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Posts: 27
| This is my first fishing with my boat during the late fall. I'm wondering what you late fall fisherman do between uses to protect your boats from damage do to the freezing temps. Lower unit, bilge pump, live wells, etc
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Posts: 2323
Location: Stevens Point, WI | Just make sure you tilt your motor all the way down and let it drain completely once you've pulled it out of the water. Pull your plug at the end of the day and make sure all water is out of your livewell. If you do all of those things, you should be ok. That's what I do and have never had an issue. |
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Posts: 32954
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I see a number of guys start their motor trimmed all the way down for a few seconds to blow the water out. Is that an acceptable thing to do? Shouldn't hurt the water pump, because it's still lubricated by water in the lower unit. |
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Posts: 743
| When I pull it out of the water I'll lower the motor to let it drain before I rase it for travel. Don't worry about the livewells. A night of cold weather will only give you suface ice and that won't hurt anything. Freezing solid is what causes damage. But make sure all the water s drained before putting it away for the winter. My boats been sitting for the last week with water and redtails in the livewells waiting for my return tomorrow. I figure it will be 50/50 that the redtails will still be alive . They're hard to come by this time of the year. |
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Posts: 4266
| I used to turn the motor over to blow out any water that might damage the empeller if it froze, but I guess that the new motors drain completely.
I always worried about the water in the livewell and bilge pumps freezing and doing damage, but I've heard that they are designed to drain any water that might be in the housing and it will drain when you pull the drain plug. I guess you're good to go. Just park it in a big heated garage and there's nothing to fret.
Beav |
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Posts: 43
Location: Roch NY | for a little extra peace of mind, crack the L/U drain plug and make sure the fluid is not milky. if on the off chance you have water in there and freezes it could cause big problems.
As for the rest of the motor, as long as you lower the motor all the way and drain it then any tiny bit of residual water will be fine, as there will be room for the water to expand as it freezes. its when theres no room for the expansion that you have problems.
If you're going to be hitting the water in below freezing weather, screw in the drain plug ahead of time, before it freezes. water in the threads could slow you down at the ramp while you wait for rolled up handwarmers in the hole to thaw it.  |
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| Just keep in mind as you're storing your boat, the two biggest enemies during the winter are MOISTURE and ELECTRICAL CURRENT. |
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