The week before last, our trolling motor decided it didn't want to deploy anymore...I guess it just wanted some time off...lol

Dale called Minn Kota, who walked him through some diagnostics and determined that the lever that tells the motor that it is in the "stow" position was stuck. Since it's under warranty they sent us to the local repair guy.

When we got to the shop, the mechanic looked at it and, to our surprise, got started right away on replacing the lever. He also upgraded a sensor that he said would inevitably go out soon. Since it was warranty work, it wasn't going to cost us anything...well...um....

So while the tech was replacing stuff, he also sprayed CorrosionX on a bunch of stuff in the trolling motor, because, apparently even though this is a salt-water motor, Minn Kota doesn't see fit to put any corrosion preventative on any of their motor parts...and the reason the lever went out is that is was full of corrosion from the salt water.

While this was all going on, I went into the office to fill out the paperwork, and got to chatting with the owner about fishing in the area...he gave me lots of info and gave me the name of a book to read about fishing here.

When Dale and the tech came into the office, I was just mentioning to the owner that the only thing that we still needed was a stick anchor. This is just a long, thin pole that you stick into the mud or sand and tie the boat to. While we were chatting about anchors, the tech waved to the owner and pointed to the corner of the shop, where there was an electric pole anchor, made by Minn Kota, that was leaning against the wall. Now this power pole is a type that Dale had looked at, but was way too expensive...it's electric and will anchor us in up to about 12 feet of water....

But the owner told us that this one had been sent to Minn Kota for warranty work and Minn Kota was dragging their feet on fixing it, so the owner talked them into giving a new Talon to the guy that had it, and he also talked Minn Kota into sending him back this one, which he had fixed in about a half hour....

He made us an offer that we couldn't refuse...about a third of the price of a new Talon, installed...and, since it's only 6 months old, but Minn Kota considers it out of warranty, Scott, the owner, said if we ever have an issue with it to bring it back to him and he'll help us out...

So now, I won't have to toss our super heavy and awkward anchor off the front of the boat!!! Yay!

I do think we're done outfitting the boat...we're set to fish anywhere, any time!!

On the way home, I joked to Dale that this was the most expensive free warranty work ever!!

We're going to test it out tomorrow....I'll let you know how it works!