Thanks For all your input. The dealer promised to stand behind me on this decision of changing brands. So it looks like i'm going to own my first Mercury. I have some real good friends in Canada that are guides. They all run Verado's and have great success. One of them has almost 800 hours on it. I'm lucky if I do 25 a year. Think I should be just fine. Thanks again. The next post I do will be about how many and how far back at what speed.