H-SCbassman

What the other guys said. I never would go out in my boat without oars. About two years ago I was out with a friend on his boat in Briery Creek and we wandered out of the channel and pretty far out into the lake. For those who dont know the lake, that place is basically like a submerged forest, so navigating around all of the submerged trees can be like going through a mine field. We knew our way around pretty decent, or so we thought. On the way back, we ended up hitting a stump with the trolling motor and it broke on us. We then decided to fire up the gas engine to try to make it back to the channel, but for some reason that died on us that day too. Luckily, he had a set of collapsible oars in the boat. While it wasnt pleasant rowing ourselves back in while still trying to dodge the submerged trees, I figure it was better than being stuck out there. Like Memo said, "Murphy" must have decided to go fishing with us that day. So from personal experience, I would definitely recommend carying at least a set of collapsible ones because ya never know what kind of situation you might end up in.

I also have a 25 hp mercury engine that I notice a sheen of oil/gas around sometimes. However, if your engine is a 2 stroke like mine, then this should be normal. The oil/gas sheen that you see is due to the design of a 2 stroke engine. Unlike 4 cycle engines, 2 stroke engines lack valves. Each time the cylinder in a 2 stroke receives a fresh charge of oil/fuel/air, some of it inevitably leaks out of the exhaust port and in to the water before it is ever compressed by the piston and then ignited by the spark plug. This results in the oil/gas sheen that you see around the engine. This is also the reason that 2 stroke engines are considered less "environmentally friendly," as they leak some unburned fuel and oil into the water. Hopefully this helps you out a little bit. By no means am I an expert on this stuff, I just have a basic understanding. "HowStuffWorks" has a great write-up with good animations about the workings of a 2 stroke engine just in case you are interested. Check out the link below. http://science.howstuffworks.com/two-stroke.htm Take care and I hope this helps! Jonathan

Hey brgbassmaster, I was actually in the same situation right at the beginning of the summer. I had a 40 lb trolling motor and needed something with a bit more thrust, so I went with the Minn Kota Power Drive 55 lb. It had a big tag on the power cord recommending that you wire in a manual reset breaker. Like you, my old one was just hooked straight to the battery. With my new one, though, I didnt want to take any chances, so I went ahead and put on the breaker. Minn Kota recommended a 50 amp breaker, and actually they make one. Look online at Cabelas or Bass Pro Shop. I think you can pick one up for like $40. Although I never had any problems previously, I would recommend one just in case you do get some kind of short or something, you wont burn up your new trolling motor. By no means am I am expert on this stuff, but I figure it's better to play it safe if you are gonna put out a lot of money on a new trolling motor. Good luck! Feel free to let me know if ya have any questions. Respectfully, Jon

MA1232, Good call on that link. I like that idea that LadyFlyFisher has about using the 12v mikita battery. I never thought about that, but that would certainly work. I am definitely going to look into doing that. sneaker, Thanks for the info on the filter. I think I might go ahead and get the same one that you have just to give it a shot. I definitely need to try something. I took the boat out today and could definitely see a difference in having my sonar and TM hooked to the same battery. Like you said, it picks up a bit more noise. I figure I will give the filter a try, though. If worst comes to worst, at least I'm only out by 5 or 10 dollars. Thanks again yall!

Hey MA1232, No problem. I was actually wondering where you could find one of the noise filters as well because I want to try and hook the depth finder and TM to the same battery. sneaker, Thanks for all of the great information! That definitely helped me out a lot, and I can see what you are saying about the manual reset fuse and about the noise I would pick up from the TM on my sonar. Hopefully I can get this project finished up tomorrow so I can get back out on the water! Thanks again! Jonathan

Well, after battling with my old trolling motor for way too long, I decided to go out and get a new one yesterday. I got the minn kota powerdrive 55 (12v, 50amps?). Now I just have a few questions about wiring. First, this is going on my 14ft jon boat. The tm is up front and the battery is in the back. I am following the recommendation that I found on the motor that said to run 6 gauge wire. Now for my first question. On my old trolling motor, I used one of those male/female plugs in the front of the boat so that I could disconnect the tm if I wanted to. I would like to do the same with this tm if possible; however, all of the plugs that I am finding only have 10 gauge wire on them, so I was wondering if there would be a problem if I hooked the plug with the 10 gauge wire to the 6 gauge wire that I am running down the boat. I've looked all over the place (gander mountain, bass pro shop, west marine) and I cant find any of these plugs with thicker wire. All right, so my next question has to do with fuses. Minn kota recommends using a "50 amp manual reset breaker." Again, I have looked all over the place and cant find this either. At gander mountain, I found a 50 amp automatic reset breaker, and I was wondering if that would work ok, or do I really need a manual reset breaker. Also, at radioshack I found an inline fuse holder that uses the AGU type fuses (looks like a tube). It says that it is waterproof and can be used in marine applications, and it has a rating of up to 100 amps, so I was thinking about using that unless ya'll dont think thats a good idea. And finally, my last question. On a little sticker on the trolling motor minn kota recommends that the battery that the trolling motor is hooked up to should be used only for the trolling motor. This presents a problem, because I carry only one battery on my boat, and previously I was using it to run my depth finder and trolling motor. Will it be a problem if I continue to do this, or do I really need one battery dedicated to the trolling motor? I thought you just couldnt hook the tm up to the cranking battery, which I dont have anyways because my gas engine is not an electric start model. Hopefully all of those questions make sense, haha. I am pretty good when it comes to getting everything hooked up and run through the boat, I just want to make sure I am wiring in the right stuff before I make a really costly mistake. I certainly appreciate any help or suggestions yall might have. Thanks and take care! - Jonathan

By the looks of the background and considering the fact that I saw two snakes swimming in the water that looked like that one when I was there last, I would have to say it looks like ya are at Morris Creek. How do you rig one of those things? Maybe a texas rig? haha. I am pretty curious though as to how the snake made it into the boat ;D

Like Jayson, I also actually found my tester at Wal-Mart. I was just browsing in the boat section one day and stumbled across one for like $5, and the lights on my trailer had been acting up a little bit, so I figured I would give it a try. Everything checked out ok on the connector on my truck. After playing around with the harness a little bit, I figured out that if the contacts weren't connected just right, some of the trailer lights would not work. Therefore, if everything checks out ok with the tester, then I would suggest connecting the trailer up to your car and wiggling it around a little bit to see if its just a bad connection. Also, try varying how far your trailer connector is plugged in to your cars connector. I have one or two contacts that have a few millimeters exposed, which probably isnt ideal, but it seems to work. Good luck! - Jon