The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

For whatever reason I awake every morning between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. My coffee pot is in my garage and as the coffee is brewing, I let out the herd of dogs at my house and then we spend the next two hours getting ready for work and paying attention to them before I head off to my financial services job. This morning, I had an old friend stop by to share a coffee and some conversation.

He was telling me how he had recently taken his 2-year-old grandson fishing. He found a few really old cane poles at a garage sale and he and the little one sat on the bank of the lake in my town and fished for blue gills. The total of the necessary equipment was a cane pole, some small plastic jigs and a 5-gallon bucket.

They caught many fish but very few were of suitable size to keep so they released them all. It was an example just how easy it actually is to enjoy the outdoors with little expense or hassle. This same guy has a very nice boat and is a very astute angler. He would fall into the classification of a pretty die-hard angler.

Fishing is supposed to be fun and enjoyable but it often times is not. Fancy equipment costs lots of money and doesn’t always operate as it is supposed to. Kind of like when your new fancy computer does not operate up to expectations. I am currently dealing with an effort like that one.

I have a very old boat and motor.  It is a 1992 Alumacraft boat with a 91 Yamaha motor on it. The electric trolling motor on this unit is of the same age. It has worked as advertised for almost 32 years but was very much wearing out. It was getting hard to deploy and retract. My friend had just purchased a new trolling motor for his new boat and had one that was about three years old for a price I could not refuse so I bought it.

This new-to-me unit had an auto deploy and retract feature and I figured for the old fart I had become this would fit the bill just right. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. The old trolling motor had a sonar transducer for the fish finder that was attached to the motor with a big hose clamp. These were pretty easy to damage if you got too shallow and hit a rock or two.  The new ones have the transducer built right into the motor head.

Removing the old one was supposed to take about 15 minutes and ended up taking two hours as every bolt was rusted to non-recognition. The quick release plate I used over 30 years ago was anything but a quick detach. I got the old one off and then became aware that none of the wiring connections were compatible.  I kind of knew this ahead of time but after five trips to several different stores and ordering the wrong ones several times with the experts knowledge I was about ready to throw up my hands in defeat.

One store had one part and a different store had a different part and non-stocked items were ordered and returned a few different times. Finally, I was ready to start the process. Standing on your head upside down trying to make a power wire 6 inches longer than it actually was ended up causing some scuffed knuckles and a fair amount of vertigo.

I was unable to order the correct cords in the right length as they were not available. Figuring out how to make a 15-foot-long wire/cable hide in a spot were a 5-footer what have done the job just perfect used up a wheel barrow full of zip ties and made for a few more “dings” on my hands.

If I would have started on this project months earlier I would have just taken it to a boat dealer and had them do it, but between the time I could get my hands on the new trolling motor and now there is no way I could get this installment scheduled until the 4th of July at a reputable boat shop. I will not have a functioning trolling motor when the fishing opener is as of today only three days away. Now I am just hoping to have a function trolling motor by my Red Lake trip on May 29.

As I was rubbing out a giant cramp in my thigh, I contemplated my buddy and his grandson on the shore catching fish, I wondered if his idea was not vastly superior to mine.

Fishing is supposed to fun and enjoyable but the getting ready to fish is often not. When my hands are healed up and the new motor is working as expected, if it ever does, my fishing attitude will improve. The only question left is when will the bill from my electrician show up?

I am going to be keeping my eye out for a few relics called cane poles. Everyone needs a good back up plan!

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.