Yamaha low water pickups on 18' Shoalwater flats - Nosecone or Cavitation Plate

[reeltime]

I can run in 3". Just can't stop or I'm screwed.

Even with me on the boat....

[Ibtsoom]

Yamaha low water pickups on 18' Shoalwater flats - Nosecone or Cavitation Plate

Yea you've seen it. Unfortunately you've seen me stop too.

[FischerAngling]

Common sense tells me that if I have 10" between the pickup and the bottom of the skeg I can't run shallower than that 10" at the max.

But I still haven't gotten the question answered as to whether the cav plate or nosecone will improve that. I might just go ahead and buy the nose cone from Bob's. Anyone out there installed one of these? Or can anyone out there weld aluminum? I can do all the epoxy work after the weld has been complete. Here's a link to the weld that would need to happen on the nosecone.
http://www.bobsmachine.com/installation.cfm Scroll toward bottom of page.

[evansmarine]

Cav plate, it had on it does well. Motor is done by the way

[FischerAngling]

Just wanted to send an update on this one.

I took off the 'whale tail' that was on my Yamaha 90 and added 40lb Smart Tabs. This weekend in Halls Bayou I got on plane in 10-11 inches of water. There was a very soft mud bottom, thank goodness, and I also had the jack plate all the way up. I think the Dettwiler jacks that thing up 8 inches!

I finally got the Smart Tabs adjusted to the #4 position and have had little problem getting on plane at all. The #4 position seems to work with the flat bottom Shoalwater as I'm not having the porpoising problems I had with them set at the lower settings.

Anyway, we killed the reds that day too which was nice!

[kenny]

Even my Flatscat won't run in 3" of water. There's not enough water pushing through the tunnel for the prop to push against anything.

[justogm]

I run a 21 shoalwater cat with a evinrude 200 with a cav plate, I have been in about 6 inches and adjusting trim tabs also. I had no issues at all. I try not to run any shallower than that, I saw a guy running shallow one day and hit something and really screwed up his engine. Best of luck