Shopping for a trolling motor - suggestions?

J

JF660R

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Apr 3, 2013
Messages
47
J

JF660R

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Apr 3, 2013
Messages
47
Re: Shopping for a trolling motor - suggestions?

I guess I'll find out. Picked it up today.
 
A

airshot

Vice Admiral
Joined
Jul 22, 2008
Messages
5,391
Re: Shopping for a trolling motor - suggestions?

Your link does not work. I had an 18' starcraft years back and used an electric motor for trolling. I had a 55# thrust with a 48" shaft and used it on the transom. You will find that you will have to constantly keep adjusting to stay on course if there is any wind at all. The 55 was adequate as long as you were not directly into the wind, we used the gas motor to get upwind then trolled back down wind and could run at about half throttle with the wind to get our 1.5-2.0 mph troll speed. Get yourself two really good batteries and hook them together to get a good trolling time, one battery will only last a couple/3 hours or so, good dual batteries will get you 6 hrs. Not sure how big your troller is but if 55# or bigger you should be fine with some common sense. I always felt the electric was better with no noise over a gas motor. I now have a 22' ft so the electric motor is out, back to the noisy gas motor and yes I still have to constantly correct my steering to stay on course....darn wind.

Airshot
 
J

JF660R

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Apr 3, 2013
Messages
47
Re: Shopping for a trolling motor - suggestions?

Hey thanks for the response. Installed and took it out today. It's a 45" shaft with 65lb thrust. Local BPS had it on "special pricing" for 479. 520 after tax, probably better deals out there but the wind had its way with us last time. Couldn't resist finally getting one on the boat.

It's 24v so we picked up a couple Orielly deep cycles. Seemed to work great.

 
A

airshot

Vice Admiral
Joined
Jul 22, 2008
Messages
5,391
Re: Shopping for a trolling motor - suggestions?

You should have plenty of power for trolling, be aware though if you are in some chop, that prop is still going to pop out of the water on occasion and spray water everywhere. Bow mount motors are much easier to control than transom mount no doubt....but be prepared to still have to make numerous course corrections as your light weight alum hull will be blown all around by the wind and wave action. On a smaller boat I once owned I went from a transom to a bow mount expecting this superb ease of boat control, but was quite disappointed.
Don't get me wrong the bow mount was much better than the transom but I guess I was expecting way to much as I still had to make corrections more often than I thought I would. Even my bigger 22' still requires numerous corrections in any type of wind.

Airshot
 
Tnstratofam

Tnstratofam

Commander
Joined
Aug 18, 2013
Messages
2,679
Re: Shopping for a trolling motor - suggestions?

That is a nice looking setup. The po of our boat mounted the trolling motor dead center of the bow. I'm going to change it to be angled like yours for better room up front when we're just on the lake tooling around and not trolling. Again nice looking rig.
 
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