Trailer care is another critical component to boating. Not only from the standpoint of getting your prized rig to and from the boat ramp, but also in safety and long term enjoyment. Trailer maintenance is often an overlooked component to the boating experience. Nothing ruins what promises to be a fun day out on the water than something that could have been easily prevented. Believe me, once the excitement of spring fishing rolls around, I’m focused on my fishing gear and boat. Not the trailer that it sits on. A few simple steps when putting it away for the winter can really pay dividends next spring.

First thing I always do is to make sure that my tires are properly inflated. Seems basic, but it’s important to help prevent blowouts as well as help maintain peak gas mileage when towing. Secondly, I always make sure that my bearings are properly greased. Regular bearing maintenance can really help, especially for those that trailer their boats a lot, logging mile after mile chasing fish like I do. Improperly greased bearings can lead to overheating axles.

A few issues can arise should axles overheat. Obviously, there’s the risk of the heat melting other important things like brake lines or the trailer’s brake and signal wires. Excess heat can also make braking more difficult, which is never a good thing.

Most importantly, statistics show that the majority of blown trailer tires are actually from improperly greased bearings. The heat from overheated axles transfers to the tires, heating the air and rubber. Coupled with highway speeds, this heat can manifest itself in the form of catastrophic blowouts. A simple grease gun armed with marine axle grease can help during the season, but at the end of each fishing season, I make sure that I clean, lube and re-pack my trailer’s wheel bearings. That way when spring rolls around, I’m ready to go with no worries!

General boat care is fairly straightforward. On both boats, I make sure that there is no standing water in the bilge area. I simply open the drain plugs, and leave them out for the winter. This ensures that if there were to be any water build up over the winter, it would drain out, without worry of freezing and damaging lines or bilge pumps.

Another simple measure that I take is to make sure that all of my batteries are fully charged, and if possible, the main power shut off is turned off.

Another thing that I do with the boat itself is to clean it out if I know that it won’t be in use any time too soon. For most of us that store boats in unheated garages or storage facilities for the winter, this could be a very important step. This helps so that there won’t be anything left inside the boat to potentially mold or mildew, and as far as my tackle goes, there won’t be any rusting of hooks with the freezing and thawing cycles of winter.

Last but not least, I always like to put my boat away only after I’ve thoroughly cleaned, vacuumed, washed and polished the boat. It’s much nicer to hop into a boat in the spring that’s been put away cleaned than one that’s full of last year’s grit and grime.

There has been much written about boat maintenance, and most of it is good advice. For me, owning two guide services that each use different boats, boat and trailer maintenance is a must. I’ll turn this into a 3-part entry, beginning with the boat’s fuel.

With the new government fuel regulations, ethanol is here, and here to stay. Like it or not, we have to deal it, and deal with its consequences, which are very real. I always make sure to use a fuel treatment specifically made for ethanol. While there are several products on the market, I have always used Stabil. The one that is made to help treat ethanol in gasoline is blue, different from the red that Stabil always has been.

For winter storage, this will help prevent phase separation. The long and short of it is that if there is phase separation, we have a classic oil and water scenario to deal with. Phase separation occurs when the water that is present in the fuel (and ethanol carries with it a guaranteed high percentage of water) separates from the gasoline. If this happens, the water will sink to the bottom of the fuel tank, with the gasoline floating on top, hence the oil and water scenario. What happens next, if not detected, is that when the boat motor is fired up, the first liquid that is sucked into the engine is the water sitting on the bottom of the fuel tank. If this were to happen, it is now certainly an expensive visit to the marine mechanic.

After adding the correct amount of Stabil to my fuel tank, I always make sure to top off the tank. There is conflicting information about whether or not to top off or not, but most mechanics will agree that an empty tank left for any length of time will leave room for condensation from the ambient humidity of the air. Condensation, just as the water in the ethanol is bad news. Once the tank is topped off, I always make sure to run the outboard for a while to ensure that the Stabil is run into all of the fuel lines leading into and in the motor itself.

Outboard engine manufacturers recommend installing a second water fuel filter, which will help if there is a small amount of phase separation. This is something that I have also installed, but hopefully I can avoid this phase separation altogether.