07-09-2009, 03:29 PM
4 stroke wise, what has been said is spot on.
2 stroke motors, I would go smaller.
Generally speaking, as far as I'm concerned 2 stroke wise, there are two catagories of motors weight to hp..
4-8 hp
9-20hp.
25 and above really doesn't work for trolling on small or larger boats. A 25 on a small boat doesn't seem to troll down well enough and a 25 on a larger boat would have fairly major weight issues and wouldn't make good sense.
4 to 8 hp works great and are light and convenient motors. When you get up to and past 9 horse motors they are fairly heavy. There is no weight difference between the 9.9's and 15 hp motors with 18 and 20 horse motors not really overall that much heavier.
Long shaft motors have some advantage for trolling motors on larger boats as far as getting the foot down in the water far enought that it won't start frying your impeller in waves when the motor can come up out of the water and/or adjusting the trolling plate down so far that you feel like your going to fall out of the boat getting the motor down in the water. The weight difference between a small 4-8 hp long shaft (20 inch) and a short shaft (15 inch) is negligable.
My preference is a 4 to 6 hp two stroke or if you would rather run a 4 stroke go with a two cylinder.
If your trolling motor is your main motor, go with the largest motor you can and still get down to a very slow speed. I can run up to a 20 hp two stroke motor on my 14 ft aluminum for trolling without a problem of speed at all. At 25 hp. a trolling plate is needed. Any horsepower lower than a 25, if its running decent at all, should idle down and troll everything you would like to short of fly's.
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2 stroke motors, I would go smaller.
Generally speaking, as far as I'm concerned 2 stroke wise, there are two catagories of motors weight to hp..
4-8 hp
9-20hp.
25 and above really doesn't work for trolling on small or larger boats. A 25 on a small boat doesn't seem to troll down well enough and a 25 on a larger boat would have fairly major weight issues and wouldn't make good sense.
4 to 8 hp works great and are light and convenient motors. When you get up to and past 9 horse motors they are fairly heavy. There is no weight difference between the 9.9's and 15 hp motors with 18 and 20 horse motors not really overall that much heavier.
Long shaft motors have some advantage for trolling motors on larger boats as far as getting the foot down in the water far enought that it won't start frying your impeller in waves when the motor can come up out of the water and/or adjusting the trolling plate down so far that you feel like your going to fall out of the boat getting the motor down in the water. The weight difference between a small 4-8 hp long shaft (20 inch) and a short shaft (15 inch) is negligable.
My preference is a 4 to 6 hp two stroke or if you would rather run a 4 stroke go with a two cylinder.
If your trolling motor is your main motor, go with the largest motor you can and still get down to a very slow speed. I can run up to a 20 hp two stroke motor on my 14 ft aluminum for trolling without a problem of speed at all. At 25 hp. a trolling plate is needed. Any horsepower lower than a 25, if its running decent at all, should idle down and troll everything you would like to short of fly's.
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