trolling w/ a tiller

looking at buying a boat with a tiller motor. question is how hard is it to control your speed with a tiller. is there an add on that one can buy to control speed and have more throttle control.

thanks

Not entirely sure of what you are looking for but as an owner of a tiller boat I think I have better control of the boat. Speed of the troll can be dictated by a lot of things. Such as: motor size, size of your boat, wind, ect. but you should be able to “dial” in your speed with the throttle control with no extra equipment.
I have a 40 horse Etec on a 16 foot Lund and troll like crazy. So control is not an issue for me.

Controlling speed is VERY easy with a tiller imho. I don’t have a gps (YET) coming next week..but I always trolled with my tiller and had no problems. maybe we weren’t as successful, since we didn’t know the actual speed that we were going, but we always did pretty well. My mercury actually has a screw in knob on the end of the tiller handle that you can tighten which locks the throttle in a certain place. This will maintain your speed.

I have a 40 4 stroke Yamaha tiller. I have found that the tiller gives me added lure contol with “real time” adjustments for lure speed and control. Watching the locator as well as being able to rapidly adjust the speed with the tiller I am able to quickly move and shift the boat in order to better fish current seams, shifting current. etc. With a quality rod I can feel the lure reaction to changing current and speed. From the input I can quickly adjust speed up or down as well as rapidly move the boat so that the lure presentation is optimized. Sometime fishing a small area, this “reaction” can make a huge different.

You will definetly find tillers much easier to control a boat with. But I think I nknow where you are heading with this and that is with a console you can set the throttle in a certain position and it will hold while most tillers will back down. My 60 has a little idle control nob on the throttle that allows me to advance my throttle or decrease it. Right now it is set to troll going forward holding 1.4 to 1.9 miles per hour…

Go with the yamaha with the VTS (variable trolling speed). Comes in 40 – 90 hp tiller. My brother just bought one this season (90 hp) and it was very very impressive backtrolling into the rollers on Upper Red during opener. He would set the rpm and the motor maintained perfect speed! You can make 50 rpm adjustments with the push of a button. Very nice!

I have a little experience at holdin’ onto a tiller handle chasing’ walleyes too. (around 30,000 hrs.)

I always tell “inland lake walleye fishermen” ….”you drive your boat at high speed 10 percent of the time and fish 90 percent of the time”. Design your boat purchase around your priorty use.

That said…tiller boats, as all have said here, have the best fishing related control. Having the steering AND the throttle in your ONE hand allows PERFECT control from every aspect.

Feel free to call me if you have any questions about various engines/boats or set-ups.

I would also say a tiller is the way to go when trolling. My old motor would work its way down in speed, but I think the new motors hold their speed real well. Last summer and fall I had the opportunity to run a Warrior with a 175 hp tiller. All I had to do was get the throttle where I wanted it, turn on the hydraulic steering, and then lean back and relax. A few clicks of the button to the left, a few to the right, but otherwise it pretty much drove itself. To really slow the boat down I dropped the Vantage down and had it going the other way.

I troll often in my tiller, but I have a 2 stroke and if the wind is wrong oh my god does it smoke you out. Most of the time I troll on my electric which will get me to over 3 mph. Cade, I added a hand held GPS on a RAM this year and I really like it. It didn’t cost an arm and a leg and now I know my speed and can find small stuff I used to have to search around for.

I troll with my tiller as well, both forward with raps and back with rigs. A few weeks ago on Bigstone I decided to hop in my father-in law’s rig and drive him around for the evening. I thought for years that when trolling forward it was much easier with a steering column.. However, it was MUCH MUCH more difficult to do that. The biggest thing is that if you’re in any type of wind, you need to constantly be adjusting the throttle whether it’s a tiller or not. The problem that I had with the push down throttle was that i’d end up taking too long to get back to the correct speed or i had problems finding the right speed agian. Maybe it was fluke thing or my lack of expierence in running the steering colum boat, but other than sitting next to the smell of a 2 stroke merc.. Tiller is the way to go.

Well, Jon Jordan always says to……oh wait, nevermind.

I’ve used my 60hp yamaha tiller for trolling the Croix for years, it idles down nicely yet holds and maintains rpms for the times when I use more speed to get the reaction strike. Any worries or concerns you may have about the throttle being hard to maintain is unwarranted, you’ll be fine, your boat control is at your finger tips, quick and responsive. As far as an add on for speed I don’t know of one, yet can’t think of a good reason for one either, its all in the wrist, its not “spring” loaded to snap back to a no fuel position, you maintain your speed as long as you hold the handle at the position you choose.

I think that most modern tiller motors come with a snugging nut to hold the throttle in place. There is a never a problem holding speed.