Northwest Fishing Reports

Just inherited a 14ft fiberglass boat with a early 90`s 2 cycle 4 cylinder 40hp merc. The boat trolls down well for what it is as it will troll down to about 2.00 mph. While that will be fine for the salt water, i love kokanee fishing and need to troll a lot slower. Been looking at 4 stroke kicker motors in the 4hp to 6hp range. My question is will they slow the boat down enough to achieve the speeds i need for fishing kokanee.

My only experience with single cylinder 4 stroke`s is a mid 90`s honda 5hp that previous owner had on this boat. The motor did not go with the boat and that is fine cause i had a hard time with that motor. The motor is hard to start, cold blooded, loud and does not idle well at low speeds. That 5 would not troll the speeds i want it too. I have been told the problems that the 5 has are common traits of small single cylinder 4 stroke outboards. I do not want to buy something and have it not work for my needs.

You can always change the prop for one with a lower pitch to slow you down - if one is available for that particular motor. They usually are.

You can also add a trolling plate tot he Merc to slow it down.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Trol-A-M ... lsrc=aw.ds" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or put out a sea anchor.

five gallon bucket works as well. Just depends how much you want to spend. With the trolling plate you loose the ability to steer as well as you would without it. Makes it tough in on windy days. YMMV. tight lines.

My question was about 4 to 6 hp 4 stroke outboards, not ways to slow the boat down. I have limited experience with the size of outboards i stated, and was looking for input from others who have experience with those motors. Pulling buckets,anchors, and trolling plates is not what i was asking about. I see these outboards on boats all the time and am wondering their effectiveness.

Well shi@ sorry about that rapala1972 read your post wrong...lol. So to answer your question yes it will be slow enough for what your looking to do. Effective yes but for trolling only and that is what you want. I would say pick one up and go fishing. Tight lines.

opps, also guilty of not reading thoroughly. Yes, that will work fine. I can get my 8hp down to .7 to .8.

You will find that even a 6hp motor on a boat your size will push you over 1mph (GPS Speed) on a windless day unless you add some drag to the boat. If you really want to go slow, without deploying drift socks, buckets or trolling plates, you may be better off looking at an electric trolling motor. I've been on a boat with a 6hp Tahatsu sail pro, it comes with a charging system and a high thrust/small pitch prop, which will help you troll at a slightly slower speed than a normal pitched prop. It idles well and is surprisingly smooth for a single cylinder motor. I would expect the other higher end outboard manufacturers (Honda, Mercury, Yamaha, Suzuki) all offer a similar setup and idle just as well. A dealer should be able to demo one in a tank for you, so you can get a feel for how it runs at various rpms.

I've heard really good things about the Tohatsu 6 horse. Suzuki I believe has the same motor in their line up. Tohatsu makes the small OB's for all the manufactures.

We have a 2015 Tohatsu 8hp 4 stroke on our 21 ft boat. This is the same motor as the Mercury. Tohatsu makes the motors for Mercury. We like it a lot. It starts instantly and idles down great and runs really smoothly and of course, barely sips gas.

That said, even fully loaded with gear and with three old fat guys and 40 gallons of fuel on board, we still had to change the prop to a lower pitch to get the boat speed down low enough to troll for walleye.

Older Yamaha kickers down to 6 hp were twin cylinders and would get you the troll speed you want with our the vibration. All the new Yamahas and mere are all 1 cylinder motors and vi rate like hell! Lol. Of all the motors I've serviced and repaired the mer and Yamaha kicker seem the best overall, but u fortunately they come at a premium. Last I saw on our dealer prices new merc 8 hp was like 2800+. It sucks they cost so much

Not a single 8hp Merc over $2448 and free shipping - http://onlineoutboards.com/mercury-8-hp-outboards.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Save even more with a Tohatsu, not one over $1900, free shipping, and same exact engine as Merc - http://onlineoutboards.com/tohatsu-8-hp-outboards.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Why buy from a dealer?

Thats just like "List Price" on many hi-ticket items. It leaves the dealer room to advertise discounts and offer sales/specials/"just for you today only"/"Ok, you win, but Im not making any profit"/"We are low over head so we can give you this incredible deal" etc etc.

Or that "IN-home" salesman who starts out with a price of $20k to do the job, but quickly drops to $10k and will go as low as $2k if you resist long enough. He is delighted to get $20K though because his commission would be huge.

I was in hi end kitchen design/cabinet sales for many years. It was common to be able to "discount" as much as 70% from the mgf's "List" price and still make a decent profit.

Believe me, Mercury is very proud of there rebranded motors. Biggest problem is some dealers get better discounts because the buy them by the container load. Unfortunately here in Washington we also pay for shipping on loose motors also so that has to be factored in also. It wouldn't hurt to look at Suzuki four strokes also, I've had pretty good luck with them also. When it come to large motors I just found out that tohatsu is rebranding 150 and up motors now for their lines and they are Hondas.......go figure! Lol

On a 14' it would be easy to power down enough, but for overall control I like electrics. With a rheostat (so-called infinite) speed control you can be very precise. Either way you should get good results.

fishinChristian wrote:On a 14' it would be easy to power down enough, but for overall control I like electrics. With a rheostat (so-called infinite) speed control you can be very precise. Either way you should get good results.

Waste of money as they dont work in the salt water unless you by one that is salt water compatible. The cost of one of those salt water compatible electric motors cost almost as much as a small outboard. Electric motors are worthless in the wind and another battery is needed. Its also hard to predict how long you can troll with an electric motor. Again not the question i was asking.

Eric the boat guy wrote:Older Yamaha kickers down to 6 hp were twin cylinders and would get you the troll speed you want with our the vibration. All the new Yamahas and mere are all 1 cylinder motors and vi rate like hell! Lol. Of all the motors I've serviced and repaired the mer and Yamaha kicker seem the best overall, but u fortunately they come at a premium. Last I saw on our dealer prices new merc 8 hp was like 2800+. It sucks they cost so much

What your talking about is a 2 stroke kicker motor. This route is a consideration and would be a cheaper option. I know for a fact and 8hp or smaller 2 stroke would troll this boat down to where i need to be. In fact i think a 15 2 stroke would troll it down, but that is way more than i need and to heavy. I have had a few OMC small 2 stroke outboards. The 4hp and up where all twin cylinder engines that ran well. I do not know much about the merc`s or the yamaha 2 strokes. If i go down the 2 stroke route i will go with a OMC cause it what i have used in the past.

2 stroke kicker was something i was trying to avoid for a few reasons. First the fumes you get while trolling from 2 strokes is something i don`t like. The wind while running pushes those fumes out, so the 40 is not a problem. Second they are noisy. Third is getting rid of mixed gas at the end of the year is a pain in the rear end. Mixing gas is not something i want to do again. The 40 is oil injected, so getting rid of that gas is easy.

Had a 6hp 4stroke on a 16' Hewescraft Sportsman and hated it. Ran great, sipped fuel, just could not get over the single cylinder thump. When we traded up to our current boat, it got an 8hp twin and no more thump. I'll never own another single cylinder kicker.

I don't believe any of the major names offer new, portable motors as 2-strokes. Because direct injection technology hasn't been scaled down to their size, these engines couldn't meet EPA and CARB requirements and some lakes don't allow their use. Eveinrude had a "15HP" 2-stroke kicker that they dropped as it was just a detuned 25HP motor that weighed a ton and garnered little interest.

If you are set on a 2 cylinder and are open to getting a used motor, look for an 8hp Mercury Bigfoot or Yamaha T8. These both have a higher gear ratio, specifically for lower speed and trolling applications. The 8HP high thrusts have been discontinued and now they only offer 9.9 hp models. I have the newer Yamaha T9.9 on my 18.5' Raider and I still need to deploy the drift sock on windless days if I want to get down below 1.3MPH. I normally don't need to go that slow so I have not looked at getting a smaller pitch and/or diameter prop to reduce my speed.