Working on a Major Plan B

[Scott]

Well, best laid plans of mice and tarpon fisherman!!! The new ride has a glitch. The plan was to put a trolling valve on one motor and be able to troll. After spending all morning trying to get the old valvebody off the transmission, I learned that there is not enough space between the motor and the after engine compartment strut to remove the valve body. Ooops. Short of cutting a strut or removing a motor (neither is an option), the trolling valve went back in the box and returned. So, unless the tarpon get hyped up on steroids and start taking baits trolled at 5 knots, I guess I'm going to have to come up with a Plan B. The options I have looked at are: (1) trolling motors - won't work, they whine a lot due to the fact the electric motor is under the water and eat up a lot of battery power - good for getting in close but the folks who have tried them in Louisiana have not had much success (2) a small kicker outboard - looked at air cooled and/or four strokes - problem is this is a big investment, adds lots of junk to the back end of the boat - i.e. brackets etc. - and is a gamble that a small enough motor would even do the trick -- plus very inconvenient when it comes to moving around etc. (3) electric outboard -- this might work okay but I need a bunch of batteries to make this work and has the same drawbacks as (2) above and (4) drift socks drug behind the boat to get the boat down to 2 knots or less. Not sure this will work, but its the cheapest option at this stage and requires the least amount of monkey business with the boat. So this is the leading Plan B option at the moment.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated!!!! Please don't tell me to just start drifting baits... I just can't bring myself to do this again!!!! Tell me it ain't so!!!

[wahoo]

what about bump trolling? can you do that for tarpon?

[Scott]

Problem with that is I'd probably wear out the gears shifting them in and out constantly for hours... besides, not sure that would be a desired effect for the fish to hear the constant shifting. Better off probably just drifting.

[Carp]

don't know if it is feasible on the inboards but, i've seen those plates the people up north put behind the prop on outboards to slow the boat down so that they can troll.

justin

[Scott]

Yea, I thought about that too but not sure how the hell you'd install one so that it stuck straight down.... I'm afraid these big old motors would tear them off. Any suggestions would be appreciated.