Looking for pros and cons for cutting hole in 16 foot jon boat (all welded) for the transducer.

One of the guys (David) that I work with has a 16 foot boat that he has lost several transducer off the transome and even a couple from his trolling motor mount.

He has tried mounting on the floor of the jon, with not so good results. Now he has this ideal of cutting a 3 by 5 hole in the boat then placing a strip of plexi-glass over hole to mount the the transducer on.

His thinking is that it will be just like mounting it in a glass boat.

I'm not sure if it's a bad ideal or not. I'm, sorta on the fence-post on this one.

Don't sit on the fence post - that is definitely not the way to do it. You can by a through hull transducer with all the necessary parts to do the job correctly.

If you friend is losing transom mounted transducer he's mounting then to low; as for the trolling motor a MinnKota will solve that problem.

He must run aground a lot,  If he goes with a bigger section of plexi like 15x15 he can just look down through it for fish ;D.   I agree to tell him stop and think he will just have a never ending leak eventually.  mount it a little higher and maybe further back away from the transom so not to loose to much forward looking signal.

There is a transducer made for shoot thru in aluminum boats. It is called Alumaducer and marketed by Vexilar. http://www.vexilar.com/pages/accessories/accy_transducers_au.html

If he goes ahead with this project, tell him to be sure and wear his life jacket.

Don't even consider cutting a hole in that boat.

That "engineering" just might make the nominations for the Darwin Awards.

Who needs a transducer?  

Thanks all for your replies.  He has put the brakes on the hole cutting and he's looking into the  Alumaducer.  

I kinda like the Ideal of cutting big holes and not needing a fishfinder at all!

There are many brands of through hull transducers.  If they have issues shooting through Alum, contact the company, I'm sure there is a solution.  I've only mounted 2 in my life and both were on Glass hulls so I'm not sure about the aluminum issue.

Or just build the whole boat out of plexiglass.

I would say that he needs to make a catamaran with a plastic bubble that he can just look down into and just sight fish around the bubble. He could do this with 2 boats and one plastic bubble, 2 2X4's and alot of duct tape.

As a matter of fact I may just go and make on tonight.... its only 10 PM.

I'll send a report in the morning.

;D ;D ;D