The Spoonpluggers Forum

Looking back to the first posting in July 2017 to the latest one, April 20, 2019, you talked abpit moving to a new state and unfamiliar lakes. Discussions on Electric motors, props, batteries, fishing with Carolina rigs, bait walkers, spinner baits, crank baits, spoonplugs, trolling different depths, etc., but nothing about mapping these new lakes. It sounds to me like you are just trolling and hope a fish will get in the way. I'm surprised brother John hasn't jumped you about that Have you done any mapping? One member of our club fished northern WI before the law was changed to allow trolling, but he mapped potential structure on the lakes he fished and used Spoonplugging knowledge to fish them casting.

Hi Jim, It is easier to shrug things off these days than it used to be. Found out that you cannot make a fisherman do something they don't want to do. And then there are posts that you read and just have to try and help them. John

Vaguru,

I feel your pain. Closest lake to me has a $20 launch fee ($35 on the weekend!) and I hate paying it, and this season I want to fish multiple times each week on this lake so I can get some experience with how the different times of year affect fishing and be on the same lake for consistency. Hence, I want to drag my boat into the water from the public park on the lake instead of using the private boat ramp.

That means getting a smaller craft I can drag into the lake and because I've been interested in going electric anyway, using a very large trolling motor to see if I can get up to at least 5 mph using it.

So I decided to use a canoe I had, rig it up for the trolling motor, and see if it would work.

I bought a Newport Vessels 86-pound-thrust motor and two Group 27 marine batteries hooked up in series for the 24 volts the motor wants. So far I've only had it out on the water once, and about capsized the thing when the motor tried to come off the canoe, so I've been working on creating a proper trolling motor mount and making some home-made outriggers. Just about have it ready, planning to take it to the lake this week. Still need to rig an anchor and finish my outriggers. I know it will reach over 4 mph, and I think I can get to five. That's probably fast enough for much of my fishing. I seem to catch bass in the summer from 4 to 5 mph. If I need faster, I'll be out of luck until I find a way to get more speed.

All of this was started because I want to go fishing a lot on this one lake, and the ramp fee is just too steep for that. Maybe I'm just a cheapskate. Part of it is the principle -- public water supply lake, just one privately owned ramp, they can charge what they want.

I'll post some photos once I get my rig finished, and I'll let you know how it does. I can say that if I don't quite have enough battery capacity for the length of time I need to fish, I'm not against adding a couple more batteries.

I have a 16ft Lund Boat that had a Motor Guide R5 transom mount 24v 70lb thrust trolling motor that is powered by 2, 31series AGM batteries and can hold 3.5- 4 mph all day. I found that at those speeds the 500's and 400's run fine and catch many bass and catfish.

I just installed an I-pilot bow mount Minnkota 70lb 24v trolling motor recently, to see if the same speeds could be achieved, and sure enough, the bow mount ran same speeds as the transom mounted motor, all day long.

In my area of the SouthWest, I fish the electric only lakes in the winter as they are stocked full of Rainbow Trout ( lakes never freeze over) and found out long ago that the 24v trolling motors are worth the extra cost, especially when the wind blows.



Jim