Rigging the Hobie Outback for fishing (Part2)

I’ve already looked as the basic fishing setup in Part 1, there I covered permanent fit items as well as basic items that I’d fit to the kayak to cover general fishing duties. I’ve also covered rigging the Outback for sailing in a separate article.

Rigging for live baiting

I’ve tried live baiting from a kayak in the past with some exciting moments a few good fish to show for it. I did make a DIY livewell, though I have never used it in anger, the opportunities just never presented themselves. What live baiting I did accomplish was a result of catching a suitable bait and dropping it straight back down on a hook. I recently acquired a Hobie Livewell which after some minor modifications (click on the link for the full article) is ready for use. Fitting the livewell is straight forward enough, it’s a case of attaching the uptake pipe, lowering the overflow pipe to the desired level and clipping it to the kayak.

The livewell comes with two straps as standard which I personally didn’t feel was enough. There’s also the issue that with the livewell fitted of where to store the kayak trolley. I added a removable bungee cord to two existing fitting behind the livewell and I use it as shown below.

This bungee can be used as an additional securing point and it can also be used to secure the kayak trolley whilst afloat. With the trolley axle positioned up against the flared ends of the rod tubes, the bungee cords pulls it hard into position and secures it tightly to the hull of the kayak.

The livewell is internally powered via a rechargeable SLA battery, therefore there’s no need to provide external power to this unit. The livewell sits low in the tank well and will ensure a stable configuration, especially when you take the stability of the Outback into consideration.

You can see in the above photos that the Outback has the centre bar fitted for the Sidekicks. This is a fixed bar and if you haven’t a livewell, and may like one in the future, I’d try and borrow one to permit accurate fitting of this crossbar. If it’s positioned too far back the Hobie livewell will not fit!, if it’s positioned too close to the seat back, the seat will foul it when reclined… just food for thought.

Rigging the Outback for livebait fishing is as simple as that. The existing composite RAM tubes that are fitted to either side of the seat are ideal for this type of fishing.

Rigging for trolling

When it comes to trolling I wanted the rods positioned slightly ahead of me, permitting easy viewing of the rods whilst peddling to enable the action of the lure to be closely monitored and well as watching for a bite. If you’re only fishing the one rod there’s no real reason why you can’t just hold onto it. That said, if the weather is particularly cold you may prefer to have your hands tucked into your PFD!.

I didn’t want to further modify the kayak from what I’d already planned so it was a case of working with what I had. I had previously given some thought to this problem before I’d bolted several lengths of GearTrac to the kayak. After looking through the YakAttack website I’d been intrigued to see a Scotty mount fitted to a length of GearTrac by using two MightyMounts and T-bolts.

As much as I’m a huge fan of RAM gear, the Scotty Baitcaster rod holders were slightly better suited for the particular installation that I had in mind. However, after sitting in the kayak it soon became apparent that with the rod holders positioned either side of my knees that I’d be unable to pedal with the rods positioned at right angles to the kayak.

After a little more online research I came across the Scotty 254 vertical extenders. These effectively lifted the rod holders up by around 8-10” and eliminated the fouling issue whilst peddling. They can be fitted and removed in seconds, broken down into the base, extender and rod holder, then stored in the drybox ready for use.

 

The Lowrance fish finder is repositioned at the front of the right hand side GearTrac, whilst the GPS is repositioned on the left hand side. The GPS loses it’s external power supply in this position, though I’m not overly concerned as the internal batteries provides hours of use. The rods are easily reached from the sitting position, I just have to lean forward slightly to remove a rod. This configuration clearly allows two rods to be fished at the same time.

If you look closely at the right hand Scotty rod holder you can see blue and yellow ‘slip discs’ fitted. These are an optional extra from Scotty and permit an infinite range of locking positions through its range of movement. They also lock the rod holder very tightly in position, in fact they’re far more effective than I’d envisaged. I had these delivered from Escape Watersports and I’d certainly recommend them.

If you’ve already read Part 1 of ‘Rigging the Outback for fishing’ you should be seeing just how versatile the GearTrac system for YakAttack actually is. I’ve used it now for mounting my fish finder, GPS, rod holders, VisiCarbon pole, camera mounts (various), sailing pulleys and a navigation light!. The beauty is that everything is removable leaving only the low profile GearTracs fitted to the kayak.

Along with the setup shown in Part 1 I’ve effectively catered for all the types of fishing that I’m likely to encounter. One hobby which I love to combine with my kayak fishing is photography, my next article will look at setting up the Outback for photography & filming. After all, there’s nothing better than capturing your adventures on a camera.

Modifying the Hobie Livewell

I’m about to use my Hobie livewell in anger in a few days time so I decided to address a couple of minor modifications to make the livewell a little more user friendly. With the livewell full of water and the pump switched off, water will drain back through the Tsunami pump, causing the livewell to eventually empty. This pump would probably requiring priming before further use and if done inadvertently there’s always the potential to lose your supply of live bait.

Hobie are aware of this issue and supply a push on rubber cap that fits over the pump outlet to prevent the backflow of water. This requires the lid to be opened in order to fit or remove the cap, the cap clearly needs to be removed with the pump running. 

This is a far from ideal and people have been addressing this problem for sometime. A cheap fix is to place a balloon over the end, with a  hole snipped in the end of the balloon. When the pump is switched off the balloon collapses in on itself preventing the backflow of water. The balloon does have a limited life and will eventually perish or split, that said it’s cheap and easy to replace them as required.

Looking around the garage I found a spare non-return valve leftover from my DIY livewell project. It was going to be a simple solution to fit the valve onto the outlet of the pump. The pump is easily and quickly removed by undoing the pump retaining nut on the base of the livewell... this should be hand-tight.

The pump is withdrawn into the livewell, be careful not to lose the circular rubber gasket that sits directly beneath the pump.

The non-return valve fits snugly into a piece of 3/4” plastic pipe.

The pump outlet is threaded and the pipe will not readily fit onto the pump. However, if you first stand the pipe in some HOT water it’ll then have enough flex to slip over the threaded portion of the pump outlet pipe. That’s the non-return valve fitted and jobs don’t get much simpler than that!

The other issue with the Hobie livewell is the intake pipe. With debris in the water there’s a good possibility that the inlet/pump could become clogged, preventing the flow of freshly oxygenated water into the livewell. The opening on the inlet pipe faces forward to initially enable priming of the livewell pump whilst the kayak is underway.

I purchased a stainless steel plughole strainer off Ebay for the bargain price of 50p!.

A piece of this was cut out using snips. With the black plastic piece of the inlet removed from the clear pipe, the piece of the stainless mesh was inserted and suitably shaped using the handle of a wooden kitchen spoon. It’s not the easiest material to work and the end result perhaps wasn’t the neatest!. However, I reached a point where it was acceptable and the mesh was lightly glued into place using Marine Goop.

 

Leaves, etc, will still be attracted to the inlet, however, there’s now no chance that they’ll be sucked up into the pump causing a potential blockage. If flow does become restricted, shutting the pump off should cause any debris to fall away from the inlet allowing normal service to resume when it’s powered up again.

I may yet add a large drain plug to the livewell, though I’ll wait to see how it performs of a couple of trips. I’ll be using the livewell in a few days time and I’ll post an update as to how both the livewell and these basic modifications perform on the water.

Hobie Livewell – initial review (part 1)

I had some exposure to the Hobie Livewell whilst fishing the Hobie World Championships in August this year. However, I only used it for dry storage and didn’t take the opportunity to check it over closely. I made my own livewell some time ago, though to be honest I’ve only ever used it for dry storage.

A few days ago I took delivery of a Hobie Livewell from the Hobie Centre and I took the opportunity to give the livewell a close examination!

The basic specifications are as follows:

• Length: 20.0" / 0.508 m
• Width: 15.0" / 0.381 m
• Capacity: 8 gal. / 30.28 l
• Height: 12.0" / 0.305 m

The livewell is custom designed to fit the current Hobie Mirage Outback, Sport, Adventure, Revolution, Pro Angler, Quest, Tandem Island, Oasis and Odyssey. Included with the livewell is a 6 Volt sealed Gel Battery, charger, instructions, down pipes (the Pro Angler requires the 7” pipe) and a ty-wrap!

It’s fairly lightweight, weighing in at 3-4kg without the battery fitted. It’s ready to use straight out of the box with only the battery needed to be charged. Below are various external views of the livewell.

 

The livewell is fitted with three rod holders as standard with the provision to fit two additional holders if required. Access to the livewell is via the large 8” ‘twist & seal’ hatch which makes accessing and securing the livewell quick and easy. The hatch features a large rubber seal and it’s hinged which ensures that losing the lid whilst afloat is not a possibility!.

There are two adjustable securing straps which attach to existing fittings on a Hobie kayak. Personally I’d of liked to have seen four securing straps, though I’ve utilised a bungee cord for additional security which will be demonstrated in Part 2 of this article. There’s a carry handle on the front of the livewell, though with the 8” hatch open the livewell is easily carried in the upright position by holding it around the rear of the hatch opening.

On the left hand side of the livewell is a small drain point which allows any remaining water to be drained from the livewell after use. On the right hand side of the livewell is the on/off switch.

 

As previously mentioned, access to the inside of the livewell is via the large ‘twist & seal’ hatch. The maximum capacity of the livewell is around eight gallons.

 

Once inside the livewell you’re able to view the Tsunami 500 GPH livewell pump and the overflow (discharge) tube. The pump itself is not a self-priming unit and requires the pick up pipe to be correctly orientated and the kayak to be moving forward at a decent speed – more on this later.

 

The brings me onto the power source, specifically the 6 Volt sealed Gel Battery. Hobie have used a 6 Volt battery to reduce the speed of the 12 Volt pump whilst increasing the battery life. With a fully charged battery, the pump can run continuously for over ten hours. The livewell comes with a 6 Volt battery charger and the initial charge takes several hours. The charger itself shows an orange light when charging which turns to a green light once the battery is fully charged. The battery connections are environmentally sealed, though if the battery is not fitted I’d advise covering the electrical connector on the livewell to prevent water ingress and potential corrosion.

The battery is positioned at the rear of the livewell beneath a plastic cover which is secured using bungee cord.

 

The battery is easily removed and fitted in under a minute. The livewell will mainly be used for dry storage and the battery will not be fitted unless required. In Part 2 I’ll look at mounting the livewell to the kayak as well as potential design problems and how they can be overcome.

Kayak Livewell & Dry Box (Part 2)

In part 1 I covered the basic construction of my dual purpose kayak dry box/livewell.

The were certain features that I wished to have with regards to the livewell, these were as follows:

• Dual water level to cater to different sized bait
• Internal aerator pump to minimise noise
• Dual pump speed
• Easy pump priming when afloat
• On/off switch to be easily reachable
• Quiet overboard draining
• Alternative power source if required
• External battery charging point
• Ability to drain the tank when afloat

That potentially seemed a tall order, some may argue that it’s over-complicated, though it covered my potential needs. Plus it’s what I wanted, I like a challenge. It was potentially going to be challenging, and as it turned out, at times it was just that… and more!.

The basic design has already been covered, though here’s some additional photos that also show the later plastic blanking caps, on/off switch and external charging point.

 

  

On the lower front edge is a drain plug. This allows the livewell to be drained when afloat if required (roughly 2 litres of water will remain) or to be drained when ashore prior to lifting the livewell off the kayak.

The switch was originally going to be positioned on the top of the battery box, though after sitting on the yak I decided it was too much of a stretch. Having it on the forward edge seemed like a good idea, though I had visions of it being accidentally knocked on and off, plus it’d be potentially rather messy routing wiring towards the front. In the end I positioned in on upper rear edge, comfortably within reach.

The switch itself is a three position ON/OFF/ON item, fitted with a waterproof rubber cover. The idea of this three position switch was to allow the unit to have two selectable speeds as well as an off position.

The question was how best to achieve a useable two speed setup. Ideally I wanted full power 12 volt operation for filling the tank quickly, stirring the tank, or just whenever I felt the need. I also wanted a lower second speed for general use and to maximise battery life. The issue was more with the lower speed and what speed did I really need??.

I decided to incorporate and speed regulator circuit, thus allowing me to have the choice on what my lower speed would be.

 

As the speed regulator wasn’t a waterproof unit it had to located in the watertight battery box. Despite a few headaches this was eventually achieved. The main problem was with the circuit wiring, though it all came good in the end. It probably isn’t advisable to change this variable setting once afloat due to the location of the controller, though setting it mid-way will see the pump operating in the 6-8V region.

The photo below shows the wiring loom taking shape.

  

The cut out allows fitment of a either a 12v/7Ah or 6v/12Ah SLA battery. The pump operation can be switched between 12v (Max) and a variable speed (Var) via the three position switch.

I already have a 12V/12Ah fitted to the front of the kayak which powers my GPS, fish finder and stern light. As I expect the majority of the live baiting to take place during daylight hours it seems a shame not to use the existing battery, which would also minimise the all up weight.

To this end I fitted a two pin marine connector to the side of the battery box. This has two main functions, it allows connection of the same charging adapter that I currently use for charging my main kayak battery. The allows me to charge the livewell battery in situ should i feel the need using my existing charging setup.

The second function allows me to connect a jumper lead to the rear light socket which is powered from the main kayak battery. This allows me to operate the livewell without actually having to fit the livewell battery. I could even fit the livewell battery and the jumper lead which would prove a huge amount of battery life, though I cant ever imagine the need to do so.

The photo below show the close proximity of the battery box connection point to the rear light socket. I’ve already proved the principle and I’m currently making a waterproof lead, sadly it’s not quite fully ready at this moment in time.

 

Next I’ll cover the plumbing, now this did also cause some stressful moments!. My initial plan was to have a short length of hose from the pump directly to the tankwell scupper with a non-return valve located within the scupper hole. I knew the pump would require priming and I’d measured that the amount with the pipe work and the pump was approximately 100ml.

I’d originally planned to use a large syringe with a short piece of flexible pipe on the end to inject water into the pump outlet thus backfilling the system. Let’s just say it didn’t work, basically it was badly airlocked due to the non-return valve and that plan was well and truly dead in the water!.

This totally messed up my plans, though with the container already drilled and the pump position low down I was kind of stuck. I decided to use a hand primer, similar to what you’ll find on outboard engines. I rigged this up which ultimately resulted in a large u-bend as the pipe returned to the pump. The hand pump is design for 3/8” pipe yet i was using 3/4” pipe. The pump itself could not move enough water to effectively remove the airlocks within the pipes, basically I was screwed.

Then at 2am (yes I was in the garage scratching my head at that stupid hour) I had a Eureka moment. The hand pump has an internal upper and lower non-return valve fitted internally. Being 3/8” they are also very restrictive on the water flow. I removed the valves and fitted a 3/4” non-return valve to the bottom the the hand pump. However, I positioned the upper (now 3/4”) non-return valve not to the top of the hand pump, but 1/2 way along the pipe between the top of the hand pump and the aerator intake.

In the photo below the hand primer and two non-return valves are visible.

This basically changed everything and allowed the small hand pump to easily push the airlocks through the 3/4” pipe work. The non-return valves also prevent draining of the tank when the aerator pump is switched off. The large diameter of the non-return valves also allows full flow of water through the pipes.

I also made two overflow pipes, one for the higher and one for the low level overflows. You can fit the pipe to suit the level you want and leave the other blanked. The other option is the fit both pipes and to use a 1” bung to block the outlet you don’t want from within the container. This allows you the option of changing the water level when afloat in seconds.

The photo below shows the two overflow pipes and well as the pump feed pipe incorporating the hand primer.

Here’s the pump pipe fitted. All pipes are fitted in seconds.

The overflows were covered with plastic mesh on the outside face to prevent smaller bait such as sandeels escaping from the tank. The reason it was placed on the outer face was to enable the fitment of a rubber bung within the tank as previously mentioned.

The inlet to the lower non-return valve in the pump feed pipe was also fitted with a mesh cover to prevent coarse debris being sucked into the valves and ultimately the pump. There is even mesh on the pump outlet to prevent small fish from entering the pump when it’s switched off.

So, that’s basically the livewell aspects completed, here’s a few more photos to clarify the build and the installation.

Fitted and configured as a Dry Box

Fitted and Configured as a Livewell

 

The hand primer and valve assembly retain water very well with no visible draining with the pump off. However, the hand primer was positioned such as to allow easy operation when seated side saddle. Six to eight pumps are required to prime the system.

The pump intake pipe is effectively almost flush with the hull of the kayak, recessed by only a few millimetres.

The upper overflow pipe drains into the opposite scupper hole, with the lower drain exiting directly onto the floor of the tankwell. The internal pump and direct scupper drains should hopefully all minimise the livewell noise when in operation.

I’ve tried it next to the kitchen sink and it primes easily and works a dream. I’ll probably rig is tomorrow to see how long it will run on a medium setting of around 7 volts.

So there we have it, was it cheap??.. nope. I reckon is cost me about £100, though for a dual purpose container that’s no only durable but should be long lived.