First time poster, first time lurker even.
I’m located in western NoDak and I’ve got my mind reeling on a FSH Yamaha. Reason is, I currently own a (older) Lund Pro V and a recently inherited a pontoon. The more I look at the Yamaha 210 FSH I wonder of it couldn’t fit the bill of a fishing unit 70% of the time, and 30% cruiser/ski boat.
biggest question I have is, can you troll with it? If I ever actually pulled the trigger, I’d run a 112 volt electric motor up front. At 3,000 lbs, it’s not a real light boat. Does it track well? Were other posters able to find a happy medium running the engines in no wake and using a motor up front?
I mostly fish by myself. If I do have people with, its 90% of the time ONE other guy. I think just twice last year I had three of us out at the same time.
any freshwater guys that can chime in? Typical species targeted is Walleye
thanks!
Owl
I see that this is an older post but thought I’d comment anyway. I also see the OP is probably fishing lake Sakakawea, Shadehill etc... Been to the Hugh Glass memorial?
I’m also fresh water and target walleye, trout, pike, lakers, bass, crappie etc...
I’ve spent a few hundred hours trolling in my 210 FSH sport on several different lakes in a wide variety of conditions, so I think I’ve gotten enough experience in my little boat to make comments based on experience.
To answer your first question about whether or not the boat could be a fishing boat 70% of the time, that is a resounding yes, and 30% as a pleasure boat, another resounding yes. Most people I have taken along will say things like “why a center console” when they are boarding the boat. After a day of fishing on the boat they say things like “wow! I never would have thought a center console would be such a great fishing boat”. Other people that I have taken out for a day cruise on the lake really enjoy the roominess and comfort the seating has, as well as how well the boat rides. I’ve had 6 adults on board for a few hours either cruising around or anchor locked in a cove eating snacks, listening to tunes, and having some laughs. Although I have a porta potty in the helm storage, the girls usually want a regular bathroom. No problem, we simply cruise over to the camp ground area and beach the boat so the girls can walk to the bathroom. And because of the layout on the CC, people can move around freely on the boat with a handhold that is towards the center of the boat and not towards the sides.
To answer your second question, can you troll with it?, that would be another resounding yes. I have spent the majority of the 400+ hours on my boat trolling with a Rip Tide Ulterra, 112# thrust 36 volt with I pilot. I’m just now getting good at using the I Pilot features, apropos to this conversation about trolling would be the use of the “Auto Pilot“ feature and the “Cruise Control“ feature. The Auto Pilot has two modes, Advanced and Legacy. Advanced sets a gps track that the boat will follow, and Legacy just keeps the nose pointed in the direction where you set it. I have used both modes, and have decided that the Advanced version suits me the best. The ”Cruise Control” lets you set a SOG or speed over ground, from .1 mph all the way up to... well as fast as the troller will pull it along, probably 5 mph. You can also save a track on the Solix MFD, and the Solix will navigate the Ulterra along that saved track... pretty cool feature to re visit spots that produce fish.
When trolling with the Ulterra I make sure the wheel is centered, articulating keel centered, and the boat tracks very well in most conditions. If the wind is blowing from behind, the stern can get pushed around some, but the boat is not turning so the lines stay taught and parallel, and is no big deal. Trolling into the wind works best with the Ulterra. When I say wind, I’m talking greater than 15 mph. While the 112# of thrust is more than capable of pulling the boat through stronger winds, the bow gets pushed around by the wind gusts, and the troller has trouble keeping a heading and will start to oscillate a lot. It will stabilize if the wind is relatively constant. If the gusts get too much I switch over to the engines. But over all, the Ulterra does a great job of trolling.. just the other day I circumnavigated around one of my local lakes, 10 miles, and a fair amount of anchor lock as well, and the battery indicator showed in the red at the end of the day. First time I’ve ever got the battery bank that low. Still, 10 miles at 1.8 mph is just five minutes under 6 hours that I was trolling on it, not to mention the anchor locks. Not bad.
When it comes to using the engines for trolling, the infinitely variable thrust of the jets come into their own. I can set what ever speed I want using the jets just by changing how far open the buckets are. Most of the time, to hit my magic number of 1.8 mph, I have the throttles between neutral and TDE, or the first detent in idle ahead. This is a bit of a win win, as the TDE or Thrust Directional Enhancer position is designed to increase control at low thrust settings. If I put the throttles in the idle ahead TDE position detent, I get about 2.2 mph. Idle ahead gives about 3 mph. Above I mentioned the wind, and how I would switch over to the engines if the wind got too strong. As another poster theorized on page 1, the boat can skid or yaw if the wind is strong enough as there is no lower end hanging down in the water to act as a rudder of sorts, that also means there is no outdrive hanging down there for your fishing line to get caught on, or to kick and split your shin or toes open. But, and this is a big but, you can use the engines to your advantage here. I was out trolling with three guests on board late last year and the wind was blowing 20 mph gusting to 35 mph from my 7 O clock position. This was pushing the boat much faster than my desired 1.8 mph speed, but was also pushing me towards the shore. I used the throttles separately, I had both in reverse with more reverse thrust on the port engine, and less reverse on the starboard engine. I left the starboard engine set, and modulated course and speed with reverse in the port engine. Meanwhile my three guests were pulling in fish as fast as they could. We had 8 rods out, and at times there were three fish on at once.. what an awesome day. Now I make sure that everyone has a set of hook removers!
My favorite place to land fish is off of the swim deck, it’s only a couple of inches off of the water, the fish are easy to net there, and just swing the net around and it’s right at the live well. Note on the live well, I have landed quite a few trout that were bleeding, usually trout are goners if they bleed. I put them in the live well with the live well pump ( fill pump) and the aerator pump on and when I check on them 15 mins later they are just fine. Then turn off the live well pump and let the aerator keep them healthy. The aerator has two modes, manual = on all the time, or auto where you can set run and off times up to 10 mins each to keep the battery drain to a minimum. I.E. 3 minutes on, 1 minute off. I‘ve had 25 trout from 17” to 25” in that live well and all were perky at the end of the day.
There have been other days where the wind was stronger, on those days I just troll into the wind and that makes it easier on everyone as they get some wind break from the center console.
Like you, I fish by myself most of the time. For all of my trolling I have yet to use the no wake feature as it is too fast for the lakes I troll in and the species I’m after. Using the Auto Pilot and Cruise Control features is really awesome when it comes to trolling by yourself. Before I figured out how to use those features I was using the remote to steer and adjust speed.. talk about a monkey on a football!! LOL! If the lake contours are not too busy, you can use the contour following feature to troll along a certain depth contour. What I have started using the no wake mode for is mapping / marking fish. I leave the the throttles in the TDE position and put the no wake up to #3 and cruise along at 5 mph, this gives great directional control and my down and side imagining still work great as well as the 2D fish finder. As I mark fish, I drop way points then fish those spots on my return leg.
The Auto Pilot feature is also a great party boat feature when you have guests on board, pick a heading, set the cruise control and then mingle with your guests with an occasional eye on the surroundings. Want to cruise back the way you came? Simply hit the back track feature on the Solix MFD and the Ulterra will bring you about and start tracking back the exact way you came. Or you can use the follow the contour feature and the Ulterra will pull you along at the speed you set and will follow that depth contour. Pretty amazing tech right there. Typically the teenage boys are sitting on the swim deck catching fish while the grups are chatting up a storm. Plenty of ice box space between the carry on cooler and the insulated fish box up front for adult and non adult beverages.
Another great thing about the 210 FSH is that while the TR-1 engines are smaller and less powerful than the 1.8’s, they also use less fuel. Granted my transits are relatively short, I filled my boat up at the beginning of August last year and did not get fuel again until October. I was going out two to three times a week, and usually 10-12 hours each time out. Most of the motive power was coming from my trolling motor, but still, that’s not very much fuel used.
So far I’ve got about 65 hours on the engines and everything is running great. I’ll be up in your neck of the woods this summer as I want to check our Sakakawea and Shadehill reservoirs, also want to check out Oahe as well.
