Electric Trolling Motors?

RIBeer · 03-30-2010, 02:12 PM

Anyone know anything about these things? I've been thinking about putting a side mount and trolling motor setup on my canoe to extend my range a little bit. It's usually my and my two girls - 6 and 8 - who like to "help" with the paddling, if you know what I mean. I have an Old Town osprey 15.5 - it's 38" wide, so I'm not too worried about stability - I've had her out in the salt ponds here in RI and actually wound up almost surfing back home one afternoon after the tide changed and the wind came up.

I'd love to go the inexpensive trolling motor route to get into some of the good clamming beds that are farther away from the more convenient launching spots. Anyone have any experience with these? Is using a regular motor in saltwater gonna kill it? I always wash the canoe down every time I use it, so flushing a motor would not be an issue. Cabelas has saltwater trolling motors, but they start at $400, and I can't justify spending that much. Also, what kind of thrust should I be looking for?

Thanks!

**Hardtack** · 03-30-2010, 03:14 PM

can`t get much cheaper than harborfreight.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=66882

But as long as ya know you get what ya pay for.
My BIL has one on his canoe for bass fishing ,he picked it up used for cheap and it really cruises along quite nicely,it doesn`t take much to get a canoe goin.

**GilaMinumBeer** · 03-30-2010, 03:17 PM

Using a trolling motor as a maltmill motor is not as simple as you'd think. That is all.

**Hardtack** · 03-30-2010, 03:58 PM

I should have known this was gonna get serious.

you could clamp it to your mash tun to stir the grain,or to your BK, 30lbs of thrust probably give you a hell of a whirlpool.

**Homercidal** · 03-30-2010, 04:07 PM

Thrust should not be much of a concern in a canoe. They are just way easy to push. I would shop Cragislist or ebay and see what comes up. I used an old trolling motor to power my 12' aluminum row boat and it worked pretty well. I even used it on my 14' boat after my main motor stopped running. Got me back to shore pretty nicely. (nicer than rowing anyway...)

RIBeer · 04-01-2010, 02:44 PM

I love the Harbor Freight price. For that, I wouldn't mind having to replace it every two years or so.

Hadn't thought of using it for mashing, whirlpooling, etc. Think I should do a freshwater flush first, or will the local salts benefit my beer?

Fletch78 · 04-12-2010, 08:05 PM

As far as saltwater, I don't know. I'm sure that even the "saltwater" series are still going to need extra maintenance based on my experience with saltwater.

More importantly, go for the weakest you can get, it will last much longer on a battery (which will weigh more than both of your kids combined, and will not be cheap, and the charger wont be cheap, and the battery box won't be cheap, not when you add it all up).

The problem with the trolling motor industry is that the manufacturers kept trying to outdo each other in thrust pounds, so while you need a 15 or 17 lb thrust that will run all day long on a battery and give plenty of thrust, you will be hard pressed to find anything under 8 jigamillion pounds of thrust. It's just the industry.