Minn Kota Terrova 101- A Costly Lesson Learned

This what can happen when you don't make sure your Minn-Kota Terrova is in the lock down position!!! I could not believe my eyes when I arrive home from a fishing trip yesterday and seen that my practically new Terrova was in the down position. Surprisingly the motor was still attached but there was a significant about of the transducer, prop, motor hosing that had been removed by contacting the road surface. I could not imagine how I had failed to get the trolling motor into the lock position. When I remove the unit form my boat I discover that the old "Mud Dauber Wasp" had filled the Locking track completely full of nest on both sides of the unit. A large portions of the mud nest had broken loose on one side and was preventing a complete lock down of my Trolling motor. I guess this is what can happen if you don't use your boat often enough to keep the "dirt daubers" away. :banghead:banghead :Doh:

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Those locks can come jarred loose anytime dirt daubers or not. You can hit a wave hard and it will jar loose.....However if you loosen your depth clamp and slide it all the way down as far as it will go and tighten it will keep deployment from happening. Or you can buy a special Ram Mount that will hold you shaft down and prevent this....or you can tie it down with a bungee cord, or you can get a device from E-Z Poleholder that will prevent this. Sorry this happened to ya....Torch hit a big wave wrong and his deployed and tore his whole terrova off of his boat. Come by my house and I will show you how I have mine fixed to prevent that. Oh yeh........check with your boat insurance folks.

That's a shame, sorry for your troubles.

Thanks "G" I will definitely drop by, would love to see how you have yours fixed. Don't want this to happen again for sure.

What G said, especially bout the depth ring.

Forget the depth ring and buy the ram mount,or some type of Velcro strap. Money well spent !!

I agree on the ram mount. Purchased Dux used mount and it works great. Before that used rope and bungee cord. Still use rope with the ram while pulling boat on highway. I guess in some things I'm the guy who wears a belt and suspenders.:dono

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Originally Posted by joekiller

Forget the depth ring and buy the ram mount,or some type of Velcro strap. Money well spent !!

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$2 strap from the camping dept. at Academy.....

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Only problem with the ram is that I have it set up to work when my motor is retracted for trailering. Deploy it and the ballmount is in the wrong place when I want to run the outboard.