Just sold my 20hp go-devil long tail Ive been using for the past 8 years, never driven a surface drive. I searched the site to try and find a beginners "how to" with no real luck, so I figured I would throw it out to the all knowing crowd and see if I could find some do's and don't from the group. I am running a 1436 jon boat with a dixie 18hp I just picked up from the classifieds here. No real mud where I hunt mostly cypress, lillies, hydrilla, shallow sandy bottoms, sometimes I run the coast, but mostly local shallow lakes. (drop the motor in the lake is not the help I'm looking for). Hopefully I can run it tomorrow afternoon so I will have some time with it before I run it hunting this weekend. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Start it and go?

If u need the internet to learn to drive a boat....stay on land please.

Tiller time

Shoulda stuck with the LT in those conditions

Rodger, thanks.

Sounds like florida...
Let er rip!

I'd love to see some of these clowns struggle with an airboat or running an offshore boat with twins, trips, or quads, since running all boats is seemingly identical based on their posts.

12ga: I went from a tiller outboard to a GTR so I can't really help you 12ga, but I can tell you that it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. You might want somebody with a similar HP motor to help you out with how much tiller torque you should expect; I still am not sure whether mine should be adjusted more or if it's the nature of the motors.

Good luck.

Trim to your best speed with your normal load using a GPS then bend the tab to adjust tiller torque if needed.

When ever in doubt, don't slow down!

Whatever Mitch's avatar said...

Thanks for those with helpful tips, it was a little rough on my first run. My boat is not up to the challenge or torque this motor puts out. The transom flexes pretty bad under load and the whole back half of my boat squats into the water when I'm running, it kicks of the top rail of the rear portion and send water a good foot up and out off the boat. I couldn't run it by myself it wouldnt plane out, I got a buddy to roll with me and in the deep water I fooled around with the trim until it became easy to steer and hit 23 mph but the boat sits so low in the water the motor was a good 16-18" below the bottom of the boat. I got this so I could make better time on my longer trips but some of the slews I run through are pretty thin so I'm afraid to try and run them for fear of ripping off my transom. I think I'm going to need to start looking for a new boat.