Mounting Lake Troller Down Riggers

So I bought some small Scotty Lake Troller Down riggers a few weeks ago. They are the clamp on style, and I’m trying to figure out a way to clamp them to my Alumacraft Deluxe II boat. Right now, I’m thinking of trying to clamp them to the cleats I have located at the rear of the boat, but need to either beef them up some how or attach them another way. I like the clamping idea for the fact it’s more portable and I can take them off when not in use. They will only be used a few times a year.

Any ideas or suggestions?

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When you hang a weight off that and have drag from both weight and water resistance, you are going to have major problem. I had a set of those on an old jon boat that I had and I just put a piece of 2″ X wood on the inside of the hull and clamped it to the side of the boat. If you could temporarily remove the cleat and screw a piece of 2″ X 2″ there you would be in good shape.

I was thinking of trying to beef up the cleat some how as I also feel just clamping to the cleat will not be sufficient. I was thinking of trying to mount some sort of 2x material with a U bolt and attach that to the cleat, then clamp the downrigger to the 2x material.

Sounds like that might have to be the play in my situation…

Those cleats could be made of polished base metal and could just snap off with the rigger mounted as such. That gunnel cap will allow you to screw a short [6-8 inches]piece of structural plastic [decking material/] [2/4, 2/3] down on it for easy attachment and that material will not rot or stain. Plus, the plastic would afford enough “give” to allow you to reef down when tightening so you won’t have to go back every five minutes and snug up the handscrews.

Well here is the set up from the first trip – it didn’t seem sturdy enough and did make me nervous of something snapping off. It worked well enough to catch a laker, but each time I had to reel up the ball, it moved quite a bit. I now made a mounting plate of sorts and hope this will sturdy things up a bit.

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