Crawdad Build-Solo Fishing-Pic Heavy

[chefchris]

FYI: This is a long post/thread about turning my second crawdad into a solo fishing boat, taking everything I've learned from my other crawdads and a lot of insight, suggestions and help from other crawdad owners and friends to make what I feel is a killer solo bass rig that I don't need a trailer or boat ramps. Everything on this boat is designed with it being removable and easy to transport. 

Picked up this blue crawdad last fall from a fellow Rhode Islander that had it sitting in the yard against the shed for about 3 years, unused, uncovered, picked it up for $200. Boat was filthy, had spiders, bugs, live and dead mice under the foam and tons of mold/build up on it. No floor panels besides for one piece of plywood that had a bath mat stapled to it. plywood transom was another great piece. 

 

Took the boat to the local high pressure car wash, removed all the plastic panels, foam, and all the framework. Power washed it with soap/water and the scrub brush for round 1. Then I sprayed down the whole boat with "Awesome Clean" from the $1 store, I don't know whats in that cleaner but it will clean pretty much anything with little to no scrubbing. Let it sit on the boat, plastic panels and frame work, scrubbed some spots with a green 3m pad and then power rinsed it. Cleaned up really nicely. 

 

Took it home and stashed in the garage. The garage is my wood shop area, fishing storage, house storage etc, so I wanted to build a rolling table instead of leaving it on the floor. Got crazy lucky and stopped in Bob's store when they were going out of business and selling everything, racks, tables, storage, etc. Scored this insane metal super heavy duty rolling table that was a Columbia display piece for $5! Its 2' higher than the bed of my truck so makes sliding the boat in and out super easy, I use it now for the finished boat and its incredible. 

As this boat is solely going to be used by myself, I had the layout pretty well designed in my head. I moved the back seat up 8" and removed the front seat/bracket completely. I almost always stand when i fish alone, so wanted to maximize the front space and rear spaces. The brackets in the blue crawdads are different than the green ones, so i had to build a platform for the quick release seat bracket to mount to. Sealed the panel and wrapped it with gray outdoor carpet. I attached it to the frame work with some strapping mounts so I wouldn't drill thru the frame work and weaken it. The main floor and rear floor panels are 3/8' plywood, that was sealed then given 3 coats of Kilz paint/sealer on both sides and edges. The main floor panel I went with 6mm EVA foam (seadeck type knockoff) I found on Amazon. The stuff is incredible and the adhesive is crazy strong. The back floor panel was wrapped in gray outdoor carpet. I ran the new power/ground wires thru the center tube and added heat shrink tubing to the areas where it rubs the pipe, also made my own end caps with heat shrink for the tubes. 

For the bow mount and transom mount I scored some free trex decking and cut it to size, recessed all the holes for ss hardware, two pieces sandwich the boat on both ends. Even these small pieces are heavy, but I wanted to do it right and do it once. I also used some trex pieces to mount the scotty anchor lock, pretty slick piece, one hand operation for lowering and raising the anchor. When the anchor is fully up, it is still in the water a few inches and doesn't hit the motor. I use the anchor a lot so this seemed like a great piece. Would have gone with the shallow micro pole, but for $800 with battery that defeats the purpose of a cheap build project and the reviews weren't all that great either. 

For electronics I went with a Lowrance Hook 7" GPS/Side scan unit. I'm really only looking for depth/contour and water temp, so this unit checked all those boxes. My buddy Sean had his transducer mounted on a Ram transducer mount that hangs over the side and I went with that set up as well. My other crawdad has suffered 2 broken transducer brackets from being mounted in the rear. The main unit is also on Ram mounts. This way the the transducer swings inside the boat or can be removed during transport. I wanted the fishfinder to have its own power source instead of running off the main battery. After a lot of research I settled on the Dakota Lithium Power Box 10ah. The power box is their lithium battery that has been wired into the box, it has two usb ports (phone/gopro), a cigarette lighter port, a set of terminals and built in LED flashlight. The whole unit weighs 4Lbs. The terminals for the fishfinder have their own switch on the box, so you can turn those off while using the other functions. Product had great reviews, the customer service/ordering wasn't the greatest and took way longer than they said, but I'm happy with the purchase. I used the flash light and usb charging ports a few times before the boat was ready and they worked great. The power box fits up front in between the framework and is easily reached. 

The boat was build with the purpose of having a bow mounted foot controlled TM. I installed the new plug on the right side of the front panel. This was originally a Minn Kota Edge Bow Mount that I converted to have a transom style mount on it, again to save weight/space. The transom mount is all metal, was originally from another Minn Kota motor I believe. This was the worst part of the project as I ran into numerous issues, I'd get one thing figured out then realize or run into another issue. I had to cut down the shaft cause they don't offer one smaller than 36", no big deal right? Well after I very careful cut into a brand new motor I realized that the top portion had a larger inside diameter for the gear to fit into. So I had to slowly and evenly use a small dremel sanding drum to increase the inside diameter, what a PIA. Once that was done, I cut the wires down, to the proper length, reinstalled everything. Then I didn't put the tension bracket back into this groove and reassembled the motor, only to have the base of the directional indicator gear get hung up and break, luckily is a $2 item but still. Once everything was reassembled right, I now have a 29" custom 45lb thrust foot controlled bow mount trolling motor. 

All that was left was to final clean the boat, install the pool noodles over the framework, go over and tighten all the bolt/nuts/screws one last time and assemble the boat before taking her out this past Sunday for her maiden voyage. I ran my bow mount on the back ( I did built a paddle/tm bracket rudder for it), installed the infamous "seb" rod holder and took it out. The foot control bow mount is going to take some getting use to, but worked great. I can also sit and use the foot control too which was nice. Everything worked as it should have, layout was perfect for me just as I planned, even managed to land one fish on the new swimjig set up after dumping a solid fish on a wake bite. Needs a cup holder (hadn't decided where to mount one before taking it out) and a strip to hang some baits for quick switch outs. Just some fine tweaks as far as angle of the fishfinder/motor depth are needed but that is more personal preference. 

The project took a while and I picked up pieces here and there when I found deals or finished doing my research. All said and done the whole project was just under $2k, that number includes every cent spent since day 1. I tried not to cut corners and use the best parts/pieces I could find/afford that made sense. 

If you guys have any questions/comments please ask/leave em, thanks for checking it out. 

Chef 

[dean_d]

That's a sick build 

[Jinxd12]

Looks great man, get some of those cheap led coils from eBay and you can have some low budget lights that don’t draw down the battery! 

[MEGAMAG119]

Me and my buddies rolled three deep in a crawdad back in high school . They’re awesome little boats. Nice work man!

[dominioncaster]

Thanks for posting this up. I've been looking for an alternative to my 10" V haul, It is starting to get a little heavy for solo fishing. 

[EcBasser]

Looks great Chris! 
Why 2 trolling motors , it kind of defeats the weight issue? Speed? 

At one time I ran my wire down the center pipe , and sealed the ends pretty good, only to have water leak in over time and create an issue with the wire. Now the wires are hanging from the gunwale. 

[EcBasser]

Oh... and if you have an area in the front floor  of your truck bed you should add a third strap to keep it from flipping up. My buddies truck had hook loops recessed into the floor

[EcBasser]

Oh... and if you have an area in the front floor  of your truck bed you should add a third strap to keep it from flipping up. My buddies truck had hook loops recessed into the floor

Another question, what’s the purpose of the pool noodles?  Did your remove the floatation foam in the front and back?

[chefchris]

57 minutes ago, EcBasser said:

Looks great Chris! 
Why 2 trolling motors , it kind of defeats the weight issue? Speed? 

At one time I ran my wire down the center pipe , and sealed the ends pretty good, only to have water leak in over time and create an issue with the wire. Now the wires are hanging from the gunwale. 

The two TM was for the trial of it. Having only used a foot control TM on my buddies tracker I wanted to make sure I’d be comfortable with it. So I ran both to guarantee I got to fish and test the boat out. 

the pipes are still open, I didn’t seal em up with the end caps. I used some shrink tubing that I left long and as it shrank down I pushed the excess into the tube, basically it’s just rolled around the opening of the tube inside and out. 

[chefchris]

31 minutes ago, EcBasser said:

Oh... and if you have an area in the front floor  of your truck bed you should add a third strap to keep it from flipping up. My buddies truck had hook loops recessed into the floor

Another question, what’s the purpose of the pool noodles?  Did your remove the floatation foam in the front and back?

Yeah I usually run a third strap up front if im going any sort of distance. The pool noodles are just there to cover the metal pipes. Both front and rear foam has been removed 

[MA Frog Man]

Honored to be on that sticker wall

[justneedaboat]

This is a really cool post. Thanks for sharing! 

[253caster]

Wow... I always known this could be done with these boats, but I've never seen it executed so well. Makes me want to reconfigure mine. Super fishy little rig there, Chris!

[Mikey99]

Damn.  You are my hero Chris 

[chefchris]

7 hours ago, 253caster said:

Wow... I always known this could be done with these boats, but I've never seen it executed so well. Makes me want to reconfigure mine. Super fishy little rig there, Chris!

Thanks man! I’m stoked on it