What battery do y'all use with 55 lb Minn Kota c2

[Largemouth21]

What battery would everyone recommend, I need a 12 V Deep cycle marine battery, not sure on amps or anything. If anyone has input please help.

[Scott F]

Go to Walmart and buy the biggest, deep cycle battery that will fit in the battery compartment your boat. 

[Way2slow]

That's something you have to figure out yourself.

Is the battery permanently mounted in a boat or one you have to take out and put in every trip?  The bigger the battery, the heavier they get.  Flooded cell batteries are heavier than AGM's. Depending on your size and age, you may not enjoy handling a big flooded cell every time you want to use it.

How long do you plan to use it each trip?  Batteries have a very finite amount of capacity so run time is limited to that capacity.  The smaller the battery, the shorter the run time.   A 55# TM is going to have a significant current draw when running at max power, smaller batteries may only give you 45 minutes of full power running.

Is the battery only used when casting, or is it an electric only boat and TM used constantly.  Just used for casting, if you kill it, you have the gas motor to get home.  If electric only, you have the paddle to get home.

So, if you only go for a couple of hours to some farm pond of small lake, most any size will work.  If you go for a whole day or and fish large lakes, you may need two of the biggest, highest capacity batteries you can get to keep from paddling home.

 

[Largemouth21]

9 hours ago, Way2slow said:

That's something you have to figure out yourself.

Is the battery permanently mounted in a boat or one you have to take out and put in every trip?  The bigger the battery, the heavier they get.  Flooded cell batteries are heavier than AGM's. Depending on your size and age, you may not enjoy handling a big flooded cell every time you want to use it.

How long do you plan to use it each trip?  Batteries have a very finite amount of capacity so run time is limited to that capacity.  The smaller the battery, the shorter the run time.   A 55# TM is going to have a significant current draw when running at max power, smaller batteries may only give you 45 minutes of full power running.

Is the battery only used when casting, or is it an electric only boat and TM used constantly.  Just used for casting, if you kill it, you have the gas motor to get home.  If electric only, you have the paddle to get home.

So, if you only go for a couple of hours to some farm pond of small lake, most any size will work.  If you go for a whole day or and fish large lakes, you may need two of the biggest, highest capacity batteries you can get to keep from paddling home.

 

I fish a small lake, the motor supposedly draws 50 amps per hour on full speed. My battery is 125 amps so it should give me 2.5 hours on full throttle, which is plenty

16 hours ago, Scott F said:

Go to Walmart and buy the biggest, deep cycle battery that will fit in the battery compartment your boat. 

will do, thanks

[Way2slow]

There's one problem with your math.  Due to the inefficiency of a 12 volt motor, and the fact that as the amp load on a battery increase, efficiency goes way down.  At 50 amps draw, your 125Ah battery is probably closer to being a 75Ah battery.  It's only a 125Ah battery when it only has about a five amp draw on it.

[Goose52]

Good advice above (and in another post by A-Jay). Generally, you want to get the biggest, highest capacity deep-cycle battery you can, especially since you are using it as your primary motive power source. HOWEVER, unlike other boats, in a canoe you are generally man-handling the battery in and out of the boat every time you launch and recover.  You haven't said whether you will be rigging the boat on each outing or whether you are trailering or leaving it in the water all the time so it's up to you to decide whether the weight of a bigger battery is a factor.

 

For me?  I have a 55lb MK Traxxis that I run on my canoe and use a Group 24. That battery, in the MK battery box, weighs about 50 pounds and at age 64 that's about all the weight I want to handle each time I rig the boat (the battery actually weighs more than the boat!). I fish smaller lakes, don't run at full speed, and spend nearly all my time on the water at slow speeds (or stopped) fishing and spend hardly any time motoring from place-to-place so a single Group 24 works for me. If I had range anxiety, I would just do what A-Jay mentioned in another post - take two batteries with me - one for going out and fishing all day - another for getting home.

[Largemouth21]

37 minutes ago, Goose52 said:

Good advice above (and in another post by A-Jay). Generally, you want to get the biggest, highest capacity deep-cycle battery you can, especially since you are using it as your primary motive power source. HOWEVER, unlike other boats, in a canoe you are generally man-handling the battery in and out of the boat every time you launch and recover.  You haven't said whether you will be rigging the boat on each outing or whether you are trailering or leaving it in the water all the time so it's up to you to decide whether the weight of a bigger battery is a factor.

 

For me?  I have a 55lb MK Traxxis that I run on my canoe and use a Group 24. That battery, in the MK battery box, weighs about 50 pounds and at age 64 that's about all the weight I want to handle each time I rig the boat (the battery actually weighs more than the boat!). I fish smaller lakes, don't run at full speed, and spend nearly all my time on the water at slow speeds (or stopped) fishing and spend hardly any time motoring from place-to-place so a single Group 24 works for me. If I had range anxiety, I would just do what A-Jay mentioned in another post - take two batteries with me - one for going out and fishing all day - another for getting home.

Sounds good! I decided to go with the 45 lb because it is the same speed AND costs less AND uses less battery. I will be picking up a group 29 deep cycle battery from Walmart (it has 125 AH)

The Minn Kota will be my primary moving around the lake motor. I will bring paddles also ( just in case)

[Further North]

If this is in a boat and you can leave the batteries and trolling motor attached, here's what I'd do:

1. Get two batteries.  I'd go with 31 series AGMs for your application, but that's me.  Farm and Barn sells them around here for $189.99 regular price, you can find them on sale for less if you're not in a rush.
2. Mount them somewhere aft of the center of the boat and run heavy duty wires to the bow.
3. Wire them in series (not parallel) to about double your capacity.
4. If it's not too late, get a bow mount Edge series (They make an inexpensive hand steer model).  If you already bought the transom mount, don't sweat it...
5. Mount the transom mount at the bow.  This may take some on-site engineering on your part to figure out how to hang it up there.  In my old Sea Nymph, I was able to use a block of wood (a 2 x 6) and just clamp the motor to the left side of the bow, very near the front of the boat.
   1. You'll have to find the screw what hold the motor head in place
   2. Remove it
   3. Rotate the head 180°
   4. Put the screw back in.

Why the bow?  Two reasons:

1. It's more efficient to pull rather than push.*
2. Way, way easier to control the boat in wind and current from the bow.  Not much is more frustrating than to be sitting at the back of a small boat and have the wind or current grab the bow and shove the boat sideways when you're trying to get into or hold position.

*Yeah, I know we put outboards in back.  Different animal, different situation...

[Largemouth21]

1 hour ago, Further North said:

If this is in a boat and you can leave the batteries and trolling motor attached, here's what I'd do:

1. Get two batteries.  I'd go with 31 series AGMs for your application, but that's me.  Farm and Barn sells them around here for $189.99 regular price, you can find them on sale for less if you're not in a rush.
2. Mount them somewhere aft of the center of the boat and run heavy duty wires to the bow.
3. Wire them in series (not parallel) to about double your capacity.
4. If it's not too late, get a bow mount Edge series (They make an inexpensive hand steer model).  If you already bought the transom mount, don't sweat it...
5. Mount the transom mount at the bow.  This may take some on-site engineering on your part to figure out how to hang it up there.  In my old Sea Nymph, I was able to use a block of wood (a 2 x 6) and just clamp the motor to the left side of the bow, very near the front of the boat.
   1. You'll have to find the screw what hold the motor head in place
   2. Remove it
   3. Rotate the head 180°
   4. Put the screw back in.

Why the bow?  Two reasons:

1. It's more efficient to pull rather than push.*
2. Way, way easier to control the boat in wind and current from the bow.  Not much is more frustrating than to be sitting at the back of a small boat and have the wind or current grab the bow and shove the boat sideways when you're trying to get into or hold position.

*Yeah, I know we put outboards in back.  Different animal, different situation...

I'm no engineer but I could try to Jerry rig something up  

[Further North]

24 minutes ago, Largemouth21 said:

I'm no engineer but I could try to Jerry rig something up  

It doesn't take much, and it made a huge difference to me in terms of frustration and being able to spend time fishing instead of fighting with the boat.

[Way2slow]

DO NOT wire two batteries in series for a 12 Volt motor, you will fry it.  They must be wired in parallel.

Now, a couple of facts that affect your run time if you have a big concern over that.

First, if you are considering two batteries, go ahead and get a 24 volt motor.  A 24 volt motor is about 25% more efficient than a 12 volt motor, so that's already 25% more run time.  Also, if you get a variable speed motor instead of the ones with four of five fixed speeds, that will greatly increase run time at speeds slower than max.  At casting speeds, you can get as much as 75% more run time.

 

If you are stuck on using a 12 volt motor and plan to use two batteries.  Connect the two batteries in parallel and run both at the same time, that will give you about 25% more run time than running one battery until dead and then swapping.  Many suggest using one battery and then the other as backup, but that's not the best way.

As the load on a battery increase, it's efficiency greatly decrease. so if you have both batteries in parallel, they are sharing the load equally, so each is only seeing half the load, significantly increasing the efficiency of the batteries.

[Goose52]

10 minutes ago, Way2slow said:

Many suggest using one battery and then the other as backup, but that's not the best way....

 

Maybe not the best way based on mathematical efficiency - but a pretty dang good way of making sure you don't have to paddle home.  The OP has a canoe - there is no "big" motor to fire up to get you home when your TM battery (batteries) run down...

[Largemouth21]

24 minutes ago, Way2slow said:

DO NOT wire two batteries in series for a 12 Volt motor, you will fry it.  They must be wired in parallel.

Now, a couple of facts that affect your run time if you have a big concern over that.

First, if you are considering two batteries, go ahead and get a 24 volt motor.  A 24 volt motor is about 25% more efficient than a 12 volt motor, so that's already 25% more run time.  Also, if you get a variable speed motor instead of the ones with four of five fixed speeds, that will greatly increase run time at speeds slower than max.  At casting speeds, you can get as much as 75% more run time.

 

If you are stuck on using a 12 volt motor and plan to use two batteries.  Connect the two batteries in parallel and run both at the same time, that will give you about 25% more run time than running one battery until dead and then swapping.  Many suggest using one battery and then the other as backup, but that's not the best way.

As the load on a battery increase, it's efficiency greatly decrease. so if you have both batteries in parallel, they are sharing the load equally, so each is only seeing half the load, significantly increasing the efficiency of the batteries.

I can't afford 2 battery's anyway but I will keep that in mind if/when I have enough $ set aside to buy a fishing boat. That makes sense what you are saying though

 

13 minutes ago, Goose52 said:

 

Maybe not the best way based on mathematical efficiency - but a pretty dang good way of making sure you don't have to paddle home.  The OP has a canoe - there is no "big" motor to fire up to get you home when your TM battery (batteries) run down...

that's right, just paddles. It's kind of an experiment, if I find myself running out of juice, then I will just pick up another battery. I fish mostly small lakes anyway, a canoe is just plain scary out in a big lake...

[Further North]

10 hours ago, Way2slow said:

DO NOT wire two batteries in series for a 12 Volt motor, you will fry it.

Correct - I had it backwards.