If anyone saw my post to Y.D, they noticed that I tore up a prop on my boat over the weekend. Fortunately for me, I was at idle speed in reverse. No motor damage, just a tore up prop that can not be rebuilt (missing fins). In years past, I always carry a spare prop. For some reason, I just didn't pickup another one at the time.

I remember when a new prop was $65.00. I used to have three of them when I fished the river. Boy those were the days. A new prop for my boat (alluminum) ended up running me a cool $189.00. And "NO" I didn't buy some high speed prop. Just a standard run of the mill quick silver from Mercury. The problem I found was simple: Mercury motors from 25 to 75hp, and Yamaha from 30 to 60hp utilize the same exact prop. Unfortunately, that is NOT a standard prop size for most other boats. You can find older motor props for less than $100 but..... not for the new model.

Cabelas sells the same prop for $154 so I didn't do bad by going to my local store and paying a little bit more to get it right away. I checked Cabelas, Bass Pro, and another company I use. The only other options was to go to Michigan Prop and get one for $140. 10.25x14p isn't easy to find and isn't cheap.

Oh, and after all that, my dad has an extra prop for his Mercury.... Same prop as mine. Atleast I know where my extra will come from when we fish the river. We only ever take one boat so atleast we know we have a spare...

One last thing. I considered buying a stainless prop until I found out that for my particular prop it was over $500.00.