In tournament fishing, time is money. Everyone was running balls-to-the-wall to be first to the hotspot during the OC Tuna Tournament a few weeks ago, and it might have made a difference – by 8:30 in the morning the bite was dead, so every minute of early AM fishing time counted. Even if you’re fishing for fun, it’s a sure bet you’d rather be casting than cruising. But all boats have their limitations, and cruising speed is cruising speed, right? Well, only if you don’t care enough to try these speed-boosting tricks. Give them a shot, and you’ll spend less time getting to the fish and more time catching them.
#1 Prop Games –
If you’re running with an aluminum prop, you can gain two or three mph right off the bat just by swapping it out for one made of stainless-steel. Stainless props don’t flex as much as aluminum ones do under load, and the end result is a faster fishing machine.
Next, consider your prop’s pitch. Run the boat at wide-open throttle on flat water. Trim the motor up until you first hear the howl of the prop sucking air, then take the trim back down a notch so the prop has a good grip on the water again. Record your wide-open throttle rpm, and match it up with the recommended maximum rpm in the engine manufacturer’s catalog. If it’s not near the high end of the manufacturer’s recommendation, drop propeller pitch by a notch. Usually, a two-inch drop in pitch will gain you about 300 rpm at wide-open throttle.
The number of blades your prop has will also affect speed. Four blade props speed your hole-shot and reduce vibrations, but that extra blade adds drag. Is it worth the sacrifice to trade it out? That’s a judgment call you and you alone must make. The advantage you’ll gain speed-wise is usually between one and two mph.
#2 Weighty Decisions
The amount of friction between your hull and the water depends on how much wetted surface your boat has when on plane. And the amount of wetted surface your boat has depends on how much it weighs. Load up your fishing gear then pull your boat and trailer onto a truck scale, and I’ll bet you find the boat’s weight has increased by ten to fifteen percent over what’s stated in the manufacturer’s catalog. If you’re running a 20’ to 24’ boat that weighs between 2,000- and 3,000-lbs, generally speaking you can expect to lose a mph of speed for every 300-lbs or so of weight you add. Is it time to put your boat on a diet? If so, ditch excess tackle and unnecessary gear. Plug unused live and release wells equipped with high-speed pick-ups, so they don’t fill as you run. And move whatever weight you can to the center of the boat, to improve your trim and balance.
#3 Bottom Basics
Is the bottom of your boat painted? That’ll cost you one to three mph. But you can get some of that speed back—all you have to do is wet-sand the paint. Start with 220-grit, on a rubber sanding block. Soak it in water, then sand the bottom making each and every stroke parallel to the centerline. Repeat the process with 400-grit paper, and be sure to smooth out any bumps or imperfections you find.
Your bottom isn’t painted? Fiberglass bottoms are super-smooth, but they can be improved upon when you’re looking to boost speeds. Common sense says you should wax it, for maximum slickness, right? Wrong—the same slick water-repelling properties of wax tend to grip tiny air bubbles, increasing friction and cutting speed. Get those mph back by coating your bare bottom with a product designed to carry a microscopic layer of water along with the hull, like HySpeedKote, or QuickCraft. It’s expensive, but coating the entire bottom with Rain-X every couple of weeks will work, too.
Spend some time applying these speed-boosting tactics to your fishing machine, and you’ll not only be going faster, you’ll be running a more efficient machine, too. Then when it comes time to compete, yours will be the boat everyone’s trying to beat.
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