A few months ago, I asked for recommendations for a replacement trolling motor for my 8' pontoon boat. I ended up seeing a pretty good sale at Bass-Pro Shops for a MinnKota Endura 30lb for about $85. I picked one up and then tried to recharge my deep-discharge marine battery that I've had for a couple of years.
Well, the battery was NFG, and wouldn't take a charge (even from the the big charger at Schucks). So I went next door to Pacific Battery in Monroe to see how bad the damage for a new battery was going to be, and learned a lot about deep discharge batteries. First was good news - they had some seconds of a 480AH battery (more than enough for my little boat) for $29 + tax! The bad news was that I've been charging it wrong all this time. Apparently, most folks (me included) tend to hit their batteries with high-current charges, that then drop down to trickle, once the battery is fully charged. I have a 2/10Amp charger that I use in the 10A setting when I charge my batteries. Well, deep discharge batteries don't like that. Their plates are closer together and the heat from this higher charge rate warps them them enough to damage them permanently. Best way to charge them is to trickle charge them for 20+ hours at 2Amps or less. Additionally, you only need to trickle char! ge them about every 3 months during the off-season. So, with this new knowledge, and a brandy-spankin' new battery, I set out to give it a shot out on Armstrong Lake above Arlington on Sunday afternoon. It was mighty breezy yesterday - apparently breezy enough to drop an oak tree on a couple driving their Explorer up in Bellingham - wow - the pictures on the news were frightening. The motor, however, works perfectly! Just enough thrust in low power to troll effectively, and the higher power settings really pushed me along - the wind was never an issue with this motor. I've had to set my seat farther forward to balance all that extra weight in the back, but that's a minor inconvenience. While I was upgrading the setup on the boat, I also picked up a BottomLine Tournament 1200 which I mounted up by the oarlock, and mounted the transducer to the bottom of the trolling motor. I mounted it so the side finder would point forward, but I had the motor turned around backwards so I could have 5 speeds backwards, and 3 speeds forwards. By doing this, I think the sidescanning sonar couldn't see through the whirling blade of the prop. Gonna have to rethink my design. Slow day of fishing - 5 hits, 3 to hand using olive willies and damselfly nymphs. I think the wind was a result of being on the backside of a fast moving cold front - never good for fishing. A good test day, though. Now I shall fear no lake! Even Lenore will be fully within my range of puttering about. Thanks to everyone for their feedback, hope this helps those who are thinking about turbo-charging their pontoon boats. Sean
