sherman brown

when i went to my 17p high five it didn't seem to matter at all if i was loaded with 5 of us plus our gear and our food cooler filled full of food soda and ice and our fish cooler with 2 bags of ice. it still jumped on plane and ran faster on Erie than we were able to run with rough water. good luck with the 4 blade it should serve you very well. please do report back on running a load.

i checked out the site and i will be buying a few to try for walleye but i want to get a few custom spoons made up.

you might try the Luhr Jenson web site. if they don't have what you want try buying old ones for parts on the fishing forums. they are made by Luhr Jenson so that is your best chance of finding parts. i tried to find Luhr Jenson website but didn't find them. i just don't know if you will ever find new parts. i would just start a wanted thread for dipsy divers wanted for parts.

traxstech makes the best one with a larger pulley on the end. check out at traxstech.com and search for pulley retriever. thes are more money but well worth every cent.

a lot of newer props have black plugs up front near the leading edge. these plugs can be removed or replaced with smaller plugs. this interrupts the flow of water to llet the prop turn faster on takeoff. if you look at the prop if it has the plugs, you can't miss them. are you sure the hub wasn't bad and slipping? but anyway i believe the 21p is way too high. but the 18p should have improver your hole shot and raised your RPMs about 500 or 600. i have been a little more up on props ever since i started needing to know about pitch. i started with an old 14' boat and 15 hp motor. my bil and his friend had an old house boat with a 50 hp Johnson on it. they had a falling out because the friend didn't want to help with the upkeep so they parted it out and i bought the 50 hp and put on my boat. it took off at almost full speed. but after blowing the reed valves twice i found out they had an 11p power prop on it on the hb. so on my boat without a tach it was over revving a lot and i didn't have a clue. i got rid of the motor. later when i had an 80 hp mariner with a 19p 3 blade that was great on my 16' runabout. but then i went to an old heavy aluminum 18' Cherokee and loaded for Erie it took it forever to get on plane,. then i had a chance to buy an aluminum 15p prop for half price. it was the only prop he had left to fit my motor. i went ahead and bought it for a spare. a few trips later with the 19p i wanted to just try the 15p to make sure it worked for me. when i hit the throttle the boat jumped on plane and was running great. but it was over revving so i backed off on the throttle. but i learned so much about pitch. i thought about getting a 17p thinking it was just what i needed. but i liked the way the 15p was doing so i left it on and just backed off a little on top end. but i still recommend going to a 17p 4 blade of your choice. a 4 blade is just a better all around prop than a 3 blade in my opinion. and don't feel alone in not knowing about the plugs they just started a few years ago. but you can google what are the vent holes in marine props and learn more. i was as dumb as they come about prop pitch when i started boating.

going down only 2" in pitch should not gain a 1000 RPMs. if your motor is already doing 5000 RPMs you don't want to drop pitch any more unless that 5000 is while your taking off. what is your RPKs after you get leveled off? a 19p prop is usually a catch all that dealers use so they still work but won't over tach. the 21 sounds liuke someone was dreaming of getting more speed. but when over pitched it hurts everything. if the 5000 RPMs you mention is when you are taking off check to see if the prop has holes back all the way around it. or if it has plugs in the holes. these control the spin of the prop letting it spin faster if the plugs are removed and slower when the plugs are installed. when you are planed of your RPMs shout not exceed mercruiser recommended RPMs for that motor. and just guessing im thinking about 4800 max when leveled off. but knowing about those plugs or holes will tell me everything. algae and barnacles on the bottom can make a difference but i don't believe that was your only problem. and only if you leave your boat in the water will the build up get real bad. what was your speed and RPMs with the 21p before the problem started? my best advice without knowing more i would switch to a 17p 4 blade like a rev 4, this will greatly improve your hole shot and better handling in turns and rough water. dropping to a 17p will keep your RPMs close to right but you may lose 1 or 2 MPH on top end if you had a 3 blade that was what you needed. but i would guess going to the 4 blade 17p it will give you much better lift and should give you a few more MPH. if the 18p prop has the plugs removed it lets water escape through the holes and makes it easier to turn and raises the RPMs which should give you a little better hole shot but maybe not help much when leveled off. please let us know about the holes and if they are plugged? using smaller plugs will also raise your RPMs on take off so just having plugs in them may not be the ones it needs to lower the RPMs on takeoff. if it was my boat i would just switch to a revolution 4 blade 17p and be done with it. but there are many other good 4 blade props but i recommend the rev 4 in 17p. a 4 blade is harder to turn causing lower RPMs hence dropping to a 17p will cure that.

i have 5 of the older Daiwa sealine sga17lca reels that are working good now and have 2 extra that the counters stopped working that go with them. i will take 325.00 for all of them including shipping. i will also give you a 30 day warranty on the 5 working reels. if any of them quits working in the first 30 days i will pay return shipping and give you a 60.00 refund. i just went a different direction. i used these for walleye on Erie's central basin and caught nice walleye and a nice steelhead here and there. just message me if you are interested in them. they have just been stored in my pole barn for a couple of years. i haven't tried to sell them yet.

i wouldn't go any less than 100 as you need space for ice and fish. i have had days when our 100 was full to the brim. now i only fiush walleye on Erie and still use the 100 with the door in the lid. but i think it also comes in a 1500. if you have room or planning to mount it on the back i would go with a 150.

I have 2 Penn 345 gti reels without counters in very good condition for 300.00 shipped included. these are great level wind reels. I used them for grouper fishing around bridge abutments. or I have a couple of smaller 330 gti reels for 225.00 shipped. if you're interested you can pm me. these were also used for live bait fishing around bridge abutments.

you don't have to have tracks because these have the threaded holes for the thumb screws than you use to tighten them down in the tracks. you can remove these screws and go to the next size smaller screws and bolt them from the top. or you can come through the bottem with the same size bolts and use the threaded base as your nuts as they are already threaded.

i bought 2 of the traxstech holders used off eBay that is like new but much cheaper for my nets.

I don't think this offer can be beat. practically just be there to help get things ready fish for the day for a few dollars in gas then do what needs done when you come in and go home with no worries. anyone wanting to fish the big pond and learn plus catching fish at the same time.

i switched to the traxstech retriever years ago and never looked back. it uses a roller wheel with a little extra room. i still had some trouble getting my auto stop beads to pass through it but couldn't find anything that worked as smooth as these.

i cant say for sure on heavy wire but i put braid backing then 300' of 15# wire on a Okuma convector 30 with plenty of 30# power pro backing.

that's like getting 2 for the price of 1. if i did my downriggers off my tracks i would jump on these for this price. good luck with your sale.

you could be right about there being a problem with the charging system. but you have a lot of stuff going for a 12 amp charger to keep the battery charged. and it could just be it doesn't reach the full 12 amps when idling. you need a good volt tester and not just a test light then shut everything off and test your battery to see what volts it has. then start your kicker and at idle see what you have. now have someone rev the kicker to a higher RPM and see what your getting. I have a volt meter on my old Black and Decker charger that makes it simple to check the voltage in my batteries. have you compared the voltage output rating on your old motors voltage output rating? it could just be as simple as your older motor having a higher output than the 12 amps on this motor. if you want to know for sure take it to a dealer and have them check to see if it is charging and at what output at idle and at a higher RPM. I'm still not convinced 12 amps is enough to run everything and still charge the battery. but you do need to know for sure one way or the other and that's by testing it yourself or having a dealer or marina that can just hook it to their machine and test it. have you tried running your motor with everything off and just seeing what the voltage at your battery is? I used 2 batteries in my old boat with a Perco battery switch so I could switch which battery i wanted to use. then if the battery was too low to start my motor I would just switch to using the other one. but do not use both batteries to start your motor if one of them is low. ni learned this the hard way when I had the switch set on both and it was cranking very slow. with the starter dragging I just took it in and paid for a new starter to be installed. but when I still had the same problem i started switching to one battery at a time and it started great on 1 battery but would hardly crank the motor over with the other one. and using them both the bad battery was drawing the good batter down making me think the starter was bad. bought new batteries and the problem was solved.

are you sure the motor has a charging system? What else are you running off the battery? the motor shouldn't drain the battery at all. but do you know the amp output of the kicker? are the other items pulling more amps than the kicker puts out?

I may have a few 40 and 30 but I'll check the next time I go down to my pole barn.

another big factor is not only the weight but the type of weight you use. I have used 12# and 13# pancake weights for a few years. but last summer we used 8# dredge weights and had less blowback than with the pancake weights. then I found a guy who sells the dredge weights at a great price. so I bought 10# weights last fall to try this summer. if anyone wants his info just pm me and I'll gladly give you his website.