nothched or pocket hulls and motor height

[oissa67]

Hi all, first post here and I'm hoping you can clear up some confusion for me.

I have a 1992 20' nitro bass boat with a notched hull and a 200XP evinrude with a manual jackplate. My confusion is that I read that the anti venting plate should be about 1/2" ABOVE the bottom of the hull with the motor level. What I need to know is do I treat the bottom of the hull as the bottom of the hull, or do I treat the top of the transom notch as the bottom of the hull?

I'm sure I have way too much motor in the water as the boat really doesn't want to plane and the top RPM is only 4200 regardless of weather I use a 21 or a 17 prop.

Forgive my ignorance on this subject, but this is my first bass boat and it seems that this subject is an art/science in itself.

Any additional infor you guys could provide taht you think useful would be greatly appriciated!

[Corpus Skipper]

Since you have a jack plate, simply run the boat with the plate progressively higher untill the prop blows out, then lower it a bit. Make sure to do this in a decent chop so you have good all around performance, unless you like fiddling with the manual plate:D As far as RPM and planing, does trimming the motor up help any? Sounds like it's tucked in too far, or too much prop, or both.

[RTek]

I've seen Nitro's set up with the vent plate at the step. May be a good place to start and then adjust up or down in accordance with the previous reply. In fact I'm looking at a Nitro right now with a 225 and a 10" jack plate and the vent plate is slightly above the step. Hope this helps.