Posts: 3508
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
One of the things you can do when working around a spot in the wind is to point the front of the motor into the wind. What you are essentially doing is using the lower unit as a fin to help direct the front of the boat, allowing the boat to run more parallel to the structure you are trying to fish. The motor pointed into the wind essentially allows the wind to push the bow in easier than the stern, thus you can control your bow a bit easier with the bow mount.
Many times, I have found both the bow mount and the main motor are pointed in the same direction and can get a parallel run on structure with wind hitting the side of the boat. There still is some maneuvering to do, but not as much.
When working with the wind (stern into the wind) I have found I can better control the boat with the bow mount thrusting against the wind and can adjust the bow in and out accordingly, while slowing the whole boat down to fish it effectively. This one takes practice, but it can be done. Like others have said here, you can apply drift socks to this situation to slow you down as well.
Working into the wind, there are times a kicker is really handy. Like Sled mentioned, start your main motor and put it in gear...let it do the pushing of the boat and saving battery drain. I will do this with a kicker as it usually will allow me to move slower, yet have the power to move the boat. Then, I can use the bowmount to control direction. In cases such as this, being up in the bow is challenging due to wave action, but at times, that wave action is where the fish are at and usually are very active as well.
I ran a lunker 165 and now a navigator, so your rig is the bridge betweeen the two I have run. The Classic is the older version of the navigator which changed in 2004/2005. Good boat!!
Steve |
