Hot Side Dish

I figured I may as well put up the photos of the trolling plate I added over my "Bob's machine shop" Stabilizer plate. I called Bob's and asked if they thought this would be ok and was told that it should be fine because there should be no interference with the function of either item.
I needed to bring my trolling speed down around 1.5-1.8mph. Previously I could only attain this into a current or headwind and the normal gps reading was 2.3-3mph. Good for some things not for what I'm doing. Nefarious suggested a trolling plate last year but I didn't want to add more "stuff" off my cavitation plate at that point.

I have tried the drift sock but it didn't work as well as I expected. I chose the "Easy Troller" plate because it is more forgiving due to the bottom half of the plate being hinged, less likelyhood of getting bent. I know I never make mistakes but hey, it could happen, theoretically.

Installation was pretty straight forward. I used the existing rear bolts for the stabilizer plate, marking and drilling the trolling plate so that it was in position not to hit in the back of the stabilizer and centered. Use a couple of C-clamps padded with some duct tape to lightly hold this in place while you get everything lined up and mark from the bottom through the holes in the cavitation plate.
I had to remove a bit of material from the outside edges of the Bob's Plate to keep the trolling plate mechanism from rubbing and preventing free motion. (photo with pencil shows one side. Same on both sides.) Once the rear bolts finger tight will hold the plate on, I used it for a template and drilled the forward bolt holes in place. Do not do the final tightening before enough material is removed from the stabilizer plate or you may damage the trolling plate mechanism. I actually did about 5 installs, or more, because I didn't want to remove too much material and it's difficult to guage by eye, well my eyes. Put it on finger tight and check the action, if it touches at all it will bind when tight.

I will let ya'll know how it works after I get it wet.