slowing your troll

[Paul]

Does anyone know how you can slow down tour idling troll speed.My 100 horse merc wants to clip off at about 2.2-2.8 mph.I have to keep jumping in and out of gear every minute or so or I start cruising up around the high twos before I know it.I want a kicker but cant at the moment$$.Any experiment with a drift bag before????Thanks in advance guys>>>

[eyeswon]

Try and find a trolling motor for the back.

[Airwave(OH)]

First do you know how fast your RPM 's are at Idle and also JUST in gear. Your 100hp should troll slow enough for you but you didn't say how big your boat is & what year motor. If you can't get it then Trolling bags will do the job. They are alittle different than Drift Bags. You also could experiment with Prop pitch but this could get critical if your not well disciplined. I'll explain later if you wish. Many guys here use the Trolling bags.

[Andy K]

A cheap and easy way to slow down is a trolling bucket,or two. A five gallon bucket with a rope tied to the handle. Drop it overboard and tie it off to a cleat. I've used one on each side and it seems to work well. Just remember to pull them in before you take off!

[paul]

Thanks for the ideas guys,So you dont think these have any adverse effects on your main motor?Is there really a need for a kicker then if you use these other than backup?

[davey crockett]

I know it's a pain with a console boat(I assume you have one with a 100 horse), but you can always try backtrolling.

[whitetips]

If backtrolling , try a 24" trolling sock, In forward
try gallon or 2 gallon size buckets with ropes spackling size attached, put holes in the bottom to attain a speed, bucket on each corner.

[Fishtail]

I have usde my bow mount trolling motor to slow me down. By merely putting it into the water typically slows down my forward troll somewhere between .1 and .2 MPH. Sometimes that will be enough.
Fishtail

[Schnauzer]

Good idea Fishtale. I'm going to use that one. I started doing something similar this weekend. I like to be precise and keep a close eye on the GPS to try different speeds and then stick with the exact (to the .1 mile per hour) speed that works. My advice won't help the main question in this thread but your post reminded me of it: I use a kicker motor and I can slow my speed .1 mph by putting the main motor in gear while it is turned off. This causes the prop to quit turning by itself and causes enough resistance to slow the boat by .1 mph. If weather causes me to drop .1 under my desired speed, I just take the big motor out of gear and I can adjust back the other way.

For bigger adjustments, drift socks are a good answer.

[Grey Wolf]

Paul

I've got the 125 Merc, and this is my second one. I've got the idle down to about 500 in gear. This is quite slow, but it alos depends on you boat too. The slow idle is easy to find, pull your cover and as your ar standing in the boat, its right there on the right and should be labeled. Pull the hood off the motor, determine what the RPM drop is on your motor from neutral to in gear, then keeping the motor running, turn the idle screw to get to your nuetral RPM's where once you put it into gear it will run about 500 RPM's. I owuld like to get mine down to about 450, this trolls slow enough that it almost sounds like the motor wants to kill. Give it a try, you may not be able to reach 450 - 500, but you should be able to lower it.

[Boating Bob]

Get a trolling buddy if you are trolling alot. Or, get the kicker. Nothing worse than deploying 2 drift socks and pulling them in every time you want to move a distance. The buckets look like ##### especially if you have a decent rig and do worry about the finish on the side of the boat in the wind.

Do it right the first time and save alot of agrivation and expense.