Long story short.

Installed a new fish finder today. Old one was shot, and now the motor won’t turn over and the trolling motor won’t come on.

What can I check and where can I bring my boat to get looked at?

I’m in Metairie this week.

Long story –

Sorry if this is the wrong spot.

Put in a new fish finder today. Old one was flat broke.

New fish finder powers up. Awesome.

Went to drain the live well, and it will only turn on with toggle switch in the fill position.

Decided to check everything else out. Lights come on, bilge works, and all looking good until I power up the trolling motor. Nada.

On vacation and visiting and can live without trolling motor. Trip planed for the AM, let me see if the motor will turn over. Nada.

Clearly I have done something to the electrical when installing the new fish finder.

It is dark, and trip has been canceled. To say I’m beyond thinking is an under statement.

Where could I have messed up?

Removing the old tranducer was complexity low.

Threading the new cable for the traducer

Pulled cable to the front, minor in complexity, but never yanked on cable. But did have issues getting it run right. Really don’t think I caused any cabling to come loose at this point.

Power – Oh boy! The complexity.

Ok, I removed a red cable from fuse panel to see if that would cut power to the existing fish finder. Nope. Put it back.

Pulled a fuse or two to see if that cut power. That did not kill power.
Was looking to cut power to the older unit, and use that terminal on the fuse panel to power up new unit.

Decided I need to see what was the deal with the power to the original unit. Loosened cover for cables, pulled the wires through and saw where the manufactor connected the power and grown to pre-run wire.
Ok, cut connection and pull prewire back. A little tough to do, but pull hard, not yank, but pull hard and got those two wires to where I needed them. Use same type of connector and connect those wires to new power wires for my new fish finder.
Powered up unit. Awesome it works.
Tightened up every thing, and cleaned up.

It rained today and needed to drain live well. Put batteries in the on position, and flip the toggle to drain. Doesn’t work. Flip it to fill, and you can hear it work.
[censored], better test lights and other key components. Horn works, blidge works, lights, etc. Awesome.
Let me try trolling motor. It does not come on.
Ok, can deal with it later. Let me at least ensure the motor will turn over. It doesn’t. WTF over!
Its dark, been a long day, and I just dragged this boat from Texas to New Orleans to fish some old stomping grounds and I’m dead in the water. Or in this case my MIL drive way.
So, if I can’t figure this out in the day light, where can I bring my boat, to hopefully get this fixed tomorrow?

You have a wire grounding out. It could be touching another wire or somewhere in the battery box. Also check the wires under the dash to see if they are touching.

Take a VOM and see if your battery is draining

Good luck

There are a lot of ppl on the TX Hunting Forum with experience in this and they can help too

Hard to say without seeing the way it was and the way it is now. Frequently the + will be fused for each item and the (-) will be daisy-chained (yes...I know that the electrons actually flow from neg to positive).
When you disconnected the old fish finder there it a possibility that there was actually 2 wires on the negative that was completing the negative wiring to the next device.

Boat wiring can be confusing and I'm certainly no expert on marine wiring, although I have done my share of control circuit wiring.