Well I bought my first little Bass Boat. It's been a long time since I seriously fished. I can't wait to get back out there.

I bought a 10 foot Bass Raider by Pelican and a Minn Kota Endura with 55 lbs of thrust. I'm now looking for a Deep cycle marine battery. In the Minn Kota manual it recommends at least 105 amp hour rating. So my question is this What size battery should I get for this Boat/Motor combo. I'd rather be bigger than not enough? and what else do I need to consider in buying a battery? Thanks.

Huntr104,

I would buy the biggest deep cycle battery you can afford. The higher the Amp Hour rating the longer your run time. I can recommend the everstart from walmart and the ac delco m27 something. I have had both for several years without an issue.

More important than the battery is to purchase a really good fully automatic battery charger and keep the battery fully charged.

Paul

If the troller is your only source of propulsion (besides a paddle) then I recommend getting TWO batteries. Use one till it's dead and then switch to the other. Otherwise your fishing trips will be very short and you might end up paddling back to your launching spot. If you fish alone then you will want to get some good heavy gauge wire and extend the leads on your troller so you can put the batteries all the way in the nose of the bote. This will help balance out the bote so it tracks better and the wind won't kick the nose around so much.

I fished out of a canoe and then a 10' Jon boat for several years, using a troller on both. I bought the cheapo $99 Minn Kota 30 lb trollers from Wal Mart and I'd get about 2-3 hours per battery.  With a second person in the bote I'd position the batteries in the middle but when I was solo I put them in the front to balance the bote.

You will get a longer run time if you run your two batteries in parallel instead of running one, then the other. That is only if they are the same batteries, the same age with approx the same use. Never connect two mismatched batteries together, not even the same make and kind if they are are different ages or have different use time.

A couple of companies make a good battery for your use.  US Battery makes one and Trojan in the Group 30 or 31 batteries.  These are two of about the baddest batteries going if you get them in the 120 Ah (220 min reserve) but they can be hard to locate in certain areas.   The Maxx29 at Walley world is an OK battery for the price but you will not get the run time out of it you will the first two.