Terrova or Kicker for trolling

[bltbowhunter]

I have a 1997 Crestliner Sportfish 1750 with a 115 Evinrude 2 stroke on it. We use it pretty much exclusively at our cabin on North Long in Brainerd. I found out over the course of the past few years that I really like to troll for walleyes. However, this boat/motor doesn't troll well. I decided this year that I'm going to dust off my wallet a bit and get a few accessories. I just bought the Lowrance Elite-7 HDI that was on sale last week. I am now looking at getting a used kicker motor. After looking around a bit, I figured I would have to spend $1,000-$1,500 for a used 4 stroke 8-9.9 hp kicker. Another option for about the same amount of money is to get a Terrova 80 lb. with ipilot. I like the thought of the Terrova because it is more versatile than the kicker. At the same time, I'm skeptical on how long I will be able to troll at 2-3 mph with the electric. Also, the boat sits on the lift all summer and to charge the batteries, I have to pull them out of the boat and bring them into the garage. I don't have a ton of time to fish when I'm up there so I would really only need the batteries to last 4-5 hours max. Also, if I do go with the ipilot I'm thinking that I should probably return the Lowrance that I just bought and get a Humminbird. Do any of you use your 24 volt bow mount to troll crankbaits? If so, how long do the batteries last?

[TR21HP]

If you're trolling cranks that fast I would get the kicker. The I pilot is great if you're following breaks and contours but if you're having to pull batteries and charge them, which you would be doing with the trolling motor after each time out, that would be a hassle.

[SkunkedAgain]

I use a 12-volt 40lb thrust on my 16.5' Alumacraft Navigator. While that's a bit small for my boat, it still mostly works. I've got two dedicated trolling motor batteries hooked up to an onboard charger. It makes recharging so much easier. Can you run an extension cord down to the dock, or better yet run a circuit down to an outdoor electrical receptacle near the dock? That would make life much easier for charging.

I can run my trolling motor for hours trolling. I don't have a kicker and just view them as one more thing that can break or not run well. My Minnkota is over ten years old and has never had a problem.

[leechlake]

I'd really try to figure out a way to use the electric. If your stuck with having to take batteries out AND you plan on plug pulling being your main tactic I'd guess the kicker is the choice though. For what it's worth I hate pulling plugs and hate using a kicker motor vs an electric so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

The kicker adds 115 pounds or so if its a 4 stroke, slows down the boat and can be uncomfortable to run unless you hook it to main motor and use the steering wheel.

The first "unauthorized" purchase I made as a newly married guy was a 9.9 kicker for my boat, wife almost killed me when she figured it out. Maybe that's why I'm tainted.

[gunner55]

Our on board charger is hooked up to run off the outboards alternator.Most of the newer outboards have high output alternators(30 amp or >)on them.When our starting battery is fully charged it sends the remaining charge to the deep cycles in the front of the boat.It's about 1- 1 1/2 miles out to the main lake & by the time I get back to the dock the 2 in front are 75-80% charged everytime.We do have another charger we can hook up then if needed

[SteveD]

I run an 80# Terrova IPilot on my 25' pontoon. It works great and that electic motor will handle your boat just fine. If you are a troller than the IPilot is the smart way to go. It does all the trolling work for you - tracks and records your trolling runs and then repeats those tracks with a click of the button; records waypoints and then will track back to those waypoints with a simple click; provides trolling speed cruise control so you don't have to manually try and maintain speed in wind and current; provides Spot lock so you can anchor immediately with a simple click. It just takes all the work out of trolling especially if you are fishing alone. I love mine.

I keep my boat in a marina slip on the St Croix so I always have power available to charge my batteries. I think you need to spend a few bucks extra and put in an on-board charger and run an extension or better yet run power to your dock and then just plug in your boat charger and keep your batteries always topped off. Go all the way with it - you won't regret it in the long run. That is what I would do.

[delcecchi]

I have a 1997 Crestliner Sportfish 1750 with a 115 Evinrude 2 stroke on it. We use it pretty much exclusively at our cabin on North Long in Brainerd. I found out over the course of the past few years that I really like to troll for walleyes. However, this boat/motor doesn't troll well. I decided this year that I'm going to dust off my wallet a bit and get a few accessories. I just bought the Lowrance Elite-7 HDI that was on sale last week. I am now looking at getting a used kicker motor. After looking around a bit, I figured I would have to spend $1,000-$1,500 for a used 4 stroke 8-9.9 hp kicker. Another option for about the same amount of money is to get a Terrova 80 lb. with ipilot. I like the thought of the Terrova because it is more versatile than the kicker. At the same time, I'm skeptical on how long I will be able to troll at 2-3 mph with the electric. Also, the boat sits on the lift all summer and to charge the batteries, I have to pull them out of the boat and bring them into the garage. I don't have a ton of time to fish when I'm up there so I would really only need the batteries to last 4-5 hours max. Also, if I do go with the ipilot I'm thinking that I should probably return the Lowrance that I just bought and get a Humminbird. Do any of you use your 24 volt bow mount to troll crankbaits? If so, how long do the batteries last?

I have a similar setup. I think trolling that fast for that long would be tough with the terrova. A couple hours, sure. But 4-5 probably is not doable.

On the other hand, a bow mount is something I couldn't fish without, since I cast or rig as well as troll.

[aanderud]

I have an 1850 sportfish and an 80 lb autopilot powerdrive v2. The 80 lb thrust electric motor is great, I wouldn't be without one for walleye fishing. Rigging, or even spinner trolling, you will get all day (perhaps multiple days depending on wind and how fast your'e moving). But, it's not going to pull you at 2.5+ mph fast crankin' for more than a few hours, because you've got to crank it up to max thrust and that just chews through the batteries.

If you want to pull cranks more than 2 mph, and more than a few hours, you need more than that 80 lb motor will give you. Most would recommend a kicker for crankbait trolling, but I think you can get by with a 36 volt Terrova. They make 101, 110, and 112 lb models, depending on year -- I think this year's is a 112 lb model. Since you're not looking for more than 4-5 hours, I'd guess this 36 volt setup would be a good compromise -- more powerful than the 24 volt unit and will keep you from having to buy that kicker motor.

As Steve said, try to run electricity down to the dock -- or at LEAST a long extension cord -- so you can use an on board charger to keep those batteries topped off every time.

[CaptainMusky]

The major concern I would have knowing the lay of the land around MOST of North Long lake is the length of extension cord required there is going to be huge. Many lakeshore owners have 200+ feet of dock. That isn't a real good idea to be running a conventional extension cord that long and will eat up your charger, etc due to the amp draw.

Obviously lugging batteries is a pain and though a 36 volt might be a good alternative, that means pulling more wire in your boat, adding a 36 volt charger, etc.

Solar panels to run a charger at your lift in thought might seem like an idea, but I just don't know at what cost it would be to get a panel out there large enough to do the necessary amperage to charge your batteries. Plus you need a controller and that is going to get spendy.

In all honesty, for the speeds you want to troll, kicker is about the only option IMO.

How far down does your outboard troll now? I trolled cranks for years with a 90HP evinrude and it did really well. Perhaps you could just get a trolling bag (similar to a drift sock) that will slow your speed down. Or put your bow mount trolling motor down (assuming you have one currently) and have it pointed in the opposite direction you are going on continuous at a slow speed.

All these things work.

I don't think you can effectively troll those high speeds with a trolling motor without spending serious coin and headache though.

Look for trolling bags, search Amish Trolling Bags. They are about half the size of a regular drift sock or you can use a 5 gallon pail on a short rope. Do some testing and drill holes in it to reduce the drag until you reach the desired speeds.

[aanderud]

A 200 foot dock does present a problem with battery charging. I don't think I'd want to run more than 200 feet of extension cord. There's a reason they only sell cords in 100 foot max, for the most part. High amperage draws at long distances can lead to fires pretty easily, not to mention the voltage drop is hard on the electronics in whatever you're trying to power. That being said, a 3 bank charger at 15 amps per bank would be 45 amps at 12 volts, so maybe 5 amps at 110/120 volts, including loss in the charger. With that low of draw, a really thick 200 foot cable would probably suffice. But, I still wouldn't go over a couple hundred feet of cords. And even that's going to cost you a couple hundred bucks (for 200 feet of quality extension cord).

I suppose you could always use a generator to power the battery charger. Might be annoyingly loud though, unless you have a nice honda unit. That'll set you back another 800 bucks But, hauling a wheeled generator down to the boat might be easier than hauling the batteries up to the house (less hooking and unhooking of stuff at least).

[gregg52]

it probably is a distance for an extension cord on north long

but they arnt that spendy so get a good heavy duty one

its a one time cost

I have an 80 terrova bow mount on my boat its much heavy than yours

I never timed it but you should get most of the day out of a full charge on

a small boat like that specially on n long as it cant get that ruff

not sure if you are thinking bout putting it on the front or the back

but as you said take back the lowrance and get a hummingbird and put it

on the front the front will take less power to pull you forward

plus north long has very crooked structure to follow so you will the I pilot to do the work for you even on a windy day you could run for a long time on a full charge

I think its awful hard to pull cranks on N long and stay in the fish zone ....so you really shouldn't need to go over 2.0 and even that fastest to pull cranks if you are using spinner 1.4 is plenty fast

oh and just for the record IMO if you are using a drift sock or 5 gallon pail which both are a pain in a$$ your boat is not rigged right !!!!!

I very very very seldom use a sock ...once in a great while when I get lazy

and drift on big structure like mille lacs or Winnie i'll use a suck but even then its a very controlled drift

[bltbowhunter]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Our dock is long. 150' or so and another 100' to the house. I don't know much about solar charging options, but I thought I would research that a bit too.

The 115 will get down to about 2.8-3.2 MPH and right now I turn the 55 lb bow mount around and face me to get down slower, but I hate listening to that noisy [PoorWordUsage] all day and smelling the fumes (I'm kind of a Prima Donna). It will also chug and sputter after awhile and I have to take it for a full throttle cruise to clean it out a bit.

If I did go with a 36 volt motor, what kind of wiring would have to be done? At the bow of the boat now at the trolling motor plug in it says something along the lines of "12/24 Volt". That's why I figured that 80 would be the highest I could go.

The 3rd option that I thought about is to just sell the boat and buy something different. In fact, I put it up for sale last year and convinced myself that I wanted a tiller boat. However, we've had this boat since new and I have a bit of emotional attachment to it. Also, this will likely be the most expensive option.

[leechlake]

my dock is 100' long and its another 20' or so to the power so I have to use 150' of extension cord. Works fine for me for years charging my battery on boat lift. I'd rather burn out a few battery chargers over the years than carry battery's or get a kicker. I'm not electrician for sure so take my thoughts with that in mind.

[aanderud]

If I did go with a 36 volt motor, what kind of wiring would have to be done? At the bow of the boat now at the trolling motor plug in it says something along the lines of "12/24 Volt". That's why I figured that 80 would be the highest I could go.

The 36 volt motor will work with that plug in your boat. You'll want to run two wires to the motor anyway, putting all 3 batteries in series by jumpering the negative of one battery to the positive of the next like this (note that you'll want a breaker inline too but this is the gist):

Motor ----- POS1__NEG1 <--> POS2__NEG2 <--> POS3__NEG3 ----|

|________________________________________________________|

Keep your battery cables short if possible, the shorter they are the more current they can handle. Batteries in front of boat would be best.

[bltbowhunter]

Keep your battery cables short if possible, the shorter they are the more current they can handle. Batteries in front of boat would be best.

Where do you keep the batteries in your sportfish? There isn't a lot of room in the bow of our boat.

[delcecchi]

If you have an onboard charger, many of them will work down to 90 volts input to deal with long extension cords. No risk of fire because the voltage drop and power is evenly distributed so a 100 foot cord causes twice the loss, spread over twice the cord.

45 amps at 12 volt is like 6 amps at 110 volts depending on the efficiency of the charger. 1000 feet of 14 ga wire is 2.5 ohms which drops 15 volts at 6 amps, so a 500 foot extension cord (1000 feet round trip) of 14 ga. would be sort of the maximum for a charger that is good down to 90 volts input. 200 to 300 feet would be fine, however. That is distance from the box, of course. Going to some 12 ga would help.

One of those deals that uses the big motor to charge the batteries would help also, if you have a modern outboard with lots of generator output.

[CaptainMusky]

Since I always like spending other people's money and the fact you seem somewhat interested in upgrading. Perhaps check into selling/trading your boat to a newer 4 stroke or even a small etec. Nothing worse than the cloud from an old dirty 2 stroke. Trust me I can relate. That 90 evinrude would choke us out after a while.

As it is now you are considering a new terrova $1500, upgrading wiring $100 or less if you need to go to 36 volt. Extension cord, 3 bank charger $200, 3 new batteries (should start with 3 equal state new batteries so they dont get weak and affect the others) it all adds up in a hurry.

Your over $2000 right there. Then you still have your stinky old outboard.

Yeah its more than you probably want to spend going to a newer boat. I traded a boat that was in my family from new to 20 yrs. It was a sad day but the new boat is so much more enjoyable. Plus you can get what you really need now since your needs may have changed in all those years hence the desire for a tiller for you.

[aanderud]

Where do you keep the batteries in your sportfish? There isn't a lot of room in the bow of our boat.

I've mounted mine in two locations --

First setup was one battery in the very front compartment and one in the right-front compartment (directly in front of the driver seat). The problem I had with this configuration was that it tended to list a bit more than I preferred, especially if I was the only one in the boat. I could level it out with water in the livewell on the front left and rear left but that was a pain to fill them.

Second spot was in the rear of the boat, right in front of the motor (there's a wide compartment). This spot seems to work out best for me as I was able to center them.

If you go with 36 volts and don't want to do any mods to the boat, I'm guessing your batteries will have to be in back. This could get pretty heavy if you consider there are now 4 batteries (3 trolling, 1 starting) back there and very little weight up front. If it was me doing a 36 volt setup in a sportfish (which I would have, but they didn't have a 36 volt powerdrive or terrova when I was buying my motor, and when I emailed them they said they didn't know when they planned to come out with one, then they did 18 months later....), I would remove the front left livewell and stick one battery there, one in the very front compartment, and one in the right-front compartment. But then again I don't use the front livewell, so removal isn't a problem.

[aanderud]

Another option -- Trolling plates can be very helpful if you want to drop a 1/2 to 1 mph off your trolling speed on your big engine. I haven't used one for years, but when I had the old 50 horse merc on the 14 foot starcraft, it came in handy (that thing would troll like 3.5 mph, it was very light and the motor was a beast). For instance, here looking at Troll-a-matic reviews on cabelas, here's one guy's input:

Quote:

Great Trolling Plate

December 25, 2014

I installed this on my 1996 Johnson 60HP on my 24ft Aquapatio pontoon boat. I troll for brown and rainbow trout on Lake Jocassee in SC. Before this plate was installed, the slowest I could troll was 3.2mph. After install, I can consistently maintain 1.56 mph, which is the perfect trolling speed for type of trolling. Install took about 20 minutes, after install, it's mindless.

[BLACKJACK]

I'll have to look into those trolling plates. I've been following this post closely since I'd also like to do more trolling, I have a 16 foot Alumacraft with a 60 HP Johnson on it, I can't slow it down below 3 mph but a new Terrova isn't in the budget for this spring.

Looked at those 'Amish trolling bags' mentioned earlier but they seem like they'd be a pain to deploy/undeploy/fish around, plus I'd be worried about pulling the cleats off my boat.

The Terrova would be the ultimate though. Problem would be finding spots for more batteries and a charger, depending upon whether I go 24 or 36 volt. Need to do some more research on whats best...

Upgrading to a different boat would really be the ultimate but thats definitely not in the budget!!

[CaptainMusky]

The amish trolling bags should ride right beneath your boat when you are moving forward. Shouldn't be in the way at all just make sure the rope is short or you will find it with your outboard.

[Kyhl]

The trolling bags are simple to pull out. Surprisingly they add a huge amount of boat control. The come out of the water easier than a drift sock because they are right next to the boat. I tie the tail rope to the back cleats and can yank them out in a couple seconds.

I have a pair and don't really use them since my 150 4S trolls down under 3mph just fine.

[aanderud]

I really love the look of those trolling bags. You should be able to slow down significantly with those in the water and you should be able to come up with a solution that keeps them in the water the whole time you're fishing, yet out of the way, I'd think.

I think hanging one off each of your front cleats with just a few feet of rope to keep it in the water, but not enough rope to let it get in the way when you're fighting fish (even from the drivers' seat) would be ideal. Like Kyhl said, a quick flip in the boat when you're switching spots is all it should take.

I definitely think you want two of them, one on each side, to avoid having to compensate with steering.

[CaptainMusky]

Like Kyhl said, a quick flip in the boat when you're switching spots is all it should take.

Yeah, don't be the guy who leaves their trolling motor or minnow bucket in the water then takes off across the lake. :-)

I haven't used those trolling bags, but I know a few who have and they say they can be VERY precise with holding structure when going forward with the outboard. Much like backtrolling the bow will turn very sharp which is an added benefit if you are somewhat trying to follow a break.

[BLACKJACK]

I think hanging one off each of your front cleats with just a few feet of rope to keep it in the water, but not enough rope to let it get in the way when you're fighting fish (even from the drivers' seat) would be ideal. Like Kyhl said, a quick flip in the boat when you're switching spots is all it should take.

I can't see how they WOULDN'T be in the way when you're fighting a fish, tied to the front cleat, 3 foot of rope, three foot of bag, more rope for the release line, it would be right beside the center of the boat.