With fishing season just a month or two away in most of the readership area, now is a particularly good time to get out in the garage, boat shed or barn to do a little rewiring. Chasing electrons along the highway late at night after being pulled over and trying to explain to the officer that your lights were working when you left the dock is not pleasant business. An even worse scenario would be to find out that the wiring to your bilge or GPS is on the fritz while you are out trying to fish. I think we all end up in a situation where something breaks down at the most inopportune time.

One preventative is to spend a day this winter doing an inspection of your wiring. Trailer wiring is probably the place to start since it gets the most abuse being dunked in and out of saltwater on a regular basis, whipped around by the wind while on the highway and sometimes snagged in weedy parking lots.

A second place to really focus your inspection is at connections and other locations in the boat where salty air and sunlight can corrode the wires or jostling takes place. Under your console at the panel is a good inspection site. Any connections in the battery compartment are suspect to corrosion. Look for the corrosion under terminal connectors or inline connectors. If you find any corrosion clean the location and/or replace the connection with marine grade connectors.

When you look at connections and cut wire to replace them be sure to look at the wire. It should be fresh and shiny looking. Any dull or corroded wire needs to be trimmed back or totally replaced too.

Trailers that are normally towed behind your truck could likely stand a new set of trailer wires every few years. I would even go as far as to say that a new set of lights (for those that get submerged) is not a bad idea every three to five years. I never seem to get that much life out of mine anyway because I back into some rough places and there always seems to be a stray rock or piece of driftwood that does a number on the lights.

While you are looking at trailer wiring and boat wiring take a few minutes to check the status of batteries. A battery tester is a huge help and a great tool to have. Check light bulbs and running lights; particularly the kind of lights you have to set in the sockets at dusk. Those lights are subject to corrosion at the base where the contacts are located. Sometimes a bit of WD-40 will solve the problem along with some steel wool. Be sure to remove stray pieces of steel wool though! Check all cable connections too. GPS, fish finder, spotlight etc…

With fishing season beginning within a few months it would be wise to find a problem now and if need be get it into a shop before the rush is on. Here’s to a great fishing season this year. The fall season sure was good. Be safe out there.