Let engine idle or kill it / start it

[livemusic]

This pertains to catfishing, not bass fishing, lol. I fish limb lines at night. I pull up to a likely looking overhanging limb on the bank of the river and tie a limb line on, bait it and it's off to the next spot. I keep my motor running all the while I am doing this. It will take 1-2 hours to finish, depending on how many lines I have out. A friend has a jon boat with 30hp Honda and I like it because it is quiet and talk about easy to start! As soon as he blips the key, it cranks. When I fish with him, he turns his motor off when he gets to the limb and cranks again when leaving. We got this down pat pretty good and sometimes, we get the line on the limb and baited quickly, say, 30 seconds. A long time would be, say, a minute, minute and a half.

Makes me wonder what is best for a motor... keep it idling or kill/start it. Any idea? Theory being, his starter would wear out faster, lol. But if you keep it idling, you burn more gas. Or do you?

What a joy to have a motor that cranks in about a tenth of a second, lol!

[Ratherbfishing]

Sigh...until recently, my motor would start that easily.  One tap of the starter button was all it used to take. 

Every time you discharge from a battery, it taxes it a little bit.  Between that and wear and tear on the starter, personally, I'd just let the motor run.  It'll help keep the battery charged, too.

[iabass8]

So you want to kill the motor for 30 seconds to a minute only to just crank it back up....? I think we have two different views of common sense. 

[tcbass]

He should get a trolling motor!

[Ski213]

I would definately leave it running. 

[fishnkamp]

I build engines for a living. I would never start and stop an engine like that. Much more wear and tear on the engine in my opinion, also lots more work for the starter to do and yes much harder on the battery. I doubt the battery will last as long either.  The 1 minute of fuel used to idle a  modern outboard is almost nothing.

[WIGuide]

I'd leave it running. 

[Josh Smith]

Do they make diesel outboards?

I think I'd go with a 24v trolling motor. Gasoline motors don't like to idle (though electronic fuel injection has helped this a lot!) and restarting it a bunch is hard on everything. If you don't have to cover a lot of water a powerful trolling motor just makes sense.

Josh

[livemusic]

Powerful trolling motor won't work... current too swift and too far between stops.

[Josh Smith]

Just now, livemusic said:

Powerful trolling motor won't work... current too swift and too far between stops.

Leave it running then.

[Team9nine]

Another vote for leaving it running. Some days I fish 3-4 hrs without ever shutting mine off.

-T9

[S Hovanec]

I see no reason to shut it down.  Sounds like excessive and unnecessary work for the starter.

[slonezp]

On ‎8‎/‎2‎/‎2016 at 0:55 PM, Josh Smith said:

Do they make diesel outboards?

Josh

Yes