The Old Project

I thought that it would be good to post a few pictures of my old project, the Perception Freedom, which has now been sold. It may offer some advice on mistakes I have made and future solutions!
This first picture shows the kayak after I fitted the front, middle and rear hatches, as well as the front rod holders and rear flush mount rod holders. Nothing went wrong here, it was as simple as drilling, cutting with a stanley knife, dropping the hatches and rod holders in, then bolting in place, although later the bolts were changed for the highest grade stainless steel (first lesson learnt)!

So after this I had the need to fish at anchor, as drift fishing wasn't always the best, especially if I wanted to target a fish such as Bream and put some groundbait down.
Eventually I stuck this on the side...

I think I did a good job with this mod, the downside was the shape of the kayak and if done differently I would have ran the trolley on the angled part just above where it is now and not along the side so there wasn't any drag when the sea was a bit choppy. Apart from that, the set up was very effective.
The next part is something that was really done in a rush... the fishfinder...

The fishfinder was a new toy I was dying to use at the time, so I fitted the transducer to the bottom ''ok'', but would have bought or made a case to mount it in if I were to do it again. The battery was put in a box and fixed down with velcro. Again I would have done this differently by sticking a foam surrounding that a small waterproof box slid into with a cable gland going through the container, not a hole drilled in the box.
I would have also put a cable gland to the side of the fishfinder instead of drilling through the base of the fishfinder holder - if only I knew about cable glands before!

A typical cable gland

Finally, the picture below shows the kayak before it was sold. I did start a livebait tank project that I never finished in time. I had it working in the pond, but just needed to make some final fixings and test it! Hopefully the new owner has finished that off. I even made a circuit to time how long it pumped, stopped pumping and could reverse and empty the container.

The photo below is the circuit I designed at home.

As you can see, the other mods were to position rod holder mounts closer to the seat so they could be brought forward when at anchor. If I were to do this again I think I would just fit flush mounts backwards or use RAM tubes.

There was also everything else such as bait box, tackle boxes and GPS (yellow) all fixed by velcro which I now do not have to worry about as the Ultra 4.7 has a rod pod that will store tackle, bait and food, as well as having a proper RAM mount for my GPS. My catch will also be stored in a crate behind the seat.

Anyway I hope this helps and points out the many mistakes (or not as effective mods) I made when modifying my kayak. Hopefully my next post will be about ''how to'' and not ''how not to''.