Troll Plate

[Blue_Runner]

Reel its short shaft vs long shaft. Blu - long shaft aka 20" for sure. The extra 5" is needed when there its not dead calm. When the boat rocks, or if you shift weight around in the boat I'm betting a 15" shaft will allow the lower unit breach the surface of the water. You want that puppy to stay down no matter what.

Now if its always gonna be dead calm 1" chop the you would be fine with 15" short shaft.

Blue's .02 JMO

[phatdaddy]

never seen a "troll plate" does that attach to the cavitation plate and you flip it down to slow the boat speed down when trolling? you guys up north have all the cool toys.

down here we just tie a couple of 5 gallon buckets on lines and hang em on the stern cleats.

[Blue_Runner]

never seen a "troll plate" does that attach to the cavitation plate and you flip it down to slow the boat speed down when trolling?

Yes that's how it works. The one I posted with the springs on it you never have to flip up or down because its spring loaded. I liked having it for docking too. I wore the flounder out trolling the creeks with it at 1 mph. The downside is you do have to drill holes in your cavitation plate. It wasn't an issue for me on the '75 70hp Evinrude but on a new motor it would be harder to drill those holes.

[Blu_Lunch]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

never seen a "troll plate" does that attach to the cavitation plate and you flip it down to slow the boat speed down when trolling? you guys up north have all the cool toys.

down here we just tie a couple of 5 gallon buckets on lines and hang em on the stern cleats.

Look at the L/U you can see the plate this type sits back from the prop does it need the hole or not?

[Blue_Runner]

Opinions will differ on that. In my opinion the biggest problem with trolling plates is most require you to manually put it in the down position. This means in order to raise it up you have to pull a pin. You WILL forget to do this and your plate will either get screwed up or you'll crack your cavitation plate (or both). Its not IF its when. Some of the manufacturers have a shear pin so no damage is done. Still, manual intervention required and inevitibly you will forget.

The only negative I have to say about the Hussle plate is the springs were not stainless and would rust after a couple years. Not a problem cause Doug Johnson at Johnson Marine has the replacements but I never needed them! Check out the link:

http://www.johnsonmarinesupply.com/trolling_plates.htm