I know its a long shot but maybe the hive can help me. I lost my 25 hp longshaft outboard when it fell off the back of my boat in 45 feet of water in a lake. I marked the position on gps with my phone as best as I could but I was at full throttle when it fell off. I'm gonna go back and see if I can find it with my fish finder. Its a really cheap one so I doubt it will be able to see the motor even if I was directly on top of it. I have been wanting to get a better fish finder. Would a $200 unit be able to see this motor ? Assuming I can find the damn motor any ideas on how to hook it so I can pull it back up ?

I just got this motor for free 4 days ago. Its a 1984 johnson 25hp longshaft. I was so happy to get it running. I put it on the back of my 14' short transom rowboat. The boat is aluminum (lowes sea nymph) but it has a piece of wood that reinforces the transom where you clamp a motor on.I knew this wood need to be replaced. In my haste to try out this motor I said fuck it and ran it anyway. Ran great in a straight line. I tried to make a gradual turn at full throttle to return to my dock and I nearly capsized. I cut the throttle but it motor turned and ripped itself sideways and right off of the transom. It yanked the fuel line right off and sank. I actually lucky I didn't capsize and lose my phone and the deep cycle battery I had in the boat. But damn I'm pissed at myself.

Its gone. If you were moving when it fell you could be 10 feet off or 300 feet off from where you think it is.

Even with a diver it would be difficult for them to find.

Dragging a big ass magnet would probably be the best option to locate it. Then drop a marking buoy. Then you could try to grapple it, but good luck.

Find it with a magnet, then call a dive school see if they want to do some recovery training.

Let it go.

An ice fishing submersible camera.

Help you find and help you get the grapple hooked on it.

What about a metal detector ? If I could sink a sensor down 35 feet I could cruise around and eventually find it ?

I take it you're looking for a hobby? Maybe escape from the wife?



Seriously,  I would forget about it. If the fish cops come around when you are trying to recover it, they could fine you and make you pay for recovery. Citing polluting with the fluids. I know here in MN people lose everything when a wheeler or snowmobile, or god forbid the asshole who bought a brand new truck, then going straight from the dealership to the bottom of a lake here while trying to show off the truck to buddies. All because of thin ice.

It was free, forget it.

If you want a hobby, then go for it. And if the fish cops come around, you heard about a lost vintage one of a kind prototype Johnson and you are looking to see if it is true.

An outboard is mostly aluminum so a magnet is not going to do much. I know a guy that lost one around me in FL but he was a diver. He put a stake in the bottom and tied a decent length of rope to it. He swam at the end of the rope in a circle till it snagged the motor.  I think a diver would be your best bet but may be hard to find in your area.

You aren't going to find it without a diver.  Going to need one to get it out anyway.  I dropped an outboard once, pulled it out and it ran great after blowing out the plugs.  That was a 2 stroke though.

You will need a diver. Even $1000 sonars probably won't be able to focus in on

something that small 45 feet down especially if there are rocks or vegetation

on the bottom.

Like mentioned above, since it is mostly aluminum a magnet is useless.

Dragging a grappling hook would be a crap shoot. You could drag for hours and

not snag it.

Poor outboard.

If the motor is brightly colored you might be able to have someone with an ultralight make a few low and slow spotting passes and tag the spot.

Another option is to use a few drones with good look down cameras. Just be sure the boat isn't to near the target area, don't want to disrupt the surface any more than possible.

Either way - if this recovery is going to be successful you need to get it done pronto!

What’s the bottom of the lake like ?

Sand, rocks, boulders, or trees ?

Tablerock Lake here in MO is mostly trees so... that would mean a SKILLED diver .

The water would only ever be clear enough to use a drone during thermal shift of the water column.  Mid-Spring or late fall.

And as far as it goes with a magnet, there is more steel than aluminum in a 1984 Johnson. I would still try that first to find it. Then get a diver.

No there isn't. The only major pieces that are steel are the crank, flywheel, rods and a few small pieces. The rest is either aluminum or stainless

steel which isn't very magnetic even though it has iron in it.

The flywheel will be under the cowling (assuming it's still attached) which is fiberglass.

The only true steel part I can think of on the outside of that motor is the tilt tube. Getting a magnet to cling

to that would be futile as only the ends are exposed.

Thanks for all the replies.

I know that the motor is mostly aluminum and therefore a magnet is useless.

The lake is an is a hydroelectric impoundment. It was filled with water 90 years ago. The water is very green. When it is clear you have maybe 7-8 feet of visibility. Right now with all the rain we have been getting this summer it is only about 2 feet. So no looking with drones or from the air. At over 40 feet it would be hard to see a white motor even for a diver. This one is painted a dark camoflauge.

I am pretty handy and I have time on my hands. I thought about building an underwater metal detector that I could tow behind a boat. It seems like a really simple device. If I could build something for $300 it would be worth it to me. Metal detectors detect aluminum as well as iron but I don't know how close I would have to be to detect the motor.

As for hiring a diver, I think that would be too expensive. And if I knew exactly where it was i would spend a few hours trying to snag it with a grappling hook.

I will probably spend a few hours tomorrow dragging my grappling hook around.

I have decided to build a underwatwr towable metal detector to find my motor. I will start a new thread.

I just put Panoptics Livescope on my rig, would be cool to try and locate it. Pretty long drive though.

Would you link the thread here ?

If I make any progress I will.

Yesterday I went back to the site where I lost the motor at with a grappling hook. I got it stuck on something on the bottom within 30 seconds. Spent an hour trying to unhook it. It started getting dark so I tied a float to the rope so I could go back today and try to unhook it. Today I went back and got a heavy ass chain and a second rope caught on whatever the grappling hook is caught on. Good times.

Put the word out on FB and see if anyone in the area has a sonor setup on their boat capable of see the profile. They are out there and they will definitely be able to spot it relatively easily, but finding someone with a 2-4K setup on their boat will be the hard part.

I also liked the suggestion someone up top had. If water clarity is decent, find an underwater camera with enough cable to get down there. You can get them pretty cheap and they work relatively well. I bought one for my dad to goof around with about 6 years ago and it even has a little LED "headlight" on the camera(bluegill).

AS far as retrieving it...we recovered a sunken snowmobile my buddy "lost" in his 20' pond. Made a grappling hook at work and caught one of the skis. I dont anticipate you being able to do that easly with the smoother profile of an outboard.

Good luck!

Find the ARFCOM of SCUBA and join and post a thread in the HTF (or similar) forum.  If the diver types are anything like ARFCOM folks and the dive is feasible and not risky I'm sure a couple of guys would do it for the cost of expenses (air/fuel/beer whatever).

If it was me and I got pushback from divers about risk if it was anything but a straightforward dive I would just write the motor off as a lesson learned.  I wouldn't want someone to die over an outboard.

Like others have said ... Let It Go.

My outboard flew off the back of my boat when I hit a stump while duck hunting, it was only about 3 ft... But when it came off the back of the boat it was still running. Even if you do find it... it's not going to be worth the repair

MAGNET FISHING.

Obtain a 1200 pound pull capacity magnet off of ebay and attach it to a very strong rope.  Go find it...and who knows what else?

You may add to you gun collection.

Or even...your safe collection.  

How do you release your prize with that kind of pull ?

Is it electro-magnetic ?

Always have a chain or a rope on your small unbolted outboard connected to a handle on the boat.    I had one close call with a mushy transom plywood board to see it made sense.  My stepfather always had it tethered but he was US Navy so he knew where Davy Jones locker lurked.

Believe it or not 2 smokes survive inhaling water pretty well due to their design.

We have dunked dirt bikes many times under near full throttle and have simply inverted the bike, pulled the plug and cleared it out and got on our way again.

I have to believe the depth of the water (pressure) and the amount of time will be the difference between your experiences and the OP’s.

I wonder if a magnet of that strength would be able to pull on the drive shaft from the side. The cowling was on the motor so there are few inches of empty space around the engine block.

Updates?

I bought a surfmaster metal detector kit. Once I put it together I'll start another thread.

It is dead Jim.  if you want to play the game for the hell of it have fun, but you will probably not find it as you were moving when it jumped ship and you went one way the motor went the other way.

4 of us recovered a 175 when I lived in Hawaii and even in warm water it was not an easy locate and recovery.