Anyone have any advice on a kicker motor for a bass boat? :-?

I live near several limited HP lakes and would like to take my 18ft Stratos on them.  I run it on them now but am limited to the electic motor since the max allowable HP is 20 on these lakes.  The electric works o.k. but you can't get around the lake much with it (one of the lakes is 1600 acres).

It doesn't seem as if the in-set transom of my rig would lend itself to a kicker motor.

I've heard there are brackets but was wandering how the control of the second motor works? Can it be connected to the big motor like on walleye boatsand run from the console?  What about fuel supply and throttle control?  Does it require a separate fuel line and or a separate tank?  I magine it would probably need a separate fuel tank since the little motor probably wouldn't be oil injected and the fuel would need to be pre-mixed unlike the big motor.

The other thing is I'd like to able to take the kicker off when I'm fishing tournaments to keep the weight down and the speed up.  How big of a hassle would that be?

Or should I scrap the idea and just use the electric bow mount and leave it at that.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I just went through a learning experience with my 882 Nitro and a 5-hp kicker.  As far as the boat goes, there is no way to attach a kicker.  The way the transom is made there is nothing but fiberglass where the kicker could be mounted.  Now for the motor, with the smaller hp, the gas/oil has its own tank on the motor.  Wont get you there fast, but it will get you there.  Just sit in the rear fishing seat and operate with the tiller arm.  There is also with some models where the engine mount slides into a plate that allows it to easily be removed.  some examples are at http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/categoryg/10001/-1/10001/784/625/6/man/asc/0/grid )

Hope you have better luck than I did with my boat.

Not sure if this might work for you.  I remember seeing  something about electric motors that attach to your big motor.  Minn Kota has them all the way up to 202 ft/lbs at 36 volts.  Here is the webpage.

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

Ihope the link works and i did this right.  I'm new to BR and still getting a feel for things.

Hey thanks for the advice!

I was afraid I would run into the same problem as Fire22driver with the transom.  It doesn't appear that there is much room between the big motor and the off-set bend in the Stratos transom.  Beyond the bend it looks like it is probably just fiber glass where the kicker could be mounted.  I'll have to measure it to see if one of those mounting brackets might fit next to the big motor.  Those brackets look pretty trick, thanks for the link.

Yeah I saw those engine mount Minn Kota's too Bassinsoldier.  Those might be the easiest and cheapest solution.  All I'd have to do is throw another battery on board to get up to 36V (now I have a 24V system).  That just could be the ticket.  Thanks for the link on that.    I'll bet that 202lbs would push it fairly well.  I read a review on it and it said it pushed a larger boat at about 4 MPH.

I wonder how many run-ins I'd have with the park service when they saw the big motor down before they all realized I was running an auxillary electric motor instead of the big motor.   ;D

If nothing else it sure would make loading the boat easier.  Such a pain to unlaunch without firing up the big motor, especially when it is windy (which it always seems to be when I want to take-out).

Thanks again