Repowering 20' Pontoon? Trolling speeds?

[hooterville]

Thinking of repowering my 20' Pontoon with a larger motor. The pontoon is rated for a 90 HP and is a Weeres .I now has a 50 hp 2 stroke Johnson on it. I have though about either a Evinrude Etec 90hp or Yamaha 90hp 4 stroke. How would are these engines for slow trolling and wear on the engines because of this? I fished in Myrtle beach this past summer on a pontoon out of Murrels Inlet and they trolled with there 4 stroke Mercury for about 4 hrs and was never turned off. Worked pretty sweet and the motor was quiet.

 

[Rancherlee]

Re: Repowering 20' Pontoon? Trolling speeds?

excessive trolling won't kill a modern 2 stroke or 4 stroke. With a 90hp engine its going to be hard to troll under 2mph without a trolling plate or sock if you need to troll slow. I believe Yamaha has an optional trolling control setup where you can push a button to raise and lower your RPM by vary small increments for precise trolling speeds. No sure if ETEC offers that yet. Suzuki has added this "troll control" option to a lot of there outboards also and after trying it out on a new suzuki 90hp its DEFINITELY something I want on my next motor! As far as trolling, a 6 gallon can lasted me over 25 hours of trolling on a 4 day fishing weekend with my 70hp EFI 4 stroke. My old 79' rude 6hp used more gas than that trolling!

 

[BobGinCO]

Re: Repowering 20' Pontoon? Trolling speeds?

On my 3,600 pound boat, the 115 at idle moves her just about 2 mph - maybe 2.5 mph. Your results could be anywhere. Try it!