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Posts: 303
| I'm looking into getting my first boat, ether a crestliner 1600 fishhawk or the Lund rebel. Both these boats come with a 50hp merc. Will this motor run slow enough to troll? Or would a kicker be needed? Any help would be appreciated! |
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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | Yes. If it is a four stroke even better. I have a 60 and I can get it down to 2.5mph. You can also get a plate for the engine that helps slow it down. Can't remember the name of the contraption. |
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Posts: 303
| I saw the plate at bass pro shop. Do you think it would be more fuel efficent to have a kicker?....Or would the 50 get pretty good consuption? |
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Posts: 2691
Location: Pewaukee, Wisconsin | Kyle, I ran a Classic 50 Merc for 10 years. I used buckets tied on a short rope(3ft) to slow me down when I needed to slow way down. I tied them on to the cleats on eith side of the boat in front. Worked great to idle up the motor if needed to keep it running clean from build up.
That old 1985 Merc had thousands of hours on it and it always ran sweet. I would bet you could troll without a problem with todays motors. I even troll with my 225 Opti max at times if the wind and waves are too much for my 9.9 Pro Kicker.
A plate would be a nice investment, I didn't buy one because I didn't need to troll under 1mph. Buckets were only used when contitions called for it. Like down wind trolling with strong winds.
Go for it and enjoy!!!
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Posts: 227
Location: New Brighton, MN | the contraption is called the "happy troller".
works pretty well, but I wonder about the noise from rattling underwater...... |
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Posts: 5874
| If you are trolling for muskies, your are fine with that motor. If you need to get down under 1 MPH, like when pulling harnesses for waleyes, there are a couple things you can do.
#1, use buckets as described, or better yet, a couple of 25-30" drift socks, tied off the front cleats on both sides of the boat. Adjust the length of the ropes so the bags don't go past the transom. This is a great set up to slow down. when using the big motor.
#2, use your Bowmount to troll with the wind. Especially effective if you have an Autopilot. Set it and forget it! hehehe You might also need to drop a bag(bucket) or two to get your speed down.
#3 Happy Troller as mentioned, but this has it's issues. Your boat control will suffer, you can use reverse aeffectively, don't forget to lift it up before powering up. The noise would not be an issue when trolling for muskies, but could be if trollinf for other fish.
#4 Kicker or Engine mount electric. |
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Posts: 143
| I have a 1600 Fishhawk with the 60 horse fourstroke merc. very very happy with the boat & motor. no idea what trolling speeds i'm getting, but it's slow enough to catch rainbows. i was going to get some GPS units next week, but unexpected truck repairs came up.
as far as fuel consumption...i used maybe 2 - 2.5 tanks (23 gal) last year, and i fish a lot. ive been out 12+ times so far this year and still at 3/4 tank. |
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Posts: 51
Location: MI | i have 16' with a 60hp. merc 4 banger and i troll all the time with it.the slowest i can get it is 1.9mphi have an electric trolling motor up front and i haven`t even used it yet.just bought the boat n motor last early fall. |
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Motor trolling?