[JohnB]

Given the distance you have to travel to fish, it sounds like your looking at twins. I know 2 guys that have switched from transom mounted single 250's to twins on a bracket that have said if they had it to do over again, they would of gone with a single 275/300, for fuel burn, balance, maintenace, and cost. One went with etecs, the other with suzukis. Make sure you have alot of floatation on the bracket, especially for following seas. If you lose one motor, with much weight in the boat, I doubt you will get it on plane with a single 150 engine. IMHO, the 23' do better with a large singe engine, but if you need the security of twins, with a BIG floatation bracket, you will probably be happy. Most of the etecs I have heard of either crap out in the first 50 hours, or run forever, with no problems. Price wise, it is hard to beat the suzukis, and the optimax's are pretty strong too.