Gotta 38 Express with 496's. put the 1.81 gears back in the bravo three, 26 pitch dual props. I believe this is the stock set up. having a hard time planeing but goes great when up. Does everyone have to use full tabs with 6 people in the boat?

Nothing wrong with using full tabs to get up on plane. You are putting extreme stress on the drives when you are planing. In that boat, I'd probably use full tabs at all times.

Suggestion: Have your throttles modified so you have a trim switch for drives on one throttle, and a trim switch for tabs on the other one. That way you don't have to take your hands off of the throttles when planing, and once you get up, you can fine tune separate trims if needed.

You have top shelf tabs on that boat...so use them! Before takeoff, drives tucked all the way in, tabs all the way down, every time! Once she jumps up on plane, adjust accordingly. There is a lot of weight back there, plus passengers and gear, so the boat needs all the help it can get regardless of gearing and prop set.

Like SydWayz says, don't be afraid to use the tabs.

one thing you want to verify is the location of the trim adjustment insert at the rear anchor pin of your drives. Sounds like they may have recently been off the boat. The insert should be behind or the rear of the stainless anchor pin. I found this out the hard way. I switched from B3X drives with XR props (xr props have 4 leading blades and three trailing blades) to B1X with 5 blade maximus props. Got the insert in front of the pin. Took forever to plane off (with or without tabs), but finally did. Thought I screwed up going to the B1X/maximus combo. Thought about it a few days, switched thee insert and the boat planes better than ever. I ended up blowing out the upper gears on the B3X after only 400 hours. Decided to go to the B1X due to the slightly more flexible hub assembly in the B1 props. Boat runs same cruise, same top end. Will try sending props to bblades for a tune up soon.