I have a 11' sportcat with an older 6 hp Evinrude on it, which is just too fast for lake trolling. Im interested in an Electric Motor, any one have any recommendations before I buy one? Im thinking fully loaded with me and a guest and motor gear and gas something in the 32-50 lbs. thrust range. Being a cat style with a flat high bow, bow mounts are out of the question, so it must be a transom mount. Also can anyone suggest a battery/charger combo thats fairly reasonable? (I'd love an evertroll, but cant quite spring the $$$ for something like that!) Tight lines to all!

Jeep...

I am running a Motor Guide HVT on a separarte battery. Carries 44 pounds of thrust and pushes/trolls my 16' Northwood around the lake great! As far as the battery charger, I have a Minn Kota 10amp. Plugs right in at the work bench and takes about 7-10 hours to fully charge the battery up. Bought both at Sportco for under 180 green ones two years ago.

If you plan on trolling all day, better buy two batteries. One battery will last about 4-5 hours on continuous use.

Hope this helps!
Downriggin'

I had a motorguide 36lb thrust, sold it to a friend and bought a minn kota 30lb thrust. the minn kota will troll longer with the same battery,one of the reasons I switched. I have a 15' aluminum with 25 yamaha on it with 2 guys and gear it pushing 1000lbs, the 30lb minn kota is too much speed past speed 3. On your smaller boat if you go much higher than 30lb thrust wise you might not be able to troll slowly if needed. I have an automatic charger I leave the battery on yr round, it charges at 6 amp when needed and trickle to maintan full charge during storage. I run a diehard group size 27, not the biggest,but I can troll almost all day unless it's really windy.

Thanks so much for the info. HPB I think I may be sold on the MinnKota 30. My transom is so short that I can go with the Minn 30 with a 30" shaft. Cabelas had em for like 95 bucks! Thanks again for the great info sharing!

I have a Minn Kota 3 h.p. electric trolling motor on my 10' Livingston(sport Cat style hull). I don't know what the thrust for this motor is because this motor was rated in horsepower instead. If you get a Minn Kota, make sure that it has what they call a "Maximizer" in it. Somehow, this allows me to troll twice as long as my old motor with out the "maximizer". Also, another quick recommendation - Get a motor w/ infinite speed control. Other motors I've had or used had a choice of 3-5 speeds. Without fail, the right trolling speed alway was somewhere in between the preset speeds offered on the motor. I have used a "STOW AWAY" (Walmart $70 ) deep cycle for the past 5 years, which is alot longer than any other battery I have tried. Has a 5 year warranty Get a Group 27 battery instead of a Group 24, more capacity might help the battery last longer overall, and definitely lasts longer per charge. I have also had good luck with INTERSTATE batteries over the years. Good Luck!

I have a Motorguide 50lb'er on the back of my 14' Northwood. Great little motor. I have used it in the salt and on lakes. It always got me there and back.
As far as batteries go, get 'em at Costco. They are half the price of normal places.
I have a 750 CCA (big) Deep Cycle and run lights(when necessary), live well, fish finder, and motor for eight hours .

minn kota good for running over stumps good all around motor
costco deep cycle
plane jane charger nothing too fancy they are not worth the money and most autocharging systems do not fully charge

Great Info ALL!! I cant wait to get out there and troll for trout and koke's! Sooooo much nicer than listening to the gas motor all day! Have any of you tried the tiller handle extentions for the Minnkotas? Just wondering if they are worth getting? Thanks again!

Matt "JeepMcMuddy" Brown

I made my oyn extension, which has 2 benefits. First since I'm a cheapskate, it cost me nothing as I had enough junk in the garage to fabricate it for FREE! Second,with a transom mount motor mounted on or close to the center of the transom, it seems you need to sit quite a bit off center to steer the tiller comfortably. When I built my extension, I put about a 12" offset at 90 degrees to the tiller then ran the extension forward and put another 12" offset toward the center of the boat.(I hope you can visualize this!) The last offset sits in my lap an allows me to steer with a forward/backward push pull motion instead of the side to side motion of the original tiller handle. I made this mostly out of 1/2" electrical PVC conduit and used an air hose coupling for a quick disconnect. Works a lot slicker than I can describe, although, I still have to turn around to around to adjust speed ocassionally. You might want to give it a try. Have Fun!

Hey Jeep, before you order from Cabelas, try the local stores in your area. I think there's a G.I.Joes in Vancouver, lots of places sell the minn kota 30 and I have never seen one over $100. We just got back from Ea. Wash. today, the wind on the lake was around 15mph I had to kick it up to 4 on the motor and still trolled over 6 hrs.

You are NOT going to save any money buying from a catalog!

I might as well jump in here and give the MK 30 a plug too.I have ran one for I do not know how many years now,I want to say 8.It runs all day and then some on one charge.I purposelly ran it dead and got a day and three quarters out of it.[I run a very big innerstate]It has dealt with the salt as well as the fresh.It pushes my fully loaded 12' hilaker around fast enough to not have to fire off the 18hp on the lakes.I will never fish anything but on that boat.My goal this year is to incorperate into the main steering system for salt trolling.

Just my 2 cents worth. Motor Guides Transom mounts break very easily. I broke 2 of them. Never broke a minn kota.

Since you live in Vancouver, go over to West Coast Marine. We were over there two weekends ago and got a minn kota trolling motor.

I was just at GI Joes today. They had 30lb Minn Kota's for $100.00. I think that is their sale price. Doesn't really look like a sale to me though.

Thanks all for the endorsements for the MK! I found it at the Delta Park Joes for I think 95 bucks, so I will buy it locally instead of the catalog, thansk for letting me know they carried them there! The 100's of times I've been at Joes I've never made it out of the tackle section! there is life beyond those 5 or 6 aisles!

Thanks again everyone! Think I might purchase everything this week and try it out on Merwin or one of my "secret spots" lol are there any of those left?

I bought a MK (36lb I think) from Costco last year for much better than you'll find at a sporting goods store. They'll start carrying them anytime - at least they have the last few springs I was looking for them.