I didn't like the tray on my float tube, so I fixed it ..... I hope!! lol

So .... I've been struggling with the flimsy tray on my Outcast Fish Cat 4 Deluxe.
Harder than heck to measure a fish when it's so floppy and droopy.

I went to my neighborhood Home Depot and picked up a sheet of semi-rigid corrugated composite plastic, it weighs nothing,
I carefully cut it to fit my tray exactly, placed rivets at 6", 12" and 18" on the vertical.
Then I used Super Glue to attach the 22"+ measuring tape to the top of the plastic tray after the glue had dried.
The tape was to seal it, I placed a solid piece of Gorilla clear water proof tape on top of the measure tape from end-to-end.

I can now measure up to a legal 22" halibut on my newly modified tray.

I should be getting better measurements with the semi-rigid tray and a real measuring tape.
We'll see .....

All I need now are some fish ............

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Has any one else out there modified their tray on their float tube? I'm curious.

SP Dan     <"))><

Great idea! I have the same challenge with mine so I may be stealing this from you

Markiemark9 wrote:Great idea! I have the same challenge with mine so I may be stealing this from you

No need to steal brotha .... it's yours!
If you do improve on my concept ..... please share some photos back on the forum
so that we can all continue to improve on our fishing experiences.

Thanx for your input,

SP Dan <"))><

I know others have done similar things in the past but never like yours. Very cool nice work this will definitely help with your measuring of fish, it will also help with the Tournament we have coming up. Thanks for sharing let us know how it works in the long run.

jeffcpr wrote:I know others have done similar things in the past but never like yours.  Very cool nice work this will definitely help with your measuring of fish, it will also help with the Tournament we have coming up. Thanks for sharing let us know how it works in the long run.

I believe that it will also shorten the amount of time that the fish will be exposed out of the water in lieu of battling with the fish to line-it-up on the pre-marked mesh on the lap tray.

I'm starting to believe that the stock mesh lap tray also (grates) removes the fish's protective slim coat because at the end of my sessions, I need to rinse-out all of the fish slim that collected in lap tray mesh.

Outcast needs to make improvements to their lap tray design in my own personal opinion.

SP Dan     <"))><

Good call there and i agree, Outcast has to do something alot better, mine is all beat up LOL, good job on this Dan...

SPDan, did u vent the surface at all. Need a clean deck while fishing.......BTW, nice job Sir.........GT

It looks pretty functional.
I'm looking forward to a performance report.

Added a few more pic's

I added a gold colored line at the 14" Legal Bass measure,
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And this design doesn't get in the way unless you are one of those that likes the front of the lap tray in-the-down in-front position. Other than that ... it's perfect ..... I hope

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This is my idea on a lite-weight built-in fish board w/ the same dimensions as my original net lap tray.

The hardest part was the cutting-out of a near perfect pattern of my net tray into the corrugated plastic sheet and still allowed for the front to angle upward at 90 degrees, allowing for additional structural resistance to the flexing. A couple of rivets and washers at the inside vertical angle at the front of tray.

I was hoping that the gold line at 14"s would be much easy on the eye for all fishermen to read during the time you check out the photo during the tournament.  
I can still change it to white if some of you think that white would be a much better color to see while looking at fish porn.

Can I get some feedback here ?!?

Gold or White line?

I would suggest gold. The white might over expose when taking pics in bright/direct sunlight.
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I say try the gold and see how it photos.
Great job and thanks for sharing.

Looking forward to see the results on this test, it makes sense to me. I am still looking to test out my ideas as well. Let us know how it goes SP Dan.

Thanks for sharing with us I think we could call that legal. Seems that it worked out pretty good, but you would be the judge on that. Either way I can easily see the measurement and it worked, what does everyone else think.

One more 1/2" off the height of the front legs.
A total of 1.5" cut off the front only.

Having to modify my design a bit to incorporate a measuring-board w/ a built-in bump-board.

It's an honest measure.

I like your design. Simple and serves the purpose which is only to verify that the catch qualifies.

So far I give it two thumbs up!
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Received my new Rapala measuring board with a hinged bump-board. It raises a wide flat surface upward approx 3/8".
I just miter cut the end to match the lap tray pattern and secured it down to the corrugated-plastic lap-tray liner with Gorilla Glue Tape, water proof and clear.

The metal end-of-tape was removed and the bottom side of the white measuring tape was saturated with Super-Glue.
A single pull of the Gorilla Glue clear water proof tape was placed over the new white measuring tape to seal it in and hold it from moving.

Would you consider this measure board to be "tournament approved"? Does this meet the style?  

Photo's of my final- Tournament- "Measuring Device" ENTRY ... for the Judge's considerations.

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That's it! ... I ran out of ideas for now.

Let me know what you think.

SP Dan     <"))><

I like it I like it I think the bumper board is the way to go guys.

I like it.
Looking forward to some test shots.

Hmmmmmm! It sounds like we need another Gathering.
I'll fish for any excuse!
I do need to catch a fish in order to test the lap tray measure and it's photo-ability.

Hint hint

<"))><

GREAT work here Dan! Yesterday was my first back in my tube in quite some time and I struggled with measuring for sure. Thanks for sharing your mod!

Thanks for sharing! That looks awesome. One thing I like about the non-rigid mesh tray is it is easy for me me to transport and store. When I'm moving to different areas to launch my tube I can bunch it all up and shove it in the front of my waders. With everything I have to carry it makes it a lot easier for me. But for measuring purposes that looks like it would work quite well.

Jayb1rd79 wrote:Thanks for sharing! That looks awesome.  One thing I like about the non-rigid mesh tray is it is easy for me me to transport and store.  When I'm moving to different areas to launch my tube I can bunch it all up and shove it in the front of my waders.  With everything I have to carry it makes it a lot easier for me.  But for measuring purposes that looks like it would work quite well.

You could always put a carabiner on it and clip it to your tube while transporting it. That's what I did with my rigid lap tray on my cumberland. I also clip my fins and life jacket to the tube. Makes it a lot easier when your tube is on your back and you're not worrying about anything falling out.