Largest motor (2 stroke) you can troll with

[Hammer Handle]

I am looking at a different boat.

I love to troll, and was looking at a 40 hp boat. How large of a motor can comfortably troll to low speeds. 70 hp?

[prov1900]

I have a 225 that if the conditions are right, I can get down to 2.0 to 2.5 if I put my trolling motor down. I have never tried the drift bag, but would if I got serious into trolling. I am sure that would drop me to the 1.8 range. For northerns (the fastest freshwater fish in the world), you can troll at higher speeds, up to 5 or 6 mph I believe, depending on the time of year, etc.

Your 40 or 70 would do just fine, either way.

[Hammer Handle]

Thanks for the info.

I love to troll slow for northerns in the dog days of summer (seem to do the best)...and found a couple boats in the 70 - 90 hp range and was wondering how slow I can troll.

I should be fine as I only troll for northerns.

[traveler]

My 150 yamaha will troll down to northern/salmon trolling speeds just fine.

[Random guy]

I used to use my 150 to troll for walleye and it worked fine, of course that motor only had two speeds. Idle and wide open.

[solbes]

I've got an 80's vintage Evinrude 90 hp that trolls down to about 2.8 mph comfortably (GPS). I can drop to 2.25 with some hesitation, and high 1's with slipping between neutral/forward.

I've never had problems picking up northerns with it; usually I'm going too slow. For walleye's it's probably a little fast.

[bassNspear]

150 optimax will troll pretty slow. and then if you get the Smart craft buttoms on the dash, you will be set up perfect

[BoxMN]

We used to troll with our merc 90 (2 stroke) for hours on end. Loads up now and then, and you just go for a quick WOT spin, and then back to trolling. We now will troll for pike with our 150, about 2.6-2.8 mph without using bag or TM deployed. You can always slow down from there, but it gets more complicated with bags, etc.

70-90 hp, no problem.