Trolling with a 40 hp

[2dogs]

Hey all, need some past experience advice from you. I just picked up a 16 ft. boat with a 2003 Yamaha 40 horse two stroke. My question is... can I put a trolling plate on this big of a motor and troll for 5 or six hours with (occasionally opening it up to clean out) or will it just load up to much and cause issues?
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[Metalheadgene]

I used to run a 50 Horse prop with a trolling plate and had no issues. There is also the poor mans trollng plate which is tie and hang a five gallon bucket off each side of the boat....works like a champ!
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[lowe-185]

In the past I had to troll with my 150.
throw out a drift soak, and troll for as long as need to pick up a limit of koks. May not have been the best, but that's what I had to work with till to got a kicker. As to date the engine has no issues.
With a 40 hp, I personally would not be afraid to do the same thing.
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[drowning_flys]

Might not need a trolling plate i troll with my evinrude 35 and it never skips a beat
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[Deshka]

I have a 90hp with a trolling plate, I only troll with it when it's real windy and it does just fine.
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[Jimbojump]

I'd try it first without the plate to confirm if you need it...since every boat hull is different and the draft also varies you won't know til you try...my other recommendation is to use non-ethanol fuel in your two strokes....it really does help. Plus if you know your going to troll all day you might try backing off a bit on your oil to fuel ratio...the lugging and bogging is caused by unburnt oil at low rpm's. Good luck!
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[Jimbojump]

I'm really not a fan of the loading up thing....when my kicker did it it would blow out a load of gel like tan oil sludge into the lake....environmentally nasty. Better to have a bit undersized kicker running at higher rpms than a large one that has to be at idle to get there. Even then a couple buckets or a drift sock may slow you down enough to increase rpms.
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[AverysAdventure]

Your 40 is perfect for a plate but depending on prop pitch and boat you may not need one to catch fish. I run a Yamaha 25 with a trolling plate. Had the Happy Troller Lil' Fella on it but after 10+ years it finally broke. It did me a good job but at times I couldn't run as slow as I wanted. So when I went to buy another one this spring I decided to step up to the small aluminum Happy Troller. Got online to find one and about soiled myself when I seen how much they were asking for them. So I started watching CL for a used one. Didn't take long and I found one for $45 and had the wife swing by and pick it up as I was working. Well I get home to check it out and I realized it was the large model instead of the small as advertised. Dang it! So the redneck in me came out and I started customizing it. I trimmed the plated down to just larger than the factory small and went fishing. Well it was too big still and I had to run higher rpms than I wanted. So after 3 trim jobs I now have a custom plate that is perfect for my setup. It's a little wider than a small but shorter so I have better steering ability. I can run from 0.5 to 1.9 mph with the plate down and 1.7 to 24 with it up. Moral of the story: buy big and customize it to your boat and motor. It's worth the hassle in the end IMHO.

Rod

[Bassnbob]

I had a Happy Troller on my 65 horse Johnson on my old Glastron. It worked perfect and I never had any problems with it loading up. The other benefit was it got on plane faster for waterskiing.
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[2dogs]

Well thanks all for the input. I have always run a trolling plate on my other boat with a 25hp Mercury and did great but being a bigger motor and oil injected I didn't know. Guess I will try it [fishin]
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[Lunddude]

[quote 2dogs]Well thanks all for the input. I have always run a trolling plate on my other boat with a 25hp Mercury and did great but being a bigger motor and oil injected I didn't know. Guess I will try it [fishin][/quote]

Troll away Scott!

You should be able to haul a few more decoys with that bigger boat! [laugh]
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[2dogs]

Dang straight Mike! And more room for the dogs too! You better come down this year and we'll try her out. It walleye time now. Call me and we'll catch a few.
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[BBART]

You won't have any problems. I have a Yamaha 50 hp with a trolling plate. Can troll from .5 mph to about 1.2 mph with plate down. For Kokes I sometimes troll with plate up to get 2.2 or so at idle.

The motor doesn't seem to "load up" when trolling all day. Sometimes though the control is tough with plate down if the wind starts blowing you sideways when trolling close to shore. I just pull the plate and power out.
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[2dogs]

BBART that sounds encouraging. what brand of plate are you running?
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[curt69]

Cabelas has the Trol-A-Matic on sale for $99.99 with free shipping with purchace over $99.00 . This is the way to go , because it is spring loaded and works automatically . The ones that are cable operated and lock down are an accident waiting to happen . The first time you forget to unlock it and hit the throttle , bends the heck out of stuff .
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[2dogs]

thanks Curt69 I'll check it out
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