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Location: Green Bay, WI | I troll with both the kicker and the Verado, as the situation requires it. I used to worry about using the big engine to troll, because people always told me that it was easy to "wear it out." However I do not believe that anymore. I think that today's 4-stroke engines are more than capable of trolling indefinitely--as long as you take steps to run the engine at higher speeds periodically, to help clean the by-products of combustion. And of course you need to change the oil regularly as well...every 100 hours, or possibly every 50 if the engine trolls most of the time.
Case in point, my Verado. Mercury has designed the SmartCraft gauges to actually allow fine-control of engine RPM during trolling operations. I can adjust my engine in 10-20 RPM increments, within a certain range. For instance, I may find that 810-820 RPM gives me 2.75-2.8 mph in 2-foot chop with two anglers. By using the +/- control on my SmartCraft gauge, this is easily set. So if Mercury didn't approve their engines for trolling, why do they offer these capabilities with SmartCraft technology?
Go on over to http://www.thehulltruth.com and use the search feature to find one of several threads about operating today's 4-stroke engines at trolling speeds. In the research I've done in the matter, it seems that as long as the proper maintenance is performed at the recommended intervals, there are no issues.
TB
Edited by tcbetka 5/3/2009 10:31 AM
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