trolling motor lbs.

[kyzilla]

I have a 17 foot javlin bass boat with an old foot control trolling motor on it. I have no idea what the thrust is on it and was planning on replacing it.........Anyway....getting to the question...What would be the best thrust for a 17 foot bass boat and what would be the minnimum I could get away with? I see that some of the new motors have depth finder sensors built right in. Is this worth the cost? Thanks! Learning a lot from this site. Hope I don't get annoying with the question(s). More to come. Kyzilla

[enfield]

My old 17 ft deep vee came with a 28 lb thrust motor which worked well when the wind wasn't blowing too hard. When I replaced it I went with a 50 lb thrust unit. If you have a 2nd fish finder but no transducer, the one with the transducer built in may or may not be cost effective. I attached a transducer to the motor on both of mine with a big screw clamp. I'd price it both ways - with the built-in transducer and without, using a clamped-on transducer.

The 50 lb unit worked much better on my boat than the 28 lb.

[waterfoul]

get a motor with as much thrust as you can afford... I believe the biggest 12v you can get is 50 or 55 lbs.

[double trouble]

think of it this way. 1 horsepower is about 15 pounds of thrust. so you really need at least 45 pounds in all boats . at 12 volts you lose a lot of thrust in resistance and battery drain so . the maximum thrust in a 12 volt system seems to be arround 50 pounds so do not expect to go very fast or long at full throttle.
5m.p.h. is about max on my 12 volt 50 pound thrust 2000 pound boat. so estimate from there what you need.

[kroppe]

I have a 17' Lund with the 42lb. thrust bow mount that came with it. It works for jigging on the Detroit River, which has a fairly strong current and the wind picks up now and again. It does the job, but bigger is always better with trolling motors.