I used some tournament winnings from my first john boat tourny to buy an old 16' fiberglass bass boat (no outboard). I'm replacing the flooring and carpet now, and the plan is to set it up to fish electric only reservoirs in N Ga. I have a 43lb thrust bow-mount motor for fishing and was thinking about picking up a larger motor to put in the back for moving across open water (most of these reservoirs are several hundred acres). Am I going to see a noticeable difference in speed with say a 55lb thrust motor?

 

Thanks,

Sam

Well to be honest I have run reservoir rigs here in Baltimore MD.  I am afraid you will be at a disadvantage hull weight wise, but lets go forward.  I ran a 16 foot aluminum PolarKraft stick steer boat for my reservoir rig. 

First how much is your budget?  The hot ticket around here is the Torqeedo 4.0 remote electric outboards.  That motor also comes in a tiller version depending on your setup. These are 24 volt motors   These motor replaced the popular Ray Marine 60 volt motors and custom home made golf cart outboards.  That Torqeedo motor is almost 9.9 horse power and costs close to $4000.00.  Now that was not in my budget, but guys that reservoir fished only ran them often.  What I did was mount one battery under the front bass seat and it ran my front 55 pound front trolling motor.  Down each side of the boat I had two sets of battery banks with 2 batteries per bank. The left hand set fed one 55 pound transom mount trolling motor and the right hand set fed one 55 pound transom mount trolling motor. The wiring went a s follows: Battery 1 had its #6 awg jumper run from its positive terminal to battery #2's positive terminal and the same for its negative wiring.  Then a #6 wire ran back to it's trolling motor.  I connected the trolling motor with big Anderson quick connectors (the type used with snow plows).  Those connectors made removing the tms easy.  When I recharged the set I would hook up the red clamp to the positive post on battery one and the negative clamp onto the negative post on battery two.  This meant no disconnecting of any wiring and the set of batteries would discharge evenly and recharge evenly.  I used Cabelas' group 30 AGMs and got over 5 years on them.  The boat would run almost 8 mph per the gps. One more option was  used by my friend John on his boat.  He purchased a Minn Kota Vantage.  He really liked it but it is not cheap either. Do not waste you money on a MK Edrive.  Just remember your batteries are your fuel tank and gas supply so I would run at least one for your front and all of your lights, electronics etc should be hooked up to it.  Only your main propulsion (rear trolling motor/motors) should run off the battery banks or you may not get back. 

If the boat is truly a fiberglass hull then I'd think you'd want more than just one 55 lb to run it with.  

I've got three 80 lb thrust and it's still too slow

I think you would definitely notice a difference. Maybe not a huge speed increase but an increase. 

On January 12, 2016 at 9:42 PM, fishnkamp said:

Well to be honest I have run reservoir rigs here in Baltimore MD.  I am afraid you will be at a disadvantage hull weight wise, but lets go forward.  I ran a 16 foot aluminum PolarKraft stick steer boat for my reservoir rig. 

First how much is your budget?  The hot ticket around here is the Torqeedo 4.0 remote electric outboards.  That motor also comes in a tiller version depending on your setup. These are 24 volt motors   These motor replaced the popular Ray Marine 60 volt motors and custom home made golf cart outboards.  That Torqeedo motor is almost 9.9 horse power and costs close to $4000.00.  Now that was not in my budget, but guys that reservoir fished only ran them often.  What I did was mount one battery under the front bass seat and it ran my front 55 pound front trolling motor.  Down each side of the boat I had two sets of battery banks with 2 batteries per bank. The left hand set fed one 55 pound transom mount trolling motor and the right hand set fed one 55 pound transom mount trolling motor. The wiring went a s follows: Battery 1 had its #6 awg jumper run from its positive terminal to battery #2's positive terminal and the same for its negative wiring.  Then a #6 wire ran back to it's trolling motor.  I connected the trolling motor with big Anderson quick connectors (the type used with snow plows).  Those connectors made removing the tms easy.  When I recharged the set I would hook up the red clamp to the positive post on battery one and the negative clamp onto the negative post on battery two.  This meant no disconnecting of any wiring and the set of batteries would discharge evenly and recharge evenly.  I used Cabelas' group 30 AGMs and got over 5 years on them.  The boat would run almost 8 mph per the gps. One more option was  used by my friend John on his boat.  He purchased a Minn Kota Vantage.  He really liked it but it is not cheap either. Do not waste you money on a MK Edrive.  Just remember your batteries are your fuel tank and gas supply so I would run at least one for your front and all of your lights, electronics etc should be hooked up to it.  Only your main propulsion (rear trolling motor/motors) should run off the battery banks or you may not get back. 

What brand 55s are you running to get 8 mph out of them? I ask because I'm running 2-55s out back with a 55 upfront and I'm no where near that speed even with all three motors running. I primarily fish Liberty as well as 3 of my buddies who are also running 55s and we all run about the same speed which again isn't close to 8mph. Not that it matters speed wise but I'm running 4-6volt golf cart batteries for my travel motors and 2-12s in the front for my bow mount. 

They were Minn Kotas.That boat was super light, narrow width, 15,5 ft long.  Because it was a stick steering boat  originally, there was almost no storage in it.  I ran 4 12 volt Cabelas group 30s tucked on the sides about midway and I only ran 1 12 volt under my seat.  You may have too much weight up front.  I ran that boat for several years on Pretty Boy.  I always meant to get on Liberty but liked PB too much.