Hydro Nut increases stealth factor

July 7, 2015

LURE anglers and tournament anglers in particular love tinkering and are fascinated by innovation and new ideas. It tends to go hand in hand with trying to convince fish to eat something artificial. Every year a couple of new ideas hit the market that are designed to improve your angling or give you the edge.

Recently, a new product came onto the market called the ‘Hydro Nut’, which was developed by a couple of Brisbane lure fishos. The primary goal of the Hydro Nut is to reduce the vibration of your electric trolling motor while under way. I still remember a veteran lurer from Forster saying he believed the bream in the oyster racks had learnt to recognise the sound of an electric motor and subsequently turned off.

One of the key benefits of using an electric motor is to hide your presence from the fish, largely from a sound perspective, but also displacement of water (which would occur under main motor propulsion). Therefore any product that helps to reduce identification of your presence is worth considering.
The engineering principles of the Hydro Nut concept seem relatively straightforward.

Hydro Nuts provide a larger surface area to secure the prop against the shaft, thereby reducing the propensity for the prop to wobble (albeit small amounts) under power. The nuts themselves are aluminium, and anodised for corrosion resistance.

Holes have also been drilled in them to reduce weight and the addition of a small sacrificial anode (with rubber) provides further corrosion resistance.
A number of models are designed to fit most electric motors including the MotorGuide Xi5 and Tour models as well as the Minn Kota Riptide, iPilot, Maxxum and Fortrex motors.

Three colours are available: red, black and blue. We have been running a couple of prototypes for a while now, and while vibration was never a huge issue to start with, the Hydro Nut has probably added a few percent in terms of improved performance in minimising sound and vibration. The finish is quite smart and the nut looks very good on the trolling motor.

With a RRP of not much more than a couple of lures, a Hydro Nut would be a reasonable addition to most tournament anglers’ or recreational lurers’ rigs.
If you are interested in finding out more, visit www.facebook.com/marinedynamic or search for Hydro Nut on eBay.