I am going to buy a tracker Jon boat for a pond hopper would an electric motor be better than a cheap gas motor?

 

Welcome to the boards!

Ya gonna want a trolling motor anyway so I would start there & get a outboard later.

For ponds, I never use a gas motor.  Most public ones don't allow them, most private ones don't want them in their water.  For small lakes I use both, but as mentioned, if just going with one, for starters it would be an electric.  If you are going to be bass fishing, you will need the electric to move around easily while casting, gas just don't work for that.

Last summer I bought a 14' tracker topper jon boat. I installed a MinnKota PowerDrive with remote control. It worked great . I bought the MinnKota Electric Outboard motor this spring and installed it on the stern. Looking forward to see the results. Still less expensive than buying a gas motor.

I was looking at a mini Kota with 55lb thrust should work well with a 12footer will the battery last all day.

Thanks for all the help I appreciate it.

How long the battery last is strictly based on how you run the motor and the capacity of the battery.  In other words, the battery only has given number amp hours (how many amps it can deliver at how long of a time) and the faster you run the trolling motor the more amps it's going to be drawing. 

A typical, good quality, group 27 Deep Cycle battery is going to have 115 - 120 amp hours based on a 20 hour rating, which means for all practical purposes it's going to be much less because you are going way more amps than the 5-6 amps they use to get that 20 hour rating, and the more amps you pull at once, the more inefficient a battery is and that rating goes way down.  For instance, if you ran that MK-55 on max trying to go a long way, that group 27 battery would probably last about 1 1/2 hours. Now, if you kept it off max and just eased around casting, it would probably last all day. 

When shopping for a battery, look at the reserve minutes on the batteries label.  That is telling you how long that battery will deliver 25 amps before being totally discharged.  25 amps is going to be about 1/2 speed on that MK-55.  If you go to MKs web site, they used to have a chart hid somewhere on it that gives the amp draw of their different motors at different settings.  Then it's just doing the math.

Understand one thing, the reserve minutes are what they are.  People will say get those Optima's etc, but look at their reserve minutes compared to a good flooded cell battery (one that has caps on it).  There is no lead acid battery going to give the reserve minutes a flooded cell battery is going to give, and if you are wanting to run all day, you want every reserve minute you can get.

On my pond hopper I bought two MinnKota Enduras, both 30 lbs. running on a single battery. One in the front, one in the back. When I have a buddy we can fish all day and not wear down the battery. For the battery, an Interstate 27 from Gander Mountain, and the two Enduras. I paid less than $350 or $375 for everything. They are not foot controlled, but we don't spend a lot of time trolling around, mostly just corrections as we slowly make our way around the ponds.

The trolling motor in the back works out great for helping to get into and out of some tight spots when used with the front trolling motor but it takes some getting used to. Especially if the co-angler in the back happens to be my wife.

I have an Endura C2 55# thrust I use on my pond boat and 15' jon boat. It's my only propulsion on the pond boat and I dont ever go out more than 6 hours at a time but it never really slows down on me. I'm sure I could get more time out of it if florIda weren't so hot. My battery is an everstart group 29 and I used a 27 before that. Not much of a difference besides the weight to me. I run it on 5 all over a lake about 100 acres. I never anchor so I'm always usually speed 1 and 2 to correct the boat. That jon boat will move a lot easier than my pond boat. I know I can get like 5 mph on my 15 foot jon boat but it's got a gas motor on it as well weighing it down and causing drag.