Trolling in a Cat - One Motor or Two?

[Finnatical]

I am fairly new to owning a cat having recently purchased a Kelvalcat 2400 with Suzuki four strokes. I am very impressed with the ride and still have that gut feeling of the thump on the next wave that never seems to come....

With the upcoming pelagic and game fishing season I am curious to know how many of the other cat owners troll on one motor or both. I have done some experimenting of my own and while the boat will troll fairly well on one motor, it is obviously more happy running on both (I have however accepted that nothing will get rid of the tunnel slap while trolling).

There are definately pros and cons to both ways and most people I have spoken to so far suggest trolling on both, however fuel usage and engine hours are the negative two points that come to mind straight away.

Any opinions and experiences on how best to get the most out of the boat during long hours of trolling over the summer would be greatly appreicated.
Jason

[Kerry]

In the water if one motor ain't going then it's broke!

For mine if one is running both are running, no exceptions, no point in dragging a perfectly good engine around the ocean with the chance of shoving water up the wrong way. Running one v two and to achieve similar speeds there realy is not a great difference in fuel burn. Will certainly be a little more with 2 but certainly not half just 'cause one engine is shutdown.

Similar with a Cat coming off a trailer, both engines should be running otherwise you could get water up the rear end.

[finding_time]

From a mechanical point of view Kerry has pointed out a few problems with using only 1 motor, but the fishing side is a little more complicated.

The main problem with outboards for trolling is the exhausting through the leg which over exagerates the white water, in a cat this is exagerated as you have 2 motors and they are right at the corners of the boat so your area's of clean water are even more confined as running rods of the corners will put the lures in the wash, there are a millon differant thoughts on this but many dont like it.

I know a few fisho's that run 1 engine on certain tacks to allow more clear water in which to set there spread, i'm not one of them and will approch the problem a little differantly. Here's my spread for the comming season.

A pretty standard.

1x short rigger
1x long rigger
1x shot gun from the rocket launcher' starboard side ( well back)

This is where i differ slightly i'm going to run a swim bait on a down rigger the get the bait below the white water and in clear view for any billy , i'll run this at the depth of bait i find down to 120 feet or so. This is on the port corner !

I'm not running anything of the starboard corner short ,rather a skip bait right down the guts in the bit of clear water between the hulls, the idea being that any fish that hits the down rigger and doesn't hook up might follow this bait up as it's been released from the clip and swich onto this bait. Anyway that's the plan.

Hope that helps , but there are so many ideas and thoughts out there it really is a case of try differant things until you find what works for you.

ian

Ps there are a few other guys here that do alot of trolling on cats , fly1 and Noelm with noel doing a bit of 1 engine stuff so he'll be able to tell you more of the pro's of that style.

[the_bomber]

Thanks Ian for sharing your experience

[Finnatical]

Thanks Kerry and Ian, some very good info there. I think I will stick with using both motors as I had not even thought about the mechanical issues Kerry raised.

Ian I like your ideas and will look into it a bit further and try some different things out.

As Ian mentioned I would be keen to hear what fly1, Noelm and any of the other 'cat guys' have to add.

Thanks again for sharing guys,

[Smithy]

I would be doing it for live bait trolling to keep the speed right down. The rest of the time you might as well use two. The problem would come if you hook up and wanted to use both motors to manourver. No time for looking down at tachos and playing with keys when that happens.

[bbss]

I have trolled many hundreds of hours in a cat and have always used one motor with the exception of high speed trolling. I have never had a problem with maintenance or having to manouver that quick that i cant start the other engine. Depends if you like running engine hours up. If you do a lot it quickly adds up. I agree about the prop wash too. One wins in my book almost always.

[Finnatical]

Thanks guys, appreciate the info.

Jason

[Noelm]

don't know wether this is coincidence or not, but I find that I get more fish trolling with both motors, not too sure if it is a noise thing or just "dumb luck"

[Greg P]

A lot of the times I have seen the mack pros slow trolling livies around Flinders they are using one engine with it trimmed right up to slow down.

As far as economy goes - it would be interesting know just how much one engine would chew trolling rather than two - I reckon it would be very close to the same at 6-7 knots :-/ - have you got fuel flow meters on the zukes ?


Nice boat you have too btw

[Noelm]

I reckon that at troll speed I would use the same with one motor working harder than 2 almost at idle, on my boat about 1,500 RPM is ideal trolling speed with both motors, at this RPM they use about 1 to 1 and a half litres per hour each, but to get the same speed with one motor it needs to be about 2,500 and then it probably uses about 3 litres per hour (approx)

[Finnatical]

Unfortunately I don't have fuel flow meters fitted. Noelm is right on the money with the revs at 6-7 knots. Mine also sits on about 1500-1600 when on two motors, and about 2400-2600 on a single motor.

I am yet to find out if the two motors actually catch more fish but it would seem the only draw back to running both is the amount of hours put on the motors. I very rarely troll baits so low speed is not much of an issue. If I get into trolling with baits I think that one motor would be the way to go simply based on the low speed required.

Now does anyone have a magic trick to reduce tunnel slap? Big ask I know.

[mirage]

I've fished a few tournaments in Fly-1's 5.2 KC. He only seems to use one engine with live baits out to keep the speed right down but still control the boat, as Smithy said.

[Kerry]

....Now does anyone have a magic trick to reduce tunnel slap? Big ask I know....
Yeah :) just keep going the other way!

[GBC]

Kerry, you beat me again!!!!!!


Cat owners talking about fuel economy and reducing tunnel slap - I was having a slow morning until you guys cracked me up;D ;D

Now all we need is someone to mention something silly like patriot and we'll be off and running for another day:-X