"me" wrote in message ...
You were all such great help when I built my kayak and canoe, I thought
someone might be able to help me on this. I bought a small 16 foot boat
last month with a 60 4 stroke Yamaha and wanted to install a 12 volt
trolling motor for fishing. My question is, should I install a seperate
deep cell battery for the trolling motor and charge it when I'm done
fishing, or replace the battery that's on the boat with two deep cells. I
figured the motor would recharge the batteries but I wasn't sure if they
could handle starting the motor, running the trolling motor, bilge, lights,
and my son's Game Boy. And would the motor be able to recharge both
batteries. Any suggestions or opinions?

I'm not sure if you'll really need a seperate trolling motor. Why not
try fishing without it at least a few times first, then, if you really
need it, OK, buy one.

But, if you really feel you need a trolling motor, I would go with two
batteries and a battery switch. Set the switch to one of the battery
positions (battery 1 or battery 2, not the both position)when using
the trolling motor and, when you run the outboard, set it to the both
position. This way, when running the trolling motor, worst case, you
run the one battery until it's dead, then you just flip the switch to
the other battery position and you can still start the outboard with
the other battery. By switching to the both position when running the
outboard you can charge both batteries.