After researching the heck out of the trolling motor dilemma faced by anglers fishing electric only lakes, I came upon a thought.

What about side thrusters from a larger vessel? Many saltwater boats have "side thrusters". These are basically an electric motor mounted in the hull to pull a boat sideways. Used for dockage of large vessels. (or smaller ones with bad drivers,lol)

I looked into some and it seems they come from 50lbs of thrust, up to 650 or so depending on brand!

Any engineers out there that could tell me if it would be possible to mount this in a jon boat? They steer with a small joystick. How cool would that be? Could easily be modified into a foot control I bet too. I'm not sure of power supply, but even the huge ones are relatively small physically.

Why havn't motor builders addressed the fact that there is a need for affordable power above 102 lbs (excluding the new 3 and 4 hp,...I said affordable", lol) for small craft where "electric" is the primary power source?

These are the thrusters I was looking at. Small scroll box along bottom 1/3rd of screen.

http://www.side-power.com/sidepower/index.php?id=16

Why not mount something like Minn Kota's power drive TM's front and back?  If I'm not mistaken they've got infrared remotes to control the things. At worst, you'd have a couple of their flat foot pedals up by you fishing.  

This is a matter of power as opposed to operational ease.  These motors come up to 650 lbs of thrust.  A group of guys compete on an "electric only" lake and the race for the good spots has them mounting 3 and 4 motors and up to 8 batteries just to be a little quicker.  That's ALOT of $$$.

Just trying to find an alternative or a better , more cost efficient way.  Then again, these things probably aren't cheap!

here are some electric outboards hat have more power than a regular trolling motor.

http://www.rayeo.com/motors.htm

http://www.outboardelectric.org/

here is a big one by minnkota

http://www.minnkotamotors.com/products/motors/electric_outboard/e-drive.asp

Paul

http://www.minnkotamotors.com/products/motors/engine_mount/engine_mount.asp

what about these you could mount these on the trasom of your jon boat get two of the 202 lbs that 404lbs of thrust thats a lot you could probly get a 12ft jon boat on plan with that much lol.

I've seen some pretty neat "outboard" looking electric motors online, some of the sites also have some really good information on detemining thrust and speed, battery requirements, ect.  I think Tractor Supply even had one they sold for a while, that I thought was about the size of 5hp. gasoline motor, seems like it was a Hiawatha or something like that.  I dought if any would get your boat to scream as it shoots out of the hole on take off, but they might work pretty good for cruseing around on a smaller lake.   I think I found them doing a search for Electric - Marine, Boat or Fishing Motors.