What size troll to get?

[afalkowsky]

I've got a 17ft sea nymph fish n ski. Looking to set up a bow mounted trolling motor. Unsure of the weight of the boat but Walmart has a pretty good deal on a motor guide x3. 55lb thrust, 12v, 45" shaft. I'm guessing my best bet to get the right shaft is to get the boat on the water and get a measurement from the bow. But not knowing the weight of the boat how will I know this will be enough thrust?

 

[joeycamaro]

I use a 36v 100lb Minn kota on my 18ft aluminum and it's awesome. I say go as big as you can afford. I can run it for hours and still have plenty of juice left over

 

[gm280]

I've got a 17ft sea nymph fish n ski. Looking to set up a bow mounted trolling motor. Unsure of the weight of the boat but Walmart has a pretty good deal on a motor guide x3. 55lb thrust, 12v, 45" shaft. I'm guessing my best bet to get the right shaft is to get the boat on the water and get a measurement from the bow. But not knowing the weight of the boat how will I know this will be enough thrust?

You ask a very good question that will get a large number of answers. But you need to understand what YOU want your trolling motor for. If you merely troll down banks and points and bass fish or crappie fish, a very small TM will work perfectly. I owned a bass boat and had a 12 volt Motor Guide III on it and never had a problem. BUT, I didn't troll in open water for schooled fish like a lot of folks like to do. And if that is what you like to do, open water also offers wind and current to work against the TM. And in that case you need a much larger TM to combat the wind and current. So once you know what you want from your TM, then pick one that will offer you that capability. If you go really large, then you will need more then one TM battery as well. 24 volt and 36 volt setups string batteries in series to offer a lot of thrust. But they also offer a lot of weight and maintenance as well. So pick what you want and buy the largest you can afford for that range. Ask around your area becasue those boaters know the fishing conditions better then anybody here will. Like most things, you can always turn it down and go slower, but you can't turn it up more then it is capibile to do. JMHO

 

[Silvertip]

I have a 55# on an 18 foot pontoon and it works fine. It is almost the go-to size for your boat but if you are die hard, the next step up is a 24 volt (about 70#) and would be more than enough for your boat on all but very high wind conditions. As mentioned, you need two batteries in series for 24 volt operation. And when you buy batteries, look at the labels. You want the highest RC (reserve capacity) you can afford. That means you need a group size 27 or larger.