just got my 2nd longtail rig been running 1st for years.Question is new rig wears me out operating it.It's a 1644 gator trax with a 29 kaw mud buddy.old rig is a 23go devil on a 1648 lowe.Gd rig would about drive itself just lean one way or another and she goes no problem.smooth as silk.New rig is a pain pushing and pulling.Is it the difference in boats smooth bottom round chines vs square with gunnels/Or is it the motors?thanks

A lot of that will have to do with the size of your longtail. A 29 might not sound much bigger than a 23, but that's almost a 21% bigger motor. With the larger motor, comes more weight and torque, making it more difficult to control.

I will say its a little odd that the slick bottom boat is extremely more difficult to steer. Longtail mud motors tend to steer much easier on smooth bottom boats than ones with ribs, like the lowe.

I know I have driven a go devil and a mud buddy on go devil boats and they handle very easy.

There are a couple of recent threads you should ck out about this.

There are a number of adjustments that you can make that will improve handling.

I was unaware of these myself till recently reading about it.

There are a some guys on here who really know there stuff and posted up some detailed instructions on adjusting both the cav plate and skeg to improve handling.

Good luck.

My first was a 23hp GDLT on a 1448 Lowe it drove like a dream.Then I got a 1656 GD boat put the 23hp on that,a little more boat but steered fine.Then sold the 23hp and the 1448 Lowe and buoght a 31hp GDLT put that on the 1656 GD boat now that's a hand full.It don't matter how you adjust the cavation plate or the skeg it's still a bull.What I figure larger prop,more horsepower,more torque,and more weight,thats whats going to make it a bit more to handle.Oh yeah I,m 58 years old with a four way heart bypass and if I can handle it you should be able to also.

i used to have a 25 hp long tail then went to a surface drive and now back to a 35 hp longtail and believe me the difference between the 25 and 35 is major. the 35 hp longtail takes a real man to handle. I'm still feeling it out right now. I just got it in Jan and haven't had much stick time since season came to an end

me and my kids took the new rig out to play last weekend and had a blast.Really impressed me on how it did.Wasn't as hard to get used to as i thought.My oldest daughter drove the rig and said it was just little harder to drive than the old one.Try to get back out to play this weekend

I can say this I ran a 35LT for two seasons and it was two seasons too many. It would just plain whoop my butt.

Real men drive 35hp LT's and want more!! I think some of you should stick to pontoon boats w/ 25hp outboards.

i asked the same question when i first got on mmt... the cavitation plate has to be right under the surface, and the cav plate needs to be adjusted maybe...otherwise it digs in the water too much making turning a biatch! all i had to do with mine was adjust the "trim" on how much the cav plate sat in the water and voila!

I think the biggest advantage a longtail has is poor folk can afford one.

Yea the price is the biggest downfall to SD's. I know I ran longtails for about 15 years before I bit the bullet. I always told myself that I did not need one until I saw first hand how much better they ran than my motors did. Then I had to have one.

Had a surface drive and now I am going to run a lt you guys are making me nervous.

I ran a 23gdlt on a 14 ft boat for 8 years. Moved up to a 17ft boat and a 35 mblt. I can't tell much difference in driving boat except what I can go through now!
The 35 is not that much harder to run if it is set up right.
I also have 3 herniated disks in my lower back. Hasn't bugged me yet.

I had a 23GDLT for 5 years and the only things i changed on it was the right side head gasket that i blew one morning on th eway to the blind and the upper and lower seals and thats it, that thing took a licking and kept on ticking. It was a beast and still looked like the day i bought it. I picked it up from a lady that was selling it becasue the dog was digging hles under it in her yard, it was her husbands and she sold it while he was at work. I picked that whole rig up for $2400 in 2003 it was a 2001 model motor and boat th boat was an alweld with hardly any scratrches on it. I sold it in 2008 for $3500. but to me it was worth every penny, i should have kept it for the refuges, but i didn't know they would ever enforce those stupid rules

to get the best of both worlds just get both boats

my GD boat with my GDLT runs itself. i can sit on the bench seat not holding on to the handle and lean left and right and it just goes. i ran the whole length of bayou mandeville like that a few times. now as you go up in HP they start to run you as apposed to you running it. I slapped a 35 LT on my 16x38 and that was a blast! it ran great on a flat bottom boat with round chines as apposed to the boat we took it off that had a flat bottom but square chines. that thing slid horribly! it was a bit tougher and got away from me once when i was with dog walker and never satisfied. it scared the sh*t outta me and for the rest of the day i had that kill switch on!

now i also have a gator trax gatorhide with a MB 5000 and that is VERY easy driving but some places i hunt that big wide b*tch could never get there! thats why i have both

Just up the state a lil bit from where most of you guys are from, even tho I have a hyper-drive now, Ill still admit there are places a LT can go that I cant. Let me rephrase, there are places a LT can make it BACK OUT OF that I cant haha. We dont have a lot of the soup you guys have. On a shallow, harder bottom, a LT can start up and get goin like a dream while were usually havin to push the surface drives out a little bit to get them started. Sure we can fly across harder not-so-soupy flats at speeds a LT cant touch, but if we stop on em, were toast. Ive seen numerous times LTs start up right next to us and wed have another 50yds to push.