electric trolling motor on drift boat

[Muskrat]

Try this link at Minn-Kota to help you determine what you need:

http://www.minnkotamotors.com/selectamotor/

I personally am thinking about going to a bow mount with the remote or wireless control for my Jon Boat.

[Crunchy]

Steve
Some states do not require you to register your craft if it is under 10' long or uses a motor under 10HP. If you are also looking for
an outboard motor to compare, here is a site to look at. onlineoutboards.com. They have outboards at 9.8HP to get around this.

Crunchy

[MikieFinn]

The motor should be sized to the length of the boat rather than weight. Minnkota motor selector does decent job but you need to remember that they are trying to make money - bigger motor=more profit, that tool has tendency to overestimate. As to power consumption : all of of the low end motors consume the same amount of power regardless of the power setting. You need to look for stuff like "Digital Maximazer" or "Digital Efficiency" - only these motors will consume less power at lower settings. And another thing to consider - drifting means hitting hard objects with your motor. The shaft of the motor will take most of the impact. I wuld consider moting the motor on "breakaway" mount and my prefernce here would be Minnkota over Motor Gude since their shafts flex. BTW these two are really the only chices letf in this field...

[fish4trout]

There is just something not right about putting a motor on a drift boat....

[stevehaun]

After looking at the Minn Kota site and selection tool, I think I could get by with the Endura 55 or Traxxis 55. They both use one battery. I could step up to the Traxxis 70 for more power. However, it uses 2 batteries. This singificantly ramps up the cost because I will need to buy two batteries and a double charger. That said, I'd hate to buy the smaller one and find that it did not have enough power.

[skes01]

I used a 42 lb thrust Minnkota on my driftboat for years to blow through frog water. This had plenty of power moving downriver. In fact with the rocks in the rivers up here that we can float, I wouldn't want to go any faster. It was adequate, but a few years ago I went to a 4 horse Yamaha gas motor. The thing I like about that is it allows me the option of putting in and motoring up a river to drift back down to the put in/take out. No shuttle needed and gives me another option. The trolling motor would not allow me to do that.

[stevehaun]

skes01:
Do you mount your outboard next to the anchor (slightly off the midline) or did you modify your anchor bracket?

[skes01]

Steve-
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I was away. Yes, I do mount it next to the anchor. I did put a wedge under the anchor bracket to offset it away from the outboard.

Scott

[Uncle Jesse]

I have never used a drift boat, but if I understand you are going to use the trolling motor to move through slow moving water in a river. A couple of thoughts, I think trolling motors are better at pulling a boat than pushing it, I have my jon boat wired to supply power to trolling motors at each end. Fishing lakes for bass and bream this allow the fisherman at each end to keep in position. There are wireless foot control available where the boat can be steered from anywhere in it. It just depend on how much money you want to spend.