Minn Kota 50lb Transom mount

[camillj]

OK ... I know I coulda spent alot more ... but I thought this was a great deal and picked one up today for $299 Minn Kota 50lb thrust Traxxis 36" shaft with the maximizer ( to supposedly give me better battery time) ... of course I spent nother $200+ on the 31 battery(which weighs about 100lbs !!!) and the waterproof case for it ... ok ... all you experts out there ...tell me did the right thing ...even if you have to lie to me

 

I threw the battery on a 10amp trickle charger ... do you think I should leave it overnight (it actually already seems to be fully charged)

 

I bought this to take into the ZEC to fish the shallower back bays for Specs ... the thing is we dont have electricity and we typically go in for three to four days so I am concerned about whether I really ought to take a backup battery

Edited April 5, 2012 by camillj

[Dabluz]

OK ... I know I coulda spent alot more ... but I thought this was a great deal and picked one up today for $299 Minn Kota 50lb thrust Traxxis 36" shaft with the maximizer ( to supposedly give me better battery time) ... of course I spent nother $200+ on the 31 battery(which weighs about 100lbs !!!) and the waterproof case for it ... ok ... all you experts out there ...tell me did the right thing ...even if you have to lie to me

 

I threw the battery on a 10amp trickle charger ... do you think I should leave it overnight (it actually already seems to be fully charged)

 

I bought this to take into the ZEC to fish the shallower back bays for Specs ... the thing is we dont have electricity and we typically go in for three to four days so I am concerned about whether I really ought to take a backup battery

 

Make sure that your battery charger can recharge deep cycle batteries. If not, your batterie will lose power over and will last maybe 1 year. Canadian Tire and Sears, do not sell battery chargers that will fully recharge a deep cycle battery. Ok, Canadian Tire seems to sell one but it is quite expensive. I had to buy a Schumacher recharger at Walmart to be able to recharge my deep cycle battery. Yes...a real deep cycle battery...with the caps that come off so that I can top up the liquid in each cell. The good part is the fact that the Schumacher battery chargers are quite inexpensive.

 

Next part is to find out how many minutes of reserve your battery has. If it's 200 minutes of reserve, this means that it can give you 50 amps for about 200 minutes. A 50 lb thrust electric motor at full speed consumes about 50 amps.

 

I don't believe the hype about "maximisers". What a maximiser does is consume the battery intermittently....meaning pulses of amps instead of a constant amperage. However, energy is energy. It takes so much energy to move an object. If you push that object intermittently, you are not using as much energy and the object does not move as fast.

 

Does your new electric trolling motor have a variable speed or does it have 5 or 6 speeds? What size boat will you be pushing?

 

If I was going on a 4 day fishing trip, I would not trust only 1 battery. Yes, the lower the speed the less energy will be consumed. However, if you use up your battery on the first or second day, you still have a 2 day period where the battery will not be recharged. This waiting period is not good for the overall life of the battery.

 

It takes much more time to recharge a battery than it does to discharge it. Yes, you could recharge the battery at 20 to 50 amps but the recharge at this rate will cause overheating and create bubbles on the plates of the battery. These bubbles do not allow the plates to be fully immersed in the acid bath and will even cause damage to the plates.

 

If you have a big strong lead-acid battery (over 200 minutes of reserve), you could use a 10 to 15 amp intelligent charger and it will regulate the optimum recharge rate.

 

Another thing you could do is buy or rent a small portable generator to let you recharge the battery at the end of each fishing day. You will have to let the generator work until the battery is fully recharged which can take up to 12 hours or more.

 

So...use the electric motor on slow speed only, for as short a time as possible. If you have any wind, take advantage of that wind to help move the boat or even drift with the wind when possible. Luckily, brook trout just love slow moving baits.

[camillj]

Thanks .. we have pretty heavy 16' fiberglass boats and most of the trolling will be on a 9.9 hp outboard in deeper water ... the electric motor will really only be for finessing in the back bays (quiet and shallow) the charger is a 10 amp Cdn tire (motomaster) deep cycle 'automatic' charger from the early 80's it worked well for me back in the day when I needed it to run my graph, cb and vhf etc while chasing Salmon on Lake O ... never let me down and seemed to keep the battery charged enough to crank the 40hp evinrude at the end of the (10 hr) day

 

 

I have been fishing the ZEC without any electric motor for years so I guess if it dies we can make do with the old school (9.9 seahorse running in reverse ... tic - tic - tic ... with the idle set just above stall) ... but I'll bring the charger and throw it on the propane generator just in case.

Edited April 5, 2012 by camillj

[Sinker]

It really depends how much you want to use it, and how you use it.

 

I can troll for about 6 hours non stop, in a 15k wind, going 1.5mph, with a 31 series deep cycle battery. 16ft boat, with 2 or 3 guys.

 

If I'm just using the TM to position the boat, it will run for days.

 

I wouldn't say it will last you all 3 days though, I'd bring a spare for sure. At the very least, charge it each night for a couple hours off the genny.

 

I wouldn't troll spring trout of any kind without one.

 

S.

[camillj]

Thanks Sinker ... yeah .. I have been fishing this lake for years and really feeling like I been missing the sweetest spots because of noise .. this will allow some nice controlled drifts through some of the shallower bays casting meps and flys to the shore cover

[irishfield]

You're getting smart Jon! I downrig, and flat line, on the electric when I can !

[camillj]

Smart - ER