Trolling Motors

Choosing the correct trolling motor is often a daunting task for first time buyers. Anglers often under-estimate the importance of a good quality trolling motor suited to your specific needs. I'll give you a comparison to explain this. I regard my Putter to be the most important club in my Golf bag. Why, because I use it on all 18 holes! The same applies to trolling motors. It's the only piece of equipment you use with all your fishing techniques, from drop-shot to frogging.

I will aim to address issues such as Mounting Options, Control Options, Thrust, Voltage, Batteries, Shaft Length and ultimately Boat Control / Positioning in this 3 part article.

Mounting Options

You basically have two options to consider when you have to decide where to mount your trolling motor. Transom mount or Bow mount. The mounting will be dictated by your type of boat as well as your preferred fishing technique. If you are going to rely on a trolling motor as your only source of power, you will most probably go for a transom mount. If you have a fully rigged tournament bass boat, you would be considering a bow mount trolling motor. We will discuss Boat Positioning separately, but essentially a bow mount trolling motor is your best option if you want to sneak into confined spaces or just have precision control when drop-shotting.

Control Options

Here you have three choices: Hand Control, Foot Control and Remote Control. For obvious reasons it is not practical to have a foot controlled motor fitted to your transom. The same can not be said for bow mount applications. On the bow it comes down to angler preference more than anything else. Your fishing technique and budget will be the determining factors.

Hand control - this type of motor is probably the most popular choice and have some advantages over the foot controlled motors. If for instance you have limited deck space in the front of your boat it will not make sense to install a foot controlled motor with a bulky pedal and associated cable hanging all over the place. You can save a lot of deck space by installing the "cleaner" hand control option.

The hand control motors are less strenuous on your body (back and knees) because you don't have to balance yourself the whole day on one foot while the other is busy controlling motion and direction of your boat. If you are going to primarily fish open water where very little steering is required, then again the hand control will be the best option. I will also recommend a hand control if you are going to fish mainly in rivers and streams. Manoeuvring your boat in a current will be difficult if you have to do it on one foot the whole time.

Hand controlled motors makes use of a variable resistor (rheostat) to determine the speed of the motor. This is a straight forward mechanism, but is prone to electronic failure caused by carbon deposits. You normally have a choice of "1" (low) to "5" (fast) speed selections on a hand control motor.

Foot control - Anglers who spend most of their day casting towards the bank while moving from spot to spot will find the foot control option most suitable. The foot control consists of a pedal using a cable with a rack and pinion mechanism to steer the motor left and right. It is also fitted with a micro switch which is strategically placed for easy reach with the ball of your foot. The beauty of a foot control is the fact that it frees up both your hands. You can thus cast and retrieve using both hands while controlling the motion of your boat with your foot.

The two main advantages of a foot control are its hands-free operation and precise manoeuvring. People that prefer using pedestal seats on their front decks also find the foot control very handy. The speed control on a foot controlled motor is normally more sophisticated than those found on a hand control, and offers a selection of 0 - 100%. Speed control is done by electronic circuits that allow variable power to the motor. These circuits are normally also more efficient than the rheostat type. Another benefit of the sophisticated control circuits is the fact that you can now have a "soft" start, rather than immediate rush of power when to press the switch. Ask the co-anglers at the back of the boat who normally don't know when to expect full-power movement in an unknown direction!

Thrust

Where combustion motors are measured in Horse Power (HP), electric motors are measured in the thrust they produce. Thrust (power) of a trolling motor is relevant to the size of the motor. This obviously influences your size of battery and voltage, these will be discussed in a subsequent article. The thrust of your trolling motor is directly relevant to the size and weight of your boat. If you plan to fish in extreme windy conditions, keep in mind that you might have to up the thrust when selecting a trolling motor.

What size trolling motor to get? This is based on personal preference, but here are a few basic guidelines. Boats with a length of less than 14ft (4.2 m) should comfortable do with 30lbs of thrust. Boats with a length of approximately 16ft (4.8m) can do with 40lbs to 50 lbs of thrust. Boats of a length more than 17ft (5.1m) should consider using 60lbs of thrust and more. If you want to do a little more scientific calculation, the following will apply: You will roughly need 5lbs of thrust for every 90kg of weight. Example: a boat weighing 600kg with a carrying capacity of 300kg would need at least a 50lbs thrust motor (600 + 300 = 900 / 90 = 10 x 5 = 50). Remember to add the weight of your tackle, equipment and batteries!

As I said it all comes down to personal preference and one can never have too much power on your trolling motor. Your choice would primarily be determined by budget, space for batteries, physical weight and size of the motor.

The subsequent articles will deal with Volt rating, Batteries, shaft length and Boat Control/Positioning.

I hope that with this document you would have learned something new about Mr.Bass options for a meal. If you have any questions regarding any species please don´t hesitate to contact me. In Part 2 I will touch on the different species per dam.

Ruffneck
Bassing.co.za Pro Staff Member

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