Electric trolling motor

[ZONKER]

I have a 80 thrust electric trolling motor on the front of my 17 foot glass fishing boat. I want to know if I can connect two 12 volt batteries together for a longer life trolling out on the Lake? I have a 12 volt for the boat 90 horse out board motor and then the 12 volt battery for the trolling motor. When I get home I just plug in the boat and it charges both batteries. Would this need to be altered if there were three instead of two batteries hooked up to the boat charger? Whould I beable to get larger batteries instead of more batteries?101chromefish101

[SmokeOnTheWater]

If your electric motor is a 12 volt system, then you need to wire dual batteries in parallel.

If your electric motor is a 24 volt system, then you need to wire dual batteries in series.

Check out the link provided to get most of your questions answered by the pros. http://www.dcbattery.com/faq.html

I believe you will be satisfied with a dual battery system for your trolling motor. I have dual 6 volt batteries designed for golf carts wired in parallel to give me a much higher amp hour rating than I could ever get with a single 12 volt battery. Also, there should be no problem in your charging set-up.

[SuperD]

80 lbs thrust is a 24v motor. 2 - 12v batteries wired in series is REQUIRED to operate properly at all.

[Bduck]

I only associate those type of motors with the basser's or even the jigger's. Although they are called a trolling motor, I don't see them as such. I rely on a kicker and/or my main motor sometimes for trolling. It's hard for me to justify a power draining system which in alot of cases takes 2 batteries to operate for any substantial amount of time. Normal marine batteries take a while to bring back up to a full charge and being out in the field and having an external power source to do this is difficult. Not even running your main motor will do this unless its continuously operating with a charge for hours. Whenever I'm on the lakes, I see these 'electric motors' laying flat across the bows of boats and the main or kicker motors just trolling away. What I'm also seeing is not much reliability in them. I'm just not convinced in the use of the 'electric motor'.

[SuperD]

I'm just not convinced in the use of the 'electric motor'.
Roger, I was like you until this last trip to the Gorge. My electric with auto pilot was great at first morning. The ability to get lines out without fussing with the kicker or worrying about steering was a great aide. By mid morning, I was willing to shift to the kicker which was about the time the breeze started to pick up. So, now I'm an electric motor believer.

[Bduck]

I like the idea of auto-pilot so it can't be just limited to electric motors. I'll check in on it.

[lowe1648mt]

I have a 55 lb bow mount motor. As I couldn't afford an auto pilot model, I bought a remote control model. I have used a stern mount electric in the past. Ever try to push a rope? Easier to pull the boat in the wind than push. I get 6 to 8 hour use on the electric on one group 24 battery and now I am hooked to two group 24 deep cycle batts. in paralle. Good for three days of fishing. has to bee, my out board only puts out 6 amps to charge with. then take away for the depth finder and gps.

[jekern1015]

my kicker motor will only troll down to 1.3 mph and at times that is great. When trolling that slow and the wind kicks up it is hard to control the boat, that is where the electric comes in handy. I set the kicker to go straight and use the electric to steer the boat. I use the generator on my motorhome to recharge the batteries while where cooking dinner and just plain relaxing.

[sawdustsavage]

I have a 55#thrust Minkota with the remote. I love it. I can troll for 4 hrs with no problem. I have 2 large deep cycle battries for it. the remote works well. I may upgrade to the co-pilot. not sure yet. Trolling in a straight line doesnt do much for me. the remote makes slow turns and irregular patterns a piece of cake. I do believe I should probably get a kicker. Not for trolling but for security. I did forget to plug the charger in one night. The trolling motor ran the 2 batteries for it down. As my luck would have it that had to be the time my main battery died.Fortunately I had a friend with me that knew how to start the main motor manually. I thought if it didnt have a pull system on it you were out of luck. We did get it started and to the dock. Unfortunately my 2 friends had bought the over priced Oregon 2 day nonresident license and I couldnt take them the next morning. Made me feel very bad. They were great sports about it. Next year it wont happen again.

[Harpoon]

I have a 80 # with auto pilot and co-pilot. Getting the rigs out is very easy and no worries about keeping speed and oh yeah it is quiet. I often time hear the bite rather than see it. When the humm is not the same , must be a fish. If the wind gets up I use the big motor and a drift sock if needed.I am usually on small lakes with shifty winds so its not as hard as you guys on the big open water.H

[SuperD]

Trolling in a straight line doesnt do much for me.
sds, not sure if this comment was in any way a reference to auto pilot but wanted to clarify that auto pilot isn't really straight line trolling. When wind and waves push your boat 15' to the right, the auto pilot brings the boat 15' back to the right. There's your "S" turn without even touching a remote. When the water is dead glass conditions, the co pilot remote still allows one to over ride auto pilot with occassional turns.