Jack Plate

[Seabass81]

What is the purpose of a jack plate? I notice almost all (except mine) bass boats have em?

John

[Wallyboss]

It's to adjust how deep you want your motor in the water, more or less.

Some might have a better explanation, but it is too adjust for top performance.

[eye-tracker]

What is the purpose of a jack plate? I notice almost all (except mine) bass boats have em?

John

Hello John,

To keep it simple a jack-plate is used to raise the motor to the optimum height for top speed and RPM on bass boats.

On my walleye boat I use a hydraulic jack-plate to raise the motor at the touch of a button in shallow water areas and so I can get the boat on the trailer when using shallow ramps.

-sheldon

[Wallyboss]

How much money are we talking about for a hydraulic one?? Cause I would like one bercause I can't bring my motor all the way down when the boat is on the trailer. Makes it very annoying to drain all the water out of the motor. I have to back up the trailer on set of off ramps bring the motor down to drain then bring the motor back up. Back into my tempo and then bring the motor back down into a hole that I had to dig at the back of the tempo so that the skeg of the motor wouldn't hit.

[JP]

A good hydraulic plate and installation will run you roughly $1000.

A manual plate will run about $500 installed.

One thing to consider is that because the jack plate sets the motor back 4-12" the cables and wire harness on the boat may not be long enough to hook the engine up and have full operation.

JP

[Wallyboss]

I guess it's annoying but not that much.

[Flipper]

John I don't think you should put one on your Nitro. I spoke with a lad that put one on a 700 and it only gained him 1 mph at WOT.

[fishin loon]

Does trimming your engine not do the same thing???
or is it not advised to run on such an angle for shallow ramps??


FL

[Wallyboss]

Jack plate is for straight up and down. Not up and down at an angle.