Northwest Fishing Reports

I have a 93 raider osprey 18 ft aluminum boat with a yamaha v4 115hp main. What would be a good kick er size that would do hanford ok. All other fishing will be lake so hanford is the fastest water it would see . I have a great chance at a yamaha 8hp . Would that be enough to gain headway going against the current

Ah the Reach. Most of the time the flows are managable thru that stretch of the river. I have an 8 HP on my 20' Customweld and it does fine, sometimes I do wish I had a little more power. I think an 8hp will be fine on your set up. Just make sure your main is running good and starts quick in case you ever get in a jam!

If you want to get anywhere, I'd say at least 9.9 regular kicker. You would have no trouble tolling with a 6 or 8 hp in the high thrust config. On the river, more is always better. You can always throttle down but once you're at full throttle, there aint no more!

If the motor you are looking at is a High Thrust model, it should be up to the task. If it isn't, check to see if it can take something like the Solas Amita 4 bladed 5 pitch model. I put one on my 8HP Johnson to push around my 18.5' Raider, made a big difference.

G-Man wrote:If the motor you are looking at is a High Thrust model, it should be up to the task. If it isn't, check to see if it can take something like the Solas Amita 4 bladed 5 pitch model. I put one on my 8HP Johnson to push around my 18.5' Raider, made a big difference.

I've been thinking about one of those for a long time. Did you put a 10 or a 9.25 on it? I've also been thinking of upgrading the old 9.9 prop on the crab boat. it's bumped the tracks a few times.

I run a 8hp Mercury on my boat and it does just fine on the reach. The 8hp should work great for you as well. Did you end up getting it?