Trolling Motor on 215

[jergofish]

Ran my newly installed Minnkota 80AP trolling moter today. The motor was able to pull the boat about 4mph and handled the chores given it easily


I stowed the batteries in the megahold.


Very pleased to date!

[braley]

Nice looking set up.

Would that motor have enough clearance to be used on a 215 with a bow rail?

Thanks
Jon

[Codfish]

Jergofish, That looks very professional. But your boat is too clean.

Codfish

Originally Posted by braley

Nice looking set up.

Would that motor have enough clearance to be used on a 215 with a bow rail?

Thanks
Jon

THAT IS A VERY GOOD QUESTION I WOULD LIKE TO KNOWFOR SURE!!!!

[jergofish]

Codfish, if you saw the boat now you'd eat your words. I'm back from a month and a half in Baja Sur, Mexico. The boat's been in the ocean for a month and has barnacles and algea all over the bottom. Has dust everywhere from having been dragged over a hundred miles of dirt roads, was rained on and the dust turned to mud and has two thousand miles of road grime. Inside it still has the blood stains of many Dorado and one giant Humboldt squid. It will take almost a week to clean but I'm going to try to get it to look like it did in the picture.

braley and SOCALFISHERMAN,
I'm ALMOST sure you could attach the motor with the bow rail. It raises and lowers on a tilt and swings backward so it should clear the bowrail top. The question is could you mount it sideways enough to clear the down rails from the bowrail. If not it would cover the anchor locker when folded down. If I was you I'd go to a MinnKota dealer towing your boat and try the fit. It would take two people, one holding the motor in place and another operating the raising an lowering of the motor.

I didn't get the bowrail since I flyfish and the bowrail is a definate fly rod breaker. The trolling motor is indespensible for fish hunting. In Mexico I used it in the open ocean when crusing paddies of sargasso for Dorado and for keeping myself off the rocks when rock fishing. Also used it for moving around on some big flats.

At another location I used it for running a half mile of mangroves against an incoming tide, fishing for grouper. The trolling motor is so much a part of my fishing stratagy that it was a deal maker/braker as to whether I could mount it on the boat or not. Many of the other offshore skiffs bows are SO high that the installation of a trolling motor would be impossible.

[NCangler]

Very nice install Jergofish. It is great to know that someone has found a trolling motor solution that works and has been field tested hard!

[braley]

Jergofish:

Thanks for the information. I will try going to a dealer to see if it will work. I relly miss having a trolling motor since I sold my 190 to upgrade to 215.

Thanks
Braley

thank you for the info i will be headed down to west marine tomorrow and see if i can try it on the front.

[LSUTIGER1947]

Jergofish....... Nice looking install, what model Minn-Kota is that and how long is the shaft.......LSU Tiger.

[jergofish]

Minnkota 80AutoPilot, 60 inch shaft.

In the ocean you really need the long shaft when you're up against the rocks and some swell is coming in. Otherwise the engine lifts out of the water on the swell and the prop spins and torques the whole thing causing the AP to go crazy.

..... USC Trojan. OhOh, I sense a rivalry here!