Straighten bent Scotty boom. (suggestions)

[AlK]

I'm in Surrey so the ferry ride would add too much to the cost. Berrys Bait wants $125 plus labour. (that buys a lot of anchovies.)

I don't like to waste stuff so after a week of thought on this tried the best idea that I had. I figured the weight of my car, and the fact that the tires were rubber and wide, would make an ideal press.

I made a jig from some scrap wood I had. I made supports for each end of the tube and put side rails that were just slightly lower than the tube diameter and just a snug fit to the tube size (so that the tube would not roll over when I put pressure on the bend). The jig space was changed for each tube size. I put support under the side rails so that they would not bend down when I drove my car tire onto it. I set the jig, with tube in behind the car tire so that the highest point in the bend was centered under the tire.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions.

 

[Morty]

Just curious how you bent them in the first place. If your downrigger line and/or Canon ball got caught up in a well anchored crab trap, your downriggers have approx 35lb weight setting so that any force applied greater than 35lbs weight would release line and have either your line spool out or if the force was sudden and bug enough it would snap you line. Is figure your braid or wire would snap before it would bend your downrigger rod. Wondering if you can share more details so that others may be able to prevent what happened to create your bent downrigger rod.

We tagged into what I guessed was a crab trap (only a float barely showing) and were in a current and wind blowing in the same direction. there was no way to circle around with just the kicker to get close to the float. even with the kicker in full reverse we still couldn't get any closer to the tangle. I tried using the pull of the downrigger to either pull up the cannonball, which I had done successfully one time before, or at least get closer to the float. In the first few seconds we were trying that, yet another boat got the gear tangled in the same mess. I really don't understand why it bent because I have the drag set so that I can pull the braided cable off the spool by hand with the brake on. I have it that way just in case I do hit bottom or get hung-up.

 

[trophywife]

lodge owner came back in with a rigger pointing down at 90. apparently turned too sharp while trolling with the main. wrapped the prop and gave his DR a new look. never seen this done before.

 

[Morty]

Just curious how you bent them in the first place . If your downrigger line and/or Canon ball got caught up in a well anchored crab trap, your downriggers have approx 35lb weight setting so that any force applied greater than 35lbs weight would release line and have either your line spool out or if the force was sudden and bug enough it would snap you line. Is figure your braid or wire would snap before it would bend your downrigger rod. Wondering if you can share more details so that others may be able to prevent what happened to create your bent downrigger rod.

Not sure when it happened. Got hitched to crab traps twice that day. I'm suspecting it was the second event. hooked up with a trap to a mostly submerged float. The direction the way both current and wind were flowing it seemed impossible to turn around and get on to of it using the main engine. The only way getting near for a lift was full reverse of the trolling motor AND full wind on both downriggers. No sooner had we gotten the motor reverse started when another boat got their cannonball tangled in it.
Now there's at least 3 cannon balls tied in. In the other boats attempts to retrieve theirs and stay away from hitting us they tried pulling in another direction (and loudly complaining to us that we should stop trying to reverse or we'll hit them. ??) We literally "cut our losses" and left - not worth the $80 to waste:time, gas and stress dealing with them. I hope they at least got a 3 weights (or more - there were likely additional ones down there).
I posted a warning on this site with location the same day it happened.