port should all be a few bucks each. Then it's up to you how much you want to spend on the battery.

I'm in the braid with fluoro leader camp for my ultralight trout rigs. Since I was a kid I used 4lb Berkley Fireline to a barrel swivel then 18" or so of leader off of that. Add just enough weight just above the swivel (now I use the braid tag end) to feel it bouncing along the bottom. Late last summer I tried some of the ultralight Hitena braid, airbraid razor I think it was, 3lb and 5lb test. I tried the Hitena for a morning. I could not get knots in the 3lb nor 5lb test to hold and I was constantly breaking the line at the knot in my attempts to tie them (tried improved clinch with a variety of number of wraps and the double overhand surgeon knot too). Then the torrential rain came and I drove out to Cabela's and had them strip the Hitena off my two reels and replaced it with 6lb Suffix 131. So far so good with the Suffix 131 but I think it's a little stiffer than my old 4lb Berkley Fireline, I may swap back. This is all on a 500 (JDM Soare XR) and a 1000 (Stella FK, yeah, didn't need it, I just really wanted to try one) reel.

They're darn good at camouflaging. I remember hunting hedgerows for pheasant as a kid at times without a dog. My dad would always remind me, look for movent or their their blinking eyes. Surely it must have transformed to it's daytime form. My money is on the nighttime demon form being at least 10 feet tall with a stride of 8 feet or more.

Nope, couldn't find him in the first pic, even after looking at the other pics, I still cannot find him in the first pic. That's a funny story. I too sometimes get the heebie jeebies when out alone at night, and that's without focusing on the demonic spirits.

This is one of my justifications for fishing with a GoPro bolted to the bill of my hat with hindsight tweaked and activated and a largish external battery in my pocket. It's constantly recording and when you hit the record/capture button, the previous 30s becomes part of the saved video. Saturday, opening day of trout season here in NJ, thought I was hung up on a rock, tug back a few times, seems hung up good, then a decent sized rainbow erupts out of the water and proceeds to jump fully out of the water a few more times as I reel it in. I was sure hoping I got that on camera. Alas, perhaps this doesn't qualify for the thread, because all that was in fact captured in the recording. I do these videos so my family can see, and for my future self to relive the moments.

Hey Koz, it seems to me what we have here is a situation that could maybe be helped with a slight adjustment in perspective. That glass is half full, half full of fine whiskey at that. Yeah, getting older sucks, it's hard when we can no longer easily do that which we used to not even think about. Reading through your post though, I'm hearing a post title more along the lines of, "hey, how I'm doing it now is getting challenging and tiring, time for some changes and upgrades!" Sounds like you have a pretty solid overall idea and have the summer and all next fall and winter to scheme and plan the fine details. Sure, a lottery win would help with all that, but you have some time. Enjoy the scheming and planning! There are a several good ideas here in this thread already. Might not need a new Bronco to pull the kayak, but I don't think that's the main reason you want a Bronco. They're pretty darn cool. I've always been a Jeep guy myself, but those new Broncos have strongly piqued my interest. Were I to venture back into the world of no roof and no doors, I'm not sure which I'd end up with. If your primary reason for a motor is getting to/from your spots, my sense is a lot of folks really like and get a lot of use out of the transom mounted motors and most of that rigging seems to be neatly bundled up on top of the kayak from what I've seen. Myself, I liked the idea of spot lock instead of an anchor, so I went with a bow mount trolling motor with spot lock. That said, while not exactly cheap, the Autopilot is a relatively reasonable way to get into a motorized kayak. Anyways, I would say you are at an exciting point and have lots of ideas to possibilities to explore. Get to scheming!!

So... dip wire end in flux, insert into end, mechanically crimp, then apply heat and solder and the flux will draw the solder in? I have a few connections to make, curious how to do both solder and mechanical. Thanks Joe

I'm always willing to use a project as an excuse to build out the tool collection further. For limited use tools, I do sometimes go cheap. In preparation for installing the same motor on my kayak using 6ga tinned marine wire, I picked up a hydraulic crimper from harbor freight for $70.

Very good points. If I'm paddling, something went wrong and fishing is probably secondary. I plan to pedal (hobie 180 mirage drive) or use the spotlock trolling motor mounted on the bow. The shrinking package labeling hit me a few years ago. Had to switch from contacts to digital progressives. Looking forward to exploring eyeball lens replacements in next year or two. If I remember correctly they told me they wanted me to be 48 or so... I was looking for a starting position and have found lots of good ideas in these replies. I am left handed retrieve for both spinning and baitcasters. I think I'm going to start with it up close on my left and try it out and see what works best for me.

If you call Ionic (lithiumhub.com), they're pretty friendly and helpful. I called them twice (hit option for tech support) and each call was immediately answered by the same friendly knowledgeable guy, forgot his name. 704-360-9311.

I haven't actually used mine yet, they're sitting on the floor in here, but the bluetooth app is pretty cool and useful.

What GaryH said above. My understanding is the lithium batteries charge at and up to a higher voltage than wet/gel/AGM. In my research as I was looking for lithium batteries, you want a charger that has a lithium mode. I picked up an Ionic 20ah charger when I bought my 2 batteries from them. But I've also noted that the 4.5ah charger/tenders I picked up from Costco have a Lithium mode as well. The battery provider should be able to steer you towards one.

Hey Rick, really interested to hear how you like the fishing specialties mount. Hurry up and get out on the water and test it ;). Mine arrived the other day but I've also remembered the sniper pole one and have one of those on order too. That's the one where you rotate the handle and it rotates the FFS transducer. I can't decide theoretically which I'd like better. I really need to carve out some time and get my kayak out on the water so I can test all this stuff and these ideas I have.

Looks pretty useful and convenient to me. I can see this perhaps being a bit easier than putting the kayak up on a traditional cart. Seems like this would keep the kayak a bit more level when loading/rigging stuff in and out of it.

I just ordered my basic manual Fishing Specialties FFS mount for my kayak earlier this morning. Then this afternoon I received a link to this video answering questions about the Steady Scope. Think of it as spotlock for your FFS transducer. It is NOT target tracking, but it locks on and rotates to keep the FFS transducer pointed in the same direction, no matter how the boat rotates or drifts. At least that's the theory. Seems pretty cool, appeals to my love of gadgets. Looks like they're going into the funding portion next week sometime.

Late to the discussion, but it depends which Blue Sea fuse block was purchased. They make a variety, some with and some without negative bus. Some have common positive bus others have independent circuits without a positive nor negative bus. I only know this because I was researching them and looking into if I wanted to use a fuse block in my kayak setup. Which fuse block did you purchase?

Looks great Rick. I really like the fuse block, neatens things up nicely.

Sam, thank you very much, really appreciate all the info.

I"ve seen those center pod deals for those kayaks, at least I think I have. You can mount two screens in the middle, sort of stacked above and behind each other. Those look like they'd work pretty well. For now I have 2 possible solutions to try. I picked up the 'C' sized 1.5" h-rail ball mount, arm, and mounting plate to try and I also was finally able to pick up some h-rail to run across the cockpit area out in front of the pedals. I'm going to play around with those options and see what works best for me. One of these days I'll get some time to actually start putting this pile of parts I've acquired together, test them, and report back. Family members' health continues to improve, then I was hit with shingles this week. Grrrrr... I don't have time to be sick myself, this shingles stuff has to go.