ondarvr
Supreme Mariner
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2005
- Messages
- 11,527
These "what size kicker do I need?" threads frequently get answers that are guesses at best, with no experience to back it up. I have fished with kickers for around 50 years, on boats from 6' to 26' (the bigger ones didn't have kickers), plus virtually every boat in this part of the country uses a kicker.
If you plan to troll never get a single cylinder motor, they're OK for a back up, but they tend to be loud and vibrate, which gets annoying fast.
Long shafts work better than short shafts, XL's work better than L's but are harder to find and may touch the water when tilted up on some boats.
High thrust work great, and is almost requried on bigger boats (20+) they will move a 26' boat well enough for most trolling.
Most people here use 9.9 high thrust Yamahas, they out number all other kickers by about 10:1, the older T8s were great too, but they stopped making them a few years ago.
A 9.9 Yamaha will move a 26' boat quite well, no issues for most trolling, a few guys use bigger kickers on these boats, but most use 9.9s. The guys with bigger kickers may go 50 miles out for tuna, but even a lot of them still use 9.9s The guys using bigger Kickers don't use them when trolling for tuna, but do in other locations for salmon. Bigger is probably 20HP max.
The same 9.9 is used on just about everything else from 15' on up. The smaller boats work well with a normal 9.9, but the high thrust version still works better.
If you plan to troll never get a single cylinder motor, they're OK for a back up, but they tend to be loud and vibrate, which gets annoying fast.
Long shafts work better than short shafts, XL's work better than L's but are harder to find and may touch the water when tilted up on some boats.
High thrust work great, and is almost requried on bigger boats (20+) they will move a 26' boat well enough for most trolling.
Most people here use 9.9 high thrust Yamahas, they out number all other kickers by about 10:1, the older T8s were great too, but they stopped making them a few years ago.
A 9.9 Yamaha will move a 26' boat quite well, no issues for most trolling, a few guys use bigger kickers on these boats, but most use 9.9s. The guys with bigger kickers may go 50 miles out for tuna, but even a lot of them still use 9.9s The guys using bigger Kickers don't use them when trolling for tuna, but do in other locations for salmon. Bigger is probably 20HP max.
The same 9.9 is used on just about everything else from 15' on up. The smaller boats work well with a normal 9.9, but the high thrust version still works better.
