Opener Boat issues?

Now that Wisconsin and Minnesota walleye openers have come and gone, what boat and or motor issues did you encounter? My Evinrude 200 HO trim and tilt just quit working out of the blue on the second day out, find out I had a loose wire from the trim and tilt on the motor a little electrical tape fixed it right up. willl of course have to get that replaced, worked great before and after. My Troll master control box of course worked fine in the garage powering up etc, go to use it and Not.. hmm don't know what is wrong with that yet. Good thing the walleyes were biting. Let us know your issues. should be fun to hear about them.

In my opinion the best thing about opener is watching all the BLI's (boat launch idiots). Every time i think i have witnessed the dumbest imaginable thing someone can do another one takes the cake the next year. So far my favorite is the guy with a 30ft speed boat who thought it was okay to power load is his ride and tell his buddy to pull him out without hooking up the strap.....wonder what could go wrong? Boom goes the whole boat on the concrete haha awesome!

I have no idea how that thing got in there. At the time I thought it could've been a jilted ex that wanted payback but after I checked the entire tank it was a lone stone. Maybe somewhere along the line a kid tossed one in the filler cap....I don't know. It was a weird deal.

Ulbian, how does a pebble get into your fuel tank? I guess he did not snatch it from hand.

In some cases the 12/24 volt selection is made at the foot pedal switch. In those cases the batteries are wired independently to the trolling motor plug, like in my case. A couple years ago I had a switch issue on the foot pedal that was a pretty easy fix. Last week I had a pilot relay on the jack plate fail. It won't raise the motor, which caused some additional issues in tilting the motor and getting the boat out of the water. I swapped the up/down plug-in relay and was able to get the boat out. I now carry spare relays (jack Plate and tilt) on the boat. Ulbian, how does a pebble get into your fuel tank?

"Bought two new batteries and charged them for my trolling motor and only had half power the entire day. Have yet to get that looked at." My guess on this is that you hooked them up in parallel instead of in series. I did this a few years back. The first thought was that I had a bad battery. Nope, retraced the wiring and noticed they were parallel. Simple fix. Two years ago I had a fuel problem. Boat ran fine earlier in the spring but when I launched at the landing at 11:55pm, 5 minutes before the northern muskie opener, nothing, nada, boat wouldn't fire and would run. Weird...never had this issue before. Battery wasn't a problem, must be fuel. I load it up and the next morning start going through everything. Plugs looked good, fuel filter replaced, fuel lines all in tact...I keep going back to the fuel tank. By this time I have the entire deck disassembled on my Lund and start pulling apart the fuel tank. There, somehow, a little pebble got sucked up into my fuel pick up line inside of the fuel tank. Removed it and the thing ran fine. A ton of hassle over something relatively simple.

I charged both my new batteries the old fashion way before I put them in the boat so it can't be the on board charger.

prop, i have the same issues, you think it could be on board battery charger? just bought 2 new batteries, problem still not solved.

ayefeesh I bet you had to change your underwear after that. I had a few electrical problems but once they were sorted out it was smooth sailing.

ayefeesh, I think you win. Sorry to hear about that. Sheesh!

Bought two new batteries and charged them for my trolling motor and only had half power the entire day. Have yet to get that looked at.

Hit a rock dead on while on plane. Launched entire boat about 2ft entirely out of the water. Cracked lower unit and put a 10ft gouge in the fiberglass.

This spring I put a lot of work into my boat. New wood floors w/ carpet, deck up front, new trolling motor w/ foot pedal up front, livewell, ect... Go to test the boat out a few weeks before the opener and my third pull on the start cord I ripped it right out and i also blew the fuel line that runs off the primmer. That trip ended quick with my all pissed off. Took the boat right to my girlfriends uncle and he found out that I broke the cord and I broke the recoil spring. I ordered a new spring and we fixed all that, problem solved. He had some fuel hose that was a little large but i thought i could make it work but when i put it on it leaked. I just left the hose on because i could find anything smaller diameter fuel line. So this past sunday i took the boat out again and was having a hard time starting the motor i believe because i could not prime it and in the process I stepped on the electrical wire for the trolling motor and pulled the electrical wire right out of the terminal. sent my buddy to the store to get some pliers to fix the trolling motor and i finally got the motor going and when he got back I fixed the trolling motor as well. that day ended up going great. I finally found the right size hose for the primmer and i just fixed that problem. No more leaks. hopefully this weekend i wont have a problem starting the motor. WOW owning a boat can be a pain in the you know what, but its well worth it

I put in a new locator this spring. I mounted the transducer in almost the same holes as the old one. Once I powered up I had a rooster tail out of the back. I think it was the wire and I think i got it fixed. We will find out this weekend.