I am running a Merc 40 Jet currently that I am contemplating switching out for a 60 prop for my ’04 17ft grizzly jon boat. Love the jet for the summer on the river the problem that I am running into is that when I make the switch to duck season and I put on my blind I don’t have enough power to move the boat across the lake, I have it floored and it barely goes. Not to mention the pain of pulling out lilly’s from the impeller. Wondering how much the value of a jet motor is compared to a prop motor. If I were to try and sell the motor alone is there much of a market out there for it, I don’t want to sell the boat as the blind is a skybuster that was custom built for it and I know that the value to me and what I have put into the boat is more that I know anyone would pay for it.
I thought about just buying a lower unit and swapping them out at the begining of duck season and changing back in the spring but I have been told that you can’t put a lower unit on a head that is jetted as the shaft won’t work on that head. Not sure if this is true or not. And with the rivers being so high the last couple of years would a short shaft get me into shallow enough waters where it isn’t necessary to have a jon boat. I do like to be able to hit the croix north of the high brigde which means coming in from William Obrien and that gets shallow by Marine but on the Miss and the MN I don’t see the need for a jet always either.
Any advice and ideas would be greatly appreciated.
