Prop review - Turning Point Hustler H-4

[BartmanMN]

Boat - 1850 Crestliner Sportfish

Motor - 135 Optimax

Old Prop - 14.5x19 Mercury Blackmax 3 blade.

My boat was experiencing quite a bit of cavitation when cornering at higher speeds and was really bad when pulling tubers so I was looking for a prop with better bite. In my BoatingWorld magazine they had an advertisement for the Aluminum 4 blade Turning Point prop, so I started looking into them. These props looked to be priced really reasonable, so I thought it was worth a shot.

By using their prop selector tool I determined that I should go with a 14x19 prop for higher speed and less load or a 14x17 for higher load/pulling. I decided on the 14x19.

Yesterday I took it out for a test run and could instantly tell that I could corner much better with my prop trimmed up without needing to trim the motor down (happy). The hole shot was also very nice. One thing to keep in mind is that if you intend to troll with your big motor, the 4 blade pushes more water, so your trolling speed will likely increase. My boat will only troll down to ~2.8mph going forward now, which I believe is faster than when I had the old prop on. This doesn't bother me since I use my bow mount for trolling walleye's.

The local stores in town wanted 129.99 for the prop and around $40-50 for the hub kit. I found the prop at an online retailer for $78 and the hub kit for $31, so it only cost $~118 shipped to my door for everything. I am pleased with the results and feel like I didn't need to break the bank to get them.