Hi folks, just wondering if you could help me with some prop suggestions.

I have an 18 foot Thunder Jet welded aluminum boat with a 135 Honda. The boat has a constant 12 degree deadrise. I normally boat at lakes around the 2,200 foot elevation mark. Thus far with my boat I've run two Honda props, both aluminum:

1) 14 3/4 x 19 pitch. With this prop I'm getting 41-42 MPH at 5,300-5,400 RPM.
2) 15 x 17 pitch. With this prop I'm getting 39-40 MPH at 5,400 to 5,500 RPM.

The boat gets up on plane fine with both props, but the 17 does jump up a little more and it's the one I have on my boat right now. Handling and staying hooked up in turns and whatnot is fine, no issues there. The boat does tend to porpoise if I try and trim up too much (especially at faster speeds), but that said, I can get more than enough bow lift so that it isn't plowing. Given the hull design (general purpose fishing boat), I'm not sure it's the type of hull that is really designed for super high performance anyway so I'm not sure that getting more bow lift is going to do anything super crazy for me as far as performance goes. The boat cruises really nice at 4,000 RPM and 30 MPH. All my speed quotes are GPS measured,

What I would like to do, however, is to get my max RPM's up a little, say into that 5,600 to 5,800 range, in the hopes that I can get some additional top end. I know that dropping a pitch or two is likely the best way to get the RPM's up, but I suspect that will also drop my speed.

Do you have any suggestions? I've thought about trying some Mercury props and perhaps even something in stainless. Are the stock Honda props generally a good "performance" prop or are they just sort of a "general purpose" type design? Said another way, if I went with another prop design, do you think I could pick up some RPM's and still keep the same or even go up a pitch? Also, what about dropping to a smaller diameter prop but keeping the same pitch? Would this help?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can throw my way!

I've got a 15.25 x 15p solas that came with my 150 that you're welcome to try. I went to a Merc Enertia after trying a few different props and am now looking for a 15 x 15p Enertia to trade for my 16p. The 16 works fine with a couple of people on the boat but when I load it up it's a bit too much prop. I'll try to figure out how to send a private message and give you my number.