Tippy gets a "new" pair of shoes

T’s grandfather graciously donated a motor to us that he had been storing since the fifties.  He apparently used it for about 5 years, and we’re pretty sure that the year is 1955.  Lucky for us, his grandfather was fairly meticulous with maintenance.  We think that he must have repainted it at some point, but other than that, it’s a stock 1955 Mercury Mark 20 in seemingly great condition.

There are very few rubber parts in this motor.  She’s all metal and weighs as much as I do.  T checked the spark plugs, looked for any evident damage, ran some Seafoam through it, and then we fired it up in a garbage can full of water.  Only 3 or 4 pulls and it fired up after over 55 years of sleeping untouched.  It kind of looks like a classic car being pulled by a shitty old winnebago, but if it goes, it goes.

We needed a safe place to test it out so we hit the Little Nestucca on the end of the high tide so that at least we could float back down river to the boat launch if the Mark died.  It may be the loudest and most environmentally unfriendly exhaust belcher, but damned if it didn’t get us quite a way up the river.  

 We’d heard word of one or two springers that have been caught, most likely by accident while fishing steelhead, but we brought some rods anyway.    The water was moving pretty slow, almost too slow for a swing with a heavy sink tip, so we cast a few times as we drifted down, then lost interest.  We’re both on the same page that we should come back when the water drops a little so when the kings come in they’ll be in the obvious places.  It also looks like it could be an awesome cutthroat fishery, but it’s not open yet so, bummer. 

On the way down river it became evident that the years in storage have not been completely kind to the Mark.  They may or may not be small fixes.  We’re thinking an idle adjustment and maybe a personal adjustment to the lack of throttle sensitivity.  With newer tiller motors you can feel an adjustment in between speeds before the boat starts to actually speed up.  With the Mark it just kind of jumps into high like the Delorean.  Not sure if we just need to pretend we’re as hardcore as people in the fifties were or if there’s a genuine problem here.  I think we’re both in agreement that for now, lakes and things that won’t suck us out to the ocean are acceptable for the Mark.  No outgoing tides yet.