Are surface drives without electric trim much easier to control than long tails?

M

Max Crawford

New member
I’ve only ever used long tails and they can be a major pain in the ass been thinking about getting a surface drive. I see some decent deals on the older ones that don’t have manual trim or reverse and neutral. I’ve never used one before but honestly I can’t imagine one of those types is too much easier than just using a long tail go devil since you still have to muscle it up or down.
 
As much as I despise surface drives if you run a 23 hp or smaller, a manual motor is a LOT easier to handle than a conventional longtail.

I built a boat with a hunt deck to test run an old 23 hp mud buddy longtail. It was unreal the difference in the way it performed. I called it "zero squat", never had to dig out to get going. Surprised more folks don't do that, drastically changed the longtails performance.

Surface drives overall have destroyed public waterfowling due to disturbance and putting constant pressure on the ducks.
 
I have a longtail and at first I hated it. Too much work, wouldn't run right, letting go of the handle caused the prop end to go vertical. And more.

I stuck with it. Took the time to get it balanced on the transom properly which made it so I could drive it with very little effort. Made a rope loop that I can place around the handle when Im not using the motor and it no longer goes verticle when letting go of it. Over all, I really am enjoying the little motor.

I am fairly certain I would get the same performance our of a same sized motor (7 hp) and a surface drive. I also am certain that in the smaller sized motors, the longtail will get you into and out of places a surface drive wouldn't.

A compromise would be something similar to the Mudskipper Twister. Has attributes of both. Mudskipper now make a hydraulic actuator for the twister so you can control the busines end with a thumb swith. I've never driven one of these but have seen them in action and they seem to work well.

All my experience may be incorrect with a larger sized motor.

Mark W
 
I have both currently. A small longtail and a 37hp pro drive. Originally the pro drive was a manual trim. It was horrible. I ended up hitting something hard with it and it stripped the trim. Converted it to power trim.

You couldn't pay me enough money to go back to a manual trim surface drive
 
rob_g said:
I have both currently. A small longtail and a 37hp pro drive. Originally the pro drive was a manual trim. It was horrible. I ended up hitting something hard with it and it stripped the trim. Converted it to power trim.

You couldn't pay me enough money to go back to a manual trim surface drive
Click to expand...
Do you prefer the long tail to the manual surface drive?
 
Depends for you. I have a surface drive because im covering longer distance and need neutral and reverse. Where I hunt, we cant get out of the boat. So picking up decoys, its necessary.

Shorter distance, slower speeds, more obstacles id pick a long tail. The best way to put it is a surface drive is like 4wd high and a longtail is 4wd low

When you get a surface drive stuck, its usually bad because it happens at higher speed. When the longtail gets stuck it kinda just comes to a stop right away

If I were you, id spend the extra money and buy one with power trim and neutral

Hope this helps you out
 
Shorter distance, slower speeds, more obstacles id pick a long tail. The best way to put it is a surface drive is like 4wd high and a longtail is 4wd low
When you get a surface drive stuck, its usually bad because it happens at higher speed. When the longtail gets stuck it kinda just comes to a stop right away

Back in the day (1999-2008), my hunting partner had a 1664 Go Devil boat with a 23hp longtail, this was our experience exactly.
That smooth bottom shallow draft hull could go anywhere but it went no where fast. Full loaded in 6-8" of water it did around 10-12 mph. In deeper water, too deep to develop a pressure wave between the hull and bottom, it did 10mph tops. But we could go through pure wet slop.
Made picking up birds and decoys in areas wit bottomless baby poop bottom relatively easy. No reverse means long loops in and out of the spread. But it worked.
Getting stuck sucked. When we did get stuck, damn, we were stuck. Like wait for the tide to come in 6 hours later stuck. Especially with that heavy welded hull.

I hated driving that boat. My buddy, who's a big guy, could man-handle that motor much better than I could.
We normally used my boat in deeper water, his in shallow water.

I have no experience with surface drives other than hearing them roar across the bay. Damn those things are loud, or at least used to be.
 
To add to this. When buying a used mud motor, youre usually inheriting someone else's problem. We all know how these things get used. I can understand the price but ive made this mistake before. If you can, definitely buy a new one.
 
Yep, I can tell you my buddies old long tail mud motor was a mess after 10 years of hard use.
Make sure the check the entire frame for repeated welds to fix cracks.
And assume you will need new shaft seals and at least 1 spare prop in the boat at all times , and the tools to replace it..
 
If you are having press the tiller down to force a longtail prop up to the surface or lift the tiller to push the prop deeper, it is adjusted wrong. Once I replaced the busted-off trim bolt and set it so the prop never sank too deep in the first place and unbent the tab at the end of the cav plate so the prop naturally ran just below the surface as designed, my longtail was actually pretty easy to drive. Prior to that, it dug down like a crank bait before I made those two adjustments and was nearly impossible to use; it tried to sink the stern of my boat. If you are driving one of the cheap Asian kit motors without a cav plate or trim bolt, upgrade to something decent whether it be a LT or a SD. You need the two adjustments I mentioned above. You may have to have a welder add a steel tab to your cav plate or bolt on an aftermarket 1/4" aluminum tab.

I'd expect either LT or SD to steer pretty easily once set up correctly. Power trim on the surface drive might help adjust the trim to the load for best performance, but you really don't need that much control on a smal duck boat. Just move the load around.

Nate
 
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