Bow Mount Motor Battery

[C-Money]

What batteries are you guys running to power your bow mount motor? I bought a pair Battery Systems top of the line maintenance free 90amp hour batteries. A friend is concerned I may only get a couple hours out of them. The salesmen said they wont be quite as good as a pair of Trojans, but seemed satisfied they would be great in the boat. I wanted maintenance free and the Trojan is not. Warranty is also better on the house battery. My motor is a Minn Kota V2 50lb thrust, 55" shaft. What do you think?

[Skillet]

I assume these are 12V 90amp deep cycle batts that you'll be running in parallel, correct?  So you've got 180 AH @ 12V to work with.  Depending on the load you put on your trolling motor, it could last as little as 3.0 hours (full power draw at 50 amps, plus load to run the powerdrive motor) to all weekend.   Less if it is an autopilot model.

FWIW, my limited experience with Battery Systems deep cycles has been positive.  I had two set up in parallel as the house bank on a cabin crusier, and they never dissappointed.  I only ran the boat for a year though, so not a lot of real-world experience to go off of.

[C-Money]

Yup, 12volt, and plan on running at walleye speeds hopefully on calm days. Looks like I am going to need to get a pair that have a little more power....

[Seahawk12]

It's going to depend on what you draw. Here's a video a guy did to test draw with a minn kota trolling motor:
MinnKota 12V 52 lb Thrust current draw test
So @ 180AHs your set-up would be able to run his test at the maximum setting for 6 hours or there abouts.
Using personal anecdotal evidence I can tell you that I have a minn kota 40 and a single deka dp24 with 65ahs that I use to push a small 9' fiberglass boat with around 400#s of fishermen and gear around small lakes. We will troll, then stop and drop anchor to fish good looking spots etc. We do this from sun up to sun down and I've never run the battery dead. It's worth keeping in mind that I don't set the boat at the maximum setting very often because that would greatly exceed the optimum trolling speed.
Hope that helps a little. Good luck with your new set-up. It sounds like a good one to me.

[C-Money]

Thanks Skillet & Seahawk, great info... Still not quite sure what to do, gotta make a decision soon, I wanna fish Saturday! Fabricator needs to know how big to make the battery box, hope he can just make one with a little extra room based off the batteries I have now.

[Seahawk12]

I would have him build it for the bigger set and you can always hot glue in some foam shims if you use the smaller set. 

[Woodchuck]

If you have the space, run 2 6v golf cart batteries in series. Thank me later. 

[Seahawk12]

If you have the space, run 2 6v golf cart batteries in series. Thank me later. 

You've perked my interest. What's the advantage to this?

[CP]

If you have the space, run 2 6v golf cart batteries in series. Thank me later. 

+1 on that -

Check the specs and compare to a "marine" deep cycle -

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exide.com%2FMedia%2Ffiles%2FDownloads%2FTransAmer%2FTransportation%2520Americas%2520Brochures%2520for%2520Download%2FExide%2520Golf%2520Cart%2520Trade%2520Sheet.pdf&ei=7coiVY-QNIPwoASW-IH4Ag&usg=AFQjCNGfQoIQhJ8M2eEMiMKMF4ecALggcA&bvm=bv.89947451,d.cGU

[Woodchuck]

If you have the space, run 2 6v golf cart batteries in series. Thank me later. 

+1 on that -

Check the specs and compare to a "marine" deep cycle -

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exide.com%2FMedia%2Ffiles%2FDownloads%2FTransAmer%2FTransportation%2520Americas%2520Brochures%2520for%2520Download%2FExide%2520Golf%2520Cart%2520Trade%2520Sheet.pdf&ei=7coiVY-QNIPwoASW-IH4Ag&usg=AFQjCNGfQoIQhJ8M2eEMiMKMF4ecALggcA&bvm=bv.89947451,d.cGU

When in series all single battery specs are doubled. 

[Skillet]

Normally I'd agree with the 6V golf cart battery strategy, but - 

6V cart batt's are often too tall to fit in the desigated battery compartments of the smaller walleye boats.  Check your fit first!  Also, I think that for the most part it takes about a season of somebody running a 12V trolling motor to want to upgrade to a 24V motor.  With a good pair of 12V batteries wired in parallel, all you do is just switch the wires around to wiring it in series and you're running 24V.  With the golf cart batt's, you'd have to add two more to get 24V.  Sure, you'd probably be able to fish all of July on a single charge, but you might not be able to get up on plane 

When I was running trolling motor batt's for my 70# 24V MinnKota, I swore by the Everstart Maxx Group 31 batts.  Got them at Wally World.  I want to say they each had 205 amp hours, so I could get 205 amps at 24V - or if you needed 12V, you're looking at 410ah.  They lasted about three years for the pair, but were cheap at $85 or so each.  Compared to what I spent on tackle and fuel every year, that was a no brainer as far as I was concerned.