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Jack Plate-yes or ne

azray007 said:
Good day everyone!  I reviving this post.  I have a newer boat with the extended aft deck.  I was doing some boating last weekend and ended up in some very shallow water that had a fully rock bottom.  Needless to say, when I saw the depth I cut the engine and raised the foot and slowly pulled the boat into deeper water.


The place with the rocky bottom was beautiful and I really want to go back there again and do a little exploring.  I've tossed around the idea of a trolling motor, but with the cost of the one I want and the custom mounting for the trolling motor - due to the way I want it on my boat- it totally blows my budget.  I was reading up on some jack plates and they don't seem too expensive.  If I were able to raise my foot where the prop is at the same level as the center toon, I would think I could safely do some shallow water exploring.  Is that the right way to go? 


As always, suggestions/ideas are always welcome!
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I'm interested to see what feedback you get. With some of the shallow water around here (see my last post -  Engine overheat and Temperature gauge), was thinking of this as well. If I remember, the jack plates are heavy and if you get them where you can single handedly raise the motor, that is an expensive situation as well. Plus, I've seen them on several of the Bass boats down here, and quite frankly, they look rather "Industrial" and not in keeping with what I'd want our boat to look like.
 
I've found if I trim/tilt way up on mine I can get into some shallow water and still have forward momentum. The center toon would hit bottom before the skeg/prop would. Really cheap solution too!
 
It is an old thread but one of the hot rodders wanted to install a jack plate and talked to Bennington.  The transom is not engineered to support a jackplate.   
 
Thanks everyone!   I guess it's back to looking at a trolling motor. :)
 
Why are you guys so interested in shallow water?!?


I cringe when I think about hitting bottom. We hit bottom in my old bowrider and bent up the aluminum prop and skeg a bit. Don't want to mess up our stainless prop or skeg.


We are still exploring our new lake although we're at the end of our 2nd season. There's so many places we haven't been and we watch the depth finder religiously........
 
We've got some very skinny water down in this area (Gulf coast of Florida).  A lot of our estuaries are only a couple of feet deep - at high tide!  You would be amazed at how far south of Sanibel Island you can go and still only be in 3' of water.  Plus, if you like to go gunk-holing around here, in some places you'll only be knee deep.
 
There's a few shallow areas that lead to deeper areas and I cringe at risking any damage to my new outboard.  If I had a way to navigate through those areas safely that would be awesome!  Pontoon boats float pretty shallow so I would like to take advantage of that so I can explore areas that are less accessible to other boaters. :)  
 
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lakeliving said:
I've found if I trim/tilt way up on mine I can get into some shallow water and still have forward momentum. The center toon would hit bottom before the skeg/prop would. Really cheap solution too!
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This is what I do. I trim up to the point the prop is almost out of the water. I make sure the peehole is still pumping, and creep along.
 
Spoiledrotten said:
This is what I do. I trim up to the point the prop is almost out of the water. I make sure the peehole is still pumping, and creep along.
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And that is exactly what I did to get out of the last pickle we had inadvertently gotten into.
 
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