Offshore fishing: do you turn your outboard(s) off while fishing reefs?

I’ll turn one or 2 off if overnighting or not moving around much, but I always leave atleast one on.

1) keep batteries charged
2) so I don’t have to turn them all back on every time I want to set a new drift
3)when I’m 80 miles offshore I’d rather not go to start one and it not start for whatever reason. Yeah, it should always restart… but why risk it.

Single engine boat offshore im leaving it on for same reasons, more emphasis on 1 & 3 though.

Turning them off is dumb IMO, atleast for the style fishing I do where I’m constantly resetting drifts.

Fwiw I don’t know many, if any, of the charter fleet (atleast where I fish) that turn motors off offshore. Pretty much everyone I know leaves them running til back at dock.

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only turn them off when the new guy gets braid wrapped around a prop.

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We must have mutual friends

OP, I may drop one or two out every once in a while. But there’s always 2 running.at min

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Capt ST

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Y’all actually gonna take that thing fishing this year, or is it just gonna stay at David Wade for another year

I'm running a 23 bay boat with single F300 and turn it off at every stop, I'm old and grew up running old loopers that you never cut off once off the trailer, but I feel with the newer technology it is unnecessary to leave on constantly. I guess if I had to question whether or not my engine would crank when I turn the key I wouldn't take it offshore. It may bite me in the arse sooner or later but I've been doing it in this particular boat for 15 years and not once has the motor cranked after I shut it off.

I have twins and I always turn one off. I turn both off occasionally, just depends on the conditions. I’ve had my new to me boat for 1.5 years now and honestly haven’t fished that much, in that time I’ve had a loose battery connection, bad fuel supply connection, and bilge issue. The first two caused me to return home on one engine.

I would always keep some wire nuts, electrical pliers, extra fuses, extra fuel bulb, etc and know how to fix them.

I think with good maintenance you could comfortably shut off routinely if within 25 miles from shore. If you are 30+ miles from shore I just think running an engine is the cost of being out there.

All engines stay on when we are offshore. Unless you are going to be cutting it extremely close on fuel going back in I'm not sure why you would even turn them off to begin with.

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not sure why you would even turn them off to begin with.

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I have a single etech. You gotta weight the risks of it blowing up from idling too much or it not starting because it's retarded.

Struggle's real bro.

Based on the number of pieces it was in the other day, I’m beginning to wonder myself.

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Yup. We just hit 1500 hours but like 1000 of those hours are 0-1000rpm.

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I always like to look at the RPM print out when purchasing a used boat. It's interesting to see who runs their boat more frequently at +5000 RPM range.