Re: 1995 Procraft fish and ski w/115 hp Mercury
You didn't mention how big the boat is, so keep that in mind as I give my thoughts. I just bought a 17.5' fish and ski with a 115hp Mercury... a '93 so guessing the motor is the same or similar. I've had it for a few weeks and we've done about 60% fishing and 40% skiing with it. My kids are all teens and young adults, so a lot bigger than yours... and 4 of them. The capacity label on my boat is 4 people... which is a little frustrating, but it is what it is. I will say I've had 5 in there and didn't notice any degradation. I've pulled 2 large teen guys on a tube with 3 in the boat. Had no trouble planing, never needed to go wide open throttle, and it did fine. You definitely no its back there when whipping them across the wake, but you feel it on larger boats too. So on a 17.5', the power is plenty. We just got some skis and will be trying them in the next few days. So far I'm very pleased.
For fishing, its fine with 3 people in there casting without falling on top of each other. There are two fishing chairs, and the 3rd person just stood in the middle of the boat. I am using it on lakes in NC. I don't know that it would do great out in a large bay or sound with huge waves. I have hit a few wakes going slow and had water over the bow, but I could have easily avoided it if I wanted by just changing the angle of approach. At cruising speed it handles great and never had a problem crossing wakes and such.
The 115 seems to work good on my boat... again not sure if yours is bigger and heavier. From the pictures that I've seen, the Procraft looks very similar to my Glasstream. I like the smaller size of the boat/trailer and was torn with getting something several feet bigger, but this I think will work pretty well and sounds like a good fit... so I'd say go for it.
