First off, is your motor a two stroke or 4 stroke? Next is how is your boat loaded? Do you have your heavier items loaded towards the rear, or in the nose? Basscats do not like a bunch of weight in the front of the boat, so load accordingly. Remember, if your livewells are full, you are adding about another 240-300 lbs in the boat which is going to effect how that thing gets out of the hole and performs. The same applies with the amount of people in your boat.
I own a 2017 Cougar AE with a 250 Optimax on the back, 25P fury on it, manual plate. I tried a couple of other props but I prefer the Fury, it seems like I get better performance out of it. That being said, I sink my motor all the way down when I am stopped, put it into forward and put the throttle to it. I begin to use my tilt to pull my nose down as the boat gets out of water and continue to use it as it increases speed. I do bump it back down as my steering gets a loose, most of the time I am running around 40 to 50 mph if I have the room on the water that I am on. With your jackplate you should be starting with it all of the way down and start raising the plate after the boat is on plane using the tilt and trim to get the nose down first. Decrease the amount of trim as your speed increases and watch your water pressure. If your boat takes over 3 seconds to break over, or get the nose down, especially with that 300 on it, it comes down to weight in the boat, where that weight is placed, how deep the motor is when you are starting off, and how much trim you are using at the start. You pretty much should be at zero tilt/trim when you are starting and use it accordingly to get the boat’s nose back down as you pick up speed. It will take some time to master, best thing to do, go either to a dealer that sells cats and have them drive yours with you in it, get a friend who owns one and go with them, or if you are close enough come ride in them at the dealer meetings. The people that are driving and giving the demo rides are very, very good at driving the boats and will show you. Also watch the video Rick Pierce put out with Randy Vance on driving a Basscat. It is very good.
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