fishingmich
Well-known member
Ok, supposedly there are no stupid questions, however I beg to differ! Here goes nothing; how do I know if I need a jackplate? I have a 16' Smokercraft with a short transom and a 15 hp Mercury with a short shaft. The cavitation plate looks even with the bottom of the boat. On the side of the motor there is a knob with 3 settings and the motor itself has 3 different tilt settings,so that's 9 different settings total. I know that tilting the motor up quite a ways takes away from your speed, but when I'm in shallow water I don't need to go very fast anyway. How do I know if I need a jackplate? I always figured short transom, short shaft motor, but now I'm not sure. I could build one, but without a hydraulic in seems kind of pointless. You can't change motor height on the fly so it seems like a pain in the ***. Could someone starighten me out please.