Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss 3 way hitch plate for mower

Picked this up the other day from Sears, and although I'm usually a DIY person, and was thinking of making something like this myself, this thing was worth every penny. Thought I would share it as some of you might not know it exists.

It's mounted to the back of my John Deer Riding mower and is called the "Good Vibrations Hitching Plate." Yeah tacky name but...

It allows me to pull my small fish hauling trailer and tank around the property to my four ponds and keeps the tank and trailer level with the mower. I can go with ease from pond to pond if I'm seining fish vs. pulled with a vehicle and tearing up the yard. I attached a ball, but it also has a hole for a pin for a different trailer I use, and a place to attach a chain.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_317694-60858-170_0__?productId=3121691

Here it is mounted to the back of my John Deere:



Here is the fish hauling trailer attached to the ball on the hitch.



Notice the trailer and tank are level with the mower:




Also picked up a cool pin known as a "King Pin." It has a spring loaded retractable deal on the bottom to keep the pin from coming out of the trailer, but also easy to pull out when you want it to by depressing the handle.

CB, thanks for taking time to post pictures and share. I hadn't seen the hitch pin and I like!

Reviews of your hitch plate suggest that when it bolts to your frame that there is 1 attachment point and it can act like a place where the hitch can pivot side to side. Some said that no matter how tight they got it the leverage side to side keeps loosening the bolt. How did it attach and did you have any concerns about keeping it stationary under load?

CC,

It's first test will be today as I'm seining out YOY bluegill from one of my hatchery ponds. I'll let you know if I have any issues, but it seemed to bolt on pretty good.

Hope it goes good. Can you just hook the seine net on the tractor and let her rip??

Ha Ha! I don't like the sound of "let her rip" when it comes to seines!

Here is 66 feet of a 1/16 inch mesh seine that was originally 8 feet in depth and double that in length. I cut off a four foot bottom panel and seam off of the other half, and zip tied it to this one to make it 12 feet. Also sewed up a bunch of holes and removed the lead weights from the middle panel by cutting them through the lead and not lead line. It will be used to seine the fingerling pond today.

I got the used net originally at 200 feet and only paid $50.00 for it. It will probably only last a couple more years until I get a replacement net. I do have new seines for everything else but the fingerlings.






Here you can see where I zip tied the reinforced seams for the 4 foot panel to make the 8 foot net 12 feet deep. No more draining down the pond due to the net being too shallow! In fact I'm raising it today by pumping in water to make it easier to just lift the net out! The left over fish will feed some brood stock crappies I will add this fall.

Cecil, any particular reason why you went with white non-UV stabilized zip ties instead of the Black UV stabilized ones?

Very kool.......I like the hitch and the seine !!!

Four reasons:

1. I had a few thousand 4 inch white and multicolored zip ties on hand and didn't want to buy more. I think I used about 1800 to join the panels and add a rope border on each end.

2. Using them for cages that were in the ponds 24/7 most of the year I've rarely had issues with the white ones. I think the superiority of the black ones is way overrated.

3. The net won't be exposed to UV light most of the time as once it's dry it will be in dark storage. It will be used only once a year.

4. The net probably won't last much longer anyway as it has seen a lot of use before I got it. I can tear it with my bare hands.

Good enough reasoning for me!

I tried using the white ones, but only got 1 year outside in the sun with them before they broke easily. The black ones lasted about 5 years before they got weaker.....

Just a word of general caution for all reading this post, lawn tractors aren't the most substantial means of pulling or towing. Cecil's photo shows the majority of the weight over the trailer axle, which is what you want. Keep weight distribution in mind when you hitch up, and remember that a light duty lawn tractor is intended to pull a small cart or lawn roller, not necessarily a boat. Their hitch plates bend pretty easily under moderate tongue weight.

Also, the transaxles installed in most lawn machines are not intended for heavy duty use. I see a lot of broken trans. mounts, sheared axles, and stripped shift keys.

They have been making UV stabilized Ty-Rap's in multiple colors for a few years now. Thomas and Betts has 11 colors.

FWIW Several years ago my sister used the white ones to tie off tubing etc. on her irrigation lines in her green houses (per irrigation system manufacturer instruction although they did not specify type). After sitting in UV all one year, the failure the next spring when she turned the pressure back on was not a happy day for her. I explained that she should have gone UV resistant. She immediately changed everything to black and never had another issue.

I wonder why I never had any issues? Could it be because they were underwater?

I would suspect you nailed it. Use them down deep enough in the water to be out of the reach of UV and you are good to go. In that situation, probably good till our great great great great great grand children replace them with a thought activated retention device that will pull the seine and sort the fish!

Checked the hitch after use and no pivoting from side to side. Very happy with it.

Seined several hundred bluegills in two pulls but sorted 116 YOY shooters up to 5 inches for one of the inside RAS'.

Hard to take pics when you're sorting etc. but snapped these two pics. These were not the biggest.





My goal is 300 shooters for the tank after another day seining and I may have someone that wants to buy a up to 300 of the rest.

Can't decide if I should rotenone the rest and catch and plant my crappie brood fish in the pond in the spring, or keep them in there for forage for crappie brood fish I may catch this fall.

Thanks Tony! I'm hoping this John Deer tractor is big enough and sturdy enough to handle pulling the tank around twice a year for a short distance. One way the tank is empty so there won't be a lot of weight there.

Thanks JKB. I'll look for that brand of zip ties. I have to re-do the ties on a few cages this fall.

Cecil, I'd leave the fish in there if they are of a size that the crappie brooders could utilize as food over the winter. IF you kill and then stock the brood fish, what would be the forage base for the winter?

Panduit also makes multi-color UV zip ties.

sparky,
My problem wasn't the hitch plate but the tires. I had to add chains to my rear tires to get decent traction even on wet grass. That was before I got the Kubota 3400L

Another note of caution: We're all familiar with the weak link in a chain scenario? In the case of light duty lawn tractors, traction is the intended weak link. Bolster your grip with chains or lug tires, and the next weakest link in the chain might involve transaxle repairs.

At one time a very well known manufacturer voided the warranty when traction aids were added.....they intended for slippage to occur, to try and mitigate costly internal damage. Not sure if that is still the case.

You misread my post.

The two alternatives were:

1. Do not rotenone and add the crappie this fall whereby the left over bluegill are forage for the winter.

2. Rotenone the pond this fall and stock the brood fish crappie in the spring.

Been mulling it over in my head and have decided to rotenone this fall and catch and add the crappie in the spring when I can sex them. I also won't have potential spawning bluegills to sort or that will compete with the crappie. If I can sex them I also won't add too many brood fish and have excess fry.