ES I have found several years ago that the more weight you put in the front of the boat it does help. I used to borrow a buddies Bass Tracker, I think it had a 35 hp motor on it and it was about 16 foot. I have a 2008 175 Lowes now with a 50 hp Mercury on it. If I am going to be in the boat alone and I know its going to be kind of ruff out there I will pull as much weight out of the back of the boat as possible. Plus I will keep the back livewell empty of water. I put extra weight up in the front storage compartment. And as soon as I get on the water I will fill the front livewell full before I even leave the ramp. It dont take much figuring when you have 2 - 23 gallon livewells on how much weight that ads to the front. And when I get to where I am going to be fishing this may sound stupid but I will trim the motor all the way out of the water. It seems to work for me, but there again, I also now have a Lowes boat and at the back of the boat it is alot wider than a Tracker especially the older models. I have also been caught in bad storms with my fishing partner. We got caught one day by a freak storm that came up really fast. And you know I couldn't have picked a worse place to fish at! We were over 14 miles from the boat ramp! I had the boat trimmed out all I could get her. The wind and the waves hit me so hard when I came out of the cove I almost had the front of the boat standing up at a 45 degree angle. I told my partner who was sitting next to me to set up on the front deck and turn around and face me granted Marcus might weight 150 wet! Just that little bit of weight change was enough for me to maintain a higher speed and meet the white caps coming at me better. Granted it was hard for me to see with him sitting in my line of sight.

My boat already has the double seat setup in the front of my boat. But I have never used it. I usually have the larger seats in my boat instead of the little ones because I like to sit down and rest my back. And I always have extra rods up on the front deck. LOL also keeps the wife out of my hair when she is fishing with me usually! Granted sometimes she gets a little wild and crazy in the back of the boat! Sometimes she flips a jig up into my hat just to keep me awake!

I have never used a drift sock. I do troll alot but where I fish at there is alot of stumps in the water. Its bad enough on trolling motors shafts! I have always figured a drift sock would just get wrapped in a stump.

The best thing I did to help me in ruff water was to put a Apollo SS stainless steel prop on my 50 hp. Granted that is kind of over kill for a 50 hp but I have found that it really helps me get the boat up on plane faster and gives me better control in ruff windy weather. During MO CDC last spring camp there was alot of windy rainy days. There were alot of guys with big glass boats that wouldn't go out it was that ruff! It was the first time I could get on the water due to work and I was going to fish one way or the other! One of the guys who had a large glass boat decided he would go out with me if I was that crazy. He couldn't believe that we were really in a stupid aluminum boat! And this guy has a Ranger! He kept telling me that he wouldn't have spent all the money on his Ranger if he would have known about how well my Lowes handled! Hey I don't know nothing about boats! But I knew what I wanted in a crappie boat when I went looking to purchase a new boat. The Tracker and the G-3 boats I looked at didn't have the layouts or the room I wanted. Would I purchase the same boat again heck yeah! But I might get the 195 instead of the 175 just for the extra room for the wife and fishing with 3 people on the front deck.