Re: Trolling motor help/info
 

What you told us is that you fish small bodies of water and therefore you don't spend a lot of time racing long distances. Your wheelchair batteries are obviously fine for you but likely too small for larger lakes. That's useful.

Re: Trolling motor help/info
 

I just get the relatively cheap deep cycle batteries at Walmart or BJs. On smaller lakes I can use one battery all day but it's nice to have the extra just in case. I've motored back to the launch at barely 1 mph a few times, hence the backup.

They last me about three seasons. I'm sure I could eek another year out of them if I kept them inside and charged through the winter. But I generally leave them out sitting under the snow. Not a good thing for them I'm sure.

I have a 55 lb thrust Minn Kota on my fairly heavy 14 ft aluminum boat. It moves me along at about 3 mph on high. For a 12 ft boat the 55 lb thrust should be perfect. For shaft size you're going to have to measure. You're going to want the propeller assembly to be at least a foot under water.

If you have a gas outboard and are using the electric just for fishing time, then you can get away with one battery. At least if it dies you can still get back to the launch.

Re: Trolling motor help/info
 

Brian, if I can make a suggestion, if you bought AGM's instead not charging them in the Winter wouldn't matter. They would likely last 5 or 6 years.

Re: Trolling motor help/info
 

I have the walmart deep-cycle marine battery running the trolling motor as my only source of propulsion on a 12 footer. It's worked fine through 2 seasons. I can run just the trolling motor for 6-8 hours of fishing with no problems. Oh, except I don't really power through heavy weeds that well. If I run the fishfinder on the same battery, it drains bigtime and I'm noticeably slower coming in at the end of the day. So the ff which was a gift is collecting dust in a cabinet. I've been lazy about carrying the battery up 14 steps to my apartment to charge after a day of fishing, so I tend to slow charge it the night before an outing. When this battery goes, I plan on getting two (one for the tm and one to run the ff) and I swear I'll be better about charging it...I swear! :rolleyes:

Re: Trolling motor help/info
 

I googled AGM batteries and found a battery that has a similar 280/825 rating, but weighs 100 lbs and is over double the cost of the typical BJs deepcycle. Am I looking in the wrong place?

Re: Trolling motor help/info
 

Try batterymart.com. Free shipping takes two days. Again, size it to the lake you fish and your boat. Figure every AH weighs about .7 pounds and decide how much fun you want to have carrying it. Look for sealed lead acid. If they're under 100 AH they're AGMs.